La notion d’ailleurs, qui vient du Latin et qui veut dire « en un autre lieu », est le terme central de cette thèse. Ce terme signifie aussi « dans un autre esprit », « autre part », « chez une autre personne », « dans un autre ensemble d’objets ». Avec toutes ces significations, la notion d’ailleurs implique une condition étant « autre », « différente ». Par l’usage de ce terme, on se réfère aussi aux actes tels que l’éloignement et le déplacement.Ce travail, dont la problématique est le fait d’occuper l’espace en tant qu’« autre » et de concevoir l’autre en tant que « sujet », vise à montrer une image romanesque de l’autre lieu, de l’autre espace à partir des points de vue de différents écrivains-voyageurs contemporains, représentant les littératures et pays différents, et à créer ainsi un profil de « voyageur romanesque ». Pour ce faire, nous allons étudier la conception de l’espace en abordant le con-cept d’altérité et sa réalité d’après une perspective romanesque, littéraire et contemporaine.La pluralité et l’altérité des éléments qui constituent un espace, un lieu, un paysage, une vue, une réalité, une pré-sence sont les composantes principales de ce travail.Dans trois grandes parties de ce travail, la notion d’ailleurs sera envisagée à partir des thèmes spécifiques et sous plusieurs aspects. Chaque partie sera formée autour d’une notion spatiale étant relative à la notion d’ailleurs. Ces notions seront : chez-soi, distance, ailleurs.Dans cette thèse, nous allons obtenir une image d’espace qui reflétera une complexité d’apparences, de sensations, d’expressions, de révélations, de symboles, d’idées, de rêves, de projets, d’intentions en tant que conséquences des expériences individuelles du « voyageur romanesque » qui représente la littérature de déplacement du XXème et du XXIème siècles.Les récits de déplacement qui ont été choisis comme références pour cette thèse sont : Towards Another Summer de Janet Frame (Nouvelle-Zélande), Terre des hommes d’Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France), Başka Yollar d’Enis Batur (Turquie), Le poisson-scorpion de Nicolas Bouvier (Suisse), L’Africain du Groenland de Tété-Michel Kpomassie (Togo) et On the road de Jack Kerouac (États-Unis). / The French notion of “ailleurs” is the central term of this thesis. It derives from Latin and can be translated as “elsewhere”, “in another place”, “other part”, “in another mind”, “at another home”, or “in a different set of ob-jects”. Despite such variations, the notion of ailleurs can be said to refer to ideas of “otherness” and “difference”. It also contains a spatial element, the act of “being away” or of “shifting”.The idea that one might occupy a space as “other” and conceive of the “subject” in relation to this otherness, is the main problematic of this work which aims to explore romanesque images of the “other place” and of the “other space” from the point of view of different contemporary travel writers. These travel writings are taken from 20th and 21st Century literature and represents different forms of literature and have different countries of origin, they are drawn together to create a profile of “romanesque traveller”. The present thesis therefore focuses on the conception of the space by approaching the concept of otherness and its reality from a romanesque, literary and contemporary perspective.Plurality and alterity are essential components of this work: of the elements that constitute a space, a place, a landscape, a view, a reality, and a presence.Over the course of three chapters, an examination is conducted of the themes and spatial notions related to the notion of ailleurs: ‘home’, ‘distance’, and ‘elsewhere’.In this work, an image of space is constituted that reflects the complexity of appearances, sensations, expressions, revelations, symbols, ideas, dreams, projects, intentions which exist as a consequence of the individual experiences that are acquired by the “romanesque traveller”. The six contemporary books that served as main sources for this thesis are: Towards Another Summer by Janet Frame (New Zealand), Terre des hommes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France), Başka Yollar by Enis Batur (Turkey), Le poisson-scorpion by Nicolas Bouvier (Switzerland), L’Africain du Groenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie (Togo) and On the road by Jack Kerouac (United States).

Cette thèse s’attache à étudier la notion d’événement dans la nouvelle contemporaine, à travers un corpus de recueils américains, français et italiens, parus entre 1980 et 2007. Habituellement défini comme une rupture, engageant un bouleversement ontologique pour le sujet qui l’éprouve, l’événement connaît une autre représentation dans les récits brefs ici étudiés, engageant une réflexion épistémologique sur la littérature contemporaine, entre conscience d’un monde marqué par le manque et volonté de continuer malgré tout à raconter, selon d’autres modalités. Cette réflexion est mise en évidence par le récit bref. Nos nouvelles montrent à chaque fois ce qui semble être un appauvrissement. Ainsi, l’événement connaît un évidement : sa portée est atténuée, il n’entraîne pas de changements dans la conscience du personnage. De même, nos textes font voir un désengagement des instances auctoriale et narratoriale, empêchant l’établissement d’une signification univoque et d’une morale explicite. Enfin, ces histoires narrent fréquemment un dysfonctionnement, tant matériel que du récit en lui-même. Mais à chaque fois, ces carences sont en fait le lieu d’un renouvellement. L’évidement est la possibilité de proposer un autre récit où le sensationnel est mis à distance ; le désengagement permet au lecteur d’adopter vis-à-vis du texte une attitude qui ne soit pas celle de la maîtrise absolue ; le dysfonctionnement n’inaugure pas une nouvelle ère du soupçon, mais une volonté de souligner le potentiel narratif. De cette façon, la nouvelle contemporaine comme l’événement narré affichent une tension, entre perte et renouvellement. / This thesis sets out to study the notion of event in the contemporary short story, through a corpus of american, french and italian collections, published between 1980 and 2007. Usually defined as a breakdown, which leads an ontological upheaval for the subject who distressed it, the event has another representation in the short stories studied in this corpus. It puts an epistemological reflection about the contemporary literature, between awareness of a world marked by a gap and will of continuing to tell in any case, but with other modes. This reflection is particularly evident in the short story. Our collections show every time what seems to be an impoverishment. Indeed, the event distresses a « digging » : its impact is softened, it doesn’t lead changes in the character’s conscience. Similarly, our texts show a withdrawal of the author and the narrator, which prevents an unequivocal signification and an explicit moral. Finally, these stories frequently tell about a material malfunctionning, that also concerns the story itself. But everytime, these lacks are in fact the possibility of a renewal. The « digging » gives the opportunity to offer another story where the sensational is put at a distance ; the withdrawal allows to the reader to have with the text a posture which isn’t an absolute control ; the malfunctionning isn’t the beginning of a new suspicion’s age, but a will to emphasize narrative potential. By this way, the contemporary short story and the related event show a tension between loss and renewal.

This work is focused on the matter od the Czech contemporary literature in the context of the secondary school. The Czech contemporary literature and its position in the secodary education is examined in the view of academic literature, textbooks, pedagogical documents and other accessible materials. The position of the Czech contemporary literature is explored by surveys (among teachers and former secondary school students). This work is also focused on the probleme of the definicion of the term "contemporary" literature and characterizes this term taking into consideration all examined materials. This work's aim is to describe the current situation of the contemporary literature at the secondary schools, to define specific problems connected to this theme and to suggest strategies which could help making more advantage of the Czech contemporary literature. This work explains and describes these advanteges. The end of the work offers concrete materials which could be used in the Czech lessons.

The object of our diploma thesis was Jewish memory and identity in contemporary Italian literature. The work is divided into two parts. The first theoretical part in its historical introduction which deals with the Shoah in Europe. This will be a brief introduction to the european situation. The work continues by introducing more specific roots of anti-Semitism in Italy, its continuation until 1945 and describes the situation after 1945. In the next chapter, we will reflect about the relationship between memory and literature. What are the processes discussed and what is the relationship of memory and the Shoah. After that, we will also mention the complexity of Jewish identity and on her way how it is perceived. The next chapter will present medallions of individual authors whose works will be devoted to the practical part. The second practical part is divided into two main chapters. The first is devoted to the search for identity in three works by Alessandro Piperno- Con le peggiori Intenzion Elena Loewenthal- Lo strappo nell'anima and Silvia Ballestra- La seconda Dora. The second main chapter is devoted to tendencies that prevail in the individual authors - forgetting vs. remembering. The chapter is divided into two subsections that address specific perspective 2nd and 3rd generation. Separately...

The thesis presented here with deals with an analysis and genre definition of the Nordic detective story, which is currently very popular in the Czech Republic. It is namely an interpretation of the works done by two contemporary Nordic authors in question, i.e. Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbø. With the first of the two authors I will be looking into the complete trilogy The Millenium containing volumes of Män som hatar kvinnor (2005), Flickan som lekte med elden (2006) and Luftslottet som sprängdes (2007). As regards in Nesbø's works, I have chosen a series of detective stories with detective Harry Hole as the main character, especially two of them Panserhjerte (2009) and Snømannen (2007) and which appear to be the most successful and the most typical. On the grounds of the analysis of the particular literary categories such as the character of a detective and their investigative techniques, the narrative pattern, the narrator, and the continuum which are compared with the similar categories within individual historical detective schools itemized in the theoretical part of the thesis, and compared as well with other genres, it is to be stated that the Nordic crime fiction might be located somewhere on the border line between the detective story, the critical social novel and the thriller, taking on at...

The social sciences have developed robust bodies of scholarship on expertise and professionalism, yet literary analyses of the two remain comparatively sparse. I address this gap in Boundaries of Knowledge by examining recent Anglophone fiction and showing that expertise and professionalism are central concerns of contemporary authors, both as subject matter in fiction and in their public identities. I argue that the novelists studied use and abuse expertise and professionalism: they critique professions as participant observers, and also borrow the mantle of expert credibility to bolster their own cultural capital while documenting the pitfalls of expertise in their fiction. My first chapter shows how acquired technical knowledge and professionalism are the central concerns of Ian McEwan’s Saturday. In the novel, Henry Perowne’s professionalism is the site from which various ethical and political debates radiate. Perowne—depicted as a rather heroic expert in comparison to the other novels studied in the dissertation—is disturbed by a total outsider in the form of Baxter, a man with no prospects or future, professional or otherwise. McEwan aligns himself more closely with Perowne: in part through extensive research for Saturday, he has developed a reputation as a public figure who straddles the “two cultures” of the sciences and humanities, a reputation that exists in a synergistic relationship with his particular brand of realist fiction, which emphasizes hard work and professional credibility. Next, I demonstrate how Zadie Smith’s On Beauty reveals a deep suspicion of academia, which in the novel serves to cut disciplinary experts off both from the world outside campus and from an appreciation of the subjects they study. Smith’s academic professionals are well-intentioned but unable to look beyond field-specific boundaries to appreciate their objects of study (and unintentionally harm outsiders along the way). Larger issues such as race are always present but at the margins of the interpersonal drama that plays out between the novel’s numerous characters. I read Smith herself as reluctantly accepting academic life, teaching at New York University while maintaining a qualified distance from American academia in articles and interviews. Chapters one and two are broadly about the advantages and drawbacks of expert knowledge, respectively. In my third chapter, Abdulrazak Gurnah offers the most circumspect view of experts yet with a fear of a “summarizing” expert or colonizer of knowledge that is only resolved by the arrival of a more authentic Zanzibari expert. In an analysis of Gurnah’s By the Sea, I show how professional networks--the United Kingdom’s immigration and refugee system, the colonial education system in Zanzibar, and the professoriate--raise questions about who is entitled to and capable of narrating people’s lives. These questions dovetail both with the novel’s shifting narrative form and with the concerns of Gurnah’s own work as a scholar of literature. Beginning with McEwan and ending with Gurnah, Boundaries of Knowledge travels from the most socially and economically secure, elite experts to those left behind by contemporary professionalism. My title reflects this troubled landscape of expert knowledge and professionalism: who knows what, the benefits and drawbacks of the accompanying cultural capital, and the barriers between various fields, sets of knowledge, and finally people.

Ce mémoire étudie la dynamique des clichés et des stéréotypes ayant pour motif la japonité dans l’œuvre de Dany Laferrière, en particulier dans deux romans : Éroshima (1987) et Je suis un écrivain japonais (2009). Cette étude vise à rapprocher ces deux œuvres afin de dévoiler le regard interculturel qui y est présent et dont la construction esthétique est basée sur la représentation (images, clichés et stéréotypes de sexe, de race et d’identité) de la figure nipponne. Le présent travail de recherche analyse différentes perspectives théoriques et épistémologiques concernant les notions de stéréotype et de cliché, en plus de porter attention aux enjeux des discours posés par la représentation de l’identité dans ces deux romans. Cette approche permet de dégager un discours sur l’Altérité qui est déployé, recyclé, manipulé et déformé à la guise de l’écrivain, et qui conduit le lecteur vers un travail de questionnement sur l’identité et la perception de l’Autre. / This thesis focuses on the dynamics of clichés and stereotypes based on japanese motifs in the works of Dany Laferrière, particulary in two of his novels: Éroshima (1987) and Je suis un écrivain japonais (2009). By comparing the two novels, this study examines different intercultural perspectives whose aesthetic construction are based on the representations (images, clichés and stereotypes of sex, race and identity) of the Japanese figure. This research analyzes different theoretical and epistemological perspectives of the notions of stereotypes and clichés, while paying attention to the issues of representation in both novels. This approach allows a discussion of Alterity/Otherness which is unfolded, recycled, manipulated and distorted by the writer, and invites the reader to question the concepts of identity and the perception of the Other.

<p>This dissertation explores the philosophical, cultural, and political implications of the discourse on humanity and human subjectivity in the time of the Anthropocene that engages a wide geographic and temporal range. Specifically, I examine the ways in which three selected literary works of Daniel Defoe from England, Toni Morrison from America, and Arundhati Roy from India interact with the intricately contested notions of what it means to be a human being sharing the earth’s natural habitats with another entity traditionally defined as “other,” categorized around species, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, class, and even religion.</p><p>I argue that Defoe’s <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, the allegedly first modern novel, inaugurates the reigning understanding of human being as <i>homo sapiens</i> represented by Crusoe’s rationalized humanity, the essential feature of which has come to engender a threatening condition both for the nonhuman and non-European world; that Morrison’s <i>Paradise</i> and Roy’s <i>The God of Small Things</i> each in their own way not only problematize and challenge the overall tenet of Defoe’s metaphysical rationality in Euro-American and Anglophone cultures, but also investigate a more secular and thereby alternative idea of human subjectivity as <i>homo ecologicus</i>, so as to either (re)construct or restore a vibrant and sustainable community based on a notion of human not as hierarchically superior to “other” entities, but more horizontally and inclusively situated within one larger common habitat called the planet Earth.</p><p>Postulating the conviction that one cannot fully understand the aforementioned alternative conceptualization of human being as <i>homo ecologicus</i> within the confines of divisive identity politics based upon racial, ethnic, national, religious, gender, and sexual orientation categories, it is a pivotal concern of my thesis to bridge the ostensibly unquestioned bifurcation between human beings and Nature: that between the West and the East, that between male and female, that between reason and intuition, and that between knowledge and life. In performing these wider ecological inquiries into radical modes of human existence, I place the core value of nonfoundationalist thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche, Alfred North Whitehead, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, and Edward Said, among many others, in critical dialogue with the study of literature with a view to thematizing the broader question of how a literary narrative as a historical and cultural institution imaginatively reframes our self-consciousness of the precarious condition of the Anthropocene. In conclusion, I argue that the study of literature and other humanities that valorize a vital interconnectedness between humans, objects, and the environment offers the potential for an inexhaustible and enduring habitat in which <i>homo ecologicus</i> continues to, in the words of Nietzsche, “remain faithful to the earth,” embracing <i>homo sapiens</i>.</p>

(English) This master's thesis describes how, within the space of a single decade (2010-2019), transgender women's literature underwent significant development when it came to the production of novels and literary production more broadly. Written to be accessible to those unfamiliar with transgender literature and the internal workings of trans communities as possible, this thesis begins by describing in detail the socio-political changes in how trans people lived and were perceived over the past decade, with particular attention paid to the changes in the media landscape, the recent surge of people coming out as transgender and the conservative backlash. Methodologically, this thesis utilises the viewpoint of transgender studies, which focuses to the material and socio-political conditions that facilitate trans cultural production and the ways in which trans literature engages with the politics of representation through the act of self- representation. It should be noted that this thesis only considers physically published literature written by trans women - a restriction that, the author acknowledges, helps reinforce the hegemony of the publishing industry - with special attention paid to the genre of the novel, and does not view works by cisgender authors that deal with transgender themes as...

This essay analyzes the depictions of urban nature in Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018). The theoretical framework consists primarily of Astrid Bracke’s thoughts on “urban ecology”, Christophe Den Tant’s descriptions of “the urban sublime” and William Cronon’s thoughts on the concept of “Wilderness”, all of which work in the ecocritical field. My Year of Rest and Relaxation explores the concepts of naturalness and artificiality through language and various themes. It takes place in an urban environment where the main character chooses to isolate herself in her city apartment, hence the existence of nature in the traditional sense is absent, yet the text works consistently with elements of urban nature in varying situations. The way in which this urban nature is presented relates to other themes such as the exploration of borders and dichotomies such as nature and culture, organic and artificial as well as animate and inanimate.