Tandis qu’elle accède à son indépendance, l’Irlande voit émerger une nouvelle génération d’écrivains soucieux de promouvoir une littérature dite « réaliste ». Ce réalisme, qui peut d’abord s’appréhender comme une forme d’anti-idéalisme, est inspiré par des motivations certes littéraires, mais également politiques et identitaires. Par là, sa démarche rejoint celle d’un mouvement, plus tard qualifié de révisionniste, qui se dessine en histoire au même moment avec l’ambition de rééquilibrer les représentations d’une historiographie nationaliste. Ainsi, parallèlement à leurs ouvrages de fictions, nombre de ces écrivains réalistes, parmi lesquels Sean O’Faolain, choisissent-ils d’aborder l’histoire par le biais de la biographie historique. Située à la frontière de l’histoire et de la littérature, celle-ci répond tant à des enjeux littéraires, permettant à des auteurs frustrés par une censure institutionnelle de laisser libre cours à leur sensibilité artistique, qu’à des considérations historiographiques. S’infiltrant dans les biographies, imposant son propre tempo, la fiction participe de la révision de l’histoire. En retour, les biographies, par-delà leur fonction de refuge, constituent de véritables laboratoires dans lesquels le biographe élabore des antidotes aux maux qui rongent la fiction en même temps qu’il y forge les pièces maîtresses de son réalisme. Ainsi, alors que le personnage biographique constitue le vecteur privilégié de toutes les tensions politiques et littéraires dont l’auteur tâche de se défaire, l’esthétique réaliste mûrit au fil de paysages biographiques densifiés par l’histoire. Après avoir dû cohabiter avec la fiction et avec le témoignage, la biographie reprend ses droits et conditionne la fiction réaliste de façon décisive, jusqu’à en redéfinir les thèmes, le fonctionnement et la forme. / The period after independence in Ireland saw the emergence of a new generation of writers eager to promote a literature described as ‘realist’. This realism, which can be understood as a form of anti-idealism, was inspired by literary motivations, but also by motives that were both political and identity driven. In this, it was in tune with the approach of a historiographical movement of the same period, later qualified as revisionism, which aimed at nuancing the dominant nationalist narrative of history. In parallel to their works of fiction, a number of realist writers, including Sean O’Faolain, chose to approach history from the angle of historical biography. Situated at the frontier between history and literature, these biographies were at once historiographical and literary in their intentions, thus giving authors, who were hampered by the censorship regime in place, an avenue of expression in which they could give free rein to their literary sensibilities. On the other hand, fiction, by infiltrating the biographies, and by imposing its tempo, contributed to some extent to the revising of history. Beyond their function as refuge, the biographies can be seen as a laboratory in which the biographer elaborates antidotes to the ills that afflict fictional writing of the period while at the same time perfecting key set pieces of his realist fiction. The biographical character concentrates within him the political and literary tensions of which the author is seeking to divest himself. His realist aesthetic matures as the realist landscapes become ever more steeped in history and bring more realist representations to his fiction. Biography having accommodated fiction and memory in turn permeates the realist fiction in a decisive way, to the point of redefining its themes, its functioning and its form.

Virginia Axline developed a new field of child psychotherapy by applying a nondirective approach to the burgeoning experimentation of utilizing play in therapeutic work with children. While much biographical information is available regarding other leaders in the fields of counseling and psychology, historical research into Axline and her development of child-centered play therapy represent a gap in the literature. The purpose of the current study was to: 1) examine the professional contributions of Virginia Axline; 2) gather personal information regarding Axline that contributes to deeper understanding of her theory; and 3) identify life circumstances or events that influenced Axline's professional contributions. Historical methodology was utilized to locate and examine artifacts and materials necessary to create an interpretive biography of Axline's life and work, with a focus on her professional influences, experiences, and contributions. Historical methods utilized include historiography, oral history, and interpretive biography, with an emphasis on established and accepted source criticism and data synthesis processes. The research yielded a number of historically significant and previously unknown documents valuable to the field of CCPT including personal correspondence, academic writings, and interviews, as well as academic and government records. The research also established new information about and understandings of several of Axline's professional relationships. The research also calls into question the original authorship of scholarly contributions in the field of counseling for which Axline may have deserved, but not received credit. Included in the biography is information related to Axline's early life, higher education, career timeline, professional development, mentoring relationships, research interests, student perceptions, collegial relationships, personal hardships, professional interests and advocacy, teaching and learning methods, and her decline in later life.

The submitted dissertation thesis focus on the role of biography in contemporary historical culture and on the possible ways of its conceptualization from the perspective of historiography. Historical biographies are traditional and successful form of historical writing both in academia and in popular culture. Moreover there is also a field of "theory of biography" which brings theoretical reflections of biographical writing. The goal of this thesis is to analyse the current state of biographical production and to offer appropriate conceptualization of this phenomenon. The dissertation gradually deals with following three fields. First, it describes and reflects key topics of existing theory of biography. The middle part of the text researches the contemporary biographical production. The sources for these two parts are at first theoretical texts written under the term "theory of biography" and then paratexts surrounding particular biographies. The part focus on the contemporary biographical production researches disputed biographies between the years 20009 - 2019, the regular production of biographical publishing series and particularly also the case study of the edition series The Legacy of the progressive personalities of our past (1961-1991). Both these parts pf the thesis are necessary as a...

Alors que les questions relatives à l’éducation familiale et scolaire d’un côté, et aux conditions effectives d’une formation « tout au long de la vie » de l’autre, sont généralement traitées séparément, cette thèse s’efforce de les étudier de manière transversale et connexe, en prenant pour objet l’initiative individuelle en formation postscolaire. Cette recherche s’inscrit dans une double perspective, interactionniste et ethnométhodologique : elle postule d’une part que, sous certaines conditions et dans certaines situations, les acteurs sociaux peuvent s’affranchir des déterminations sociales, en s’engageant dans des projets personnels et des parcours postscolaires « probables ou improbables » ; elle tient compte d’autre part, des situations et des conduites sociales circonstanciées, et s’intéresse aux raisonnements et décisions pratiques qui organisent le cours des actions individuelles. La thèse repose sur l’hypothèse d’une co-construction entre la biographie historico-familiale et l’histoire socio-éducative individuelle dans l’appréhension du phénomène de retour-aux-études. L’analyse approfondie de 38 entretiens narratifs d’adultes, met en évidence l’intrication de facteurs historico-familiaux et idéologiques, institutionnels, interactionnels, événementiels et temporels, dans la tentative de recadrage des « destins sociaux » individuels. L’étude montre que le retour-aux-études relève d’un processus individuel d’« actorisation scholastique », qui est la mise en œuvre du projet personnel par des actes d’auto-instruction. Deux types de projets et de profils se sont alors dégagés : le projet rétrospectif pour les « stratèges-diachroniques » et prospectif, pour les « opportunistes-biographiques ». / Whereas issues related to both concerns family and schooling education, and the effective conditions of “long-life learning” are usually raised and studied on separate levels, this research aims to approach them transversely through self-initiative in further education, which is our object of research. This study is anchored in interactionist and ethnomethodological theoretical perspectives: it postulates that under some conditions and situations, social actors can free themselves from their social disadvantages (dominance) by performing “probable or improbable” self-learning acts, related to a personal project; furthermore it takes into account the context and circumstances circumscribing the situations and social behaviour, as well as the practical sociological reasoning people use to respond to the circumstances in which they find themselves and which motivates their action. The thesis focuses on the “co-construction” between historical-family biography and individual socio-educative history to comprehend the “back-to-study” social phenomenon. Based on the analysis of 38 in-depth biographic interviews, we demonstrated the intricacy of biographical factors - i.e. family-historical and ideological, institutional, interactional, event impacting and temporal - in the reframing of individuals’ “social destiny”. In conclusion we showed that the back-to-study phenomenon proceeds from an individual process of “scholastic actorism” consisting in operating one’s biographical project through back-to-study practices. Two types of self-learning projects and profiles were drawn up: the retrospective project from “diachronic-strategists” adults, and the prospective project from “synchronic-opportunists” adults.