Photo of the Facebook profile of the hen EHESS
To finish the week just slightly, I thought I could tackle a subject that if we were not in December, looks like an April Fool when the situation is real. For several weeks, almost two months, a red hen has indeed taken up residence in the garden of 54 Boulevard Raspail, behind the building housing the EHESS and Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. Check mysteriously - Nobody really knows how or why she moved there, it occupies part of the discussion of corridors and cafes, especially since she regularly visits the area around the cafeteria. Nourished by each other, it took some stout. Modern, it is now featured on Facebook, where a well-intentioned spirit has created an account entitled "The hen EHESS . His public profile even tells us she is a fan of Pierre Bourdieu, Walter Benjamin, Slavoj Zizek and Maw Weber. But beware, the animal is selective and does not accept all-comers as a friend! So I expect it always accepts me among knowledge ;-)...
But what makes this chicken in the middle of the sixth arrondissement of Paris, you say? The answer is that ultimately, we do not know. One can certainly think that the situation will not ask researchers EHESS. One can indeed imagine a range of interpretations depending on the specialty of each. Nietzsche said it well: "there are no facts, only interpretations." The fact seems to exist here, the presence of this pool, but the interpretations might be able to quickly reach the over-interpretation which is the main risk watching for any work in the social sciences.
In the meantime, here are some possible lines of thought and open your possible comments and your own interpretations, of course ...
For historians, the presence of fowls would have no other purpose than to remind us of the famous question of the chicken and egg: which comes first? which is causing the other? We wish to recall, however, that Marc Bloch, in his historical profession we warned against the temptation to own tribe of historians, that of the idol of origins, the desire to link an inaccessible origin knowledge with a period or a present given and explain them through this link.
Let us beware of the chicken so we came to try and move to another field.
For some economists, this pool could be the vanguard of an eventual transition to the expanded jurisdiction of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. EHESS must indeed think, like all French universities, it passes a new statute granting financial autonomy. Anticipating the autonomous management of its finances, this chicken would be the first element of a future food self-production (meat and in eggs) to reduce production costs of the canteen.
For sociologists, the presence of the Red Hen in the heart of Paris is undoubtedly a sign of urbanization is booming: not content to leave the city to the hinterland, urban residents now introduce campaign within the capital ...
But anthropologists do not share the views of their colleagues. For them, we would be here with feeding and storage of poultry for an upcoming voodoo sacrifice and thus protect the EHESS bellicose intentions threatening ... It however, could be a rite of thanksgiving for the proper evaluation of the school last spring or the preparation of a sacrifice for the success of the move next summer.
For their part, philosophers are concerned: do we not facing a thinly veiled criticism, comparing the EHESS for Kircher famous hen, poor hen who dared not go out of the chalk circle that we had traced around her?
For scholars of visual culture, it seems clear that this is actually a participation the EHESS in the ongoing debate over national identity. As everyone knows, the cockerel is the symbol of France ... But you will object, is a chicken, right? Absolutely, but it's a chicken processing rooster chicken could effectively symbolize gender as a national value!
Here we see the difficulty of reconciling disciplinary interpretations. For now, only conclude by telling us that this pool is there to provide us during a time of recreation. It is much ...
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