This thesis challenges the traditional view of the 'femme fatale' as merely a dangerous and ravenous sexual predator who leads men into ruination. Critical, especially feminist, scholarship mostly regards the femme fatale as a sexist construction of a male fantasy and treats her as an expression of misogyny that ultimately serves to reaffirm male authority. But this thesis proposes alternative ways of viewing the femme fatale by showing how she can also serve as a figure for imagining female agency. As such, I focus on a particular character type that is distinct from the general archetype of the femme fatale because of the greater degree of agency she demonstrates. This 'criminal femme fatale' uses her sexual appeal and irresistible wiles both to manipulate men and to commit criminal acts, usually murder, in order to advance her goals with deliberate intent and full culpability. This thesis reveals and explains the agency of the criminal femme fatales in American Hardboiled crime fiction between the late 1920s and the end of World War II in the works of three authors: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain. The criminal femme fatales in the narratives of these authors show a subversive power and an ability to act - even though, or perhaps only if, this action is a criminal one. I show that these criminal femme fatales exhibit agency through their efforts to challenge not only the 'masculine' genre and the criminal space that this genre represents, but also to undercut the male protagonist's role and prove his failure in asserting control and dominance. Hammett's narratives provide good examples of how the criminal femme fatales function on a par with male gangsters in an underworld of crime and corruption. Chandler's work demonstrates a different case of absent/present criminal women who are set against the detective and ultimately question his power and mastery. Cain's narratives show the agency of the criminal femme fatales in the convergence between their ambition for social mobility and their sexual power over the male characters. To explain how these female characters exhibit agency, I situate this body of literature alongside contemporaneous legal and medical discourses on female criminality. I argue that the literary female criminal is a fundamentally different portrayal because she breaks the 'mad-bad' woman dichotomy that dominates both legal and medical discourses on female criminality. I show that the criminal femme fatales' negotiations of female agency within hardboiled crime fiction fluctuate and shift between the two poles of the criminalized and the medicalized women. These criminal femme fatales exhibit culpability in their actions that bring them into an encounter with the criminal justice system and resist being pathologized as women who suffer from a psychological ailment that affect their control. The thesis concludes that the ways in which the criminal femme fatales trouble normative socio-cultural conceptions relating to docile femininity and passive sexuality, not only destabilize the totality and fixity of the stereotype of the femme fatale in hardboiled crime fiction, but also open up broader debates about the representation of women in popular culture and the intersections between genre and gender.

Ce travail de thèse interroge la ménopause en tant que catégorie et en tant qu’expérience. Il prend pour objet les mécanismes de la « fabrique » de la ménopause et ses effets afin de mettre en évidence comment physiologie et rapports sociaux se nouent. La construction sociale de la ménopause, son traitement social et l’expérience des femmes dans le contexte actuel français sont étudiés à partir d’un double matériau : les discours sociaux portant sur la ménopause et des entretiens approfondis menés auprès de femmes ménopausées. L’étude de la construction de la ménopause dans les discours médicaux souligne, tout d’abord, le caractère fondamental du genre dans la production de cette catégorie, aujourd’hui mise en scène dans des relais culturels (médias et publicités). Nous analysons, ensuite, l’expérience de la ménopause comme un apprentissage. Avec pour objectif de « dénaturaliser » la ménopause, nous éclairons la socialisation dont elle est le fruit et les interactions où s’en réalise l’apprentissage. Enfin, loin d’être un évènement, la ménopause constitue un processus dynamique, informé par des rapports sociaux et produit de représentations. Nous appréhendons l’expérience de la ménopause en tant que trajectoire influencée par différents facteurs qui mettent en jeu les normes d’âge en termes de fécondité, les représentations du corps ainsi que deux interactants clés : le médecin et l’autrui significatif. / This PhD deals with menopause as a category and an experience. It aims to understand the mechanisms through which menopause is “made”, as well as their effects. The social construction of menopause, its social treatment and women’s’ lived experiences in the French context are examined from a double perspective: social discourses about menopause and interviews carried out with menopausal women. Firstly, the social construction of menopause in medical discourses reveals the crucial importance of gender in the production of this category, nowadays extremely dramatized in media and advertisement. We then proceed to analyze menopause as a learning process. In order to “denaturalize” menopause, we focus on the socialization which it is a product of, and the interactions which constitute its learning process. Finally, we examine menopause as a process fashioned by social relationships and representations, a trajectory where norms of age and fecundity, representations of the body, and key interactions with physician and significant other are at play.

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2014-10-29T19:48:36Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Leicy Francisca da SIlva- 2013.pdf: 3644858 bytes, checksum: 3c60e5e4afa9cb68c9701c6fb8d2e236 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-10-30T10:01:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Leicy Francisca da SIlva- 2013.pdf: 3644858 bytes, checksum: 3c60e5e4afa9cb68c9701c6fb8d2e236 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-30T10:01:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Leicy Francisca da SIlva- 2013.pdf: 3644858 bytes, checksum: 3c60e5e4afa9cb68c9701c6fb8d2e236 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-23 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG / Le principal objectif de cette thèse est d’analyser le processus de construction de la lèpre dans l’Etat de Goiás, au Brésil. Pour ce faire, on a cherché, par l’analyse des discours médicaux et politiques produits pendant la période comprise entre 1830 et 1962, à observer les transformations de la façon de penser et d’exprimer le problème, et les éléments relatifs au pouvoir et au savoir qui construisent la maladie comme problème médico-politique. Les principaux documents utilisés dans cette analyse se composent de rapports médicaux, de revues médicales de Goiás, de rapports gouvernementaux des Provinces/Etats, et de journaux locaux. L’hypothèse défendue est que la manière de concevoir la maladie analysée s’est transformée à Goiás dans les années 1920. La morphée, qui était vue, au XIXe siècle, comme possiblement curable et dont les malades coexistaient avec les sains dans les espaces urbains, a donné place à la lèpre, maladie contagieuse qui se propage sur les espaces pauvres et “sans civilisation” de l’Etat, et qui exigeait que des actions soient entreprises pour la contenir. Cette transformation a lieu dans un contexte de croissance de l’intérêt porté à l’espace de l’intérieur du Brésil et à un moment de dispute discursive au sujet du transfert de la capitale fédérale de Rio de Janeiro à Goiás. Les discours construits autour de cette question présentaient un espace et une population caractérisés par la maladie et par l’absence du pouvoir public. Ainsi, les gouvernements, sans moyens d’assumer la politique sanitaire d’assistance médicale aux malades dans les années 1920 et 1930, laissent ce rôle aux institutions philanthropiques ; alors qu’à la fin des années 1930 et pendant les années 1940, l’Etat se l’approprie et centralise la politique de prophylaxie qu’il rapproche fortement du projet de construction de la nouvelle capitale de l’Etat de Goiás. Pour les médecins, la lutte pour l’hégémonie sur le problème sert de mot d’ordre pour le renforcement de la classe et pour sa projection sur la scène politique, dans le cadre de la défense du progrès régional. / This thesis aims at analyzing the process of construction of Leprosy in the Goiás. It seeks to observe the changes referring to the ways of thinking and of expressing the problem, as well as the factors related to power and knowledge, which constructs a disease as a medical-political problem, through the analyzes of the medical and political discourses produced over the period between 1830-1962. The main documents used for the analysis were the reports of general practicioners, medical magazines from Goiás, reports from the local and state government and local newspapers as well. The hypothesis is that in Goiás, in the 1920’s, there was a change in the way the disease was conceived. The morphea, which in the nineteenth century, was seen as a possibly curable disease and whose patients lived in urban areas together with the healthy individuous, gave place to leprosy, a contagious disease, that spread over the poor and uncivilization areas, which demanded state measures in order to control it. This change becomes contextualized in the increased interest in the countryside of Brazil and in the discursive dispute with respect to moving the Federal capital to Goiás. The discourse constructed around of this issue represents a space and a population characterized by the disease and the absence of the State power. Thus, the government, without conditions to undertake the sanitary policy for patients ‘medical care, in the 1920’s and in the 1930’s, allowed the phylantropic institutions to take care of it, though it was later taken over by the State at the end of the 1930’s and the 1940’s, which centralized the prophylaxis policy and strongly relates to the construction project of the new State capital. For the doctors, the struggle for hegemony over the issue serves as a motto for the strengthening of the class and their projections in the field of politics, in the defence of regional progress. / Esta tese tem como objetivo principal analisar o processo de construção da lepra em Goiás. Para tanto, busca, por meio das análises dos discursos médicos e políticos produzidos no período entre 1830 a 1962, observar as transformações referentes ao modo de pensar e expressar o problema e os elementos relativos ao poder e ao saber que constroem a doença como problema médico-político. Os principais documentos utilizados nessa análise são os relatórios de médicos-viajantes, revistas médicas goianas, relatórios dos governos provinciais/estaduais e jornais locais. A hipótese defendida é que ocorre em Goiás, na década de 1920, uma transformação na forma de conceber a doença. A morfeia, que no século XIX era vista como possivelmente curável e cujos doentes conviviam nos espaços urbanos com os sadios, dá lugar à lepra, uma doença contagiosa, que se expandia pelos espaços pobres e “sem civilização”, e que exigia ações do Estado para sua contenção. Esta transformação se faz contextualizada no aumento do interesse pelo espaço do interior do Brasil e na disputa discursiva com respeito à mudança da capital federal para Goiás. Os discursos construídos em torno desta questão apresentam um espaço e uma população caracterizados pela doença e pela ausência do poder público. Assim, os governos, sem condições para assumir a política sanitária de assistência médica aos doentes, nas décadas de 1920 e 1930, deixam esse papel para as instituições filantrópicas, sendo que no final da década de 1930 e na década de 1940 ele é apropriado pelo Estado, que centraliza a política de profilaxia e a relaciona fortemente com o projeto de construção da nova capital estadual. Para os médicos, a luta pela hegemonia sobre o problema serve como mote para o fortalecimento da classe e para sua projeção no campo da política, na defesa do progresso regional.