This thesis has two purposes: (1) to analyze the emptiness in Blodbok by Christine Falkenland, and (2) to analyze my own reading of the same book. I have chosen to focus on how emptiness is expressed through the body, the language and the place in Blodbok, because of the deep impact these seem to have on the emptiness. The thesis discusses what kind of emptiness that is described, what it does to me as a reader, and how it is connected to other works by Falkenland. Cultural politics of emotions by Sara Ahmed, Uses of literature by Rita Felski and Pouvoirs de l’horreur by Julia Kristeva together form the theoretical framework. Blodbok is a poetry collection, about the loss of a mother. The first part of the thesis shows how emptiness is connected to the borders of the body. When the borders of the body are solid, emptiness is expressed trough the I’s will to pass these borders, to become a part of the mother or at least less lonely. When emptiness surround the I her body becomes indistinct and borderless, which makes the emptiness take place both inside and outside the body. The indistinctness of the body also leads to confusions between the body of the mother and the body of the daughter (the I), which also implies an uncertainness about the limit between life and death. This uncertainness becomes ‘sticky’, and I experience my own body being more borderless than before, and threatened by the death in the same manner as the bodies in the book. Emptiness also takes place as a part of the language in Blodbok, because of its inability to describe the feelings of the I. Though, in what I have called the simple language, for example clichés, the I find a way to express some of the despair, loss and fear that she feels. As a reader I find it very releasing when the I manage to express the emptiness in words. Even if loss is described I feel satisfaction while reading, because I recognize myself in the feelings of the I. I find the text being a witness to a horrible feeling and by functioning as a witness the poem moves the feeling from inside of me, to the outside. The place in Blodbok is connected to emptiness by being the place where life meets death. It is in this place the I circulate, and the emptiness and death is described again and again through the circulation. The place becomes the centre of the book, it is at the same time the beginning and the end. The thesis also shows how the emptiness in Blodbok corresponds to emptiness in other works by Falkenland. The emptiness is Blodbok isn’t empty; it is filled with death, horror, loneliness, love, mourning and loss. This emptiness ‘sticks’ to me as a reader. By picturing an in many ways indescribable emptiness, Blodbok manages to give me a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling of being filled.

La thèse est consacrée au voyage en Chine (1974) de Philippe Sollers, Julia Kristeva et Marcelin Pleynet, représentants de la revue Tel Quel, avec Roland Barthes et son éditeur François Wahl. La question principale porte sur l’hétérogénéité des textes rédigés à propos de leur séjour au pays de Mao en pleine Révolution culturelle. Les publications correspondent à différents genres textuels : essais, romans, chroniques du journal, articles de presse et carnets de voyage. Avant le départ, les écrivains fantasment sur la Chine ancienne et contemporaine. C’est ce qui fait l’objet de la première partie de la thèse. Dans la seconde partie, il s’agit d’interroger les textes du corpus qui mettent en lumière les difficultés liées à l’idéologie imposée et vécue par les auteurs pour rendre compte du réel en Chine. La troisième partie portant sur les enseignements du voyage montre que ce dernier réapparaît sous forme de souvenirs inoubliables dans plusieurs textes des écrivains. Plus on s’éloigne de 1974, et plus la mémoire individuelle réactive de façon aléatoire le temps du voyage. Pour Barthes, il s’agit de savoir comment il a vécu la Chine, pourquoi il a gardé le silence à son retour, pourquoi il n’a pas cherché à publier les carnets de notes rapportés de son séjour. La thèse s’achève sur une lecture inédite des œuvres du corpus à travers un mot clé « la fadeur de la Chine ». Cette image est la plus vraie pour décrire l’Empire du Milieu mais elle n’est pas celle que les voyageurs s’attendaient à rencontrer. / This thesis is devoted to the trip to China made by Philippe Sollers, Julia Kristeva, Marcelin Pleynet, Roland Barthes and François Wahl in 1974. This study mainly concerns the heterogeneity of all the publications about their stay in Mao’s country in full Cultural Revolution, including essays, novels, travel journal, press articles and travel notes. In the first part of the study, we seek to understand how the members of the literary magazine Tel Quel dreamed to China, which they considered to be both ancient and modern before the travel. In the second part, we examine each text of the corpus to see the difficulties faced by the authors when they tried to account for the real China, including the imposed ideology. In the third part, we aim to ask how the trip in Communist China becomes an unforgettable memory in these travelers’ text. The more time goes by, the more travel memories reappear. In addition, we study Barthes to understand how he lived during his stay in China, why he kept silent after he returned, and why he didn't publish his notebooks of the trip before his death. At the end of the thesis, the unprecedented reading of texts of the corpus presents a key-word, the “insipidity of China”, a metaphor that is most trued to describe the middle Empire.

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier les appropriations politiques de l’œuvre de Stéphane Mallarmé. Nous explorerons comment on a pu faire de Mallarmé un objet de réflexion politique, tout en examinant les ressources conceptuelles dont on s’est servi pour donner aux écrits du poète une signification politique, ainsi que les différentes conjonctures, à la fois intellectuelle et politique, dans lesquelles ils ont pu jouer un rôle politique. Nous aborderons d’abord les travaux de Sartre, en étudiant le dialogue qu’il a entretenu avec Mallarmé tout au long de sa carrière. Nous expliquerons comment Mallarmé a pu être pour Sartre à la fois un membre d’un courant littéraire anti-démocratique et nihiliste et un héros existentialiste avant la lettre. Ensuite nous nous tournerons vers les premiers travaux de Julia Kristeva. En étudiant de près sa lecture de Mallarmé, nous montrerons pourquoi Mallarmé devait être pour les telqueliens à la fois un objet de réflexion privilégié et de critique. Dans notre troisième chapitre, nous examinerons la lecture de Mallarmé proposée par Alain Badiou en nous focalisant sur son premier livre, Théorie du sujet. Nous tâcherons aussi à cerner la signification de Mallarmé pour Badiou après la publication de son chef-d’œuvre, L’Etre et l’événement. Dans notre quatrième chapitre, nous nous tournerons vers les écrits de Jacques Rancière et proposerons une exégèse critique de sa lecture du poète. Nous clarifierons la signification politique que Rancière accorde à Mallarmé. Nous terminerons en examinant brièvement l’intervention récente dans cette histoire interprétative de Quentin Meillassoux. / The aim of this thesis is to study the political appropriations of the work of Stéphane Mallarmé. We will explore how Mallarmé has been made an object of political reflection, as well as examining the conceptual resources used to give his writings a political significance, and the different conjunctures, at once political and intellectual, in which his writings have played a political role. We begin with the works of Sartre and study his dialogue with the poet, which lasted the entirety of his career. We will explain how Mallarmé could be, for Sartre, at once a member of an anti-democratic and nihilistic literary tendency and a proto-existentialist hero. Then we will turn to the early work of Julia Kristeva. By closely studying this reading, we will show why Mallarmé had to be for the Telquellians at once an object of privileged reflection and an object of critique. In our third chapter, we examine the reading of Mallarmé proposed by Alain Badiou, focusing on his first book, Théorie du Sujet. We will also attempt to determine the political signfication of Mallarmé for Badiou after the publication of his masterwork, L'Etre et l'événement. In our fourth chapter, we turn to the writings of Jacques Rancière and offer a critical exegesis of his reading of the poet. We will clarify the political signification that Rancière gives to Mallarmé. We will end by briefly examining the recent intervention into this interprétative history by Quentin Meillassoux.

Thesis Abstract The present thesis offers to read six plays by three contemporary British playwrights - Sarah Kane's Crave (1997) and 4.48 Psychosis (1999), Caryl Churchill's The Skriker (1994) and Far Away (2000), and Tim Crouch's ENGLAND (2007) and The Author (2009) through the lens of Julia Kristeva's essay on abjection, Powers of Horror (1982). Kristeva theorizes abjection as that which retains some resemblance to the subject or object, but is neither - or no longer belongs to the subject. Being confronted with the abject is unpleasant because it is threatening for the subject. It contains all that is habitually removed from life and does not belong in the symbolic order - corpses and excrements. Likewise, the maternal body needs to become abject for the infant to realize its own borders and bodily integrity. Kristeva proposes that the abject finds its way back into the symbolic order through literature, and reads a number of writers as being concerned with the abject. In the theatre, as well as in the visual arts, abjection has been a useful theoretical starting point, despite the fact that it is seen by a number of critics as something which cannot truly be grasped, and as resisting description and verbal imposition. Each playwright and each play includes a different aspect of the abject. Central to...

This essay examines how grief, melancholy and irony interact in the poetry collections Hej då, ha det så bra! (2003) by Kristina Lugn and Det här är hjärtat (2015) by Bodil Malmsten. The authorships have their similarities and differences when it comes to the themes and language of their poetry. In Malmsten’s collection of poetry, grief is more present than usual and for Lugn, the feeling of melancholy is much heavier in this collection of poetry compared to her previous ones. Although the poetry collections differ in theme, the feeling of grief and melancholy is common between them. The concept of irony is examined in the essay as an antipole to grief and if irony could help the authors poetic self get distance from their grief. In my examination of the concept of melancholia and irony, I have discovered that they differ between men and women. This is interesting when it comes to how women write poetry in the concept of irony and melancholia. This will be used in my essay to better understand how Lugn and Malmsten work within these themes. To explore grief and melancholy in the poetry, I will use Freud’s essay “The Mourning of Melancholia” (1917), Kristeva’s Black sun: depression and melancholia (1989) and also Karin Johannsson’s Melankoliska rum (2009) to give a clear history of the concept of grief and melancholia and the many aspects of it. / I denna uppsats undersöks hur sorg, melankoli och ironi samspelar i diktsamlingarna Hej då, ha det så bra! (2003) av Kristina Lugn och Det här är hjärtat (2015) av Bodil Malmsten.  Författarskapen har sina likheter och skillnader när det gäller dikternas stämning och språk. Diktsamlingarna skiljer sig även från författarnas tidigare verk. För Malmsten är sorgen mer närvarande än någonsin och hos Lugn är känslan av melankoli tyngre i denna diktsamling jämfört med tidigare diktsamlingar. Även om diktsamlingarna skiljer sig i tematik, finns ändå en gemensam känsla av sorg och melankoli. Begreppet ironi undersöks i uppsatsen som en motpol till sorgen, om ironin kan hjälpa till att distansera diktjaget från sorgen eller om ironin kan skapa ett behov att uttrycka sorgen, likt bekännelselitteraturen.  I min analys av begreppen melankoli och ironi har jag stött på att det skiljer sig mellan hur män och kvinnor skriver. Detta är intressant när det kommer till hur kvinnor skriver poesi inom begreppen ironi och melankoli, och detta kommer att användas i min uppsats för att få en bättre förståelse för hur Lugn och Malmsten arbetar inom dessa teman. För att utforska sorg och melankoli i poesi kommer jag att använda Freuds essä ”The Mournig of Melancholia” (1917), Kristevas Black sun: depression and melancholia (1989) och även Karin Johannissons Melankoliska rum:om ångest, leda och sårbarhet i förfluten tid och nutid (2009), för att ge en tydlig bild av begreppet sorg och melankoli och de många aspekterna av det.

Uppsatsen undersöker och jämför den tematiska och språkliga gestaltningen av den instabila identiteten i Johannes Anyurus roman En storm kom från paradiset och Sami Saids roman Väldigt sällan fin. De frågeställningar som behandlas är: Hur gestaltas den postkoloniala identitetens problematik i de båda romanerna? Hur tematiseras den instabila identiteten? Hur kan språket synliggöra en instabil identitet? För att undersöka den tematiska gestaltningen av det instabila subjektet utgår analysen från postkoloniala teorier vars grund finns i den poststrukturalistiska synen på verkligheten som en konstruktion styrd av makt och språk. Flera postkoloniala teoretiker utgår också från psykoanalytikern Jacques Lacans spegelteori i analysen av hur identiteten skapas i ett postkolonialt sammanhang. I diskussionen av det instabila subjektets språkliga gestaltning utgår uppsatsen från psykoanalytikern och litteraturvetaren Julia Kristevas teori om utanförskap som det poetiska språkets grund samt dess uttryck i vår tids skönlitteratur.

This thesis interpolates medieval and modern authors and theorists, namely Dante, Petrarch, and Proust on the one hand, and Freud, Kristeva, and Derrida on the other. I propose that these writers are intimately connected and differentiated by their meditations on grief and loss. I compare, confront, and contrast these narratives of mourning in a discursive shuttling to and fro between medieval and modern, French and Italian, and literature and theory, in order to delineate the specificities of different forms of melancholia as legible in Dante’s Commedia, Petrarch’s Canzoniere, and Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, and as illuminated by Freudian melancholia, Kristeva’s Soleil noir, and Derrida’s concept of ‘demi-deuil’. I challenge the homogeny of the modern concept of melancholia and juxtapose it with the medieval sin of acedia in Dante (Inferno VII) and Petrarch (considering both the Secretum and the Canzoniere). From the examples of the treatment of the myth of Orpheus and the book of Lamentations, I argue that discourses of mourning are trapped in a fruitful tension between a desire for uniqueness or originality and a desire for legibility or the comfort of communality. In Girardian terms, I define literary representations of mourning as ‘mimetic’, that is, caught in a web of intertextual imitation and preoccupations of genre and tradition which are at odds with a quest for new forms of writing. Finally, I contend that the relationship between content and form is particularly close in grief-stricken texts, and characterise my chosen primary texts – including Dante’s Vita nuova – according to the twin poles of endlessness (which I equate with melancholia) and finitude (the teleological, closed nature of the work of mourning), with a Derridean alternative of unstable oscillation between the two (‘demi-deuil’).

This thesis comprises detailed readings of nine early-modern plays featuring female witches in an attempt to recover an understanding of how they were represented on the early-modern stage and what they meant to their first audiences. Drawing on twentieth-century theories of subjectivity, it offers an avenue for the explanation of moments of misogyny in the plays and identifies an unconscious communal anxiety which was revealed and perpetuated by the stage representation of the witch. Although we cannot fully recapture the experience of an audience of 400 years ago, this study attempts to do so in order to place the plays in the context of anxieties detectable in the period. By reading the plays in reference to theatrical conditions, this thesis identifies moments when the drama enlisted the subjectivity of the audience and the witch was constructed as uncanny. Such an approach contributes to the debate on the ages of actors performing certain female characters and suggests potential staging approaches for future performances.

本篇論文企圖運用三種不同之理論架構分別來詮釋詹涅特•溫特森（Jeanette Winterson）的第二本小說《激情》（The Passion）。小說中的兩位敘述者，亨利（Henri）與薇菈妮爾（Villanelle）各自在不同的城市□（Paris and Venice）遭受當權者的操縱與剝削，因此下定決心脫離宰制的空間，進而在逃亡的過程中彼此相識。不過由於諸多的因素，這對無緣的戀人終究以悲劇收場，分別在不同的空間□尋找自我生存的意義。論文第二章以克麗絲蒂娃（Julia Kristeva）的理論為基礎，探討小說人物的主體性如何受到兩種空間（the semiotic and the symbolic）的相互拉扯，而呈現出不穩定的狀態。第三章運用布希亞（Jean Baudrillard）所提出的擬像（simulation）與內爆（implosion）等觀念，分析小說人物如何在真實界與擬像界中來回擺盪。第四章從列菲弗爾（Henri Lefebvre）的空間概念為出發點，透過三種空間（spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces）的交互辯證關係，一方面挑戰傳統二分法的制式化對立，一方面藉由檢視小說人物與城市空間的互動，賦予空間議題某種顛覆傳統的可能性。最後在論文的結論部分，首先歸納出三位理論家一致的共通性—空間共生與空間擺盪，並以此做為貫穿理論架構與小說文本的中心概念，希冀將小說《激情》做更全面的詮釋與研究。 / This thesis aims to interpret Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion through three different theoretical frameworks, including Julia Kristeva’s feminism, Jean Baudrillard’s postmodernism, and Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory. Interwoven with two narrators, The Passion describes the ill-starred lovers, Henri and Villanelle, both of whom undergo a series of manipulations and exploitations from those-in-power in Paris and Venice respectively, later determine to escape, and encounter each other in Russia unexpectedly. On account of the radical differences in personality and preference, this romantic story of Henri and Villanelle ends up with the permanent separation in two diverse spaces where both protagonists eventually feel the sense of belonging. Accordingly, this thesis pays much attention to the function of space in the novel, which is conducive to the dissection of Winterson’s characters and which becomes a crucial perspective penetrating these three theorists’ assertions. In Chapter Two, The Passion is first scrutinized in terms of Kristeva’s theory, particularly from the viewpoint of the semiotic and symbolic spaces, between which the subjectivity of the characters ineluctably oscillates. Chapter Three applies the operation of simulation and implosion within Baudrillard’s spectrum as the groundwork to elaborate The Passion, in which the characters again are entrapped in the oscillation of the real and simulated spaces. In Chapter Four, the focus is laid on the elucidation of how Lefebvre’s spatial trialectics, namely, spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces, interact with each other in the world of the novel. This dialectical relation of oscillation between the spatial triad not only challenges the oppositional rigidity of the traditional dichotomy but implies a possibility of subversion against the dominant space as well. Finally in the last chapter, I attempt to deduce the interrelation from three theorists in the scope of the novel, concluding my thesis with the concept—spatial symbiosis and spatial oscillation—as the major one probing into these four littérateurs of different fields.

<p>The purpose of this essay is to investigate the melancholic, poetic language in Bübins unge (Bübin´s brat) by Mare Kandre (1962 – 2005). In my opinion the novel, which is about a teenage ritual, also gives an imaginary arena for archaic and unmentionable experiences of the libido. It is therefore a witness to the truth of the subjects complex mind. To my assistance I have Julia Kristeva´s theory on the abjection, the successful melancholia and her concepts of the outsider and the catharsis. The method I use in my investigation is an interpretation, which is both an analytic and a hermeneutic process, i.e. a deconstructive, analytic operation based on a theory on the language and the subject and a construing, hermeneutic movement. In my pursuit I investigate structures, which make the intermittent fragmented language readable and coherent. From this point of view I study words and effects (sensations) that relate to the contrast semiotic-symbolic in Bübins unge, and disentangle energy of the affect.</p><p>Mare Kandre, Bübins unge (1987). Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l´horreur (1980) and Soleil noir (1987).</p>