Voilà plus d'une génération que les visual studies ont entrepris de bousculer procédures scientifiques et organigrammes universitaires, dans le monde anglo-américain d’abord, puis à l’échelle planétaire. Jouant la porosité des champs du savoir, ce courant de recherches fonctionne à la manière d’une interface où s’échangent et se combinent les charges théoriques et critiques de l’histoire de l’art, du post-structuralisme, des études culturelles et autres area studies, offrant un lieu de convergence inédit pour des pensées dispersées. En embrassant l’imagerie démotique autant que savante, en déconstruisant l’axiologie tacite qui sous-tend de tels partages hiérarchiques, et en interrogeant l’idéologie de tout acte de connaissance, les visual studies assument depuis l’origine une position limite, entre discours savant, activité critique et engagement politique. S’ils peuvent apparaître comme une nouveauté radicale, les travaux groupés sous cette bannière sont symptomatiques d’un mouvement plus général de renouvellement des façons de penser les images et la dimension visuelle du sensible. Au moment où les visual studies bénéficient d’une première réception dans l’espace francophone, cette thèse s’attache à en restituer les fondements épistémologiques et les enjeux actuels, en montrant qu’elles ne forment pas un ensemble homogène d’approches ou de pratiques. Car non seulement il n’existe pas de visual studies « en général », mais ce terme unique recouvre trois niveaux de réalité sensiblement dissociés : une formation académique, une somme de travaux empiriques et théoriques, ainsi qu'un vaste métadiscours sur le champ qui nourrit sa propre mythologie. Par souci de clarté, le plan de la thèse désimbrique ces trois niveaux, et plutôt que de définir ce que sont les études visuelles, s’attache à expliquer ce qu’elles font. En se fondant sur l'étude suivie de textes précis, chacune des sections de la thèse envisage donc l'objet visual studies sous l'un de ses différents aspects : historique, théorique, académique, métathéorique, toutes cs dimensions étant coextensives de ce qui constitue les visual studies de façon globale. / It's been more than a generation since visual studies started to shake up scientific procedures and academic organizational structures, in the Anglo-American world and on a global scale. Working between and across disciplines, this research trend behaves like an interface where art history, poststructuralism, cultural studies and other area studies can meet and combine their critical strengths. By embracing both demotic and scholarly imageries, laying bare the axiology underlying such divisions, and challenging the ideology pertaining to knowledge itself, visual studies take on many guises, either as a scientific discourse, a critical activity or a form of political commitment. However, though often claiming a form of radical novelty, visual studies’ concerns should rather be considered part of a broader shift in the study of the function of images and visuality in contemporary sciences and societies.As visual studies are starting to work their way in the french scientific landscape, this dissertation will expose their epistemological grounds and current stakes, calling attention to the fact that they do not cohere into a consistent set of shared approaches or practices. First, visual studies « in general » do not exist. Second, the term encompasses three aspects only partly overlapping : an academic formation, a body of empirical and theoretical works, and a thriving metadiscourse endlessly feeding the field’s self-mythology. For the sake of clarity, the dissertation will offer to break down these three components. What’s more, rather than trying to define what visual studies actually are, it endeavors to explain what they do. Mostly based on the close reading of a series of texts, each section of the dissertation hence offers to look at visual studies from a specific viewpoint — historical, theoretical, academic or metatheoretical — all aspects constitutive of visual studies as such.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to analyze some aspects of the historical surroundings in which Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak wrote her famous essay ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. From a historical perspective, inspired by Quentin Skinner, I examine how Spivak in a context of French theory in U.S. academy criticized Michel Foucault and defended Jacques Derrida. In the first part of my analysis I relate Spivak’s essay to the ”Foucault and Derrida debate” of the sixties and seventies. I argue that many aspects of Derrida’s early critique of Foucault, and many of the themes of that debate in general, was rhetorically repeated by Spivak in ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. In the second part of my analysis, I discuss how Foucault and Derrida in the context of U.S. academy were, rather than empirical persons, turned into common nouns well incorporated into the academic language. In this context, where Spivak appeared, I analyze how the ”notions” Foucault and Derrida was disputed. I argue that Spivak, during several years before she wrote ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”, had been trying to refute anglophone marxist and postcolonial intellectuals who criticized Derrida. These critics, including Terry Eagleton, Perry Anderson and Edward Said, had been blaming Derrida for being unhistorical, politically evasive and merely textualistic. My argument is that Spivak sought to defend Derrida towards these critics in ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. In this context, her aim was to emphasize the efficiency of Derrida’s deconstruction as a political tool for marxist, feminist and Third world intellectuals.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

La pensée de Nietzsche a joué un rôle déterminant et récurrent dans les discours et les débats qui ont formé et continuent de façonner le domaine de l’histoire de l’art, mais aucune analyse systématique de cette question n’a encore vu le jour. L’influence de Nietzsche a été médiée par divers interlocuteurs, historiens de l’art et philosophes, qui ont encadré ces discussions, en utilisant les écrits du philosophe comme toile de fond de leurs propres idées. Ce mémoire souhaite démontrer que l’impact de Nietzsche dans le champ de l’histoire de l’art existe mais qu’il fut toujours immergé ou éclipsé, particulièrement dans le contexte anglo-américain, l’emphase étant placée sur les médiateurs de ses idées en n’avouant que très peu d’engagement direct avec son œuvre. En conséquence, son importance généalogique pour certains fondateurs de la discipline reste méconnue; sa présence réellement féconde se traduit plutôt comme une absence ou une présence masquée. En vue de démontrer ce propos, nous regardons donc le contexte nietzschéen qui travaille les écrits de certains historiens de l’art, comme Jacob Burckhardt et Aby Warburg, ou des philosophes et d’écrivains ayant marqué la discipline de l’histoire de l’art (plus particulièrement dans le cadre de l’influence de la « French Theory » sur l’histoire de l’art anglo-américaine depuis la fin des années 1970) : Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze et Georges Bataille. Nous examinons certaines voies par lesquelles ses idées ont acquis une pertinence pour l’histoire de l’art avant de proposer les raisons potentielles de leur occlusion ultérieure. Nous étudions donc l’évolution des discours multiples de l’histoire comme domaine d’étude afin de situer la contribution du philosophe et de cerner où et comment ses réflexions ont croisé celles des historiens de l’art qui ont soit élargi ou redéfini les méthodes et les structures d’analyse de leur discipline. Ensuite nous regardons « l’art » de Nietzsche en le comparant avec « l’art de l’histoire de l’art » (Preziosi 2009) afin d’évaluer si ces deux expressions peuvent se rejoindre ou s’il y a fondamentalement une incompatibilité entre les deux, laquelle pourrait justifier ou éclairer la distance entre la pensée nietzschéenne sur l’art et la discipline de l’histoire de l’art telle qu’elle s’institutionnalise au moment où le philosophe rédige son œuvre. / Nietzsche’s philosophy has played an active role in many recurring art historical debates that have permeated the discipline since its inception, yet there exists no systematic analysis of his impact. His influence has been mediated through various interlocutors, art historical and other, that have framed these discussions, while using his writings as an intellectual backdrop to their own ideas. This thesis attempts to show that Nietzsche’s engagement with art history has been submerged or overshadowed by an emphasis on the mediators of his thought with little direct engagement with his work, particularly so in the Anglo-American context. The consequence of this is that his genealogical importance for many of the founders of the discipline is left unacknowledged; hence, his actually potent presence is translated as an absence or oversight. In order to demonstrate this, we explore the Nietzschean heritage that informed the works of art historians like Jacob Burckhardt and Aby Warburg, and that of philosophers and writers who have marked the art historical discipline (particularly so with the surge of “French Theory” in Anglo-American art history as of the late 1970s): Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Georges Bataille. Once we have identified some of the trajectories on which his ideas have gained relevancy for art history, we look at the potential reasons for their subsequent occlusion. In order to do this, we begin by examining the evolving methodologies in historiography so as to situate his contribution to this domain of study and see where these reflections have intersected with those of art historians who either broadened or reshaped the methods and analytical structures of their own discipline. We finally compare Nietzsche’s 'art' to the “art of art history” (Preziosi 2009) and determine whether these two expressions can be bridged or whether there is a fundamental incompatibility that may explain the discrepancy between his treatment of art and that which concerned art history at the moment of its contemporaneous institutionalisation.

Depuis 1979, les critiques d'art en Chine ont accompagné le développement de l’art contemporain, participant à la renaissance de la vie intellectuelle durement éprouvée sous le règne de Mao. Les revues d'art reflètent l’évolution de leur réflexion. Dans ma thèse je présente d’une part ce paysage intellectuel dans lequel s’est construite la critique d’art chinoise, et d’autre part, après avoir analysé comment certains concepts passent d’une langue à l’autre, j’aborde les textes théoriques et leur réception dans le milieu académique. Attirés au départ par la pensée occidentale, un champ référentiel qui s’étend de Platon à Danto, les critiques chinois se sont tournés ensuite vers le corpus classique, voire le Livre des mutations, pour forger des outils “propres à la Chine” afin de ré-écrire une histoire de l’art contemporain chinois délivrée du carcan post-colonial, mais au risque de se prendre au piège d’un nationalisme insidieux encouragé par le Parti. Les larges extraits que je propose traitent de la méta-critique, du sort et de l’essor de la modernité et du postmodernisme, de l’art abstrait émanant des gestes et des outils de la calligraphie... 
Récusant les concepts occidentaux jugés inaptes pour interpréter l’art chinois, recourant aux concepts classiques pour fonder l’École du yi, Gao Minglu propose une théorie critique qu’il tente d’appliquer aux œuvres contemporaines. À l’inverse Wang Nanming défend une démarche qui se veut universelle et dénonce les artistes et les critiques qui brandissent leur identité chinoise... Ainsi les démarches étudiées sont variées et parfois antagonistes, mais attestent de la vitalité de la critique d’art contemporaine chinoise. / Since 1979, China Art critics have accompanied the development of contemporary art, participating in the revival of intellectual life which have been hit hard during the reign of Mao. The journals in art reflect changes in their thinking. In my thesis I will present both the intellectual scene in which is constructed criticism of Chinese art, and secondly, after analyzing how concepts move from one language to another, I approach theoretical texts and their reception in academic. Attracted initially by Western thought, a reference field that extends from Plato to Danto, Chinese critics then turned to the classical corpus, or the Book of Changes, to forge tools specific "to China" to rewrite history of Chinese contemporary art delivered from the post-colonial yoke, but at the risk of getting trapped in an insidious nationalism encouraged by the Party. The extensive excerpts I propose deal with the meta-criticism, and the fate of the rise of modernity and postmodernism, abstract art from gestures and tools of calligraphy. Rejecting Western concepts which are unfit to interpret Chinese art, according to the traditional concepts to establish the School of yi, Gao Minglu offers a critical theory he tries to apply to contemporary works. Conversely Wang Nanming defends an approach to be universal and denounces the artists and critics who brandich their Chinese identity ... So the approaches discussed are varied and sometimes conflicting, but attest to the vitality of contemporary Chinese art criticism. Art critics propose theoretical models that are more interpretive tools of interpretation than appreciation.

The Postanarchist, an activist in a heterotopia : building an ideal type is the theme of this doctoral thesis. The main aim is to elaborate a design for the postanarchist figure, picking up its main characteristics from the work of the postanarchist Saul Newman. The argument also bears on two other authors: the post-structuralist Michel Foucault, considered a strong influence of postanarchism, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first author who labelled himself as anarchist and the first to embrace anarchy positively. Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari are introduced as mediators to provide deeper understanding of the main authors. The dissertation offers a novel theoretical revision of postanarchism through Michel Foucault and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. It notes the close similarities between Foucault and Proudhon - in terms of concepts of space, struggle, movement, necessity and consequently anarchy; establishes a conceptual net around them and uses Proudhon s thinking to fill the bibliographic gaps in Foucault s writings. The goal is to better understand the thought and the activist practice of Foucault in terms of anarchism and, in the last instance, to better grasp the postanarchism of Saul Newman in order to carve the postanarchist ideal type. Postanarchism is understood as the constitution of autonomous spaces; the notions of space and heterotopias - the Foucauldian space - are central in the dissertation. Accordingly, the thesis is structured by three hypotheses: (i) postanarchism is space constitution; (ii) the constitution of space is a struggle; (iii) to establish space is to survive. The sub-concepts of the dissertation are: movement, necessity, struggle, power subject, body, sign, truth and utopia. The thesis provides an interpretative analysis of primary sources - books, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and manifestos - of the three main authors supported by secondary commentaries. It departs from conventions by adopting a theoretical approach inspired by Foucault s solar and circular worldview (and Tommaso Campanella s City of the Sun). This facilitates the fluid organization of the argument and avoids imposing linearity on the content, thus highlighting the interrelation between content and the structure of the argument. This thesis is an exposition, an interpretation that develops new knowledge through the connections and methods that enable us to better know who the postanarchist activist is.

O propósito desta pesquisa é analisar e compreender a angústia vivenciada por professores de língua inglesa (LI) que atuam tanto em instituições de ensino privadas como em cursos de idiomas, ao se depararem com o aparente desinteresse dos alunos das escolas regulares públicas, mesmo quando as aulas são ministradas por professores que possuem uma formação diferenciada e que também atuam na rede privada, onde o ensino parece ser bem mais significativo. A partir de minha prática pedagógica, alguns questionamentos foram formulados e mobilizam o presente estudo: a) O que nós (professores de LI) podemos fazer para motivar a nós mesmos como professores da rede pública? b) Por que as aulas ministradas pelo mesmo professor parecem funcionar e serem significativas em instituições privadas e não públicas? A partir do problema de pesquisa observado, levantamos a hipótese de que o professor da rede pública, mesmo que tenha uma formação diferenciada e seja proficiente na língua inglesa, parece ser expropriado do seu saber-poder, na escola regular pública, onde, muitas vezes, não se verifica o desejo de saber a LI. O objetivo geral desta pesquisa é contribuir para um processo de ensino e aprendizagem de LI mais significativo na escola regular pública e fornecer subsídios para os demais estudos desenvolvidos em Linguística Aplicada. O objetivo específico é destacar, nos depoimentos dos professores das redes públicas e privada de ensino, representações acerca da LI, de modo a compreendermos a resistência do sujeito-aluno, sobretudo da rede pública diante da disciplina de LI e como despertar o desejo de saber essa língua. Buscaremos, nas formulações postas, os discursos e vozes que produzem efeitos de sentido, de modo a desnaturalizarmos verdades sócio-historicamente construídas sobre o ensino e a aprendizagem da LI. Como material de pesquisa foram analisados recortes das entrevistas realizadas com professores de ambas as instituições de ensinos. A partir da análise dos dados, a hipótese de pesquisa se ratificou, pois o mesmo professor, com a mesma formação e experiência se subjetiva diferentemente, dependendo do espaço em que está atuando e das formações imaginárias que permeiam as práticas discursivas. Ou seja, na escola privada (ou de idiomas), onde a LI é valorizada e desejada, o professor assume uma posição de poder-saber diante dos alunos, mas seu poder-saber parece ser posto em xeque ou subestimado pelos alunos da rede pública. / This research seeks to analyze and comprehend the anguish suffered by English language teachers that work in private teaching institutions, such as language courses, when encountering with the apparent disinterest of the regular public student, even when classes are given by teachers with a different formation who also work in a private institution, where teaching seems to be more significant. From my teaching practice, some questioning was formulated and they mobilize the present study: a) What can we (English language teachers) do to motivate ourselves as part of public teaching? b) Why classes given by the same teacher seem to work and be significant in private institutions and not in public ones? From this problem, it is possible to hypothesize that the public teacher, even possessing a different formation and proficient in English language, seems to be dispossessed of his knowledge-power, in public teaching, where, many times there is not the wish to know the English language. The main goal of this research is to contribute to a more significant teaching-learning process on what concerns English language on public schools and also provide support to other studies involving Applied Linguistics. The specific goal is to highlight teachers statements, in both public and private teaching environments, representations about the English language, in order to comprehend the subject-students resistance, particularly the public teaching on what concerns English language, and also, how to awaken the wish to know this language. We will seek, in proper formulations, the discourses and voices that produce meaning effects, in order to denature social-historical truths built about teaching and learning of English language. As survey material were analyzed interviews pieces fulfilled with teachers of both teaching institutions. Through data analysis, the research hypothesis has been confirmed, for the same teacher, with same formation and experience is subjective differently, according to the space he is in and the imaginary formations which permeate the discursive practices. In other words, in private school (or language course), where the English language is valued and wished, the teacher assumes a power-knowledge position before the students, though his power-knowledge seems to be cast aside or underestimated by public teaching students.

This thesis examines the philosophical notion of selfhood in visual representation. I introduce the self as a modern and postmodern concept and argue that there is a loss of selfhood in contemporary culture. Via Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gerhard Richter and the method of deconstruction of language, I theorise selfhood through the figurative and literal analysis of duration, the frame, and the mirror. In this approach, selfhood is understood as aesthetic-ontological relation and construction based on specific techniques of the self. In the first part of the study, I argue for a presentational rather than representational perspective concerning selfhood by translating the photograph Self in the Mirror (1964), the painting Las Meninas (1656), and the video Cornered (1988), into my conception of a cinematic theory of selfhood. Based on the presentation of selfhood in those works, the viewer establishes a cinematic relation to the visual self that extends and transgresses the boundaries of inside and outside, presence and absence, and here and there. In the second part, I interpret epistemic scenes of cinematic works as durational scenes in which selfhood is exposed with respect to the forces of time and space. My close readings of epistemic scenes of the films The Congress (2013), and Boyhood (2014) propose that cinema is a philosophical mirror collecting loss of selfhood over time for the viewer. Further, the cinematic concert A Trip to Japan, Revisited (2013), and the hyper-film Cool World (1992) disperse a spatial sense of selfhood for the viewer. In the third part, I examine moments of selfhood and the forces of death, survival, and love in the practice of contemporary cinematic portraiture in Joshua Oppenheimer’s, Michael Glawogger’s, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ work. While the force of death is interpreted in the portrait of perpetrators in The Act of Killing (2013), and The Look of Silence (2014), the force of survival in the longing for life is analysed in Megacities (1998), Workingman’s death (2005), and Whores’ Glory (2011). Lastly, Dogtooth (2009), Alps (2011), and The Lobster (2015) present the contemporary human condition as a lost intuition of relationality epitomised in love.