Polygraphies

Polygraphies
Author: Alison Rice
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813932912

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Algeria's independence, Polygraphies is significant and timely in its focus on autobiographical writings by seven of the most prominent francophone women writers from Algeria today, including Ma ssa Bey, H l ne Cixous, Assia Djebar, and Malika Mokeddem. These authors witnessed both the "before" and "after" of the colonial experience in their land, and their fictional and theoretical texts testify to the lasting impact of this history. From a variety of personal perspectives and backgrounds, each writer addresses linguistic, religious, and racial issues of crucial contemporary importance in Algeria. Alison Rice engages their work from a range of disciplines, striving both to heighten our sensitivity to the plurality inherent in their texts and to move beyond a true/false dichotomy to a wealth of possible truths, all communicated in writing.

The Search for the Perfect Language

The Search for the Perfect Language
Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 406
Release: 1997-04-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0631205101

The idea that there once existed a language which perfectly and unambiguously expressed the essence of all possible things and concepts has occupied the minds of philosophers, theologians, mystics and others for at least two millennia. This is an investigation into the history of that idea and of its profound influence on European thought, culture and history. From the early Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was just such a language, and that all current languages were its decadent descendants from the catastrophe of the Fall and at Babel. The recovery of that language would, for theologians, express the nature of divinity, for cabbalists allow access to hidden knowledge and power, and for philosophers reveal the nature of truth. Versions of these ideas remained current in the Enlightenment, and have recently received fresh impetus in attempts to create a natural language for artificial intelligence. The story that Umberto Eco tells ranges widely from the writings of Augustine, Dante, Descartes and Rousseau, arcane treatises on cabbalism and magic, to the history of the study of language and its origins. He demonstrates the initimate relation between language and identity and describes, for example, how and why the Irish, English, Germans and Swedes - one of whom presented God talking in Swedish to Adam, who replied in Danish, while the serpent tempted Eve in French - have variously claimed their language as closest to the original. He also shows how the late eighteenth-century discovery of a proto-language (Indo-European) for the Aryan peoples was perverted to support notions of racial superiority. To this subtle exposition of a history of extraordinary complexity, Umberto Eco links the associated history of the manner in which the sounds of language and concepts have been written and symbolized. Lucidly and wittily written, the book is, in sum, a tour de force of scholarly detection and cultural interpretation, providing a series of original perspectives on two thousand years of European History. The paperback edition of this book is not available through Blackwell outside of North America.

Falls in Epileptic and Non Epileptic Seizures During Childhood

Falls in Epileptic and Non Epileptic Seizures During Childhood
Author: Fondazione Pierfranco e Luisa Mariani. Colloquium
Publisher: John Libbey Eurotext
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1997
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780861965403

At the Mariani Foundation meeting held in Milan, October 1995, highly qualified specialists were invited to assist in understanding of the basic principles of cerebral development and brain function, with specific attention to those structures and mechanisms involved in the phenomenon of falls. Epiliptologists illustrate the different semiologic modalities and clinical conditions in which the fall is an essential symptom. A main part of the book is dedicated to the medical and surgical treatment of syndromes where falls appear in the foreground. This volume has the mission of improving life conditions of children who suffer from drop seizures, by limiting the risks to which they are subjected, and to try and compensate for the psychological and social limitations affecting them.

Dugard of Rouen

Dugard of Rouen
Author: Dale Miquelon
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1978
Genre: Canada
ISBN: 0773502998

In 1953 the proprietor of the chateau of Bonneval at La Haye-Aubrée par Routot in the Norman department of Eure presented the French National Archives with a collection of eighteenth-century papers. They had been brought to the chateau by previous owners at the time of the French Revolution. The proprietor was unrelated to these shadowy figures, and the papers concerned neither his family nor the estate. Now deposited at the Archives Nationales in Paris, the 45 cartons of letters and business papers tell the story of the business activities of the Dugard family of Rouen. The earliest item in the collection is a bill of exchange dated 3 January 1658/59, and the last letter is from 1794. Most of the papers concern Roben Dugard, 1704-70, and a number of companies formed by him and several other Rouen merchants, among them the societé du Canada. Dugard and Company, as the societé may be called with less formality, was founded in 1729 to exploit the trade of Canada with France and the West Indies. Soon it directed its attention to the development of a Franco-Caribbean trade independent of its North-Atlantic commerce. The present history is a case study of a business partnership. The size and structure of eighteenth-century French business enterprises, the nature of French business finance, methods and maritime insurance, French commodities of trade and markets, and the relation of French business to government are all examined. So too is the manner and extent of the penetration of French business into Canada and the West Indies.

Epilepsy and Movement Disorders

Epilepsy and Movement Disorders
Author: Renzo Guerrini
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 598
Release: 2002
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780521771108

The boundaries between epilepsy and movement disorders are difficult to define; some syndromes or diseases may combine the two and many manifestations of one are similar to the other. For the first time, a distinguished, international team of specialists comprehensively examines the clinical, neurophysiological, genetic, pharmacological and molecular factors which underlie the relationships and differences between the two disorders. They examine the methods for investigating motor cortex excitability and the electrophysiological and chemical characteristics of epilepsies which resemble movement disorders. They present a scheme for neurophysiological classification of myoclonic epilepsies and myoclonus and give a detailed analysis of the disorders which cause diagnostic problems in children and adults. There is also an innovative, up-to-date review of the genetic syndromes which associate epilepsy and paroxysmal dyskinesias, and a review of the drugs used to treat, or which may precipitate, epilepsy and movement disorders. This is essential reading for clinicians and neuroscientists.

Unselfing

Unselfing
Author: Michaela Hulstyn
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2022-08-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1487543778

Altered states of consciousness – including experiences of deprivation, pain, hallucination, fear, desire, alienation, and spiritual transcendence – can transform the ordinary experience of selfhood. Unselfing explores the nature of disruptive self-experiences and the different shapes they have taken in literary writing. The book focuses on the tension between rival conceptions of unselfing as either a form of productive self-transcendence or a form of alienating self-loss. Michaela Hulstyn explores the shapes and meanings of unselfing through the framework of the global French literary world, encompassing texts by modernist figures in France and Belgium alongside writers from Algeria, Rwanda, and Morocco. Together these diverse texts prompt a re-evaluation of the consequences of the loss or the transcendence of the self. Through a series of close readings, Hulstyn offers a new account of the ethical questions raised by altered states and shows how philosophies of empathy can be tested against and often challenged by literary works. Drawing on cognitive science and phenomenology, Unselfing provides a new methodology for approaching texts that give shape to the fringes of conscious experience.

Epileptic Syndromes in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence

Epileptic Syndromes in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence
Author: Joseph Roger
Publisher: John Libbey Eurotext
Total Pages: 626
Release: 2005
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9782742005697

Book and DVD. The fourth edition of Epileptic syndromes in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence is based on the syndromic approach to epilepsy that is the trademark of the Marseille School of European epileptology, including new perspectives. The accompanying DVD includes video sequences of the various syndromes.