This thesis analyses discourses about the roles and barriers to access for women to decision-making positions in Israeli sport organisations. In particular it focuses on the exploration of discourses of masculinity and femininity that underpin the relatively recent construction of Israel society and the institutions of sport within it. It is observed that for the most part, Israeli sport organisations are governed by men and have served the interests of forms of hegemonic masculinity. In order to understand and explore the social construction of these gendered discourses in Israeli sport, two innovative and significant policy initiatives toward gender equity in sport were explored through the perceptions and discourses of key actors. These include the establishment of a Volleyball Academy for Young Talented Girls (VAYTG) and the creation of the National Project for Women and Sport (NPWS). The theoretical framework for this thesis is informed by poststructuralist feminism, which provided an alternative way to understand and analyse voices of the (predominantly female) 'other' and thus to explore the historical contextual construction of current discourses of masculinity within Israeli sport organisations and society as a whole. The process of narrative revisions and production of gendered knowledge revealed how discourses produce and reinforce gender inequities in Israeli society, such as the discourse of militarisation or the unique political affiliation system in the sporting arena which continue to implicitly exclude women (and some men) from gaining access to leadership positions in sport organisations. Within this theoretical frame, Critical Discourse Analysis was employed as a methodological approach to analyse how female and male interviewees, all considered to be 'insiders' within their organisations, explained the process of the construction of gendered roles and barriers. Included in the interview data was also the auto-ethnographical accounts of the author, who was a primary actor in the process of developing policy in the two case study initiatives addressed. Dominant discourses of femininity (such as the discourse of sisterhood and of the processes of mentoring), and of masculinity (and how these promote uniformity) were identified as mechanisms for reproducing the gendered reality of sport leadership in Israel. The implication of a critical theoretical approach is that it should be emancipatory in its ambitions and impact, and the study is intended to contribute to enhancing the understanding of how discourse not only reflects but also creates barriers and opportunities so that the construction of such barriers can be challenged in progressive policy discourses.

Les nanosciences et les nanotechnologies (NST) s’inscrivent dans un champ technoscientifique, le nanomonde, qui a pour socle l’hybridation autant conceptuelle que pratique entre le domaine de la nature et celui de la technique. Dans ce mémoire nous nous intéressons au basculement de la distinction entre le naturel et l’artificiel qui s’ensuit. Un retour socio-historique sur la construction du dualisme nature/artifice propre aux sociétés modernes nous aide alors à saisir les enjeux socio-culturels impliqués dans sa remise en question. La déconstruction, à travers la méthode d’analyse de discours, d’entretiens réalisés avec les principaux chercheurs en NST au Québec illustre empiriquement, tout en le systématisant, le double processus d’artificialisation de la nature et de naturalisation de la technique, pointé théoriquement comme caractéristique de la remise en cause de la distinction entre nature et artifice qu’opère le nanomonde. Nous suggérons que l’artificialisation de la nature et la naturalisation de la technique, loin d’être contradictoires, constituent des éléments d’une dynamique synergique dont le résultat est une désontologisation de la nature comme catégorie de la pensée et une déqualification du monde qui distingue l’activité humaine. / Nanosciences and nanotechnologies (NST) are part of a technoscientific field, the nanoworld, which is founded on a theoretical and practical hybridization between nature and technique. In this master thesis we are interested in the blurring of the distinction between the natural and the artificial that so follows. From a socio-historical perspective of the construction of the dualism nature/artefact typical of modern societies, we try to apprehend the socio-cultural stakes that might result from its reversal. Through discourse analysis of interviews conducted with the main researchers in NST in Quebec, we illustrate empirically, and systematize, the double process of artificialisation of nature and naturalization of technique, which is theoretically pointed out as characteristic of the blur of the distinction between nature and technique carried out in the nanoworld. We suggest that the two terms, artificialisation of nature and naturalization of technique, far from being contradictory, rather constitute elements of a synergetic dynamics that leads to a de-ontologisation of nature as a category of thought and a disqualification of the domain that distinguishes human activity. / Conseil de Recherches en sciences humaines du Canada

La rencontre tant attendue entre Hans-Georg Gadamer et Jacques Derrida a finalement eu lieu au Goethe-Institut de Paris en 1981. Le dialogue espéré entre l'herméneutique et la déconstruction s'y est cependant à peine engagé. Selon la plupart des commentateurs, la conférence qu'y a prononcée Derrida n'était d'ailleurs même pas liée à la rencontre. Nous ne partageons pas cette opinion. Derrida a choisi de critiquer l'interprétation heideggérienne de Nietzsche, alors que Gadamer venait de faire un plaidoyer inconditionnel en sa faveur. De plus, la structure axiomatique de l'unité et de la totalité que Derrida met en question dans sa conférence est la même que celle qu'il a ailleurs attribuée à l'herméneutique. En mettant en doute la primauté de cette structure, il s'en prenait donc aux fondements de l'herméneutique telle qu'il la concevait. Enfin, sa conférence a laissé entrevoir une conception de l'interprétation dont l'absence d'horizon de vérité exclut l'herméneutique. / The long-awaited encounter between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jacques Derrida finally took place in Paris' Goethe-Institut in 1981. However, the expectations of a dialogue between hermeneutics and deconstruction were hardly fulfilled. Most commentators even agree that the conference Derrida read on this occasion had nothing to do with the actual encounter. We disagree with this assessment. Gadamer had already openly and unconditionally endorsed Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche and Derrida chose this occasion to criticize it. Moreover, he called into question the same axiomatic structure of unity and totality that he had elsewhere presented as hermeneutics' own. By questioning this structure, he was attempting to dismantle the core of what hermeneutics was to him. Finally, his conference provided a glimpse into an interpretative approach that completely excludes the truth-centered interpretation of hermeneutics.

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 study explores formal and thematic representations of ruins in twentieth century literary texts, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck.” Analyzing these texts and concepts of ruins in the theoretical work of Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Julia Kristeva, I argue that ruins underscore the arbitrariness—and, thus, the fragility—of symbolic systems of signification. Ruins, by virtue of their fragmentation, invite nostalgic projections of totality only to betray totality as an illusion. Thus, the imagination of wholeness that the ruin incites allows—only to disallow—meaning. Modernity and language also initiate an allegorical process by which representation is made possible and impossible. Proclaiming an alliance (based on a contrast) between the past and the present, signifiers and signifieds, modernity and language likewise betray that representation, by invoking a radical alterity, is ruined from inception.

This thesis is an overview of the processes and procedures used in the production of my artistic practice. In my work, I explore notions such as the ambiguity of the photographic image, what constitutes an image or object as photographic, and the unexplored possibilities of the medium through surface and mark making. In addition, I draw inspiration from artists Wolfgang Tillmans, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Marco Breuer as entrance points to my conceptual interests. For viewers, my work generates an internal dialogue about the limits of the photographic medium.

This thesis explores the psychological trauma of the survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which occurred on April 26, 1986. I argue for the emergence from the disaster of three Chernobyl traumas, each of which will be analysed individually – one per chapter. In reading these three traumas of Chernobyl, the thesis draws upon and situates itself at the interface between two primary theoretical perspectives: Freudian psychoanalysis and the deconstructive approach of Jacques Derrida. The first Chernobyl trauma is engendered by the panicked local response to the consequences of the explosion at Chernobyl Reactor Four by the power plant’s staff, the fire fighters whose job it was to extinguish the initial blaze caused by the blast, the inhabitants of nearby towns and villages, and the soldiers involved in the region’s evacuation and radiation decontamination. Most of these people died from radiation poisoning in the days, weeks, months or years after the disaster’s occurrence. The first chapter explores the usefulness and limits of Freudian psychoanalytic readings of local survivors’ testimonies of the disaster, examining in relation to the Chernobyl event Freud’s practice of locating the authentic primal scene or originary traumatic witnessing experience in his subjects’ pasts, as exemplified by his Wolf Man analysis, detailed in his psychoanalytic study ‘On the History of an Infantile Neurosis’ (1918). The testimonies read through this Freudian psychoanalytic lens are constituted by Igor Kostin’s personal account of the disaster’s aftermath, detailed in his book Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter (2006), and by Svetlana Alexievich’s interviews with Chernobyl disaster survivors in her book Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (2006). The second chapter argues that Freudian psychoanalysis only provides a provisional, ultimately fictional origin of Chernobyl trauma. Situating itself in relation to trauma studies, this thesis, progressing from its first to its second chapter, charts the geographical and temporal shift between these first and second traumas, from trauma-as-sudden-event to trauma-as-gradual-process. In the weeks following the initial Chernobyl explosion, which released into the atmosphere a radioactive cloud that blew in a north-westerly direction across Northern Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden, symptoms of radiation poisoning slowly emerged in the populations of the abovementioned countries. To analyse the psychological impact of confronting this gradual, international unfolding of trauma – the second trauma of Chernobyl – the second chapter of this thesis explores the critique of the global attempt to archivise, elegise and ultimately understand the Chernobyl disaster in Mario Petrucci’s elegies, compiled in his poetry collection Heavy Water: A Poem for Chernobyl (2006), the horror film Chernobyl Diaries (2012, dir. Bradley Parker), and Adam Roberts’ Science Fiction novel, Yellow Blue Tibia (2009). Analysing the deconstructive approach of Jacques Derrida in these texts – his notions of archive fever, impossible mourning and ethical mourning – this chapter argues that the attempt to interiorise, memorialise and mourn the survivors of the Chernobyl disaster is narcissistic, hubristic and violent in the extreme. It then proposes that Derrida’s notion of ethical mourning, outlined most clearly in his lecture ‘Mnemosyne’ (1984), enables us to situate our emotional sympathy for survivors – who, following Derrida’s lecture, are maintained as permanently exterior and inaccessible to us – in our very inability or failure to comprehend or locate the origin of their Chernobyl traumas. The third and final chapter analyses the third trauma of Chernobyl: the psychological and physiological effects of the disaster on second-generation inhabitants living near the Exclusion Zone erected around the evacuated, cordoned-off and still-radioactive Chernobyl region. These second-generation experiences of living near a sealed-away source of intense radiation are reconstructed in literature and videogaming: in Darragh McKeon’s novel All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (2014), Hamid Ismailov’s novel The Dead Lake (2014) and the videogame S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007), developed by the company GSC Game World. The analysis of these texts is informed by Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok’s psychoanalytic theory of the intergenerational phantom: the muteness of a generation’s history which returns to haunt the succeeding generations. This chapter will explore the psychological effects upon second-generation Chernobyl survivors, which result from these survivors’ incorporation or unconscious interiorisation of their parents’ psychologically repressed traumatic Chernobyl experiences, by analysing reconstructions of this process in the abovementioned texts. These parental experiences, echoing the Exclusion Zone as a denied physical space, have been interred in inaccessible psychic crypts. By way of conclusion, the thesis then offers an alternative theory of reading survivors’ Chernobyl trauma. Survivors’ restaging of their Chernobyl witnessing experiences as jokes enables them to cathartically, temporarily abreact their trauma through the laughter that these jokes engender.

Le théâtre est le lieu d’un rapport privilégié au corps, dans la co-présence du corps de l’acteur et du corps du spectateur au moment de la représentation théâtrale. Il est l’arène privilégiée où s’observe l’impact des bouleversements qui ont modifié les codes de la représentation au cours du vingtième siècle. Le théâtre anglais contemporain attire les regards sur le spectacle d’un corps souffrant, exhibé, violenté (théâtre In-yer-face, théâtre de la Catastrophe) et dans le même temps propose la représentation d’un corps spectral dans un théâtre influencé par Beckett. Ces deux tendances – corps spectacle et corps spectral – sont les signes visibles d’une crise de la représentation du corps et de la déconstruction du sujet. Les auteurs que nous avons choisis pour cette étude (Edward Bond, Howard Barker, Martin Crimp et Sarah Kane) se sont imposés comme les figures de proue d’un théâtre non-naturaliste, poétique et subversif, qui font du corps le pilier de leurs esthétiques. Notre étude se présente comme une anatomie du « corps esthétique » (Roland Barthes) dans une perspective comparatiste des dramaturgies abordées. Elle explore le rôle du corps dans tous les domaines de la représentation : Comment le texte construit-il le corps ? Comment le corps envahit-il le texte ? Quelles sont les stratégies mises en œuvre pour représenter le corps dans le passage de la page au plateau ? Quelle est la place du corps de l’acteur ? du corps du spectateur ? Parce que « le » corps n’existe pas, les théâtres du corps en jeu ne cessent d’affirmer le potentiel illimité du corps en exposant la labilité du corps du personnage, de l’acteur et du spectateur. / The theatre is a privileged site to understand the body, because of the copresence of the body of the actor and that of the spectator during the representation. It is the privileged arena where we can observe the consequences of the upheavals that changed the conventions in representation in the course of the twentieth century. English contemporary theatre attracts our attention both to the spectacle of a suffering body, which is also exposed and violated (In-yer-face theatre, the theatre of Catastrophe) and that of a spectral body, in a theatre influenced by Beckett. These two trends – the body as spectacle and the spectral body – are the visible signs of a crisis in the representation of the body and the deconstruction of the subject. The authors chosen for this study (Edward Bond, Howard Barker, Martin Crimp and Sarah Kane) are the figureheads of a non-naturalistic, poetic and subversive theatre. The body is at the core of their aesthetics. Our contention is to develop an anatomy of the “aesthetic body” (Roland Barthes) with a comparative approach of the works, and to investigate the role of the body in all the different fields of representation: How does the text create a body? How does the body invade the text? What are the strategies at stake to represent the body in the translation from page to stage? How is the body of the actor used? How is the spectator’s body affected? Because it seems there is no such thing as “the” body, the theatres of the “body-at-play” try to reassess the limitless potential of the body, to deliver it from all constraints, and to expose the lability of the character’s body, as well as the actor’s and the spectator’s.

Cette monographie invite à une étude de la pensée de la frontière chez Walter Scott (1771-1832) à partir d’une analyse textuelle détaillée de ses romans écossais — dont l’intrigue se déroule en Écosse, près des Borders ou de la faille frontalière des Highlands, principalement aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles autour de l’Union des deux royaumes anglais et écossais. Elle découvre un ensemble d’interactions entre les concepts de limite et de frontière en s’appuyant sur une stratégie particulière, élaborée par l’auteur, fervent opposant à tout manichéisme. Ce dernier fixe les frontières envisagées comme des limites, des bornes immuables et infranchissables, pour ensuite les déconstruire, c’est-à-dire les traverser, les déplacer et les brouiller avant de les dissoudre dans le but d’atteindre un état d’entre-deux parfait où les contraires s’unissent harmonieusement. Cette thèse permet de dégager une voie du milieu scottienne faisant de Scott un écrivain d’avant-garde pour son époque, et qui reste très novateur aujourd’hui encore, car il annonce bien des préoccupations postmodernes. / This monograph is dedicated to the question of limits and borders in Walter Scott (1771-1832)’s Scottish novels — thus called because the stories are set in the Borders or near the Highland line mostly in the 17th and 18th centuries at the time of the Union between the two kingdoms of England and Scotland. A very detailed analysis of the texts of the novels helps us to discover a series of interactions between the two concepts of limit and border which are grounded in a particular strategy developed by the author — a fervent opponent to Manichaeism. He sets boundaries, seen as fixed and impassable limits, and then deconstructs them, i.e. has them be crossed, moved, blurred before dissolving them in order to reach a perfect in-between state where all opposites mingle harmoniously. This thesis enables us to define a Scottian middle way, which makes Scott an avant-garde writer in his own time, and still nowadays since he paves the way for many a postmodern concern.

Les cocktails enzymatiques tels que Rovabio® sont utilisés en nutrition animale comme complément alimentaire pour aider les animaux à mieux assimiler les fibres présentes dans leur ration alimentaire composée principalement de blé en Europe. Le mécanisme de déconstruction enzymatique du son de blé, partie du grain majoritairement composée de fibres, considérées comme difficilement hydrolysables et donc assimilables reste encore incompris, c’est pourquoi ces travaux de thèse s’appuient sur l’utilisation d’un bioréacteur instrumenté combinant des analyses physiques in-situ et biochimiques ex-situ afin d’avoir un point de vue global de ce phénomène. Cette approche multi-échelle est originale car rarement considérée en nutrition animale où les études in-vivo sont privilégiées. Cos travaux ont ainsi permis de mettre en évidence que l’action de Rovabio® se caractérise par une première phase de fragmentation notamment des grosses particules concomitante avec une forte solubilisation. La déconstruction du son de blé se poursuit ensuite par une fragmentation mais cette fois sans aucune solubilisation de polysaccharides. L’ajout d’une xylanase seule, en tant qu’enzyme la plus active du cocktail, solubilise la même quantité d’arabinoxylane mais ne permet pas une fragmentation importante des particules, contrairement au Rovabio®. Ces résultats confirment donc l’importance de la richesse et de la diversité d’un cocktail enzymatique pour déconstruire efficacement des structures aussi complexe que le son de blé. Cependant, en dépit de cela, seulement 37%w/w de matière sèche est solubilisée, même en excès de Rovabio®. Cette incapacité du cocktail enzymatique à dégrader complètement ces fibres semblerait provenir d’une inaccessibilité des enzymes à leur substrat. Nous avons ainsi montré que le rendement d’hydrolyse enzymatique est amélioré en augmentant la surface spécifique des particules (traitement mécanique) et/ ou en désorganisant l’architecture de la structure des fibres par l’ajout d’un complexe enzymatique particulièrement riche en pectinases. Néanmoins, si ces deux voies améliorent les performances du cocktail, elles ne permettent toujours pas une hydrolyse totale du son de blé. Finalement ce travail souligne l’intérêt d’enzymes ou de protéines actives capables d’attaquer les structures minoritaires du réseau lignocellulosique assurant sa résistance et sa cohésion, ce qui permet ainsi aux enzymes d’avoir un meilleur accès à leurs substrats. / Enzyme cocktails, such as Rovabio®, which is rich of hydrolytic enzymes are used as feed additives to favor degradation of non-starch polysaccharides present in wheat, a major feed in poultry industry. The deconstruction mechanism of wheat bran, part of the seed mainly composed of fiber, is still fairly unclear. This PhD aims to highlight these mechanisms using a multi-instrumented bioreactor that allowed to combine in-situ physical and ex-situ biochemical analyses. This multiscale approach stands as an alternative and original approach which is rarely considered in animal nutrition. This work highlights that Rovabio® action occurred in two concurrent process, namely fragmentation and solubilization phenomena which take place within the first 2 h after addition of the enzyme cocktail. It is then followed by a particle fragmentation which was not accompanied by any sugars solubilization. Thus, in spite of the abundant and very active hydrolytic enzyme activities in Rovabio®, the deconstruction of destarched wheat bran was however limited to 37% of w/w. At variance to Rovabio®, xylanase added alone was capable of solubilization activity (same final release of xylose and arabinose) but the fragmentation was much weaker by only disorganizing the fibrous network and hence led to particle disaggregation. Altogether, these results confirmed the importance of the enzyme mixtures which act in a synergistic manner to readily solubilize wheat bran. Our results also indicated that the limitation of Rovabio® action upon wheat bran degradation may come from physical inaccessibility of the substrate as it could be partially overcome by enhancing the substrate specific surface by a mechanical treatment and/or due to some missing or limiting enzyme activity as shown by a slight increase in solubilization following addition of some pectinases cocktails that are poorly represented in Rovabio®. Nevertheless, these complementary actions were still insufficient for complete hydrolysis of wheat bran. To conclude, this work draws attention to plant cell wall-deconstructing enzymes or active proteins which are able to attack the biomass minor structures and disorganize its network in order to increase substrate accessibility to enzymes that cleave backbone structures.