Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka vilka olika religiösa inriktningar som finns bland sverigefinländare idag och vilken religiös bakgrund de har. Ett annat syfte har varit att ta reda på om religionen spelar en primär eller en sekundär roll för identiteten jämfört med kultur och språk hos sverigefinländare, och om det finns skillnader i den religiösa identiteten hos första, andra och tredje generationens sverigefinländare, samt hur dessa förmodade skillnader kan förklaras. En annan målsättning med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur religiositet uttrycks hos första, andra och tredje generationens sverigefinländare genom religiös praktik. Det teoretiska ramverket består av Nancy T. Ammermans and Lori Peeks teorier om religiös identitet and Thomas Hylland Eriksens and Fredrik Barths teorier om gränsdragningsprocesser. Denna studie visar att det finns en stor mångfald vad gäller religiösa inriktningar bland sverigefinländarna och att även deras religiösa bakgrund skiftar. Resultatet av denna studie visar att religiös tro tycks vara viktigare för identiteten för första generationens sverigefinländare jämfört med andra och tredje generationen. En av förklaringarna skulle kunna vara att sverigefinländare av andra och tredje generationen är mer assimilerade i det sekulära, svenska samhället och även att andra och tredje generationens invandrare har en mer otydlig identitet och att de i vissa fall kan bli etniska eller religiösa anomalier. Trots mångfalden vad gäller religiösa inriktningar, visar studien att det även finns likheter, i synnerhet bland första generationens sverigefinländare. Första generationen tycks vara mer konservativ vad gäller bibeltolkning och religiösa värderingar, exempelvis. Ett av skälen kan vara att finsktalande präster från Finland, som arbetar inom Svenska kyrkan, har en bakgrund inom väckelserörelsen, som har haft stark påverkan på Evangelisk-lutherska kyrkan i Finland. Denna studie visar också att det finns ett levande och aktivt religiöst liv bland sverigefinländare idag, trots att assimilationstycket har varit stort. / The aim of this study has been to explore what kind of religious directions are to be found among Sweden Finlanders today and what religious background they have. Another aim has been to find out if religion has a primary or a secondary role for the identity compared to culture and language among Sweden Finlanders, and if there are differences in religious identity between the first, the second and the third generation and how these assumed differences can be explained. Another purpose with this study has been to explore how religiosity among Sweden Finlanders of the first, the second and the third generation is shown through religious practice. The theoretical framework consists of Nancy T. Ammerman’s and Lori Peek’s theories about religious identity and Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s and Fredrik Barth’s theories about boundary making processes. This study shows there is a great diversity in religious directions among Sweden Finlanders and their religious background is also shifting. According to the results of this study, religious faith seems to be more important for the identity for religious Sweden Finlanders of the first generation compared to the second and the third generation. One of the explanations could be that Sweden Finlanders of the second and the third generation are more assimilated in the secular, Swedish society and also because second and third generation immigrants’ identity is less clear and in some cases they become an ethnic or a religious anomaly. This study also shows that although there are differences between the religious directions, similarities also exists, especially between Sweden Finlanders of the first generation. The first generation seems to be more conservative when it comes to Bible interpretation and religious values, for example. One of the reasons might be that Finnish speaking priests from Finland, who work within Church of Sweden, have a background in the religious revival movements which has had a strong influence on the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. This study also shows there is a living and active religious life among Sweden Finlanders today, even though the pressure to assimilate has been strong.

Cette thèse porte sur les relations entre la noblesse et le prince dans les duchés de Lorraine au coursd’une période qui s’étend des années 1620 à 1737. Elle les explore dans le cadre d’un renforcement du pouvoirducal et dans une période de transition troublée.Dans cet État souverain des confins, la noblesse représentée par quelques puissantes familles issues del’ancienne chevalerie incarne l’élite sociale, morale, et politique. Étroitement associée aux responsabilités, elleest affectée au premier plan par les ruptures qui scandent le XVIIe siècle : la guerre, l’occupation française etl’exil. Autant d’évènements qui déstabilisent le service princier et éprouvent la fidélité au duc, fondementessentiel des rapports de la noblesse au pouvoir. Cette étude revisite les notions de service, de devoir etd’honneur, constitutives de l’identité nobiliaire.Après plus d’un demi-siècle de désordres, la paix de Ryswick (1697) ramène la stabilité et le princeretrouve ses duchés. Le rétablissement de l’État s’effectue dans une dialectique entre tradition et changement. Lanoblesse qui aspire à retrouver sa place auprès du duc est confrontée à de nouvelles incertitudes qu’elle surmontegrâce à la résurgence de la faveur princière et au prix d’une recomposition de l’ordre.L’équilibre des forces est mis à mal en 1729 avec l’avènement de François III dont le destin se joue pardelàles frontières. Détaché de son territoire patrimonial, le jeune souverain rompt le lien avec la noblesselorraine et met fin à l’impératif absolu du service princier.L’étude des relations entre la noblesse et le duc durant le long XVIIe siècle est une réflexion sur lasociété politique d’un État aux limites sensibles et aléatoires. / This study tackles the relation between nobility and prince in the Duchies of Lorraine during the periodthat spans from the 1620s to 1737. The academic frame in which it is explored is one marked by reinforced ducalpower and by much turmoil within a transitory period.In such a border-line sovereign state, the nobility as represented by a few powerful houses stemmingfrom ancient chivalric backgrounds, embodies the social, moral and political elite of the day. Closely involved inthe Duke’s wields of executive power, and more than any other social body, nobles suffered from the manypoints of rupture that punctuated the 17th century : wars, French occupation and exile did indeed challeng thePrince’s service. These points of rupture jeopardized the fidelity to the Duke, one of the essential foundations ofthe link between the nobility and Power. The study revisits such key-notions as service, duty, and honour,notions which shape up nobles’ identity.After more than a half-century of disorders of all kinds, the Ryswick Peace (1697) brought the situationback to a relative stability and the Prince regained his Duchies. Putting back the State to its feet implied adialectical tension between tradition and change. The nobility eager to regain former responsabilities isconfronted with new uncertainties that will be partly overcome by the resurgence of princely favours and areshuffling of the Order.The balance of forces is put at stake in 1729 when Francois III comes to the throne and his fate is tomaterialize beyond frontiers. Detached from its heritage territory, the prince unbinds the ties which linked thenobility and puts an end to the absolute imperative of a prince’s service.The study of relations between nobility and duke throughout the long 17th century consists in an overallquestioning of a political society in a border-conscious and border-moving state.

The heterogeneous field of posthuman theory allows for an account of community under the convergence of late capitalism and high technology and its spread to a global scale. Spanning bioconservative fears of a potential loss of agency and a human ‘essence’ through advances in technology, ‘transhumanist’ hopes for a biological transformation that would fulfil liberal goals for human development, as well as postmodern, feminist interpretations of the posthuman as instantiating a liberating break with liberal ideology and patriarchal structures, theories of the posthuman offer a productive starting point for exploring the transformations in understandings of human subjectivity and community at the turn of the twenty-first century. Placing the concept of community against a background of past totalitarianism and a possible future of an uncontested globalised neoliberal regime that high technology risks intensifying, the present study enquires into the possibility of a community that would escape the metaphysical logic of mastery subtending both past and present models of community and suggests that problematizing representations of the creation of what a strand in contemporary philosophy terms a non-totalising ‘communauté désoeuvrée’ and implicit proposals not for the revival of community as a teleological ‘oeuvre’, but for its rewriting may be found in works by Maurice G. Dantec, Michel Houellebec, and Antoine Volodine, works which have been labelled posthuman themselves by virtue of their incorporation of posthuman themes or structures that come in the shape of representations and problematisations of high technology and its intersection with late capitalism and narrative structures that mimic or subvert conceptions of subjectivity that can loosely be termed posthuman. These novelists write in a context of an ideological, technological, and commercial constraint that hampers literary and political agency and which is problematized both implicitly and explicitly in the use these writers make of representations of violence and literary strategies such as irony, ambiguity, and hermeticism. These representations and strategies, it will be suggested, could be read as subtle attempts to bypass those constraints and restore the potential of literary production to comment on and even intervene in the creation of community in a posthuman age.

This thesis examines Bonnefoy’s cultivation of the performative aspects of the poetic act in his later collections of poetry. It investigates the poet’s use of the theatrical structures of poetic performance, their temporal and spatial dynamics, to deconstruct conceptual or representative modes of thought. It examines how Bonnefoy uses apostrophes to insentient phenomena and addresses to an unidentified other in his attempts to open language up to the finitude and sharing of existence. Working within language, against language, the poet cultivates what he describes as ‘un savoir, tout négatif et instable qu’il soit, que je puis peut-être nommer la vérité de la parole’. The first chapter of this thesis investigates how the image of the ephemeral flame becomes a model for a finite poetic performance in ‘La Terre’. The second chapter scrutinises how Bonnefoy makes the signifying function of language ‘passive’ to the inappropriable excess of material presence in Début et fin de la neige. The third chapter, analysing ‘La Voix lointaine’, explores how Bonnefoy dramatises the experience of self-presence as the act of listening to a distant voice. The fourth chapter, investigating the relationship between finitude and form in ‘L’Heure présente’, analyses how the dissolution of form gives rise to a form that is always à venir, a dynamic, ‘un possible’.

This thesis explains the acting method used by Caleigh Keith while portraying the role of Nancy Shedman in Romulus Linney’s Holy Ghosts. Included are chapters of historical research, character analysis, and a production report, which includes a scored script, rehearsal and performance journal, and a self-evaluation of the actor’s work. Holy Ghosts was produced by Theater UNO at the University of New Orleans in the Robert E. Nims Thrust Theater of the Performing Arts Center. It opened Tuesday, February seventh, and ran through Sunday, February twelfth, two thousand and twelve. Evening performances were at seven-thirty and Sunday’s matinee was at two o’clock in the afternoon.

Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous nous intéressons aux représentations de la sorcière dans la littérature d’inspiration historique à partir des années 1970. Nous analysons la construction de cette figure protéiforme et les métamorphoses qu’elle connaît dans l’imaginaire social lors des dernières décennies du XXe siècle. Plus précisément, nous examinons les différentes facettes de la sorcière, telles qu’elles apparaissent dans quatre romans francophones d’inspiration historique, en relation avec les discours historiques, féministes et postcoloniaux, et les autres productions culturelles de la même période. En étudiant les interactions entre les représentations de la sorcière et d’autres œuvres, travaux et tendances de l’époque, notre thèse met en lumière les problématiques abordées à travers cette figure dans les textes littéraires. La figure de la sorcière reprend notamment des enjeux qui marquent les dernières décennies du XXe siècle, tels la place des femmes et des cultures minoritaires dans la société, la représentation du corps féminin, le recul des religions traditionnelles et l’écriture de l’Histoire. Au moyen des approches sociocritique et intertextuelle, nous explorons ces enjeux et analysons la façon dont les œuvres développent ou prolongent ces réflexions en abordant la figure de la sorcière. De manière à pouvoir tracer l’évolution de la figure et des questions qui lui sont liées, la thèse est divisée en trois parties, représentant chacune une décennie distincte. Après un préambule brossant un tableau de l’imaginaire de la sorcière au début des années 1970, une première partie se concentre sur la construction de la figure de la sorcière dans les romans Les Enfants du sabbat d’Anne Hébert et La Fontaine obscure de Raymond Jean, parus lors de la décennie 1970. Une deuxième partie, centrée sur la décennie 1980, se penche sur le roman Moi, Tituba sorcière... de Maryse Condé. Enfin, une troisième partie s’intéresse au roman Instruments des ténèbres de Nancy Huston, publié pendant les années 1990. En combinant différentes approches, cette thèse tend à mieux comprendre la fonction de la sorcière dans la littérature et les idées qui lui sont associées dans l’imaginaire social à partir de 1970.

南西. 弗萊德的《我的秘密花園》在探討女性思想，身體透過對和性意識的議題上被認為是其中一本最重要及有用的書。透過對性廣泛及露骨的討論，女性不僅在幻想中，甚至在現實面也能對其生理的欲望和需求有非常深入的了解。 在第一章中，我首先討論南西. 弗萊德搜集女性性幻想的意圖，緊接著強調女性對性並非是沉默的一群，因為在《我的秘密花園》中女性而非男性對性愛握有主控權。為了要明顯區隔《我的秘密花園》與男性為主的色情之差異，我討論女性如在何在南性色情中被錯誤的表現成為性商品及《我的秘密花園》所要顛覆的主題。 而第二章主要強調一些女性主義者對啟蒙時期二元論的攻擊，因為她們深信深藏在此二元論中的階級意識是造成女性地位低下的主因。因此，班森及傅柯的全景敝視的概念在此當成審視女性被父權物化所限制的主要架構，此觀念介紹後，我便詳加敘述全景敝視主義之主要效果並探索此一效果是如何壓制一般女性。 在第三章中，我不僅將重點集中在女性書寫的建立，更將《我的秘密花園》視為其中一例。從主題中可清楚發現女性之主體性。 在第四章中，《我的秘密花園》被比喻為性的嘉年華會，其參與者無不盡情享受性之歡愉，因此審視巴克定狂歡化的概念，可幫助讀者更深一層了解嘉年華式顛覆的力量及其相關的特性。 最後，我在第五章中重述各章之要點並指出認知女性欲望對其自主發展之重要性。我在此也相信，性對男女而言，都是最基本的生理需要，假如男性對性渴望，女性也一樣。南西. 弗萊德是第一位搜集女性性幻想的作家，但是她絕非是探討女性性論述的尾聲。 / Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden is regarded as one of the most important and useful books on the issueof women's thoughts, bodies and sexuality. Though a wide-ranging frank discussion on sexual matters, women are fully cognizant of their physical desires and needs of heir bodies, not only in their fantasies but also in their real lives. In chapter one, I discuss, first of all, Nancy Friday's intention of collecting female sexual fantasies and then emphasize that women are not sexually silent in My Secret Garden because it is they, instead of men, that hold the key to sex. To show how remarkably My Secret Garden differs from male pornography, I discuss how women are fallaciously represented as sexual objects in pornography and what My Secret Garden is aimed to subvert. In chapter two, some feminist's attack on the Enlightenment dualism are brought into focus, because they believe that it is the hierarchy lurking in the Enlightenment that results in women's inferiority. Therefore, Jeremy Bentham's and Michel Foucault's ideas of panopticon and panopticism are used as a framework to examine how women are confined by patriarchal culture. After introducing their ideas, I specify the main effect of panopticism and explore how the effect subjugates women. In chapter three, I concentrate my attention not only on why feminine writing has to be established but also on how My Secret Garden can be viewed as one. After the discussion on feminine writing, I focus on the textual analysis of My Secret Garden by investigating its main themes. From those themes, women's subjectivity is clearly observed. In chapter four, I compare My Secret Garden to a sex carnival where every participant enjoys sex. Hence, Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of carnivalization is examined in order to help the readers understand better the subversive power of carnivalization, and some of its important features are thus carefully analyzed. In chapter five, I recapitulate the central points of each chapter and point out the significance of understanding women's own desires in the development of their subjectivity. I also believe that sex is one of the most basic needs for both men and women. If men have the propensity for sexual needs, so do women. Nancy Friday is the first one to collect female erotic fantasies, but she will not be the last one to investigate discourse on sex.

本論文說明儂希對現代主體形上學的解構，並將之區分為「現代主體的發展與闡述」、「解構的起始-根源條件」、「主體以及共同體的解構」三個主題。在「現代主體的發展與闡述」中，本論文澄清儂希對現代主體的理解：儂希闡述了主體的自我完成，並進一步說明主體觀念在政治上的貫徹執行。儂希根據共同體的自我實現來解釋集權主義，以及它在20世紀造成的歷史與社會災難。在「解構的起始-根源條件」中，本論文澄清儂希對解構思想的探討。儂希探索了存有的離棄狀態，詳述了存有的有限性與延異。儂希以存有的意義來取代存有的真理，並以存有意義來作為解構的根源。實存與世界奠立在存有意義之中，後者將實存向外暴露以及敞開了世界的開放性。在「主體以及共同體的解構」中，本論文澄清儂希的解構策略與運作。儂希將書寫與自我完成對立起來，藉由書寫來干擾主體的自我完成。書寫產生了無作品性，並以無作品性敞開了主體。書寫重複了意義，它讓意義重新開始，並發生成為意義事件。儂希強調共在的重要性，共在分享了存有的虛無，它不是作品，它抵抗著共同體的自我實現。共在聚集著無本質的所有實存，它暴露出每個實存的它者性，並構成了它者的共同體。 / This dissertation discusses Nancy’s deconstruction of modern metaphysics of subject and divides into three themes which are “development and elaboration of modern subject”, “archi-originary condition of deconstruction” and “deconstruction of subject and community”. In “development and elaboration of modern subject”, dissertation clarifies Nancy’s understanding of modern subject: Nancy explicates the self-completion of subject and the political effectuation of the idea of subject. Based on the self-fulfillment of community, Nancy explains totalitarianism that caused historical and social disaster in the 20th century. In “archi-originary condition of deconstruction”, dissertation clarifies Nancy’s discussion of deconstructive thought. Nancy explores the abandonment of Being and illustrates the finitude and différance of Being. Nancy replaces the truth of Being with the sense of Being and designates the sense of Being as the origin of deconstruction. Existence and world grounded in the sense of Being which exposes existence outside and spaces the openness of world. In “deconstruction of subject and community”, dissertation clarifies Nancy’s strategy and operation of deconstruction. Nancy opposes writing to self-completion and interrupts the self-completion of subject through writing. Writing produces the worklessness that spaces the subject. Writing repeats sense, begins sense anew and happens as the event of sense. Nancy emphasizes the importance of being-with that shares the nothing of Being. Being-with is not a work and resists the self-fulfillment of community. Being-with gathers all existences that are without essence, exposes the otherness of every existence and constitutes the community of others.

This dissertation examines from a Vattimian perspective the challenge that euthanasia and assisted suicide posed to the sanctity of life ethos in Canada from 1972–2005. Gianni Vattimo’s central themes—metaphysics (absolute values), “event of being” (lived experiences that call absolute values into question), and passive-reactive nihilism (the use of “masks” or “disguises” to prevent the dissolution of metaphysics)—are pivotal to understanding the way religious and secular beliefs are interwoven within ethical, medical, legal and political discourses in Canada. Vattimo’s philosophico-ethical approach was specifically chosen because as a theoretical tool, it helps to illuminate the presence, weakening, and resilience of metaphysics in discourses surrounding an intentionally hastened death. To demonstrate how Vattimo’s major themes apply empirically to the research, a social constructionist approach was adopted in the form of a discourse analysis. Particular emphasis was placed on an examination of the three most important cases of death and dying in Canada, namely, Nancy B., Sue Rodriguez and Robert Latimer. The bulk of the evidence suggests that when these “events of being” challenged the sanctity doctrine as the ultimate foundation for life-terminating decisions, ethical, medical, legal and political discourses converged to promote three normative positions or authorizing discourses used in the tradition of Christian ethics: (1) stewardship—the view that since life is a “loan from God,” sacred, and of infinite worth, death cannot be intentionally hastened (“nature must take its course”); (2) value in prolonged suffering—the view that since suffering possesses transcendent meaning or purpose, its prolongation is justified in individual circumstances; and (3) the “slippery slope”—the view that any weakening of the sanctity of life ethos inevitably harms or threatens the community. Generally speaking, religious and secular advocates of the sanctity of life ethos reacted similarly in cases involving an intentionally hastened death. In other words, both the religious and the secular embraced metaphysics (absolute values), condoned and rationalized the prolongation of suffering, and relied on the “slippery slope” as a “mask” to maintain the sanctity of human life as first principle. The research strongly suggests that Canada is still significantly indebted to Christian notions when it comes to discussions surrounding the decriminalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Cette thèse porte sur les relations entre la noblesse et le prince dans les duchés de Lorraine au coursd'une période qui s'étend des années 1620 à 1737. Elle les explore dans le cadre d'un renforcement du pouvoirducal et dans une période de transition troublée.Dans cet État souverain des confins, la noblesse représentée par quelques puissantes familles issues del'ancienne chevalerie incarne l'élite sociale, morale, et politique. Étroitement associée aux responsabilités, elleest affectée au premier plan par les ruptures qui scandent le XVIIe siècle : la guerre, l'occupation française etl'exil. Autant d'évènements qui déstabilisent le service princier et éprouvent la fidélité au duc, fondementessentiel des rapports de la noblesse au pouvoir. Cette étude revisite les notions de service, de devoir etd'honneur, constitutives de l'identité nobiliaire.Après plus d'un demi-siècle de désordres, la paix de Ryswick (1697) ramène la stabilité et le princeretrouve ses duchés. Le rétablissement de l'État s'effectue dans une dialectique entre tradition et changement. Lanoblesse qui aspire à retrouver sa place auprès du duc est confrontée à de nouvelles incertitudes qu'elle surmontegrâce à la résurgence de la faveur princière et au prix d'une recomposition de l'ordre.L'équilibre des forces est mis à mal en 1729 avec l'avènement de François III dont le destin se joue pardelàles frontières. Détaché de son territoire patrimonial, le jeune souverain rompt le lien avec la noblesselorraine et met fin à l'impératif absolu du service princier.L'étude des relations entre la noblesse et le duc durant le long XVIIe siècle est une réflexion sur lasociété politique d'un État aux limites sensibles et aléatoires.