Scholars of American Jewish history have long debated the complicity of the American Jewish community in the loss of six million Jewish lives in Europe during the Holocaust. After Hitler took power in 1933, American Jewish leaders took to the streets to protest the Nazi Party’s abuse of German Jews. Two central figures in this history are Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise and Revisionist Zionist Ben Hecht because of their wide-reaching protest movements that operated in competition with each other. Although the historiography presents Wise and Hecht's inability to unite as the product of difference, my examination of their protest performances presents a novel picture of similarity. Despite their ideological antagonism, Wise and Hecht's shared cultural identities, as both Americans and Jews, produced pageants with decidedly similar elements. The three productions studied here – The Case of Civilization Against Hitler (1934), Stop Hitler Now (1943), and We Will Never Die (1943) – were reflective of these identities. Appealing to their Americanness, they performed rituals of democratic justice. Appealing to their Jewishness, they presented Jewish prayer, iconography, and ritual related to divine justice. In highlighting the parallels in the performances, I read their actions as successful insofar as they appealed to a diverse American Jewish audience.

Работа посвящена наиболее интеллектуальному роману русского писателя-эмигранта В. С. Яновского «Портативное бессмертие» (1953). Как показывает исследование, в романе присутствуют философские идеи, которые не только декларируются персонажами, но и активно влияют на развитие сюжета и образов главных героев произведения. В частности, можно говорить о влиянии на роман идей общества «Круг» (и его лидера И. И. Фондаминского), Н. Ф. Федорова, А. Бергсона, В. С. Соловьева, Х. Ортеги-и-Гассета, Н. А. Бердяева. Кроме того, исследователь демонстрирует, что автор романа не только вплетает идеи в ткань повествования, но и активно дискутирует с ними. / The work is devoted to the most intellectual novel of the Russian emigrant writer V. S. Yanovsky "Portable Immortality" (1953). As the research shows, there are philosophical ideas in the novel, which are not only declared by the characters, but also actively influence the development of the plot and images of the main characters of the work. In particular, we can talk about the influence on the novel of the ideas of the Circle society (and its leader I. I. Fondaminsky), N. F. Fedorov, A. Bergson, V. S. Solovyov, H. Ortega-i-Gasset, N. A. Berdyaev. In addition, the researcher demonstrates that the author of the novel not only weaves ideas into the fabric of the narrative, but also actively discusses them.

"Thèse en cotutelle, Doctorat en philosophie: Université Laval, Québec, Canada, Philosophiæ doctor (Ph. D.) et École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Lyon, France". / Tableau d’honneur de la Faculté des études supérieures et postdoctorales, 2017 / Concept éminemment polysémique, le sens commun a été déprécié par un vaste pan de la philosophie occidentale, qui y a vu au mieux l’expression de croyances infondées, au pire la manifestation de croyances erronées et naïves. Là où bon nombre de commentateurs ont repéré dans les pensées mêmes d’Henri Bergson, Stanley Cavell et Gilles Deleuze, trois grandes figures de la philosophie du cinéma, des critiques adressées au sens commun, nous nous efforçons ici de tirer au clair la conception positive qu’ils développent de cette notion, en dépit des soupçons occasionnels qu’ils font peser sur elle. Plus précisément, nous tâchons d’expliquer jusqu’à quel point certaines acceptions du sens commun permettent de satisfaire l’ambition de connaître le réel lui-même. En premier lieu, nous passons en revue l’argumentation élaborée par certains réalistes spéculatifs (en particulier Quentin Meillassoux et Graham Harman) afin de clarifier d’une part des réflexions qui feront l’objet de discussions et de répliques dans les chapitres subséquents et, d’autre part, de montrer que la dépréciation philosophique du sens commun se prolonge jusque dans les débats les plus actuels sur l’objectivité. Nous faisons ressortir par la suite les angles sous lesquels le sens commun est susceptible de nous rapprocher du réel d’après Bergson, Cavell et Deleuze. En second lieu, nous entrons de plain-pied dans le domaine du cinéma et examinons en quoi différentes oeuvres du renouveau du cinéma québécois (Denis Côté, Stéphane Lafleur, Sébastien Pilote, Rafaël Ouellet, Xavier Dolan, Anne Émond, Rodrigue Jean, le collectif Épopée, Mathieu Denis et Simon Lavoie) viennent à leur manière compléter, radicaliser ou critiquer les réflexions développées dans la première partie autour du sens commun et du réel. À l’encontre de ceux qui qualifient ces oeuvres de « mimétiques », « peu songées » et « esthétisantes », nous mettons donc en évidence la façon dont ces films, attentifs à la profondeur de l’expérience ordinaire et à l’exigence de trouver un certain équilibre entre le devenir incessant et la stabilité constante, parviennent à nuancer et à raffiner la philosophie. Mots-clés : sens commun, réel, ordinaire, chose en soi, objectivité, subjectivité, surinterprétation, culture populaire, actuel, virtuel, devenir, intensité, concrétude, cinéma, Henri Bergson, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Quentin Meillassoux, Graham Harman, Tristan Garcia, renouveau du cinéma québécois. / The eminently polysemic concept of common sense was depreciated by a vast segment of Western philosophy, which saw at best in it the expression of unwarranted beliefs, at worst the manifestation of erroneous and naïve beliefs. Where many commentators have pinpointed critiques of common sense in the thoughts of Henri Bergson, Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze, three prominent figures of the philosophy of cinema, we strive here to bring out the positive conception they develop of that concept, notwithstanding the occasional suspicion they may cast on it. To put it in more precise terms, we seek to explain to what extent certain meanings of common sense are apt to satisfy the ambition of knowing reality itself. In the first place, we review the argument elaborated by certain speculative realists (specifically Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman) in order to clarify, on the one hand, reflections which will be the object of discussions and replies in the subsequent chapters, and, on the other hand, to show that the philosophical depreciation of common sense goes on even in the most contemporary debates on objectivity. We then bring out the angles under which, according to Bergson, Cavell and Deleuze, common sense is apt to bring us closer to reality itself. In the second place, we enter fully into the field of cinema and examine in what way different works associated with the revival of Quebec cinema (Denis Côté, Stéphane Lafleur, Sébastien Pilote, Rafaël Ouellet, Xavier Dolan, Anne Émond, Rodrigue Jean, the collective Épopée, Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie) end up completing, radicalizing or criticizing in their way the reflections developed in the first part around common sense and the real. In opposition to those who characterize those works as « mimetic », « thoughtless » and « aestheticizing », we thus bring to the fore the way in which those films, paying attention to the depth of ordinary experience and to the requirement of finding a certain balance between incessant becoming and constant stability, do succeed in nuancing and refining philosophy. Keywords: common sense, real, ordinary, thing-in-itself, objectivity, subjectivity, over-interpretation, popular culture, actual, virtual, becoming, intensity, concreteness, cinema, Henri Bergson, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Quentin Meillassoux, Graham Harman, Tristan Garcia, revival of Quebec cinema.

Montréal Trigonix inc. 2018

The following text constitutes an attempt to present the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon's genetic ontology through an account of his reconfiguration of the problem of individuation in his doctoral thesis from 1958, L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme, information, potentiel, métastabilité. The intention is to show how Simondon through this reconfiguration of a classical philosophical problem – in which concepts and schemas from contemporary physics and technology is utilised in a critique of the bi-polar hylomorphic schema as its traditional, substantialistic solution – becomes able to articulate an anti-substantialistic and anti-reductionistic ontogenesis as first philosophy. A systematic philosophical conception that according to Simondon precedes every critical investigation of the subject as well as every scientific ontology – not by establishing a pre-critical position, but by exceeding Kant's critical position: that is, through a displacement toward a conception of the transcendental conditions for the genesis of being and thought as real conditions, rather than conditions of mere possibility. A displacement that in turn appears to respond to the question that frames this basic account of important concepts and schemas in Simondon, namely: in what sense and to what extent is it necessary for philosophical thought to be thought and developed in relation to other forms of thought?

La condensation : un outil conceptuel pour la théorie de l’art / Résumé. Notre étude sur la condensation tente de montrer l’intérêt d’une voie peu explorée dans le débat sur la nature de l’art, à savoir l’économie sensible des représentations symboliques. Nous donnons tout d’abord consistance au concept de condensation en suivant les écrits de Freud. Freud, un des rares auteurs à avoir thématisé cette notion, fournit dans L’interprétation des rêves les linéaments principaux du concept. Dans l’analyse de cet ouvrage, notre effort se porte sur la distinction entre une approche plastique et une approche symbolique de la condensation, c’est-à-dire l’obtention d’une condensation par composition de différentes figures ou par répétition d’une même représentation. En relation marginale avec la condensation, la méthode d’analyse des rêves nous montre l’importance des thèmes de l’idiosyncrasie et de la totalisation, lesquelles se révéleront en affinité étroite avec celui de la condensation. Nous procédons ensuite à l’analyse du second ouvrage d’importance rapporté à la condensation chez Freud, Le mot d’esprit et sa relation à l’inconscient. L’accent est porté, d’une part, sur la relation entre condensation et économie, et, d’autre part, sur la distinction entre deux états ou attitudes d’esprit révélée par le Witz. Sur base de la thématisation freudienne, nous poursuivons la construction du concept de condensation à partir de l’expérience esthétique ordinaire. Cela comprend, tout d’abord, la simple considération du fonctionnement collégial et simultané de nos différents sens. Nous procédons ensuite à l’analyse de deux modes de représentation, tous deux fondés sur un rapport sensible au réel : la photographie et le cinéma. Par ces analyses, nous tentons de mettre en lumière les caractères élémentaires de la représentation sensible. Avec la photographie nous abordons l’économie sensible de la représentation, c’est-à-dire les transformations quantitatives et qualitatives qui sont au fondement du concept de condensation. Avec l’analyse du cinéma comme mode de représentation, l’effort est porté sur l’explicitation de la tension paradoxale entre présence et représentation dans le droit fil des développements sur le jeu des dimensions sensibles et l’hétérogénéité impliqués dans la représentation photographique. Cette deuxième partie assoit la validité objective du concept de condensation. Dans un troisième temps, nous étayons cette validité objective du concept en la rapportant aux différents intervenants impliqués dans la réalité artistique (principalement, œuvre, créateur, récepteur). Enfin nous confrontons le concept de condensation à deux aspects de la théorie de l’art : un versant spéculatif, l’antinomie du jugement de goût avec les questions de la subjectivité et de l’objectivité, mais aussi et surtout celle de la communicabilité ; un versant plastique, les œuvres atypiques de Marcel Duchamp. Préalablement à l’analyse de ces deux aspects, nous consacrons un chapitre important à une définition du signe tenant compte de la responsabilité du sujet dans la constitution sémiotique. C’est sous le paramètre de la liberté dans notre rapport au symbolique que se rejoignent les deux aspects de la théorie de l’art abordés. Condensation: A Conceptual Tool for the Theory of Art / Summary. This thesis investigates the question of art’s nature from an angle not much explored, i.e. following the perceptible economy of symbolic representations. Firstly we give consistency to the concept of condensation by analysing Freudian texts. Freud is indeed the only salient author who has focused on condensation and exploited it in the context of his own works. In The Interpretation of Dreams, we concentrate on the distinction between a plastic approach and a symbolic one, i.e. obtaining a condensation by composition of different figures or by repeating the same chosen representation. In addition, the method of analysis of dreams shows us the importance of two themes: idiosyncrasy and totalisation. In the other main book related to condensation, the Joke and its Relation to Unconscious, we stress, on the one hand, the connection between economy and condensation, and, on the other, the distinction between two different states of mind created by the analysis of the joke and its mechanisms. On the bases of these Freudian texts, we carry on constructing the condensation concept by analysing our ordinary aesthetic experience. First, it means merely considering the collective and simultaneous functioning of our five senses. Second, we analyse two modes of representation, both based on a perceptible connection to reality: photography and cinematography. Through this analysis, we bring to light the elementary features of perceptible representation. With photography, we examine the quantitative and qualitative transformations that are essential to the condensation concept. With cinematography, we try to elucidate the paradoxical tension between the actual presence and representation of the same object. This second part sets up the objective validity of the condensation concept. At a third stage, we strengthen this concept’s objective validity by linking it to the main entities involved in art (works, creators, receptors). Finally, we confront the condensation concept with two aspects of art theory: one speculative part, the antinomy of taste with questions of subjectivity, objectivity and especially communicability, and another plastic part, the atypical works of Marcel Duchamp. We also dedicate one chapter to the revaluation of the Saussurian sign theory including the responsibility of the subject in semiotic constitution. Art and condensation are so closely related to the theme of liberty in our relationship to symbolic representations.

This PhD “Film by Practice” sets out to question and explore the nature of film poetry. The poetry of the cinematic image is described by the filmmaker Jean Epstein as the “unveiling of the magic inherent in the visual object beyond the capacity of words to define” (Epstein, cited in Sitney, 1978: xxiii). This is a daunting task that the study interprets through the moving image with particular reference to the magical temporal art of trance possession, which is processed within the genre of experimental ethnographic documentary and intercultural film. This thesis is an experiment in form, taking the filmmaker Maya Deren’s notion of film as comprising of “narrative horizontals” and “poetic verticals” (Deren and Sitney, 1971: 178) explored through a practical investigation of movement and time in space both beyond and within the film frame, studied through the art installations Divine Horsemen (2005) and People Inbetween (2007). It is focused through a reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Bergsonian philosophies of cinema as “movement-images” and “time-images” (Deleuze, 1989: xvi, xvii), exhibited as multi-screened video art installations that evolve within the space and hence exist in a perpetual state of “becoming”. Whether this is the sounds and images that change depending on where they are viewed, or the narrative theme of the works as “becoming other”. The themes of “in-betweenness” and the “mix” are investigated through these two video documentary artworks; first, by a third party restaging/remixing of the experimental ethnographic footage of Haitian Voodoo trance possession shot by Maya Deren, unfinished and posthumously released as Divine Horsemen the Voodoo Gods of Haiti (1985); and second, diaspora and the intercultural are explored through the first person personal. Intercultural documentary and experimental ethnography filtered through me with specific reference to my own triangular ethnicity, being British, Sri Lankan, though classified as Dutch Burgher, a “lost white tribe” (Orizio, 2000: 2): a journey into racial “becoming” as an “in-between” belonging to a diasporic community.

Si le rapport entre Derrida et Bergson n’a pas fait l’objet de nombreuses études, les commentaires existants témoignent à peu près tous d’une vision commune : entre les deux philosophes, les divergences peuvent être atténuées, voire dissoutes, par la considération de convergences plus fondamentales. Les pages qui suivent seront l’occasion pour nous de faire contrepoids à cette vulgate interprétative. Sans nier l’existence de points de contact entre Derrida et Bergson, nous voudrions en effet montrer qu’un important désaccord subsiste entre eux au sujet de la possibilité de l’intuition. Alors que Derrida met en cause les doctrines intuitionnistes, Bergson érige l’intuition en méthode philosophique. Le présent mémoire prendra pour fil conducteur les motifs de cette discorde. Réduit à sa plus simple expression, l’objectif que nous y poursuivrons sera de montrer que les pensées bergsonienne et derridienne, lorsque mises en dialogue, révèlent un désaccord partiel qui permet de réfléchir de façon féconde sur la possibilité de l’intuition. Pour être plus exact, nous caresserons ici une triple ambition : i/ cerner étroitement l’objet du litige entre Derrida et Bergson, trop peu souligné par les commentateurs, et dont nous montrons qu’il s’articule à une entente partielle ; ii/ tirer au clair les diverses raisons qui amènent l’un à s’en prendre à l’intuition, l’autre à embrasser la méthode intuitive ; iii/ établir que certains arguments de Bergson, bien qu’ils connaissent un regain d’intérêt depuis quelques années, paraissent lacunaires lorsqu’on les confronte à différentes objections. / Although studies of the relation between Derrida and Bergson are few and far between, they nearly all share a common vision: that of attenuating – or even altogether eliminating – the divisions between the two philosophers’ thought, by considering their more fundamental convergences. The following pages will allow us to counterbalance this common interpretation. Without denying the points that Derrida and Bergson do have in common, we will show an important divergence in opinion between the two on the idea that intuition is possible and founded. While Derrida lays doubt on intuitionist doctrine, Bergson establishes intuition as a philosophical method. This thesis examines the motives behind this divergence. Put simply, a comparison of Derridian and Bergsonian thought reveals a partial disagreement that enables fruitful reflection about whether or not intuition is possible. More precisely, we pursue three objectives here: i/ to clearly identify the scope of the disagreement between Derrida and Bergson, often overlooked by previous commentaries, showing that it includes a partial agreement; ii/ to clarify the diverse reasons leading Derrida to deny the very existence of intuition while Bergson embraces intuition as a philosophical method; and iii/ to show that certain Bergsonian arguments, although enjoying a resurge in interest in recent years, appear unable to stand up to several different objections.

This investigation attempts to consider the identity of the contemporary Bergsonian philosophy of immanence by reflection on key conceptualisations from the work of Henri Bergson. From the view that thinking Bergsonian is an attitude of philosophy that anticipates the metaphysics of a philosophy of process, the demands of the emergence of thinking in art plays a role the directions of philosophical development. It is by this concern that key Bergsonian concepts serve as grounding of philosophical reflections of the related themes of time, images, and movement, and the change of thinking, towards an encounter of the practice of philosophy through the process of painting. Under the rubric of contemporary process metaphysics in art, we will attempt to establish a conceptual framework from principle Bergsonian conceptualizations, to acknowledge the process of painting as a different methodology of philosophy. This study of philosophy through painting then becomes a corresponding philosophy of the difference of thinking and the challenges to go beyond its identity. Proceeding by Bergsonian conceptualisations, to frame the context for a philosophy of painting, the question of the identity of painting is situated according to the didactic philosophies of Wassily Kandinsky. The comparisons and philosophical engagement between Bergsonian thinking and Kandinskian painting will be mediated by the counter interpretations of the philosophy of Michel Henry. The motivation to return to Bergsonian, exercised by a synthesis of Bergson’s concepts and Kandinsky’s theoretical practice, is situated according to an understanding of the identity of painting according to the terms of an ontology of images. In terms of a Bergsonian account of image, supported by a Kandinskian perspective, the focus will be towards the possibilities of philosophy and the metaphysics of becoming through the process of painting.

《出航》(The Voyage Out 1915) 是維吉尼亞．吳爾芙 (Virginia Woolf) 的第一本小說。就像女主角從倫敦出發航向南美一個虛構的異地一樣，吳爾芙似乎也從此開始了她做為作家的旅行。女主角瑞秋．凡瑞斯 (Rachel Vinrace) 從一個懵懂的中產階級女兒，一腳踏入了未知的大海航程。在乘載著她橫跨大西洋的商船上，瑞秋體驗了與原本平靜生活截然不同的衝擊。當她走向聖塔瑪莉納 (Santa Marina)，她眼中儘是對這個熱帶異鄉的熱情與渴望。在那裡，瑞秋依著自己的步伐／速度與其他的角色相遇、相識、相知，開啟了自己對這個世界的視野。她與泰倫斯．希威特 (Terrence Hewet) 相戀、決定互許終生。然而，一場熱病讓瑞秋在返鄉之前過世。她的靈魂，似乎就此沒入深不見底的大海之中(Woolf 398)。 　　本論文以德勒茲 (Gilles Deleuze) 與葛塔力 (Felix Guattari) 的著作《千高臺：資本主義與精神分裂》(A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia) 中所探討的旅行路線：固著路線 (rigid line)、可彎路線 (supple line)、逃逸路線 (line of flight) 來討論《出航》中角色之間的人際互動。從不同角色交疊橫越的旅行路線中，自我與他者的關係也不斷地在不同的情境之中形塑與消融。《出航》不再只是瑞秋個人的生命成長旅行經驗，更是眾多角色相互影響、體驗、與改變的廣大場域。小說裡表現了柏格森 (Henri Bergson) 所主張的種類差異 (differences in kind)，以及從中所發展出的個體性 (singularity) 價值與溝通的可能性。瑞秋的遊牧旅行軌跡，使她與泰倫斯之間擁有了超越性別差異的結合。在這種動態、開放的情境之下，瑞秋死亡之前的幻想與精神錯亂似乎象徵著逃逸路線所帶出的蛻變：在精神高度凝縮之下，全然的開放、專注於當下、無限接近真我。 不同的路線象徵不同旅行者的選擇以及路線背後的意義。本論文分成五章來探討《出航》裡交織複雜的旅行路線：第一章介紹《出航》的相關評論與背景，並且說明本論文所使用的理論架構；第二章以固著路線和可彎路線的討論為主，帶出絕對差異 (absolute difference) 的意義與價值；第三章探討真正溝通的可能性以及瑞秋從可彎路線出發的旅行軌跡；第四章從瑞秋的旅行起點到旅行終點，以逃逸路線的角度，找出詮釋她的死亡的另一種面向；第五章以瑞秋與泰倫斯之間的「愛」作結，帶出小說最終以死亡來表現生命的苦難與持續性。 / The Voyage Out (1915) is Virginia Woolf’s first novel. Like the heroine’s voyage from London to a fictional town in South America, Woolf has begun her travel as a writer since then. Rachel Vinrace, a daughter of a middle class merchant, plunges into the sea voyage out to the unknown world. In the cargo boat that takes her across the Atlantic, contrary to her original quiet life in Richmond, the interactions with the other crew make a profound impact on Rachel. Stepping onto the soil of Santa Marina, she is full of passion and has a thirst for this tropical foreign land. Here, Rachel encounters, and becomes acquainted and intimate with the other characters. She and Terrence Hewet fall for each other and decide to spend the rest of their lives together. However, a serious fever carries her off on the verge of her return trip. Rachel’s soul seems to “curl up at the bottom of the sea” (Woolf 398). The thesis intends to explore the interactions among the characters in The Voyage Out with the travel lines (rigid line, supple line, and lines of flight) discussed in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. From the intertwining travel lines of the characters, the relation between the self and the other is constantly constructing and blurring. The Voyage Out is not only the bildungsroman of Rachel but also a vast field for the characters to interact, experience, and become. The novel reveals the concept of differences in kind explored by Henri Bergson and the value of singularity and possibility of communication developed by Bergsonian ontology. Rachel’s nomadic travelling trajectory allows her to form a kind of union with Terrence that is beyond the limitation of gender difference. Under this dynamic and open circumstance, the deliriums and dreams before her death seem to suggest her becoming generated from the lines of flight: in the intensity of her spirit, she is open to the other, focuses on the present, and approaches to the primordial pure state. The thesis is divided into five chapters to investigate the complicated travel lines in The Voyage Out: Chapter I introduces the background of The Voyage Out and its literature reviews, and the theoretical approaches used in the thesis will also be illustrated; Chapter II concentrates on the discussion of the effect of the rigid line and the supple line in The Voyage Out and develops the meaning of absolute difference; Chapter III looks for the possibility of true communication and the orbit of Rachel’s voyage launched from the supple line; Chapter IV begins with Rachel’s point of departure and her point of arrival in order to form another dimension of her death, contrasted with traditional interpretation with the discussion of the lines of flight; Chapter V concludes with the love between Rachel and Terrence and reveals the suffering and continuity of life that the novel tries to display through death.