Book Reviews / Essays

• Homo narrans and the variables of his stories

In connection with the symposium "Fiction and Social Sciences" on May 16 and 17, 2024, Danielle PASCAL-CASAS invites you to read the essay entitled: "Homo narrans and the variables of his stories."

It may be considered overly ambitious, too encyclopedic, or, paradoxically, worthy of further development.

One could criticize it for its multiple notes and references, which are far removed from the current editorial choices; the indication of the institutional status of those referenced, which some would consider biased evidence of the relevance of the quoted statements; the scope of the disciplines examined, which is too broad, and therefore an epistemological position that could be contested.

However, for Danielle PASCAL-CASAS, the notes are intended as a resource for readers who wish to explore the proposed line of thought and the related documents, which come from a wide variety of sources, in greater depth. The text remains entirely comprehensible without them. The institutional status of the speakers is mentioned, as it is useful to know where the comments come from. Her methodology consists of addressing a very wide range of texts, different disciplines, and multiple sources. Her theoretical choice is to consider any text as an experiment in writing and a plot of facts. She draws on Ricoeur's concept of narrative and adds a narratological approach linked to neurology. It is this last point that she highlights in her paper, "The Decentering of Narratives," presented at the international conference "Fiction and Social Sciences" organized by the SantESiH laboratory at the University of Montpellier on May 16 and 17, 2024.

The choice of texts will take us from grand collective narratives to imposed universalism, to multi-situated texts, a current trend in all fields of knowledge, from the "we" of prescribed narratives to the search for a "we" to be constructed according to variable "I"s. The hybridity of contemporary narratives and the porosity between fiction, autofiction, and nonfiction open up major horizons for reflection on the fields of current knowledge, which Danielle PASCAL-CASAS explores.

Knowing that we are biologically beings of language, with which we construct narratives that shape our world for better or for worse. The "we" remains the ultimate goal for advocates of democracy, starting from the "I" that is often weakened by manipulative algorithms and puppeteers of formidable efficiency. May the power of Scheherazade's stories remind us of the need to move towards more inclusive narratives. Words build or destroy the world. They have all the power.

               Please send your comments on the Essay to: dpascalcasas@gmail.com

• Visible and invisible: the paradox of the fat body.

Rouvarel M. (2023).Visible and invisible: the paradox of the fat body. Review of the book: Grossophobia, sociology of invisible discrimination, Solenne Carof (2021), published by Maison des sciences de l’homme, (272 pages).  Ethnologie française, 2023-1, pp. 137-139.

• When travel becomes pathological... The travel addicts

Report on When travel becomes pathological... The crazy travelers

Ian Hacking,Les fous voyageurs, Paris, Seuil, coll. "Les empêcheurs de penser en rond," 2002, 391 p. Nathalie Le Roux – TEOROS journal

• Tourism, Health, Wellbeing, and Protected Areas

Report on Tourism, Health, Wellbeing, and Protected Areas

Iride Azara, Elini Michopoulou, Federico Niccolini, B. Derrick Taff, and Alan Clarke (eds.),Tourism, Health, Wellbeing, and Protected Areas, Croydon, CABI, 2018, 225 p.

Eric Perera – TEOROS magazine

• Anthropological perspectives from the East

Report on "Exoticism and intelligibility: Itineraries of the Orient"

François Pouillon, Bordeaux University Press, 2017, 258 pages

• What is the purpose of ethnopragmatics?

Report on "What is ethnopragmatics?"

University of Bordeaux

Bernard Traimond