The writings of Georges Bataille (1897- 1962), Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) and Michel Serres (1930- ) all encompass critical theory and literary narrative. The theoretical and literary strands of these writers' works allude frequently to instances of perception which involve sight and touch. The approaches to questions of corporeal sensation favoured by Bataille, Blanchot and Serres differ appreciably, however. For this reason, analyses of any common literary or theoretical ground that may exist between these authors are relatively scarce. In fact, there are currently no other in-depth analyses which compare the writings of Bataille, Blanchot and Serres. In this thesis, I take " the further unprecedented step of comparing these three writers' theoretical and literary output by examining the manner in which they approach the sensory possibilities of haptic perception. The term 'haptic' (or haptisch) is often associated with aesthetic theories posited by Alols Riegl (1858- 1905). Broadly speaking, Riegl's model of haptic perception describes a synergy between touch and vision that is inspired by artworks, examples of handicraft or built structures. Following an introductory analysis of Riegl's theorisation of haptic sensation, I examine three recent reformulations of his concept which are provided by Laura U. Marks (1963-), Mark Paterson (1972-) and Jean-Luc Nancy (1940-). These understandings of haptic perception have been chosen because they capture the sheer diversity of haptic sensory experiences portrayed in the writings of Bataille, Blanchot and Serres. My subsequent close readings of Bataille, Blanchot and Serres's works show that the three writers' theoretical and literary texts eventually shun allusions to haptic perception to varying degrees. In spite of these apparent rejections, I conclude that for Bataille, Blanchot and Serres, portrayals of haptic perception play an enduring role in reconciling the abstractive tendencies of philosophical writing with the empirical demands of literary narrative.

This thesis seeks to explore French travel literature on Polynesia as a form of translation. It analyses how travel writers interpret and textualize their experiences of the foreign culture in order to create a version of Polyneslan otherness. Following on from Lawrence Venuti's theory of foreignization and domestication, it is assumed that all translations necessarily manipulate the source culture into forms that are determined by the receiving culture, and that fidelity to an original is, therefore, impossible. Ethical potential is considered to lie in a translation that goes against the norms of translation present In the receiving culture in respect of Polynesia. The thesis identifies the emergence of over-determined narratives relating to Polynesia in late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth-century French travel literature. It shows how this body of work engaged with pre-existing narratives surrounding New-World cultures and dreams of a utopian south em continent, and considers the emergence of a dominant version of Polynesia closely linked to notions of an earthly paradise. In relation to the tradition of translation established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the thesis studies the translation strategies employed by Pierre Loti in 'Le Mariage de Loti' (1880) and Victor Segalen in 'Les Immemoriaux' (1907). It demonstrates their seminal status as works that set trends for translating Polynesia, in terms of both reinforcing translation norms and subverting them. Finally, the thesis investigates the afterlives of Loti and Segalen's texts, as they appear in operatic adaptations ('Lakme' (1883) and 'L'ile du reve' (189B)), translations Into English, twentieth-century travel literature (Loti), and in indigenous Polynesian writing (Segalen).

This thesis examines exiled women’s negotiation of identity, and the literary expression of the inhabitation of the in-between space of exile. Displacement often represents banishment from a place of belonging and securely located identity, yet for women exiles the existence of an original place of belonging is often less certain. The lost home and homeland may not necessarily represent sites of secure locatedness, but places in which identity was already problematic. Through a comparative analysis of the recent works of contemporary authors Nancy Huston, Linda Lê, and Malika Mokeddem (in French), and Laura Restrepo, Cristina Peri Rossi, and Cristina Siscar (in Spanish), this thesis demonstrates how displacement for women can be said to intensify an already marginal sense of identity, and thus provide propitious circumstances for a renegotiation of women’s identities that appropriates the freedom of a mobile sense of belonging located between, and beyond, fixed sites. Divided into two parts, this thesis firstly establishes the key terms and concepts at stake in the discussion of women’s exile in Part I, followed by comparative analyses of the novels of these six authors in Part II. Amongst its central research questions, this thesis addresses the ways in which these texts can be said to deal with a specifically feminine experience of exile, how the loss of a fixed (albeit problematic) site of identity impacts on notions of belonging and identity in the process of their renegotiation, and the ways in which the representation of the novels’ protagonists envisages new roles and modes of subjectivity for women. The consideration of these questions points to a nomadic configuration of identity that is located in mobility and transition, between fixed sites, and posits exiled women’s identity as an ongoing process of becoming rather than a static state of being.

Le genre fantastique, vieux de deux cent ans, a ete longtemps neglige par rapport aux autres genres Iitteraires, A partir des annees 50 et jusqu'a nos jours, il attire de plus en plus l'attention de la critique, et les definitions du genre abondent de Castex a Finne, en passant par Vax, Caillois, Schneider et bien d'autres. Dans notre desir d'etudier ce phenomene litteraire, nous avons choisi la plus celebre de ces definitions, celle de Todorov, exprimee dans L'Introduction Clla litterature fantastique, en nous proposant de la mettre a l'epreuve, en l'appliquant aux contes et nouvelles fantastiques de Merimee, tant apprecies par la critique. L'application de la methode structurale de Todorov a l'oeuvre fantastique de Merimee, nous permet de verifier dans quelle mesure cette oeuvre se plie a cette approche et en quoi elle la depasse, Cette etude a pour but de demontrer a quel point les contes et nouvelles de Merimee appartiennent au genre fantastique et, a quel point aussi la methode de Todorov est exhaustive, c'est-a-dire a quel degre elle embrasse toutes les caracteristiques du genre. Nous avons suivi, dans les quatre premiers chapitres de notre travailles trois aspects indiques par Todorov dans l'etude du fantastique: - L'aspect syntaxique : (premier chapitre ) - L'aspect verbal I: L'enonce (deuxieme chapitre) - L'aspect verbal II: L'enonciation (troisieme chapitre) - L'aspect semantique : (quatrieme chapitre) L'aspect syntaxique rend compte des relations qu'entretiennent entre elles les parties de l'oeuvre, et ces relations peuvent etre de trois types: logique, temporelle et spatiale. L'aspect verbal reside dans les phrases concretes qui constituent Ie texte. Cet aspect se subdivise en "enonce" et "enonciation", L'enonce designe le bagage stylistique et linguistique de l'auteur, et les trois proprietes du discours : mode, temps et vision. L'enonciation, c'est la voix du narrateur qui se fait entendre tout au long du recit, Cet aspect verbal, a pour fonction d'etablir un monde, OU regne l'insolite, l'inquietant et l'hesitation, condition essentielle du genre fantastique.

No description available.

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre is identified more with his novel Paul et Virginie, than with the Études de la nature. However, the publication of the Études in 1784 established him as a serious student of the natural world. Study of the work reveals a multifaceted personality: a classical scholar; a mathematician; a trained military engineer/geographer; a resolute character, who pursued, and achieved his literary aims despite years of financial insecurity; an obdurate character, who never deviated from his sincerely held, but erroneous, scientific beliefs; one of the most widely travelled men of his age, whose observations and experiences added interest and authority to his descriptions; an avid reader, especially of accounts by other voyagers, evidence of which, is seen frequently in the Études; a philosopher, whose opinions revealed a close study of established, eminent thinkers; an enthusiastic, amateur botanist, who was inspired by Pierre Poivre on the Île de France and by his later friendship with Rousseau. Other studies have addressed diverse aspects of Bernardin’s life and work, but by concentrating mainly on the Études de la nature, and with reference to the manuscripts, I propose in this thesis to examine how an apparently random, disordered text, with fourteen Études of disproportionate lengths, many digressions, and a plethora of stylistic devices, proved such a resounding success and transformed Bernardin’s fortunes. I hope to explain this accomplishment by investigating Bernardin’s method of working, and how far the structure and content of the Études conform to, or diverge from, his stated plan at the beginning of the Étude première: ‘Je formai, il y a quelques années, le project d’écrire une histoire générale de la nature, à l’imitation d’Aristote, de Pline, du chancelier Bacon, et de plusieurs modernes célèbres.’ My analysis will concentrate primarily on the use he made, for various purposes, of contemporaneous sources, and those of the preceding two centuries.

Processes of commemoration, national 'lieux de mémoire', and the incessant dialogue between past and present in Haitian literature and culture form the subject of my thesis. I will examine how the Haitian revolution constitutes a pivotal forum for the construction of a national identity, tracing an epic tradition of revolutionary heroes in Haitian writing from the nineteenth century to the 2004 bicentenary celebrations. Proceeding from the assertion of Michel-Rolph Trouillot in Silencing the Past (1996) that the history of Haiti has been obscured due to the 'unthinkable' nature of the revolution, I will advance the theory that Haitian writing, in addressing its own national past, has always been concerned with questions of collective memory, the problem of historical representation and the production, preservation and dissemination of shared cultural resonances, particularly those that evoke the Haitian revolution. In examining the ways in which the revolution returns to haunt the present, I shall address problems of distortion, blurring, misrepresentation and manipulation, to which the omnipresent revolutionary past is particularly vulnerable. I will also examine literary strategies for exposing and combatting this 'erosion' of collective memory, focusing on new contexts in which the afterlives and spectres of the national past have developed in contemporary Haitian writing, often constituting an uneasy textual presence by unhinging the present into which they are projected. Examples of revolutionary 'lieux de mémoire' which will constitute a focus of enquiry of the thesis will include literary representations of Dessalines, the 'fondateur' of the nation, the heroic model of the revolutionary martyr, the statuification of the 'unknown maroon', and the commemoration of the 1804 declaration of independence. The thesis will examine the act of commemoration itself, as it marks a milestone in the continuing afterlives of the revolution and constitutes a strategy in the ongoing process of remembering the past.

No description available.

On 14th January 2011, following unprecedented popular demonstrations, the long-standing president of Tunisia Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down and flee his country. The event marked the success of the Tunisian Revolution and inspired similar pro-democracy movements elsewhere in the region, triggering the so-called Arab Spring. A great deal of media and scholarly attention has focused on the role of women during the Revolution itself, yet few studies have considered women’s literary and active engagement prior to the uprising. This study is thus innovative as it focuses specifically on the role that Tunisian women writers played in the years leading to the Revolution. It sheds light on women’s political engagement and resistance to patriarchal oppression and explores the complex ways in which each writer has attempted to deal with those issues – cultural, social and political – most relevant to her. This is, in addition, the first study of Tunisian women’s writing in French to compare and contrast key themes in three different genres (the autobiographical novel, the essay and the blog) within the conceptual framework of so-called ‘counterpublics’. This thesis emphasises the nature of the authors’ contribution to what Nancy Fraser calls a feminist subaltern counterpublic which, over the past twenty years, has consistently worked to challenge dominant patriarchal and authoritative power. Such a counterpublic, it is argued, has simultaneously helped to counter negative collective imagining, as theorized by Robert Asen. This thesis is structured around three chapters, each focusing on a different form of writing and on a number of contemporary writers who have chosen to express themselves in French. The first chapter analyses two autobiographical novels, namely La Retournée (2002) by Fawzia Zouari and Leïla ou la femme de l’aube (2008) by Sonia Chamkhi. The second chapter focuses on two politically engaged essays, Une force qui demeure (2006) by Hélé Béji and Les Arabes, les femmes, la liberté (2007) by Sophie Bessis. The final chapter focuses on the use of new media, namely on the blog A Tunisian Girl (2009 – present) by Lina Ben Mhenni as well as that entitled Nadia from Tunis (2006 – 2014) by an anonymous blogger known as Nadia. The combination of different literary texts, ranging from established to emerging writers, allows this thesis to address the research question from a range of different perspectives, thus contributing to an underexplored area of research within current studies dealing with Tunisian women’s written production in French.

This thesis examines the emerging concept of the unconscious mind in nineteenth-century psychiatric (alienist) and literary texts in Prance between 1821 and 1877. Its central objective is to reassess the relationship between alienist and literary discourses within the clearly defined contours of this concept, but without either imposing the structure of the psychoanalytic unconscious onto works to which this is alien, or reading pre-Freudian texts as though they revealed the 'Unconscious' - timeless and unchanging - hiding beneath another name.