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The critique of liberalism and its impact on all facets of life is a topic that structures Michel Houellebecq's novels. His last two novels, Submission and Serotonin, point out the dislocation of society into many parts that no longer communicate because they hold different values and occasionally end up clashing. Writing a work of fiction, like the Naturalist novelists, is a way to conduct political and social experiments to produce an analysis of the contemporary world. This analysis is created by a singular voice that imposes its temperament, its obsessions, and its convictions on this representation of reality. This paper will try to expose the character of this voice and the tensions it describes in French society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends the possibility of identifying not one, but two tiers of opposition between the concepts of the right and the good, but also of thinking their articulation as a normative issue. It specifically examines the way Thomas Nagel articulates these two notions, in a liberal and egalitarian perspective close to Rawls's, but using a distinct and original method, which calls for a rethink of the links between morality and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper asserts that sustainable development is not a univocal question whose inherent truth may be clearly stated. In historical terms, sustainable development is originally a societal project aiming at a better common life on Earth, a kind of environmental and social-democratic ideal. This project, however, must unavoidably face economic and political logics that often run against it. The paper then claims that 'sustainable development' as an expression has become omnipresent in the media, an infinitely flexible mantra liable to endless adaptations and transformations. In the following section, the paper postulates that sustainable development is not solely an ecological-social-democratic project nor a norm of 'correct speak' in the public sphere, but that it is also a set of more or less articulated institutions and practices that have a fallout on social legitimacies. Finally the paper states that for many, sustainable development is also a hit target, a way of conceiving the world that, if it cannot be combated head on because of its attractive and affective aura, must at all costs be undermined from the inside and pushed out of the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the most important concepts of our time, one must count those of social economy and solidarity economy, both lying in tough confrontation with the economical doctrine of liberalism. The French professor Charles Gide has strenuously worked in this direction almost one hundred years ago. But who was Charles Gide? Which were the main coordinates of his work? Why are his idea still so discussed and confronted in present times? A few answers to these questions are delivered in the present paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that the conflict between Canada's linguistically defined founding nations helped to consolidate multiculturalism as part of Canadian national identity in the 1990s. As a side-effect -- or condition -- of this consolidation, multiculturalism abandoned the language of groups and was redefined in liberal-individualist terms. As such, it was unprepared to reintegrate the claims for group rights and parallel institutions that reemerged on the political scene in the early 2000s. Today, it looks as if Canada is joining -- albeit as a latecomer -- the widespread trend of countries that are redefining their national identities yet again in terms of (one) shared culture and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]