The aesthetic autonomy of dance is a blank spot in the history of aesthetics. In this study, dance is used as an umbrella for both visual art performance, live art and choreography. Different from these other notions, dance appears in early historical writings and enables a coherent reading of the history of this specific artform, where the embodiment of the artwork is central.        Starting from Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement, in which this study unravels why dance has been given such a limited attention in the history of aesthetics. Departing from this ignorance of the artform and the lack of theories of aesthetic autonomy when it comes to dance ever since, the study proposes that the aesthetic autonomy of dance could be understood through the notion of parergon. The word is initially found in the Critique of Judgement, where Kant uses parergon to describe the infrastructural framework upon which both the piece of art and the judgment relies. With the help of Jacques Derrida’s reading of the Critique of Judgement through parergon, the notion is understood with a double meaning: as both the frame ot the artwork and the work behind the piece of art. Derrida doesn’t either mention ”dance” in his rewriting of Kant’s work, why this essay applies the parergon upon the only art form where the working body embodies the work of art: dance. For dance, the work behind the piece and the piece itself, is the same. Through this understanding of parergon, the aesthetic autonomy of dance is can be understood as the frame at work.       With references from a western history of arts and aesthetics, the study works through literature on dance from the 16th century until today. This enables a timeline from the inauguration of the first royal ballet academies, to the enlightenment, through modernity up until postmodernity, is read. Such a consistent reading of the history of dance is still rare, but the main reason for the study is not to sketch a new history, but rather to, through its history, establish an understanding of the aesthetic autonomy of dance.       Through examples from philosophy, literature, art history, dance history and art criticism, the development of dance as an autonomous artwork is contextualized. Arriving at the 20th and the 21st century, three specific artworks are analysed through available documentations, writings and conversations. Through the three notions hetero-affection, immanent critique and indexical dialectics, the aesthetic autonomy of dance is written through an understanding of its dialectical negation as its positive matter; the frame (at work). This understanding is applied to the three modern and post-modern examples of dance, where the frame at work is autonomously unworked and re-worked.

L’enjeu principal de cette recherche consiste à démontrer qu’il y a une pensée spécifique du sujet chez Kant. L’auteur repère le fondement de la subjectivité kantienne dans l’acte libre de se donner la loi. La loi éthique, c’est la loi que je me donne moi-même. Et pourtant, la loi est l’impératif qui s’adresse au moi à la deuxième personne : la loi s’adresse au moi comme l’impératif « tu dois ». En tant qu’impératif, la loi se présente comme ce qui m’est donné, et je me conçois comme celui qui est posé devant la loi. Cela veut dire que je m’éprouve, en me soumettant à la loi, comme un «toi » à qui la loi s’adresse, et que la loi apparaît comme provenant de l’autre ou du dehors. Ne peut-on pas alors dire que je me donne la loi comme si j’obéissais à la loi de l’autre qui m’appelle à la deuxième personne ? Ou bien, comme si je traitais comme un autre mon moi qui obéit à la loi ? Par l’autre, l’auteur pense à l’altérité interne dans l’acte d’auto-détermination par la loi. Bien que le moi n’a affaire qu’à lui-même dans l’auto-détermination par la loi, l’autre intervient dans la relation du moi qui donne la loi et du moi qui obéit. L’ipséité du moi constitue ainsi l’épreuve de l’altérité du moi. Que je m’éprouve dans l’auto-détermination par la loi, c’est cette épreuve de soi que l’auteur a essayé d’élucider avec Kant. / The purpose of this research aims at demonstrating that there is a specific conception of the Self in Kant. According to the author, the fundamental of the subjectivity in Kant can be found in the free will acting under the law that it gives to itself. For Kant the moral law is the law I give to myself. Nevertheless, the law is understood as an imperative that I give to myself by using the second person, that is to say that one is addressed by the moral law under the imperative form " you must ". It means that I consider myself as the "you" to whom the law is addressed. To me, the law is an imperative addressed by the other person, that is to say an imperative coming from outside. Thus, it might be possible to consider that when I give to myself the law it is the same as if I obey the other law, which is addressed to me with the second person? Or, shall we say that I consider myself as the other person who obeys the law? By the term “the other”, the author means the internal otherness existing in the action of self-determination resulting from the law. This is related to the question of identifying the enlightenment of the other’s status, which is involved in the action of self- determination given by the law. Although I have to deal with myself in the self-determination given by the law, the other is involved in the relation that opposes myself, when I give to myself the law, to me as the subject who obeys the law. The subjectivity might be interpreted as the test of the otherness existing in the Self. The fact that I consider myself as “the other” in the self-determination given by the law, can be seen as the test of the otherness existing in the Self and this is what the author aims at clarifying based on his works on Kant’s thoughts.

Le présent mémoire explore la problématique du corps où s’articule la phénoménologie de la chair de Michel Henry et le concept d’angoisse de Kierkegaard par une analyse d’En Route (1895) de J.-K. Huysmans et de Sous le soleil de Satan (1926) de Georges Bernanos. D’ailleurs, le choix de l’écriture romanesque pour « rendre sensible » le mystère de Dieu, lui prêter figure et contours, chair et matière dans des personnages fictifs s’inscrit de plein pied dans la pensée chrétienne de l’Incarnation, puisque le christianisme est justement une religion de l’incarnation des réalités éternelles et absolues dans le relatif et le contingent. D’abord, le cadre théorique d’une philosophie de le la chair conceptualisée dans Incarnation (2000) de Michel Henry nous servira de cadre théorique principal pour penser le rapport qu’entretient le corps avec l’immanence et la transcendance, c’est-à-dire les régimes d’auto-affection et d’hétéro-affection. Ensuite, dans le deuxième chapitre, nous prendrons la mesure de la récupération du concept d’angoisse de Kierkegaard par Henry dans Incarnation. Outre le dialogue entre ces deux philosophes de la subjectivité pathétique, les pensées phénoménologiques respectives de Merleau-Ponty et de Jean- François Lavigne nous permettront de mettre à l’épreuve la thèse principale henryenne d’une immanence absolue. Ce travail s’inscrit au carrefour de la littérature, de la philosophie et de la théologie. / This thesis explores the question of the body, where Michel Henry’s phenomenology of the flesh and Kierkegaard's concept of anxiety are articulated by an analysis of J.K. Huysmans’ En Route (1895) and George Bernanos’ Sous le soleil de Satan (1926). The choice of fiction to render the mystery of God "perceptible"- to give God shape and form, flesh and substance - through fictional characters is fully in line with the Christian belief in the Incarnation, as Christianity is indeed a religion characterized by the incarnation of eternal and absolute realities in the relative and the contingent. The theoretical framework of the philosophy of the flesh conceptualized in Michel Henry’s Incarnation (2000) will serve as our principal theoretical framework for thinking about the relationship that the body maintains with immanence and transcendence; that is to say, the institutions of self-affection and hetero-affection. In the second chapter, we will evaluate Henry’s reclaiming of Kierkegaard's concept of anxiety in Incarnation. In addition to the dialogue between these two philosophers of pathetic subjectivity, the phenomenological thought of Merleau-Ponty and Jean-François Lavigne will allow us to test Henry’s principal thesis of absolute immanence. This research is at the crossroads of literature, philosophy, and theology.