According to Julia Kristeva, abjection is an unconscious process (a cut) every human being has to operate to be able to autonomize her or himself from the dyadic relationship with the mother. An autonomous subject then has access to what « sémiotique tensive » (influenced by the phenomenology of perception andstructuralism) calls « field of presence » from where she or he can enunciate and thus enter the Symbolic order. In this thesis, I posit that the field of presence changes from modernity to postmodernity, and that some avant-garde authors, such as Michel Butor in the 1960's, are articulating the shift from one to the other and modifying the relationship between subject and abject. My textual analyses focus on two of Butor's most innovative books : Mobile. Étude pour une représentation des États-Unis (published in 1962) and 6 810 000 litres d'eau par seconde. Étude stéréophonique (usually referred to by critics as Niagara, the title of its English translation, published in 1965). My hypothesis is that, on the level of enunciation, Mobile shows traces of a modem field of presence, where the margins are highly dysphoric (abject), while Niagara tends to represent a more postmodern one, using différent discursive stratégies to defuse the abject threat. I close with a reflection on the state of abjection as a subjectivity inducing process, the subject it exhausts in postmodern times, and the new relationship to the body (therefore, to perception and enunciation) it imposes.

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 238-271).

No description available.

Michel Butor is one of the most prolific writers of post-war French literature. The size of his production is equalled only by its diversity. Originally a novelist, Butor has developed into an author of "open works", opera, poetry, dream texts and children's books. This study is a search for unity in the midst of this diversity. Taking as our starting point Butor's adoption of Rimbaud' s famous assertion ·'Il faut changer la vie", we elaborate a perspective of commitment to change in both writing and reality which we apply to the four most developed areas of Butor's production: the novels, the experimental texts, the Illustrations series and the Mati~re de Reves series. Devoting one section of the thesis to each of these four areas, we examine the parallel between the formal evolution of Butor's production, the change that can be seen in his writing, and the thematic evolution, the change that he would like to see in reality. In the novel section we discuss Butor's treat ment of the myth of imperial dominance as the expression of modern western man's existential outlook and its implications for the reader of novels together with Butor's own, different existential outlook and his consequent abandonment of the novel genre. In the second section we examine Butor's conception of the relationship between man and place together with his experimental attempts to solve the problems raised by the novel form, the solution finally appearing in the thought 1?ehind the "open work". The Illustrations section contains a study of Butor's collaboration with the art world, his development of the corporate text and the elaboration of the concept of collage reality, a concept designed to replace the imperial organisation criticised in the novels. Finally in the Mati~re de Rives section we analyse Butor's method of using his own literary career as an example of the re-integration, re-organisation and attitude required for the construction and maintenance of the new, collage reality.

Thesis (M.A. 1978) from the Department of French, University of Adelaide, 1977.

Cette étude vise à démontrer qu'en dressant le portrait d'Honoré de Balzac, Michel Butor se met lui-même en scène en plaçant à l'avant-plan certaines de ses propres préoccupations littéraires. Il existe ainsi deux niveaux de discours aux Improvisations, l'un renvoyant à Balzac et l'autre à Butor, comme si le portrait du second se surimprimait à celui du premier. Ce chevauchement invite à des lectures et à des interprétations où chacune des deux oeuvres apporte un éclairage nouveau à l'autre. C'est cette possibilité de dialogue qui sera explorée en rapprochant des textes des deux auteurs et en réfléchissant à la démarche critique et autoréflexive de Butor telle qu'elle se présente dans les Improvisations

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Doctoral)--Université de Caen/Basse-Normandie, U.F.R. sciences de l'homme, spécialité langue et littérature française, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Sonoma State University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-111).