Paul Lieutier

Bio: Paul Lieutier is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 59 citations.

Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality

Abstract: Preface and acknowledgements 1. Rationality 2. States that are essentially by-products 3. Sour grapes 4. Belief, bias and ideology References Index.

Society, meaning, religion – based on self-reference

Abstract: Sociological theory in its present Alexandrian phase seems to be preoccupied with the interpretation of its classical authors.' Doing sociology of religion means doing empirical research on presumably religious persons or institutions; and it means returning to Emile Durkheim or Max Weber for theoretical inspiration. Religion, then, is supposed to work as an integrative factor on the level of total societies and as a motivational factor on the level of individuals. At both levels it supplies the meaning of meaning, a meaningful "ultimate reality". All symbols and values that operate at this highest level of last resources can be qualified as religion -and be it a civil religion in the sense of Rousseau or Bellah. We also know the objections. Religions can stimulate debates and fights. They also have disintegrative effects. Their motivational effect may well be a questioning of religion itself. It may be a social activity, but also a retreat. Statements about the function of religion resemble proverbs. They always need counter-proverbs to be operationally useful. Years ago Clifford Geertz (1966:1) aired the same complaint about dependence upon classical authors with respect to anthropological research. It may have been a mere accident that his lines were written in an essay on the cultural system of religion. But if this coincidence happened only by chance, it still was a significant accident. In fact, systems theory, at that time, was hardly able to deliver the goods. Parsons himself had started be presenting his classical authors. He attempted to show that the difference between society and individual, between social and motivational factors, and between Durkheim and Weber does not matter very much; and that it cannot matter very much in the field of sociology where this very difference is the core problem of theory. This preoccupation with a historical problem, with the split paradigm of individual and society, led Parsons to look for a solution by unfolding the framework of the general action system which could assign appropriate places to the personal system, the social system and other systems as well. He had to pay foreseeable costs. He had to present his generalizations as a purely analytical framework, based on an analysis of the components of the concept of

‘Cultural awareness’ as vocabulary learning

Abstract: (1997). ‘Cultural awareness’ as vocabulary learning. The Language Learning Journal: Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 51-57.

Ce que fait la pratique au spectateur : enquêtes dans des salles de cinéma Art et essai de la région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Abstract: Dans une visee communicationnelle et sociologique, ce travail de recherche propose de penser la pratique du cinema dans les salles Art et Essai comme un processus dynamique de mise en relation des individus avec les films et des individus entre eux. Il repose sur deux enquetes par questionnaire auto-administre conduites aupres de spectateurs frequentant des salles de cinema Art et Essai de la region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur. Ces donnees sont completees par des analyses semio-discursives de critiques de cinema prelevees dans le magazine Telerama et dans le programme du cinema d'Art et Essai Utopia (Avignon) ainsi que par une serie d'analyses filmiques s'inscrivant dans le champ d'une sociologie esthetique du cinema. L'objectif est d'etudier la formation socio-discursive de la valeur dans le champ du cinema et de voir en quoi cette valeur participe de la constitution d'ensembles communautaires de pratiquants autour de la notion d'Art et Essai, en tant qu'elle circule et genere des representations. La premiere partie propose de definir l'objet de la recherche : la pratique du cinema dans les salles Art et Essai. Elle construit des outils permettant de saisir empiriquement cette pratique et demontre qu'elle engage un rapport specifique au social. La deuxieme partie montre que les recherches sur la pratique du cinema en salle reduisent, le plus souvent, l'activite spectatorielle a un geste d'appropriation des films alors que cette activite renvoie tout autant a un geste de constitution sociale de la valeur sociale des films. Enfin, la troisieme partie etudie la maniere dont les individus se positionnent et reagissent vis-a-vis de cette valeur. Elle montre qu'il y a une identite de l'Art et Essai autour de laquelle se constituent des agglomerats d'individus assimilables a des regroupements communautaires. Elle permet ainsi de repenser ces espaces de pratique a partir de la notion de communaute. En s'appuyant sur l'etude de la pratique cinematographique, cette recherche propose, plus largement, de discuter la pertinence de la question de l'(il)legitime des objets culturels.