This thesis examines, in the light of Julia Kristeva's and Michel Foucault's recent theorisations of the productions of meaning, the work of two authors, Djuna Barnes and Audre Lorde, whose writing, it argues, sets up virtual spaces which can become places of resistance to the normative functioning of a given culture. Having sketched a philosophical background to notions of extra-linguistic space through reference to Plato, Kant, Hegel and Lacan, the first chapter considers what is distinctive in the theories of space provided by Kristeva, who (in Revolution in Poetic Language) develops Plato's notion of the chora functioning at times as a synonym for "semiotic articulation". The semiotic (le semiotique) is employed by Kristeva in a very precise way. It represents a convolution of expressions: operating as a drive system within the body that affects the structure of language (understood by her as the symbolic), as a "network of marks" that breaches the established sign systems, and as a revolutionary process that is responsible for the transgression and articulation of new meanings. Because both the semiotic and the symbolic are an inseparable part of the signifying processes of language, they together act as pathways of production. Of all these various processes and relations, the most remarkable one is that these two modalities are genderised: the semiotic chora is "enigmatic and feminine, th[e] space underlying the written"; while the symbolic is a "phallic function". That being so, one of the main features of this thesis is to articulate a feminist argument in relation to Kristeva, expounding on the notion of the spatial concept of the semiotic chora as a "resistance" to phallocentrism. The second chapter sets out to explore Foucault's spatial reasoning. My argument is that space is central to Foucault's concerns. This is demonstrated in several ways. First I suggest that Foucault's interpretation of a social construction of space is such that the subject is connected to its own fashioning processes. Second, by introducing space into his documentation of history, Foucault sets in motion a dispersion of society's master narratives. In respect of this, I argue that a methodology can be formed from Foucault's spatial term "heterotopia", where contingent sites, rather than causes, shape new discourses and open up possibilities of resistance against the techniques and tactics of domination. Because (as Foucault writes in The Order of Things) the heterotopia serves to "desiccate speech, stop words in their tracks, contest the very possibility of grammar at its source", it not only produces discourse, it challenges all boundaries and remains essentially fluid, escaping the matrix of historical category. The next three chapters consider the implications of Kristeva's definition of the semiotic chora which, as briefly mentioned above, is constituted by psychosomatic drives. Hence, mood plays a central role in the semiotic chora. I construct a reading of Nightwood the main tenet of which is to examine the textual variations of Kristeva's resistant and abject `language'. Located in melancholy, incest, and discontentednesse ach trope forms individual chapterse xploring ways in which the limits of language are transgressed. Taken as a whole, the theme running through the three chapters on Nightwood is that new literary formations arise when the abject as mood becomes structured and made meaningful by the symbolic. The last two chapters examine Foucault's position in relation to Kristeva's, and argue that Kristeva's and Foucault's spatial thinking questions the appearance of finality and completeness in language. These chapters also provide a practical application of Foucault's heterotopia, in which spaces between contingent sites are shaped by Lorde. It is argued that opportunities of resistance are provided by Lorde who, naming her disparate position against the master narratives that fail to recognise her, locates her difference from them. In conclusion, a feminist reading of Kristeva's chora and Foucault's heterotopia reveals an opening to resistant spaces and new paths of production of meaning. Chora and heterotopia, then, are not merely abstract philosophical concepts, but powerful tools of reading, as is shown by their application in the interpretation of the works of Barnes and Lorde.

This thesis interrogates the political effects of sustainable development discourse as seen through the lens of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg, South Africa. By approaching sustainable development from the perspective of Michel Foucault’s work on power, discourse and government, it argues that negotiations at the Summit re-orientated sustainable development in terms of cooperation, consensus and voluntary partnerships. By showing how summits are more than just institutional mechanisms for producing agreement but are also stages on which theatrical and symbolic modes of exemplary politics are performed, the thesis draws attention to how the WSSD functioned as a key technique of exemplary governmentality. Yet the Summit also facilitated the emergence of new constellations of political actors, and provided a stage for myriad political protests and demonstrations. One of these protests – a mass march on 31 August 2002 – was the largest anti-government protest in South Africa since the end of Apartheid. By approaching these protests as Foucauldian ‘counter-conducts’ rather than ‘pure’ acts of resistance or revolution, the thesis shows how they were implicated within forms of advanced liberal rule. As such the thesis contributes to a discursive understanding of sustainable development in the post-Johannesburg era; to an appreciation of the evolving role of global summits as forms of theatrical exemplary government; and to the political effects of resistance and protest. It concludes that the WSSD worked to make politically sustainable a global order which is manifestly unsustainable – whilst also providing opportunities for the status quo to be protested and resisted.

This research investigates the formation of visual as discursive practice. Discourses that celebrate, denigrate and omit visual are examined with a particular focus on discourses of the child and technology in art education. This thesis applies poststructural methodologies of discourse analysis to disrupt traditional accounts of discipline configurations determined in histories of art education. With a particular focus on Michel Foucault's methods of history, archaeology and genealogy, art education as discipline is mapped through an investigation of visual as concept and practice. This research contends that the emergence of current practices in visual culture, as configured within the constraints of art education amplifies the conditions of visual to define art education as a field. It examines the mobilisation of discourse, verified by discipline formations in art education, and the way in which such formations distribute and categorise knowledge that is sequenced within power structures. Therefore, visual, as a discursive practice is one way through which to trace the conditions of the field, including the structure of discipline as knowledge and subject in art education.

Orientador: Hélio Rebello Cardoso Junior / Resumo: O objetivo dessa tese será mostrar como na prática do método arqueológico, Michel Foucault pôde estabelecer com o Estruturalismo uma importante interface teórica para a realização de suas pesquisas durante a década de sessenta. Vamos mostrar como o filósofo se apropriou do programa Estruturalista para lhe conferir uma nova roupagem, uma nova problemática e uma nova perspectiva teórica ao introduzir análises descrições estruturais no campo da história, convertendo-o ao método arqueológico identificado na primeira fase da obra de Michel Foucault. A partir dessa problemática, nossa hipótese, é que a participação de Michel Foucault no programa teórico-metodológico estruturalista se dá partir da composição estratégica por parte do filósofo de um método de pesquisa “híbrido”, posto entre o Estruturalismo e a Epistemologia Francesa. Dessa maneira, para compreendermos os limites da pesquisa e do método arqueológico de Michel Foucault é necessário situar o Estruturalismo como uma importante interface teórica auxiliar em seus estudos sobre o homem, sobre os saberes e as instituições. / Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to show how, in the practice of the archaeological method, Michel Foucault was able to establish with Structuralism an important theoretical interface for carrying out his researches during the sixties. Let us show how the philosopher appropriated the Structuralist program to give it a new outlook, a new problematic and a new theoretical perspective when introducing structural descriptions descriptions in the field of history, converting it to the archaeological method identified the first phase of the work of Michel Foucault. From this problematic, our hypothesis is that the participation of Michel Foucault in the structuralist theoretical-methodological program starts from the strategic composition by the philosopher of a "hybrid" research method, placed between Structuralism and French Epistemology. Thus, in order to understand the limits of Michel Foucault's research and archaeological method it is necessary to situate Structuralism as an important auxiliary theoretical interface in his studies on man, on knowledge and institutions. / Doutor

Submitted by Pedro Ragusa (pedroragusa@yahoo.com.br) on 2018-06-07T14:14:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese completa. Versão final..pdf: 3197693 bytes, checksum: 96d14a8bbbf81af9290d6f5659239748 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Luiza Carpi Semeghini (luiza@assis.unesp.br) on 2018-06-07T17:20:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ragusa_p_dr_assis_int.pdf: 3197693 bytes, checksum: 96d14a8bbbf81af9290d6f5659239748 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-07T17:20:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ragusa_p_dr_assis_int.pdf: 3197693 bytes, checksum: 96d14a8bbbf81af9290d6f5659239748 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo dessa tese será mostrar como na prática do método arqueológico, Michel Foucault pôde estabelecer com o Estruturalismo uma importante interface teórica para a realização de suas pesquisas durante a década de sessenta. Vamos mostrar como o filósofo se apropriou do programa Estruturalista para lhe conferir uma nova roupagem, uma nova problemática e uma nova perspectiva teórica ao introduzir análises descrições estruturais no campo da história, convertendo-o ao método arqueológico identificado na primeira fase da obra de Michel Foucault. A partir dessa problemática, nossa hipótese, é que a participação de Michel Foucault no programa teórico-metodológico estruturalista se dá partir da composição estratégica por parte do filósofo de um método de pesquisa “híbrido”, posto entre o Estruturalismo e a Epistemologia Francesa. Dessa maneira, para compreendermos os limites da pesquisa e do método arqueológico de Michel Foucault é necessário situar o Estruturalismo como uma importante interface teórica auxiliar em seus estudos sobre o homem, sobre os saberes e as instituições. / The aim of this thesis is to show how, in the practice of the archaeological method, Michel Foucault was able to establish with Structuralism an important theoretical interface for carrying out his researches during the sixties. Let us show how the philosopher appropriated the Structuralist program to give it a new outlook, a new problematic and a new theoretical perspective when introducing structural descriptions descriptions in the field of history, converting it to the archaeological method identified the first phase of the work of Michel Foucault. From this problematic, our hypothesis is that the participation of Michel Foucault in the structuralist theoretical-methodological program starts from the strategic composition by the philosopher of a "hybrid" research method, placed between Structuralism and French Epistemology. Thus, in order to understand the limits of Michel Foucault's research and archaeological method it is necessary to situate Structuralism as an important auxiliary theoretical interface in his studies on man, on knowledge and institutions. / CAPES: 9409263650994048

nÃo hà / Michel Foucault, sem sombra de dÃvidas, à um dos mais influentes filÃsofos polÃticos das Ãltimas dÃcadas. InfluÃncia que, de fato, se faz sentir em praticamente todos os Ãmbitos acadÃmicos, em muitos dos quais se manifesta uma verdadeira âfoucaultmaniaâ, um movimento que tem produzido uma quantidade imensa e hete-rogÃnea de bibliografia pertencente as mais variadas disciplinas. [...]

Bibliography: leaves 216-219. / The central task of this dissertation is to explore Michel Foucault's conception of the human subject, and its interaction with power. Foucault offers a unique and controversial description of both the latter. After positing that his work is both coherent and political in nature, the dissertation investigates Foucault's books, lectures, interviews and articles throughout his three main periods. I have named these his Knowledge, Power, and Ethics periods to delineate different theoretical focuses in each period which are nevertheless underscored by a singular and continuous concern on Foucault's part with the constitution of the modern human subject; in addition, Foucault is interested in problematizing the "birth" and existence of this latter construction, which he believes is problematic in terms of the epistemological foundation upon which it rests, and the ontological consequences of such an entity.

Thesis advisor: Dominic F. Doyle / Thesis advisor: Brian Robinette / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Univ., Diss.--München, 2003.

Abstract Literary portraits of African Americans’ struggles in the United States for a more equal society have provided valuable insights into the pain and hardship they had to endure for a large portion of the United States’ existence. Ralph Ellison’s famous novel Invisible Man is one of those novels and is the primary source for this study. In this novel the unnamed African American protagonist tries to find a place of his own within a segregated society and has to succumb to the white man’s will to be part of American society. Despite the segregation and subjugation, the protagonist believes that he can progress in American society through education, but his development is constantly thwarted because of his skin colour. Ellison utilizes features from the bildungsroman to highlight how differently education works for African Americans and white people, since the traditional progression of the bildungsroman is not possible for the protagonist despite his trying to follow its traditional pattern. The thwarted progression instead seems to move the plot into another type of progression, namely a spiritual progression. I will therefore conclude that education in Invisible Man creates segregation and subjugation and that the protagonist’s progression is subverted into a spiritual progression. How the protagonist’s journey can be subverted is related to how power structures and discourses influence people’s actions and beliefs. I will use Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and The Archaeology of Knowledge to explain how power structures and discourses enable segregation, subjugation and a spiritual progression. Furthermore, the result will reveal that, because of surrounding power structures and discourses, the protagonist cannot do anything in this American society other than conform to prevailing power structures or hide himself until he knows how to battle these structures. Keywords: Education; Segregation; Bildungsroman; Michel Foucault; African American. / <p>Literary Bachelor Essay</p>