In the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the father is stigmatized because he is often absent from the family structure. The possible reasons for his absence can be found in the Code Noir [Black Code] promulgated in 1685 in the French Caribbean colonies and in 1724 in Mauritius and Reunion. The Black Code is intended to regulate the lives of slaves in the colonies by monitoring their lifestyles, their religion (imposed Catholicism) and their status as commodities. More important, the legal document positions women at the head of the household by defining the legal status of children according to that of their mother, and subsequently denying the black man a role in the family except as procreator. Article XII of the Code stipulates that [c]hildren born in marriages between slaves will belong to the masters of the female slaves and not to those of the husband". As for article XIII, it claims that "[i]f the husband married a free woman, their children, boys and girls, will be free like her no matter the status of their father but if the father is free and the mother is a slave, the children will be slaves like their mother". Thus, it is because she is deprived of a spouse who is her equal that the black woman must occupy the two functions of both mother and father in the family. After the abolition of slavery, French colonial authorities called for cheap and abundant labor, coming mainly from India, to replace the former slave population on the plantations. The arrival of Indian indentured servants (called Coolies), initially hired for five years, transformed the existing social, cultural and economic structure of the islands because Indians replaced the former African slaves at the bottom of the social ladder. Consequently, like the former slaves of African descent, Indian laborers experienced a new language, a new land, new standards and more importantly, they were subjected to the laws of the Black Code that were not originally applicable to them, but still prevailed even after the abolition. Therefore, what I call a Black Code mentality, articulated in the passage from African slavery to Indian indentureship, is what determines the relationships between men and women, of both African and Indian origins. The mentality extends to the post-slavery, colonial and postcolonial situations of these societies of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, until today. The purpose of my dissertation is to examine the persistence of a widespread monoparental pattern in these regions as a logical consequence of the application of the 1685/1724 Code Noir. My thesis underscores the rearticulation and renegotiation of the role of the father, of African and Indian descent, in both his family structure and his community of origin, as a function that was codified, legitimized and predetermined by the Black Code. Besides, I contend that the ethnic, social and cultural components of these societies are, in many respects, relayed by social laws and decrees that have had a significant impact on family structures in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. Through the critical analysis of contemporary literatures and films from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion and Mauritius, my thesis compares two different geographical areas that are legally connected by the Black Code during slavery and evolve, after the abolition, towards a different political status: Guadeloupe, Martinique and Reunion became French Overseas Departments in 1946 whereas Mauritius became independent in 1968. This comparison allows me to question four major critical concepts pertaining to postcolonial theory: Creolization, Creoleness, Indianness and Coolitude, as they relate to the identity politics of two populations present in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean: the African diaspora and the Indian diaspora.

<p>This dissertation explores the themes of race and resistance in nineteenth-century Haitian writings and highlights their impact on French-speaking nineteenth- and twentieth-century African and Caribbean literature. This exploration spans across literary genres and centuries, and juxtaposes disciplines that are rarely put into dialogue with each other. Central to my approach is an interdisciplinary perspective that sheds light on the key interactions between colonial history, legal decrees, anthropology and engaged literature in nineteenth-century French and Francophone studies. And in charting the impact of these writings on the twentieth-century Francophone landscape, this project also addresses current debates in Caribbean, French and Haitian studies and contributes to the growing literature in black Atlantic and postcolonial studies. This research project begins by analyzing rhetorical representations of race and resistance in rare texts from Toussaint Louverture, Pompée-Valentin de Vastey and Juste Chanlatte, in particular with respect to their representations of the Haitian revolution (1791-1804), the only successful slave revolt in history to have resulted in the creation of a new state. By focusing on how Louverture, Vastey and Chanlatte responded to slavery, pseudo-scientific theories of racial difference, and the pernicious effects of the colonial system, it explores both the significance of the revolution's literary representation and the extent of its impact on postcolonial imaginations in Haiti, and the rest of the Caribbean, Africa and France. In particular, I analyze the impact these texts had on subsequent African and Caribbean literature by Emeric Bergeaud, Joseph-Anténor Firmin, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Aimé Césaire, Edouard Glissant, and Bernard Dadié.</p> / Dissertation

Cette thèse porte sur les discours de et sur la francophonie au XXIe siècle, à un moment où l´argumentaire de la Francophonie officielle reposant sur le modèle républicain français et les valeurs qui lui sont associées est contraint de se renouveler, dans un contexte de tiraillement des identités culturelles entre la mondialisation et l´ethnicisation. Nous proposons de désigner par l´expression : f(F)rancophonie, le tissage de liens problématiques, contradictoires et source de violence symbolique, entre la francophonie, en tant qu´ensemble de locuteurs, et la Francophonie institutionnelle. Les discours de la f(F)rancophonie révèlent l´existence d´une manipulation politique de la langue et de la culture s´appuyant sur différents modèles idéologiques de société. L´approche pluridisciplinaire de notre étude permet de mettre au jour, notamment grâce aux outils théoriques de l´analyse du discours et de la pensée postcoloniale, l´alimentation problématique de l´impérialisme culturel à l´œuvre dans la construction de la politique d´influence française (soft power). En effet, le dispositif institutionnel franco–centré offre une force pragmatique à la stratégie discursive de la Francophonie et à sa rhétorique de lutte, de rayonnement et d´universalisme contre l´anti–modèle anglo–américain. Le nouveau paradigme de la diversité culturelle peine parfois à masquer la conception d´une langue française porteuse de l´universalisation d´une culture et d´une identité nationale. L´observation de la langue et de la littérature au prisme des institutions permet d´éclairer les discours de la f(F)rancophonie littéraire dans lesquels l´écrivain francophone semble souvent contraint de composer avec l´héritage colonial d´une langue française auréolée de prestige. Enfin, notre analyse de la théorie et des études littéraires francophones interroge les postures d´écrivains face à l´interrelation du centre français et de ses périphéries. / The doctoral thesis carried out is based on francophonie discourse in the XXIth century, both from and about francophonie. This is a period in which official Francophonie arguments are based on the French republican model, as well as the values associated with it, which is obliged to renew itself within the present context whereby cultural identities are torn between globalisation and ethnicisation. For the purposes of the present research the term f(F)rancophonie shall be defined as the weaving of problematic and contradictory links, which are sources of symbolic violence, between francophonie, in terms of speakers as a whole, and institutional Francophonie. f(F)rancophonie discourse reveals the existence of political manipulation of language and culture through different ideological models of society. The multidisciplinary approach of the present investigation has enabled the updating of the problematical extension of cultural imperialism at work in the construction of French influence policy (soft power), notably thanks to discourse analysis and postcolonial thought theoretical tools. Indeed the francocentered institutional system provides pragmatic power to the Francophonie discursive strategy and to its rhetoric of struggle, influence and universalism against the anglo-american anti-model. At times the new cultural diversity paradigm struggles to conceal the conception of a French language which is the bearer of universalisation of one single cultural and national identity. The comment of language and literature through institutions sheds light on literary f(F)rancophonie discourse within which the francophone writer often appears obliged to compose with the colonial heritage of the French language which is haloed with prestige. Lastly the present analysis of francophone literary theories and studies examines the positions of writers in view of the interrelation between the French center and its peripheries.

<p>This dissertation examines French and Francophone texts, contexts and thematic problems that comprise a genre I call "ethnographic fiction," whose development we can trace throughout the twentieth century in several geographic locations and in distinct historical moments. During the twentieth century in France, anthropology as an institutionalized discipline and "literature" (writ large) were in constant communication with one another. On the one hand, many French anthropologists produced stylized works demonstrating aesthetic sensibilities that were increasingly difficult to classify. On the other hand, though, poets, philosophers and other literary intellectuals read, absorbed, commented on and attacked texts from anthropology. This century-long conversation produced an interdisciplinary conceptual field allowing French anthropology to borrow from and adapt models from literature at the same time as literature asserted itself as more than just an artistic enterprise and, indeed, as one whose epistemological prerogative was to contribute to and enrich the understanding of humankind and its cultural processes. In this dissertation I argue that fiction can be seen to travel in multiple directions within France's twentieth-century conversation between literature and anthropology such that we can observe the formation of a new genre, one comprised of texts that either explicitly or more implicitly fuse fictional forms and contents together with the methodological and representational imperatives of anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork. Additionally, I argue that fiction moves geographically as well, notably from the metropole to Francophone West Africa which became an anthropological hotspot in the twentieth century once extended field research was legitimated in France and armchair anthropology was thoroughly discredited. By investigating ethnographies, novels, memoirs and films produced both in metropolitan France, Francophone West Africa, and the French Caribbean (including texts by Michel Leiris, Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Jean Rouch, Jean-Claude Izzo and Raphaël Confiant), I aim to shed light on the kinds of work that elements of fiction perform in ethnographic texts and, by contrast, on how ethnographic concepts, strategies and fieldwork methods are implicitly or explicitly adopted and reformulated in more literarily oriented works of fiction. Ethnographic fiction as a genre, then, was born not only from the epistemological rapprochement of anthropology and literature in metropolitan France, but from complex and often fraught encounters with the very locations where anthropological praxis was carried out.</p> / Dissertation

Le cinéma est un art qui repose sur des moyens techniques de capture et de reproduction du mouvement et du son. Il s’impose après la littérature, la peinture et la photographie par sa virtuosité nouvelle à créer des artifices à l’image du monde. Une fois défait de l’objectif mimétique, il conquiert sa légitimité artistique par l’écart discursif esthétique ou critique. Il ne reproduit plus seulement les images en mouvement de la nature, des hommes et des sociétés, il les met en scène et les met en tension. Le discours universitaire a investigué et continue d’interroger les traces du monde qu’il propose, la spécificité de ses images, ses techniques et sa grammaire, la conception de l’art et de l’artiste qu’il offre. En histoire du cinéma, la littérature consacrée aux cinématographies nationales et aux monographies de réalisateurs est importante tandis que la sémiologie, l’analyse de films et la philosophie du cinéma ont construit les concepts opératoires nécessaires à la considération transversale des œuvres par-delà les frontières nationales et génériques. Les travaux de recherche consacrés à la réalisatrice martiniquaise Euzhan Palcy s’inscrivent dans cette tradition. En effet, l’analyse a à cœur de rendre compte de son travail et de la placer dans l’histoire du cinéma et de l’art. / Cinema is an art based on technical devices to capture and reproduce motion and sound. It surpasses literature, painting and photography by its virtuosity in creating new reality-like images of the world. Once rid of its mimetic purpose, cinema conquered its artistic legitimacy by making full use of its technical specificities to develop discursive, aesthetic and/or critical perspectives. It no longer simply displays moving images of nature, people and society, it stages them and builds narrative tension. The academic discourse has investigated and continues to examine the traces of the world it offers, the specificity of its images, techniques and grammar, the conception of art and the understanding of the artist it suggests. In film history, the literature on national cinematography and monographs about directors is important while semiotics, film analysis and the philosophy of cinema gave rise to the operational concepts needed to consider works across national liens and genres.The research devoted to Martinican director Euzhan Palcy fits into this tradition. The analysis aims to account for her body of works and places her in the history of cinema and the arts.