My goal is to study the nature of the Marvelous in René Depestre's Hadriana dans tous mes rêves. I want to demonstrate that René Depestre, in his novel, combines a number of surrealist or neo-surrealist premises that have influenced him as a Haitian writer. This goes beyond differences that can be discerned between the "Surrealist marvelous" endorsed by André Breton and the surrealists, and Alejo Capentier's "marvelous real"later proposed by Jacques Stephen Alexis as "marvelous realism" Depestre adapts Haitian natives' perceptions deep-rooted in their historical and social, cultural and religious past and ever-existing political and economical struggle. Taking into account both the surrealist perspective and the Haitian context, I shall address the complexity of the concept of the Marvelous and discuss Depestre's use of "zombification"as a form of metamorphosis, which preserves the mystical nature of Vodou as a religion that syncretizes the Roman Catholic ritual of exorcism of the Christian West and the animist and magical practices inherited from Africa. Scholars have explored the Marvelous and marvelous realism in Depestre's works as a whole, but not in Hadriana dans tous mes rêves specifically. The exclusive nature of this study will show that Depestre draws from Haiti's complex cultural ethos as well as from surrealism'es key principles, to create a hybrid Marvelous typical of Haiti and Depestre'es aesthetic as a writer. / text

Summaries in French and English / Text in French / Les romans analyses - Une si longue lettre et Un chant ecarlate de Mariama Ba, O pays, mon beau peuple! by d'Ousmane Sembene et Agar d' Albert Memmi - proposent tous une histoire se deroulant en Afrique et ayant pour theme le mariage mixte et/ou polygame, theme particulierement riche comme foyer d'observation socioculturelle et interculturelle des milieux evoques. Le chapitre 1 cerne le theme du mariage et ses diverses configurations mixtes et polygames dans les quatre roamns. Sont examines dans les chapitres suivants: les rapports familiaux et sociaux tels qu'ils sont vecus par les couples protagonistes; la polygamie, centrale aux deux romans de Ba et omnipresente dans celui de Sembene; les religions des societes concernees, telles qu' ell es affectent les couples en jeu; les images de la femme - et surtout de la femme africaine - qui ressortent des situations conjugates developpees par les auteurs; l'eventuelle influence du sexe de l'auteur sur la representation de la femme. / The novels analysed - Une si longue lettre and Un chant ecarlate by Mariama Ba, O pays, mon beau peuple! by Ousmane Sembene and Agar by Albert Memmi - all tell stories set in Africa and share the theme of mixed and/or polygamous marriage, a particularly fertile theme through which to focus a socio-cultural and intercultural examination of the social environments portrayed. Chapter 1 identifies the theme of marriage and the various mixed/polygamous configurations it assumes in the four novels. The succeeding chapters examine: family and social relationships as experienced by the protagonists; polygamy, central to both novels by Ba and omnipresent in Sembene's novel; the religions of the societies portrayed, insofar as they affect the couples concerned; the images of woman - and particularly the Afiican woman - emerging from the marital situations developed by the authors and, finally, the possible influence of authorial gender on the presentation of woman. / Classics and Modern Euorpean Languages / M.A. (French)

À travers ses créations littéraires, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, écrivaine libanaise francophone vivant à Paris, propose une alternative à une représentation cloisonnante du Liban et de l’identité libanaise. Son regard, développé en français depuis le « dehors », met à profit sa marginalisation à l’égard d’une littérature nationale soucieuse d’« authenticité culturelle » pour inventer d’autres images de son pays d’origine. L’effet littéraire et stylistique produit par une écriture poétique et romanesque, qui se situe à l’intersection des cultures et des langues, est particulièrement saisissant dans son emploi de la métaphore. Cette figure de style est envisagée d’abord à travers les problématiques de la représentation du national, puis dans sa fonction de « passeur culturel » dans le texte, dans un premier temps dans une perspective interculturelle, et dans un second temps dans une perspective transculturelle.Dès lors que l’on considère la culture comme un processus plutôt que comme un patrimoine, la métaphore khouryghatienne se présente comme un dispositif stylistique dans le texte qui ouvre des possibles dans les discours identitaires. En ce sens elle joue chez Vénus Khoury-Ghata le même rôle que la Relation dans la totalité-monde glissantienne. Par le travail de la métaphore, l’œuvre khouryghatienne ouvre la conscience nationale à la conscience mondiale en réalisant la rencontre entre de multiples cultures et œuvre à la compréhension et à la reconstruction identitaire du peuple libanais. / Through her literary works, Francophone Lebanese writer Vénus Khoury-Ghata who resides in Paris, suggests an alternative idea to that of the isolated representation of Lebanon and of the Lebanese identity. Expressed in French from the outside of her motherland’s limits, her point of view makes good use of her marginalization towards the national literature which worries about its “cultural authenticity” while aiming to invent other images of her own country.The literary effect produced through the writing of her poetry and novels, which is situated and placed in the meeting point of cultures and languages, is thought particularly striking through her use of the metaphor. This figure of speech is contemplated primarily through the issues about the representation of the Nation, and it is then dealt with its function of “cultural crossing” through text, firstly in an intercultural perspective and secondly in a transcultural one. Seeing that they consider culture as a process rather than that of heritage, the khouryghatien metaphor in the text stands as a way of disclosing the realms of “possibles” in the Identity studies. In this sense, it plays the same role in Vénus Khoury-Ghata’s work as the Relation in Glissant’s total world. Through the metaphor task, khouryghatien poetry and novels widen national consciousness to the world by encouraging the meeting among multiple cultures and it also works for understanding and reconstructing the identity of the Lebanese people. / Attraverso le sue creazioni letterarie Vénus Khoury-Ghata, scrittrice libanese francofona residente a Parigi, propone un'alternativa ad una rappresentazione separativa del Libano e dell'identità libanese. Il suo punto di vista, elaborato in francese "dall'esterno", mette a profitto la propria marginalizzazione rispetto ad una letteratura nazionale attenta a preservare un’"autenticità culturale" per creare immagini diverse del suo paese d'origine. L'effetto letterario e stilistico prodotto da una scrittura - e in versi e in prosa - situata nell'intersezione di culture e lingue, riesce particolarmente incisivo nell'uso della metafora. Questa figura stilistica viene esaminata anzitutto attraverso le problematiche della rappresentazione del significato nazionale, quindi nella sua funzione di "passeur culturale" nel testo, dapprima nell'ambito di una prospettiva interculturale e poi entro una prospettiva transculturale. Qualora si intenda la cultura come un processo "in fieri" anziché un patrimonio esclusivo da salvaguardare, la metafora khouryghatiana appare come un dispositivo stilistico atto ad aprire dei "possibili" nei discorsi identitari. In questo senso essa gioca nell’opera di Khoury-Ghata lo stesso ruolo della Relazione nella totalità-mondo di Édouard Glissant. Tramite la creazione della metafora, l'opera khouryghatiana apre, dunque, la consapevolezza nazionale a quella mondiale favorendo l'incontro tra più culture e concorre alla comprensione e alla ricostruzione identitaria del popolo libanese.

This thesis grapples with questions surrounding representation, mourning, and responsibility in relation to two literary representations of the ZONG massacre of 1781. These texts are M. NourbeSe Philip’s ZONG! and Fred D’Aguiar’s FEEDING THE GHOSTS. The only extant archival document—a record of the insurance dispute which ensued as a consequence of the massacre—does not represent the drowned as victims, nor can it represent the magnitude of the atrocity. As such, this thesis posits that the archival gaps or silences from which the captives’ voices are missing become spaces of possibility for additive representation. This thesis also examines the role voice and sound play in these literary texts and the deconstructive-ethical philosophies of Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Derrida. This thesis argues that these texts invoke the sonic materiality of voice in the service of responding to the disremembered dead through mourning and acknowledgment.

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes examines the ways we encounter environments as readers/viewers of operas, literature, film, and sound recordings, and how each medium requires different detail-gathering techniques. Respective to the previously mentioned mediums, Sun & Sea (2017), Mount Analogue (1952), El Mar La Mar (2017), and Energy Field (2010) are analyzed by engaging with environmental media studies and invention. Reflecting the nature of each landscape—summits of mountains, aporias of deserts, and mysteries of waterscapes—an elemental approach is taken in investigating how these spaces may be noticed, internalized, recorded, and traversed by both the artist and viewer. With an emphasis on limitations of mediums, language, and equipment, this thesis argues that artists/readers/viewers in turn inhabit these rendered environments—while a looped response (termed as operatic mysticism) threads ekphrasis and imagination before and during the production, in the art proper, and in our minds during and well-after consumption.

Much work exploring alterity and hybridity in the Maghreb ignores representations of education which confront seminal formative experiences, specifically education. French colonial education was problematic because it granted access to the colonizer’s culture, yet it also created a rupture in self-identity for Maghrebi students. In this thesis, I interrogate the literary representations of sites and sources of education by analyzing how these representations discuss the tension between formal French education and informal Maghrebi education. My thesis begins with a historical overview of colonial education in the Maghreb. I then discuss literary methods of negotiating identity, contrasting Arab and Western autobiography especially. Furthermore, I compare writing practices informed by a French education and a North African upbringing. Next, I compare formal and informal sites of education—the school, home and community—which articulate sources of alterity experienced during colonial childhood. Writers interrogate formal settings, including the school, classrooms, teachers, and examinations, and gaze upon the normative space and dominant culture which contradict that of the home. Conversely, informal settings provide subversive sources of education that resist the power structures of colonial France. These sites, including parents, the home, and community, provide an oppositional education and a means of resistance to rejected systems of power. Both settings represent spaces of cultural confrontation that serve as both a means of betrayal as well as benefit to students. The texts I consider discuss the dynamic end of the French colonial period yet were written over a period of time that allowed for personal reflection by the authors as well as for contributions by literary critics and historians that affected the perception and comprehension of the volatile period at the end of French colonialism and the fall of the Fourth Republic.

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This thesis and its corresponding art installation, Lessons from Ziggy, attempts to deconstruct the variables prevalent within several complex systems, analyze their transformations, and propose a methodology for reasserting the soap box within the display pedestal. In this text, there are several key and specific examples of the transformation of various signifiers (i.e. media-bred fear’s transformation into a political tactic of surveillance, contemporary freneticism’s transformation into complacency, and community’s transformation into nationalism as a state weapon). In this essay, all of these concepts are contextualized within the exponential growth of new technologies. That is to say, all of these semiotic developments must be framed within the post-Internet sphere.