Edward Said stresses the politically and ideologically skewed nature of western imperial responses to colonised or formerly colonised cultures and peoples, articulated in a variety of media, including scholarly and imaginative writings, which are inflected by the various kinds of power (political, intellectual, cultural and moral) that the West has wielded and continues to wield over non-Western regions of the world. While recognising the pathbreaking import of Said's work, critics have pointed out his blindness to the possibilities of resistance to and subversion of the discourse of Empire within the western-authored texts that he discusses. Even where he does consider the issue of resistance and opposition to Empire by western intellectuals, he still stresses the complicity of their texts with the processes of Empire. If one were to pursue the logic of such criticisms to its limit and apply it to the intellectual resistance generated from the centre in the context of the post-War dismantling of European overseas empires and its aftermath, one might be tempted to conclude that such resistance constitutes an unqualified disruption of colonial modes of apprehending difference. Against the backdrop of such readings of Said, this thesis examines the issue of cross-cultural representation in a selection of mainstream metropolitan French writings relating to black Africa produced between 1945 and the present. It brings together scholars and writers like Gide, Sartre and Griaule, some of whose works relating to black Africa belong to the first decade of the post-War period marked by France's continued colonial presence in the continent. It also considers other scholars and writers like Dumont, Conchon, Verchave and Le Clézio, whose books appeared in the second and succeeding decades of the period. The overall aim is to identify the ways in which these writers respond individually and collectively to black Africa often construed as a paradigm of cultural difference, and to consider whether such cross-cultural responses, given their historical context, can be described as being invariably a function of the changing relations between France and black Africa. What forms do the cross-cultural responses take? What cultural assumptions and ideological motivations shape those responses? Are the responses entirely disruptive of colonial modes of relating to difference? If not, what are their aporias, their ambiguities and paradoxes? My conclusion is that while Sartre and others relate to black Africa with unmistakeable empathy, their positive cross-cultural disposition does not necessarily enable them to attain a relationship with the peoples and cultures of Africa which is an equipollent relationship between equals.

Ramon Fernandez, un des plus eminents critiques francais de l’ entre-deux-guerres, revient a l’actualite apres une eclipse de trente-cinq ans. Et en meme temps revient le souvenir d’une carriere commencee avec eclat sous le signe de l’humanisme de la personnalite et terminee prematurement par la mort au moment ou s’effondrait autour de Fernandez le nouvel ordre europeen dont il etait devenu un des principaux porte-paroles. Comment expliquer la trajectoire qui le mena du socialisme au fascisme, de l’extreme-gauche en 1934 a la Collaboration en 1940? Pourquoi le decalage, sensible a ses contemporains, entre la promesse de l’oeuvre et l'apparent echec de l'homme? D'aucuns en ont cherche la clef dans le conflit d'heritages spirituels ou dans le sentiment de declassement social d'un homme ne d'une mere franc;aise d'origine bourgeoise et d'un aristocrate mexicain. Et qui pour comble de difficulte se sentait different de sa generation pour ne pas avoir fait la guerre de 1914-1918. Nous croyons que les racines du drame sont ailleurs, dans le bouleversement subi par un enfant accidentellement prive de son pere a l’age de onze ans, traumatisme qui rencontrant dans le psychisme les traces du fantasme parricidaire, devint le mobile profond de sa vocation. Dans la premiere partie de notre these, nous ex ami nons les faits de la jeunesse de Fernandez et les traits de sa personnalite a la lumiere des concepts psychanalytiques. Dans la deuxieme partie, nous montrons comment les themes, I 'organisation et le langage de sa pensee prennent leur sens dans des idees inconscientes se referant a la mort du pere, problematique que Fernandez essaya d'explorer imaginativement dans ses romans, auxquels nous consacrons la section suivante. Nous montrons enfin comment ses ouvrages critiques successifs reposent sur une identification de caractere paternel avec l'auteur qui evolue selon des modalites psychiques.

The decade 1940-1950 represents a decisive stage in the evolution of the relations between the Quebec literary scene and France. Whereas before the war, literary discourse keeps on upholding, in a dogmatic way, the superiority of French culture and literature, the next period is characterized, on the contrary, by a reassessment of this postulate. / The historical circumstances justify the setting up of exceptional institutional conditions. Some French writers and critics, in exile in North America, partake, to varying degrees, in the French Canadian literary scene. The backing of these intellectuals is not unrelated to the process of modernization and autonomization undertaken at that time by the major sectors of the Quebecer literary apparatus. / A conflict of interest in the publishing sector as well as ideological differences spark a controversy between Robert Carbonneau and some members of the Comite National des Ecrivains. This "quarrel", to quote Charbonneau, is an unprecedented example of direct confrontation between Quebecer and French literary agents. On this occasion, Robert Charbonneau redefines French Canadian literature outside of France's sphere of influence, France being a country whose status he wishes to limit to that of just one foreign reference among many. / This desire for autonomy can also be found in literary texts which, using means available to them, bear witness to an appreciable decline of the French literature. But whereas literary discourse attempts to resist annexation to French literature, the literary apparatus is subject, upon the Liberation, to a material and symbolic domination by the French authorities, a domination it cannot fight. In this respect, the conditions of literary production in the fifties are paradoxical since the text, while voicing its rejection of the French institution and its French Canadian identity, continues to receive its ultimate consecration from France.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of French, Classics, and Italian, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Nov. 20, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 142-148). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-270).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 278-290).

Mémoire (M.E.L.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 1998. / Ce mémoire a été réalisé à Chicoutimi dans le cadre du programme de maîtrise en études littéraires de l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières extensionné à l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. CaQCU Bibliogr.: p. [128-130]. Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Mémoire (M.E.L.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2001. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Mémoire (M.E.L.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2001. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU