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Le 25 septembre 2023, sur l’initiative de l’Association Internationale des Études Québécoises, des spécialistes de la francophonie des Amériques connectés sur Zoom des quatre coins du monde se retrouvaient pour rendre hommage à l’ami commun et homme-passerelle Józef Kwaterko. Larmes, rigolades et témoignages se sont succédé et ces quelques lignes ne sont que la continuation de ce moment de partage et socialité.

The notion of ‘disaster’ pervades the Caribbean thought. The common origin of the Caribbean region, the European colonization, caused two disasters: the extermination of Native Americans and the deportation of African slaves. The union between nature and the oppressed people against the oppressor resulted in the creation of an environmental conscience that the Caribbean literature has often expressed. This essay will investigate the common points shared by some Haitian, Martinican and Guadeloupean authors in the writing of natural hazards. It will show that, despite the diversity that marks the Caribbean, there is a repetition of common features that proves its geopoetic unity.

The Haitian novelist and poet Louis-Philippe Dalembert (Port-au-Prince, 1962) has developed in his works of fiction the concept of vagabondage as a literary projection of his biographical wandering through multiple spaces. The aim of this essay is to study the presence of vagabondage and its distinctive features in those novels written by Dalembert that reflect the writer’s perpetual motion: Le Crayon du bon Dieu n’a pas de gomme (1996), L’Autre face de la mer (1998), L’Île du bout des rêves (2003), Les dieux voyagent la nuit (2006). The main characters are constantly moving, they are cosmopolitan wanderers who belong to many places at the same time, just like Dalembert himself. By analyzing the representation of movement in these fictions, we will show that the notion of vagabondage is depicted by the author as a positive and meaningful opportunity for the vagabond who travels across countries, languages and cultures.

Moins l’infini, the first novel written by the Haitian writer and poet Anthony Phelps, has recently been republished, with some quite remarkable changes between the two editions. With a different title, a new dedication and some lexical and morphosyntactic variations, this reissue may be interpreted as a rewriting of the novel which was first published in 1972. This rewriting made by the author may be conscious or not but it results in a more universal atmosphere, less linked to a strictly Haitian milieu. These variations are probably due to the historical and cultural gap between the two editions: forty years have passed and this love story which takes place under François Duvalier’s dictatorship has a different meaning now. The time has come to mourn the death of Duvalier’s opponents, the heroes never rewarded by justice that are mentioned in the new version of the title, Des fleurs pour les héros.

The present paper explores the representation of the romantic and/or sexual relationships maintained by some female characters and their social roles that do not conform to the heteronormative universe in a selected corpus of contemporary Haitian literary works. Our corpus consists of four works by Haitian women writers, published between 2013 and 2018: the novels Absences sans frontières (2013) by Évelyne Trouillot, Je suis vivant (2015) by Kettly Mars and Un ailleurs à soi (2018) by Emmelie Prophète, and a short story from the collection Écorchées vivantes (2017) edited by Martine Fidèle. Taking into account the current social context in Haiti, in particular social divisions and institutional homophobia, the aim of the article is to show the evolution that has taken place in the treatment of (female) homosexuality, from stigmatisation and stereotyped representations to more varied configurations that reflect contemporary realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reduced sperm motility and/or count are among the major causes of reduced fertility in men, and sperm membranes play an important role in the spermatogenesis and fertilization processes. However, the impact of sperm lipid composition on male fertility remains under-investigated. The aim of the present study was to perform a lipidomic analysis of human sperm membranes: we performed an untargeted analysis of membrane lipid composition in fertile (N = 33) and infertile subjects (N = 29). In parallel, we evaluated their serum lipid levels. Twenty-one lipids were identified by their mass/charge ratio and post-source decay spectra. Sulfogalactosylglycerolipid (SGG, seminolipid) was the most abundant lipid component in the membranes. In addition, we observed a significant proportion of PUFAs. Important differences have emerged between the fertile and infertile groups, leading to the identification of a lipid cluster that was associated with semen parameters. Among these, cholesterol sulfate, SGG, and PUFAs represented the most important predictors of semen quality. No association was found between the serum and sperm lipids. Dietary PUFAs and SGG have acknowledged antioxidant functions and could, therefore, represent sensitive markers of sperm quality and testicular function. Altogether, these results underline the important role of sperm membrane lipids, which act independently of serum lipids levels and may rather represent an independent marker of reproductive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boron supplementation has been demonstrated to exert many beneficial effects on animals. The first metabolomic investigation into the effects of boron on dairy calf health is covered in this study. For two months, healthy newborn calves were enrolled in one control group and three experimental groups. Boron was added to the milk of the experimental groups in increasing doses. Biochemical profile, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) metabolomic profiles on days 0, 30, and 60, and daily health scores were determined. Worsening of health score parameters was more common in the control calves, and they were prone to getting sick. Enzyme increases due to birth stress were remarkable. Significant increases in the passive colostral adequacy parameter γ-glutamyl transferase were also not maintained with boron addition. A total of 33 water-soluble and 17 lipid-soluble serum metabolites were determined. Increases in glucose, fructose, alanine, cholate, betaine, and 3-hydroxybutyrate levels, and decreases in lactate, isovaleric acid, valine, leucine, tyrosine, and 2-hydroxybutyrate levels were observed. Phosphoglyceride levels were increased, while the levels of different cholesterol types were found to be decreased. From our data, it emerged that better growth performance, increased gluconeogenesis, and liver development were associated with boron supplementation. To interpret the effects of boron supplementation on the health of dairy calves, NMR-based metabolomic assessment has outperformed biochemical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]