Le texte qui suit, malgré son libellé onomastique (le nom « John Cage »), son orientation disciplinaire (la « théorie littéraire ») et sa visée thématique (« la révision du commentaire critique »), se place d’emblée dans une posture d’écriture et de création. Il consiste à proposer comme point de départ l’identité de la forme textuelle et de sa dérivation métatextuelle, en d’autres mots : de la voix citée et analysée avec l’autre voix citante et analysante. Cette prémisse dérive elle-même d’une confrontation locale : les spécificités et les idiosyncrasies de la textualité mise en place par John Cage à partir des années quarante (partitions littéraires des recueils Silence et A Year from Monday, mésostiches de M et X, réécritures et « writing through » d’Empty Words…). En effet, l’examen par la théorie littéraire d’un corpus aussi disséminé et « néologique » que l’est celui de John Cage pousse son rédacteur à poser la question de sa propre écriture (« autoréflexivité ») et à rendre possible une réalisation artistique personnelle (« performativité »). C’est donc à travers la contingence d’une langue et d’une subjectivité au travail que la théorisation (textuelle) du texte cherche ici à s’élucider et à s’écrire. Le travail commence par installer les modalités à la fois circulaires et circulatoires de la théorie littéraire, une tension rhétorique et épistémologique qu’il identifie sous le nom d’« aporie autoréflexive » (le texte théorique est concerné par la question de lui-même). Il s’efforce ensuite d’analyser la nouveauté de l’œuvre littéraire cagienne, en empruntant un schéma dialectique et antagoniste : d’un côté, une « textualité-objet », originale et orthographique, de l’autre, une « textualité-sujet », disséminante et intertextuelle, anarchique et jubilatoire. Enfin, le texte propose la révision, la recomposition, la « réécriture » du commentaire critique sur les bases nouvelles d’une textologie autoréflexive et performative — une indiscipline d’écriture qui utilise sciemment les coordonnées linguistiques de son élocution (néologie, typographisme, procédés citationnels…) et qui fait place sans camouflage ou refoulement à la personnalité intertextuelle, contextuelle, métissée du rédacteur. Par l’entremise d’une sorte d’« exemplarité textuelle » (Cage), ce travail insiste pour une synthèse à la fois productive et expressive des voix analysées et analysantes dans les études littéraires. On verra que, par moments, cette proposition implique que le texte se marginalise. / The following text, despite its onomastic labelling (the name “John Cage”), its disciplinary orientation (“literary theory”), and its thematic aim (“the revision of the literary commentary”), positions itself as a writing and creative venture. It starts by stating the strict identity of texts and metatexts, in other words, of the quoted, analyzed voice, with the quoting, analyzing other voice. This premise derives from a specific confrontation: the specificities and idiosyncrasies of John Cage’s literary production since the late 1940s (the literary scores from the anthologies Silence and A Year from Monday, the mesostics from M and X, the rewritings and “Writing through’s” from Empty Words…). Indeed, the examination by literary theory of a body of work as disseminated and “neological” as John Cage’s encourages the literary critic or theoretician to ask the question of his own writing (“self-reflexivity”) and also to make possible an original artistic realization (“performativity”). It is therefore through the possibilities of a language and of a subjectivity at work that the (textual) theorization of texts tries herein to elucidate and to write itself. This work starts by setting up the modalities both circular and circulatory of literary theory—a rhetorical and epistemological tension that will be identified as the “self-reflexive aporia” (the theoretical text is primarily concerned by the question of itself). It then tries to analyze the novelty of Cage’s literary work, using a dialectical and antagonistic configuration: on one hand, an “objective textuality”, original and orthographical; on the other hand, a “subjective textuality”, disseminating and intertextual, anarchic and unrestrained. Finally, this text proposes the revision, recomposition and “rewriting” of the critical commentary on the basis of a new self-reflexive and performative textology. That is: a sort of undiscipline in writing that knowingly manoeuvres the linguistic coordinates of its elocution (neology, typographism, quotation processes…) and that does not try to conceal or repress the intertextual, contextual, heterogenous and disparate personality of its author. Through a sort of “textual exemplarity” (Cage), this work insists on a synthesis both productive and expressive between the voices analyzing and the voices being analyzed. We will see accordingly that this proposition implies, from time to time, that the text be marginalized. / Toutes les illustrations qui ponctuent cette thèse ont été réalisées par Chantal Poirier. Elles ont été insérées dans le texte selon un ordre méticuleusement aléatoire.

This thesis examines a middle manager’s response to strategic directives on integrated care in a National Health Service (NHS) organisation and the development of an awareness of prejudice that acknowledges its relationship to the process of understanding. The research focuses on an integration of two community NHS trusts and an NHS hospital trust into one integrated care organisation (ICO). A change programme was initiated and promulgated on an assumption that integrating the three organisations would facilitate integrated care. However, despite the use of organisational change approaches (such as communication plans and systematic approaches to staff engagement), implementing the strategy directives in practice remained problematic. What emerged during the integration process was resistance to change and a clear division in the different ways of working in the community NHS trusts versus the community and hospital trusts – differences that became apparent from the prejudices of individuals and staff groups. The proposition is that prejudice is an important aspect of relationships whose significance in processes of change is often overlooked. I argue that prejudice is a phenomenon that emerges in the processes of particularisation, which I describe as an ongoing exploration and negotiation in our day-to-day activities of relating to one another. Our pejorative understanding of the term ‘prejudice’ has overshadowed more subtle connotations, which I propose are unhelpful in understanding change in organisations. However, I suggest a different way of thinking about prejudice – namely as a process that should be acknowledged as a characteristic of human beings relating to one another, which has the potential to generate and enhance understanding. The research is a narrative-based inquiry and describes critical incidents during the integration process of the three organisations and focusing on interactions between key staff members within the organisation. In paying attention to our ongoing relationships, there has been a growing awareness of disconnection from traditional management practices, which advocate systematic approaches and staff engagement techniques that are designed to encourage cooperation and reduce resistance to proposed change. This thesis challenges assumptions surrounding prejudice and how middle managers traditionally manage organisational change in practice in their attempts to apply deterministic approaches (which assume a linear causality) to control and influence human behaviour. I have taken into consideration a hermeneutic perspective on prejudice, drawing on the work of Hans Georg Gadamer, and have argued from the viewpoint of the theory of complex responsive processes. This offers an alternative way of thinking about management as social processes that are emergent in our daily interactions with one another, that are not based on linear causality, or on locating leadership and management with individuals. It provides a way of taking seriously the relationships between individuals by paying attention to what emerges from the interplay of our expectations and intentions. This leads to a different way of thinking about the relationship between prejudice and strategic directives, which I argue are not fixed instructions but unpredictable articulations of our gestures and responses that emanate from social interaction and continually iterate our thinking over time. This paradoxically influences how we make generalisations and particularise them in reflecting on and revising our expectation of meaning I suggest that it is not possible to predetermine a strategic outcome; and that traditional management practice, which locates change with individuals – and reduces aspects of organisational life, such as resistance, into a problem to be fixed – obscures our capacity to understand the processes of organisational change in the context of a much wider social phenomenon. I therefore conclude that my original and significant contribution to the theory of complex responsive processes and to practice is encouraging a different way of thinking about prejudice – as a process that can be productive and generate understanding, when considered as encompassing our expectations of meaning, linked to our own self-interests. This then opens up possibilities for transforming ourselves in relation to others – and, through this process, to transform the organisations in which we work.

The political discourse that has emerged as a consequence of establishing a European regulatory framework for GMOs has not been without problems. This dissertation addresses the political and regulatory challenges created by the development and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the EU. The underlying hypothesis in the dissertation is that the emergence of a European policy in the field of GMOs has appeared through new reflexive forms of governance. The aim of this research is to understand how these reflexive forms of regulation have emerged and operate within the EU, with a particular focus on the two GMO directives 90/220/EEC and 2001/18/EC. However, the study scrutinises the regulatory regimes from the 1970s onwards by investigating how the regulatory framework regarding GMOs has been developed and implemented in the EU. This is done through an analysis of the notion of ‘risk’ and the ‘precautionary principle’ since these concepts have been at the forefront of the GMO regulation debate. The empirical approach focuses on how the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council as well as other actors and institutions articulate ambivalence, interpretations and uncertainties in the decision-making processes regarding regulative measures for GMOs, with an accent on risk and the precautionary principle. The main empirical material has been documents concerning the inter-institutional process involved in the regulatory process of making the two directives. The analysis indicates that during the process of implementing GMO regulations, new steering strategies have appeared within the EU’s decision-making institutions when the objective of the regulation has taken centre stage in political and scientific controversies. / Den politiska diskursen som har uppstått som en följd av upprättandet av ett europeiskt regelverk för GMO har inte varit utan problem. Denna avhandling behandlar de politiska utmaningar som alstrats av skapandet och tillämpningen av genetiskt modifierade organismer (GMO) inom EU. Den underliggande hypotesen i avhandlingen är att framväxten av en europeisk politik på området för GMO har uppstått genom nya reflexiva regleringsformer. Syftet med denna forskning är att förstå hur reflexiva regleringsformer har uppkommit och opererar inom EU, med särskilt fokus på de två GMO direktiven 90/220/EEG och 2001/18/EG. Studien analyserar lagstiftning från 1970-talet och framåt genom att undersöka hur lagstiftningen om genetiskt modifierade organismer har utvecklats och implementerats i EU. Detta görs genom en analys av begreppen ‘risk’ och ‘försiktighetsprincipen’ eftersom dessa begrepp har varit centrala för debatten om GMO lagstiftningen. Den empiriska metoden fokuserar på hur Europeiska kommissionen, Europaparlamentet och Europeiska rådet samt andra aktörer och institutioner har uttryckt ambivalens, tolkningar och osäkerhet i beslutsfattandet gällande reglerings åtgärder för genetiskt modifierade organismer, med tonvikt på risk och försiktighetsprincipen. Det huvudsakliga empiriska materialet är dokument gällande den interinstitutionella processen som ägde rum när de två direktiven skapades. Analysen visar att implementeringen av GMO lagstiftningen har skapat nya styrningsstrategier i synnerhet i de fall där ändamålet med lagstiftningen har varit föremål för politiska och vetenskapliga kontroverser.

This work considers the theoretical, epistemological and methodological criteria for a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to the study of spiritual experience founded within a qualitative paradigm. Spirituality is noted to be of increasing significance in society and as a developing discipline within the academy and spiritual experience is offered as an opening to greater understanding and appreciation of an individual's understandings of their spirituality. The methodology provides an interpretative approach towards an opportunity for resonance, identification and empathy between individual and reader through richly descriptive narratives offering insights into such experiences and developing themes and threads of particular interest prior to seeking universal and semi universal traits between or amongst narratives. Practical methods for applying the methodology are considered, including ethical and researcher reflexive issues. The assessment of the methodology includes its application to a case study, located within contemporary Christianity in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Scotland, which due to limitations of space focuses particularly on the notion of the Gift and assists in the determination of the efficacy and validity of hermeneutic phenomenology in the study of spiritual experience.

Cette étude comparatiste porte sur le récit spéculaire chez Michel Butor et chez Ma Yuan. Dans l’objectif de mettre en lumière leur philosophie d’écriture romanesque, la fonction et les effets de miroir, nous cherchons à explorer les différentes sources et pratiques du récit spéculaire dans les contextes distincts français et chinois. À la lumière du procédé de la mise en abyme et des problématiques du récit qui en découlent (métalepse narrative, intertextualité, etc.), on se focalise sur L’Emploi du temps de Michel Butor et le Niugui sheshen (Fantôme à tête de taureau et dieu à corps de serpent) de Ma Yuan pour scruter les similtitudes et les divergences en matière de réflexivité, de miroir métaphorique, de recherche de formes nouvelles et de philosophie d’écriture. Pour ce faire, la thèse s’organise ainsi autour de deux thématiques majeures : d’un côté, les rapports entre les traditions chinoises (divination et taoïsme) avec les emprunts des modèles narratifs occidentaux, notamment français, dans le domaine culturel ou littéraire, et de l’autre, les rencontres franco-chinoises (sur le plan littéraire et surtout romanesque) source d’une interférence ou d’une influence croisée. / This thesis aims to study the embodiment of specular narrative in the novels of French writer Michel Butor and Chinese writer Ma Yuan. Based on this, we try to explore and then to discuss the common points of the two writers in their philosophy of writing and narrative innovation, such as the preference for metaphorical mirror and the mirror thinking applied in the novel. It can be seen that the origin and application of the mirror narrative is also different under the different background of the two countries. Based on the analysis of L’Emploi du temps of Michel Butor and Niugui sheshen (Bull-headed monster and half-serpent spirit) of Ma Yuan, we explore the similarities and differences about the reflexivity, metaphorical "mirror", narrative innovation and the writing philosophy. Specifically, this thesis focus on two central subjects: on the one hand, the relevance between the cultural tradition (divination and Taoism) and the borrowing occidental narrative forms in the field of literature and culture; on the other hand, it also reflects and discovers the mutual exchange and inter-influence between China and France. We focus on concept of specular narrative and related issues (such as narrative metalepsis and intertextuality) between the two representative writers. The thesis searches on the different application on the same specular narrative through vertical comparison, combined with the horizontal comparison, in order to ultimately reveal the real cultural code behind it.

Le sens de l’exercice soignant se fonde sur le “vivre ensemble” et se nourrit d’un important besoin de réflexion éthique que l’on retrouve tant chez les étudiants qu’auprès des professionnels de santé. Pour autant, l’exercice de la réflexion et le développement de la formation à l’éthique ont été peu présents en formation initiale et dans le parcours de la majorité des professionnels en activité. La posture individuelle réflexive ne suffit pas et doit être complétée par une démarche collective de réflexion éthique associant le patient, sa famille ou ses proches, au dialogue interdisciplinaire. La commission « éthique et professions de santé » (rapport A Cordier 2003) a identifié un manque de lieux et de temps pour les soignants, leur permettant de « formaliser » leur réflexion éthique. Cette thèse se propose d’identifier les dispositifs à construire, au travers de séquences de simulation en santé, afin d’accompagner les acteurs du soin dans cette démarche de questionnement à priori mais aussi à postériori,.Des questionnaires seront utilisés afin d’enrichir et de conforter l’hypothèse centrale.Un autre axe de recherche tentera d’objectiver les variations du niveau de pertinence des principes éthiques en jeu, en fonction des contextes et ceci au travers d’observations menées lors de réunions pluridisciplinaires, entre professionnels du soin..Enfin et en réponse à la question de départ, il apparait qu’un programme de Développement Professionnel Continu (DPC), conçu comme « nouvel espace de la réflexion » semble être une opportunité à saisir, pour aider les acteurs du soin à clarifier les situations et à construire en collégialité, le sens de leur pratique. / The meaning of the nursing exercise is based on the notion of “living together” and feeds on an important need for ethical reflection both from students and healthcare professionals. However, the reflection exercise and the development of training in the field of ethics have been scarce in initial training and in the career path of most of professionals in service. The individual reflexive position is not sufficient and must be completed by a collective approach of ethical reflection in which the patient, his/her family or his/her close relations are associated with interdisciplinary dialogue. The “Ethics and Health Professions” committee (as per the A Cordier report in 2003) pointed out a lack of locations and time for the nursing staff, which could allow them to “formalize” their ethical reflection. This thesis suggests identifying the systems to be created in order, for example of the sequences of simulation in health, to accompany nursing players in this questioning approach a priori but also exposit. Questionnaires will be used to enhance and consolidate the main assumption. Another research focus will attempt to objectify changes in the level of relevance of ethical principles involved, according to contexts and through observations conducted during multidisciplinary meetings between health professionals. This approach will attempt to validate another hypothesis. Finally, to answer the initial question, it appears that a Continuous Professional Development program (DPC), designed as a “new area for reflection” seems to be an opportunity that must be seized, to help care providers to clarify situations et build their practice purpose in a collegial manner.

Teamarbete (eng. teamwork) är förenat med positiva organisatoriska och individuella effekter, vilket kan förklara varför organisationer i allt större utsträckning vill genomföra teambuildingsinsater för att förbättra teameffektivitet och teamprestation. Det övergripande syftet med examensarbetet var att undersöka vilka effekter en specifik teambuildingsinsats kunde medföra för team i termer av reflexivitet, reella teambeteenden, teammedlemsskattad teameffektivitet samt ledarskattad teamprestation. Författarna ämnade också undersöka vilken effekt insatsen kunde få för enskilda teammedlemmar i termer av förändrad arbetstillfredsställelse och intention att sluta sitt arbete. Den teambuildingsinsats som genomfördes i föreliggande examensarbete syftade till att kartlägga och förbättra beteendeprocesser. Nio team från olika verksamhetsområden med totalt 57 teammedlemmar fick ta del av teambuildingsinsatsen. Två enkäter delades ut innan insatsen, en teamledarenkät och en teammedlemsenkät, samt en enkät från ett digitalt verktyg för teambuildingsinsatsen, för att undersöka effekterna av intresse. En eftermätning gjordes fyra till sex veckor efter teambuildingsinsatsen. Pearsons korrelationskoefficient, t-test, Wilcoxons teckenrangstest samt hierarkiska multipla regressionsanalyser användes för bearbetning av data. Resultatet visade på en signifikant ökning av skattning av reella teambeteenden samt ökning av teameffektivitet. Dessutom visade resultatet att förekomsten av reella teambeteenden kan predicera teams effektivitet över tid. Detta resultat legitimerar att organisationer i allt större utsträckning vill genomföra teambuildingsinsater som bygger på samma grund som den aktuella teambuildingsinsatsen. / Teamwork is associated with positive organizational and individual effects, explaining the increase in organizations’ implementation of team building interventions, in order to improve team effectiveness and team performance. The overall aim of the study was to investigate the effects of a specific team building intervention on teams in terms of team reflexivity, real team behavior, team rated team effectiveness, and leader rated team performance. The authors also aimed to investigate the impact of the team building intervention on individual team members regarding job satisfaction and intention to leave. The purpose of the team building intervention utilized for data collection was to map and improve behavioral processes. Nine teams from different industries with a total of 57 team members participated in the team building intervention. Prior to the intervention two surveys were distributed, one for team leaders and one for team members, as well as a survey from a digital team building tool, for evaluation of potential effects of the intervention. An additional measurement was made four to six weeks after the team building intervention. Pearson correlation coefficient analysis, t-test, Wilcoxon signed ranks test, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to analyze data. The result showed a significant increase in estimation of real team behavior and increase in team effectiveness. In addition, the result demonstrated that presence of real team behaviors may predict team effectiveness over time. This result justifies organizations’ increase in implementation of team building interventions similar to the intervention investigated in the present study.

In this study an ecosystematic approach to sports coaching is forwarded. This approach is illustrated using the analogy of an ecology of ideas. Ideas informing the life span of a coach within an elite team are explored. The researcher engaged four subjects in conversations the life span of a coach in an elite team. these conversations are viewed as co-constructions of realities. The coach abides within a team for a limited time. he or she enters an existing ecology of ideas, which can contribute to, or detract from, the efficacy of the coach in a team. This ecology of ideas evolves as aold meanings shift and new meanings emerge. These menings are explored in this disertation. An awareness of the ecology of ideas within a team can inform the coach to perturb the ecology of ideas in a direction that is mutually qualified as successful / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical psychology)

This thesis provides a wide-ranging account of the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, tracing an unyielding preoccupation with the mode of romance throughout his famously diverse body of writing. It argues that Stevenson's prose retools romance in several important ways; these include modernization, disenchantment, and the reinterpretation of romance as a practical force able to reach beyond textual confines in order to carve out long-lasting psychological pathways in a reader. In its pursuit of these arguments, the thesis draws upon and appends a significant amount of archival material never before used, including excerpts from The Hair Trunk – Stevenson's first extended piece of fiction, still unpublished in English. More widely, it analyses the appearance of romance within four major aspects of Stevenson's prose: aesthetic theme, structure, setting, and heroism, each of which is the focus of a discrete chapter. The introduction engages with the history and definition of romance itself, arguing that it is most usefully approached as mode rather than genre in the context of Stevenson's writing. Chapter I then assesses Stevenson's direct critical engagement with romance, and appraises his wider literary aesthetic in that light. Romance is shown to be built in to the way he writes about writing, adventure being intrinsic to his authorial quest for adequate expression. Chapter II goes on to examine Stevenson's relationship with structure, and argues that self-reflexivity interacts with romance to form the habitual core of his creative writing. Chapter III investigates the use of cities, forests and seas as sites of modern romance within Stevenson's oeuvre, arguing that he eschews descriptive Romanticism and instead lauds a primarily practical approach towards the navigation of these environments. Finally, Chapter IV demonstrates Stevenson's perception of a relationship between authorship and the heroic, charting his use of romance as part of a progressive evocation of the failure of heroism itself as a sustainable modern ideal.

This thesis is an endeavour to participate in the call for the African Renaissance from a missiological perspective. The study observes how the debate about this African ‗dream‘ persists in the domain of intellectuals and political leaders. It recognises as timely the opportunity to contribute theologically to the development of the renaissance concept. It also observes that ordinary people have jumped onto the African Renaissance bandwagon albeit for reasons that are mainly sentimental. Hence a two-fold appeal to protagonists of the African Renaissance movement: firstly, to be inclusive of all stakeholders especially ordinary people who should be both participants and co-beneficiaries; secondly, to consider spirituality as an indispensable factor in birthing this African ‗dream‘. To help arrive at a well-considered argument the study discusses a brief history of Africa‘s economic, social and political development. Central to this history is how the human factor, actively or inadvertently, and the natural factors have devastated the continent thus necessitating a rebirth. The study notes how especially the political economy and issues of good governance of African states are key concerns to the protagonists of the renaissance movement. It also notes the establishment of structures and policies in addressing these concerns. These interventions are hoped to improve the continent‘s image towards its global counterparts and to lift the hopes of distraught African peoples. The prospect of their success in terms of probabilities and/or perceptions is discussed and Missiologically critiqued. An overview of these endeavours has led to the observation of a lingering chasm of the absence or the apparent sidelining of African spirituality as a necessary component of the African Renaissance discourse. As a major thrust of this thesis the spiritual notion of ‗rebirth‘ is advanced. The basis for this argument lies in the ‗rebirth‘ concept that is inherent in many religions, faith formations and philosophies akin to African spirituality. It is on this understanding that a Missiological dimension is build. In introducing this spiritual dimension towards an African Renaissance a Missiological methodology of a seven pointed praxis cycle is proposed and unpacked. In deconstructing this methodology real models are presented as examples to illustrate Missiology‘s contextual life-long learning philosophy. / Christian Spirituality Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)