Author: Textes réunis par Jean-Pierre Wallot avec la collaboration de Pierre Lanthier et Hubert Watelet Lidentite, a toujours semble dire Pierre Savard, ne doit pas etre cherchee dans ce qui isole, ce qui separe. Elle est une construction specifique dont la dynamique, riche de la quantite ainsi que de la diversite des relations et des pratiques dont elle sest nourrie, finit par exercer sur ces dernieres une grande influence. Cest a ce dialogue entre les constructions identitaires et les pratiques sociales qua ete consacre ce colloque, tenu a lUniversite dOttawa et dedie a la memoire de Pierre Savard. Les textes reunis en ces pages sont le fruit de cette rencontre pluridisciplinaire, qui, en plus de rendre hommage a un collegue trop tot disparu, a presente une vingtaine de communications tournant autour dun theme tres present dans les debats actuels en sciences humaines, celui des constructions identitaires. Le colloque a voulu notamment mettre en evidence comment les acteurs, collectifs aussi bien quindividuels, font et refont leur identite, et sen servent, le plus souvent inconsciemment, pour orienter leurs activites; et comment, en retour, ils laissent aux pratiques le soin de donner une coloration particuliere a leur identite. Puissent tous les articles issus de cette rencontre perpetuer le souvenir de Pierre Savard, lhomme et le scientifique, le professeur et leternel voyageur, celui qui, partout ou il se trouvait, eveillait sympathie et enthousiasme.

Author: Tamara Metz Marriage is at the center of one of today's fiercest political debates. Activists argue about how to define it, judges and legislators decide who should benefit from it, and scholars consider how the state should protect those who are denied it. Few, however, ask whether the state should have anything to do with marriage in the first place. In Untying the Knot, Tamara Metz addresses this crucial question, making a powerful argument that marriage, like religion, should be separated from the state. Rather than defining or conferring marriage, or relying on it to achieve legitimate public welfare goals, the state should create a narrow legal status that supports all intimate caregiving unions. Marriage itself should be bestowed by those best suited to give it the necessary ethical authority--religious groups and other kinds of communities. Divorcing the state from marriage is dictated by nothing less than basic commitments to freedom and equality. Tracing confusions about marriage to tensions at the heart of liberalism, Untying the Knot clarifies today's debates about marriage by identifying and explaining assumptions hidden in widely held positions and common practices. It shows that, as long as marriage and the state are linked, marriage will be a threat to liberalism and the state will be a threat to marriage. An important and timely rethinking of the relationship between marriage and the state, Untying the Knot will interest political theorists, legal scholars, policymakers, sociologists, and anyone else who cares about the fate of marriage or liberalism.

Author: Stanley Mazaroff Collecting Italian Renaissance paintings during Americas Gilded Age was fraught with risk because of the uncertain identities of the artists and the conflicting interests of the dealers. Stanley Mazaroffs fascinating account of the close relationship between Henry Walters, founder of the legendary Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and Bernard Berenson, the eras preeminent connoisseur of Italian paintings, richly illustrates this important chapter of Americas cultural history. When Walters opened his Italianate museum in 1909, it was labeled as Americas Great Temple of Art. With more than 500 Italian paintings, including self-portraits purportedly by Raphael and Michelangelo, Walterss collection was compared favorably with the great collections in London, Paris, and Berlin. In the midst of this fanfare, Berenson contacted Walters and offered to analyze his collection, sell him additional paintings, and write a scholarly catalogue that would trumpet the collection on both sides of the Atlantic. What Berenson offered was what Walters desperately neededa badge of scholarship that Berensons invaluable imprimatur would undoubtedly bring. By 1912, Walters had become Berensons most active client, their business alliance wrapped in a warm and personal friendship. But this relationship soon became strained and was finally severed by a confluence of broken promises, inattention, deceit, and ethical conflict. To Walterss chagrin, Berenson swept away the self-portraits allegedly by Raphael and Michelangelo and publicly scorned paintings that he was supposed to praise. Though painful to Walters, Berensons guidance ultimately led to a panoramic collection that beautifully told the great history of Italian Renaissance painting. Based primarily on correspondence and other archival documents recently discovered at the Walters Art Museum and the Villa I Tatti in Florence, the intriguing story of Walters and Berenson offers unusual insight into the pleasures and perils of collecting Italian Renaissance paintings, the ethics in the marketplace, and the founding of American art museums.

Author: Reed Browning With the possible exception of 2004 no season in the history of baseball has matched 1924 for escalating excitement and emotional investment by fans. It began with observers expecting yet another World Series between the Yankees and the Giants. It ended months later when the Washington Nationals (Senators), making their first Series appearance, grabbed the world championship by scoring the season-ending run on an improbable play in the bottom of the twelfth inning of the seventh game. On the eve of the return of major league baseball to Washington, D.C., Baseball's Greatest Season recovers the memory of the one and only time when the championship of the national pastime resided in the nation's capital.