This thesis examines the philosophical notion of selfhood in visual representation. I introduce the self as a modern and postmodern concept and argue that there is a loss of selfhood in contemporary culture. Via Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gerhard Richter and the method of deconstruction of language, I theorise selfhood through the figurative and literal analysis of duration, the frame, and the mirror. In this approach, selfhood is understood as aesthetic-ontological relation and construction based on specific techniques of the self. In the first part of the study, I argue for a presentational rather than representational perspective concerning selfhood by translating the photograph Self in the Mirror (1964), the painting Las Meninas (1656), and the video Cornered (1988), into my conception of a cinematic theory of selfhood. Based on the presentation of selfhood in those works, the viewer establishes a cinematic relation to the visual self that extends and transgresses the boundaries of inside and outside, presence and absence, and here and there. In the second part, I interpret epistemic scenes of cinematic works as durational scenes in which selfhood is exposed with respect to the forces of time and space. My close readings of epistemic scenes of the films The Congress (2013), and Boyhood (2014) propose that cinema is a philosophical mirror collecting loss of selfhood over time for the viewer. Further, the cinematic concert A Trip to Japan, Revisited (2013), and the hyper-film Cool World (1992) disperse a spatial sense of selfhood for the viewer. In the third part, I examine moments of selfhood and the forces of death, survival, and love in the practice of contemporary cinematic portraiture in Joshua Oppenheimer’s, Michael Glawogger’s, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ work. While the force of death is interpreted in the portrait of perpetrators in The Act of Killing (2013), and The Look of Silence (2014), the force of survival in the longing for life is analysed in Megacities (1998), Workingman’s death (2005), and Whores’ Glory (2011). Lastly, Dogtooth (2009), Alps (2011), and The Lobster (2015) present the contemporary human condition as a lost intuition of relationality epitomised in love.

Bound Together elucidates how gay and lesbian leather communities, in the years between 1966 and 1984, contested and expanded fungible notions of sex, community, and history, mostly through material and visual cultural systems: dress codes such as the hanky code, architectural spaces (bars, bathhouses, private clubs), garments, posters, advertisements, newsletters, films, and performances. In examining visual and material cultures, procedures of archival research, as well as the physical states of key archives associated with historic gay and lesbian leather communities, this dissertation opens out a discussion of a set of visual documents and terms rarely considered within the discipline of art history, or academia at large. Through rigorous rhetorical experimentation Bound Together seeks to propose new ways of writing histories. Long and short chapters are interpolated, telescoping between historical leather communities and key works of contemporary art which reformat 1970s documents and visual sources. Jean Luc-Nancy’s conception of “being-with,” a state of coterminous existence that lies at the foundation of being and subjecthood, provides an ideal framework for coming to terms with the challenges of writing leather histories. Nancy’s notion is one that privileges mutual and relational difference. The structure of Bound Together works similarly, building a set of differential modes of viewing, analyzing and writing. In this way I wish to, in the words of Tilottama Rajan, use “history as the condition for an internal distanciation and for self-reflection on what we do,” and to furthermore present alternatives to a discipline’s often “routinized, even commodified […] repeatable techniques.” / text

This thesis grapples with questions surrounding representation, mourning, and responsibility in relation to two literary representations of the ZONG massacre of 1781. These texts are M. NourbeSe Philip’s ZONG! and Fred D’Aguiar’s FEEDING THE GHOSTS. The only extant archival document—a record of the insurance dispute which ensued as a consequence of the massacre—does not represent the drowned as victims, nor can it represent the magnitude of the atrocity. As such, this thesis posits that the archival gaps or silences from which the captives’ voices are missing become spaces of possibility for additive representation. This thesis also examines the role voice and sound play in these literary texts and the deconstructive-ethical philosophies of Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Derrida. This thesis argues that these texts invoke the sonic materiality of voice in the service of responding to the disremembered dead through mourning and acknowledgment.

This is paper is an argument analysis of citizenship and its allocation using an interpretation of Linda Bosniaks theory of Divided Citizenship. The starting point of this paper is the absence of a thorough or exhaustive legal definition of citizenship and legal binding and enforceable citizenship allocation laws within international migration law. Referring primarily to the absence of principals of social justice and global ethics within the legal framework. In total this leads to a multitude of different ethical problems. Therefore, there is a need for researching and evaluating alternative definitions and principles concerning citizenship and its allocation beyond the most common ones.The research material of this paper consists of chapters from two books Spheres of Justice by Michael Walzer and Scales of Justice by Nancy Fraser. The conclusion of this paper is that the combination of the “all subjected-principle” and “the membership-principle” are best suited to the demands that a wide definition of citizenship poses. Citizenship and its allocation are today less and less dependent on the state itself and can today easily be supplemented by other institutions depending on geographic and political needs, while still using democratic governance. Therefore, it is desirable to link the allocation of citizenship to the goal of establishing participatory parity. Deliberative democracy is the necessary foundation of all political organization. All other forms of citizenships and rights are necessary preconditions for people to be able to participate in the political process and protect all equal value of all people. The denial of citizenship is always the first in a long train of abuses.

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) war eine englische Schriftstellerin, Verlegerin, Essayistin, Tagebuchverfasserin, sowie Literatur- und Kulturkritikerin, die als Wegbereiterin der literarischen Moderne gilt. In zahlreichen kritischen Essays und Romanen reflektiert sie die geteilten Lebens- und Bildungssphären der Geschlechter und kritisiert die materiellen Umstände der durch das Geschlecht determinierten sozialen Rolle. Eine genderfokussierte kritische Rezeption von Woolfs Texten, welche sich mit weiblichem Schreiben und Lesen, Frauengeschichtsschreibung und weiblicher Ästhetik befassen, findet seit Mitte der 1970er Jahre statt.

Part 1: ‘True Receivers': Rilke and the Contemporary Poetics of Listening In this part of this thesis I argue that a contemporary ‘poetics of listening' has emerged in the UK, and explore the writing of three of our most significant poets - John Burnside, Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson - to find out why they have become interested in the idea of the poet as a ‘listener'. I suggest that the appeal of this listening stance accounts for their engagement with the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, who thought of himself as a listening ‘receiver'; it is proposed that Rilke's notion of ‘receivership' and the way his poems relate to the earthly (or the ‘non-human') also account for the general ‘intensification' of interest in his work. An exploration of the shifting status of listening provides context for this study, and I pay particular attention to the way innovations in audio and communications technology influenced Rilke's late sequences the Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus. A connection is made between Rilke's ‘listening poetics' and the ‘listening' stance of Ted Hughes and Edward Thomas; this establishes a ‘listening lineage' for the contemporary poets considered in the thesis. I also suggest that there are intriguing similarities between the ideas of listening that are emerging in contemporary poetics and Hélène Cixous' concept of ‘écriture féminine'. Exploring these similarities helps us to understand the implications of the stance of the poet-listener, which is a counter to the idea that as a writer you must ‘find your voice'. Finally, it is proposed that ‘a poetics of listening' would benefit from an enriched taxonomy. Part 2 of the thesis is a collection of my poems entitled ‘Small Weather'.

Ce mémoire se penche sur la co-construction du rapport au travail et au syndicalisme des enseignant·e·s du secteur scolaire québécois membres d’un syndicat local affilié à la Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE). D’une part, il pose le problème de « l’impasse » du syndicalisme nord-américain (MacDonald 2014) dans l’optique d’une métamorphose de « l’esprit du syndicalisme » (Goldthorpe et al 1972). D’autre part, il opère un dialogue entre les conceptions de la citoyenneté de Christopher McAll (1999, 2009) et la thèse de Rolande Pinard (2000, 2008 ; 2018) quant à la mutation du sens social-politique (ouvrier ou syndical) au profit de l’invention managériale de la catégorie de l’emploi. En mobilisant le concept de rapport au travail et l’approche compréhensive de la perspective des parcours de vie et professionnels (Côté 2013 ; Demazière 2019), il (re)construit les expériences de travail et syndicales de trois des neuf enseignant·e·s rencontré·e·s afin de dégager les significations que ces personnes octroient à leur travail ainsi qu’au syndicalisme. L’analyse des matériaux de recherche confirme partiellement la thèse de Pinard. Elle démontre que la catégorie de l’emploi occupe une place déterminante dans l’appréhension du syndicalisme chez les participant·e·s. Par ailleurs, en se saisissant exclusivement du regard « d’en bas », c’est-à-dire des expériences des membres non-élu·e·s (MNE) et des personnes déléguées (PD), l’analyse déployée dans ce mémoire permet également de saisir la transversalité et la singularité des événements, activités et rencontres interpersonnelles qui façonnent, dans l’espace et dans le temps, le rapport au travail et au syndicalisme des personnes enquêtées, lesquels sont traversés par des rapports de pouvoir (intra et inter syndicaux) ainsi que trois univers sociosémantiques : 1) celui de la famille ; 2) celui de la gestion/pensée experte et 3) de la religion. Trois figures ont été pensées pour illustrer les situations et réalités sociales qui modulent le rapport au syndicalisme des enseignant·e·s interrogé·e·s : 1) celle du syndicat presque-fantôme et la notion d’illusion syndicale ; 2) celle du syndicat-manager et 3) celle du syndicat-taylorisé. / This dissertation examines the co-construction of the relationship to work and unionism among teachers in the Quebec school sector who are members of a local union affiliated with the Fédération autonome de l'enseignement (FAE). On the one hand, it poses the problem of the "impasse" of North American unionism (MacDonald 2014) from the perspective of a metamorphosis of the "spirit of unionism" (Goldthorpe et al 1972). On the other hand, it operates a dialogue between Christopher McAll's (1999, 2009) conceptions of citizenship and Rolande Pinard's (2000, 2008; 2018) thesis on the mutation of the social-political meaning (worker or trade union) in favour of the managerial invention of the employment category. By mobilizing the concept of relationship to work and the comprehensive approach of the life-course and career perspective (Côté 2013; Demazière 2019), it (re)constructs the work and union experiences of the teachers met in order to identify the meanings that they attribute to their work and to unionism. The analysis of the research materials partially confirms Pinard's thesis. It shows that the employment category plays a decisive role in the participants understanding of unionism. Moreover, by looking exclusively from "below", i.e. from the experiences of non-elected members (MNEs) and delegates (PDs), the analysis in this dissertation also makes it possible to grasp the transversality and singularity of the events, activities and interpersonal encounters that shape, in space and time, the relationship to work and trade unionism of the persons surveyed, which are traversed by power relationships (inside and between trade union) as well as three socio-semantic universes: 1) related to family; 2) management/expert thought and 3) religion. Three figures have been thought to illustrate the social situations and realities that modulate the relationship to unionism of the teachers interviewed: 1) that of the near-ghost union and the notion of union illusion ; 2) that of the union-manager and 3) that of the taylorized union.

couplant transfert de chaleur et circulation de fluide. L'objectif principal de ce travail est de tester la nature du lien génétique entre l'intrusion et le processus de minéralisation. La première série de résultats s'appuie sur une comparaison avec des exemples naturels de gisements bien connus : i) L'hydrodynamique et la localisation des zones probables de minéralisation sont fortement dépendantes de la profondeur de mise en place du pluton. Au-dessus de 4.5km de profondeur de mise en place, le seuil de perméabilité de 10-16 m² est atteint et les cellules convectives peuvent créer des zones de décharge additionnelles où des minéralisations peuvent avoir lieu ; ii) Pour toutes les profondeurs d'emplacement, la zone en dessous du pluton n'est pas favorable à la précipitation minérale ; iii) Les apophyses focalisent les fluides convectifs et les zones de minéralisation autour d'elles ; iv) La phase de refroidissement n'est pas la phase majeure de convection. La zone advective principale et celle de haute favorabilité peuvent se produire avant et pendant la phase la plus chaude d'emplacement, avant que le magma ne cristallise complètement; v) Les détachements sont capables de fortement modifier et de re-localiser les flux convectifs déclenchés par une intrusion syn-tectonique; vi) Les conditions physiques favorables à la minéraliser sont produites pendant une durée courte autour de la phase la plus chaude de l'intrusion. Même si les arguments chimiques sont absents, la circulation de fluide (induite par la mise en place de magma) joue un rôle principal dans la genèse des gisements d'or associés aux intrusions. De plus, la formation de ce type de gisement est favorisée par l'occurrence d'une auréole thermique fracturée autour de l'intrusion. La seconde série de résultats concerne l'étude du cas naturel de la minéralisation W-Au de Tighza (Jebel Aouam) au Maroc Central. Une campagne d'acquisition de données gravimétriques, l'inversion données et l'utilisation de logiciel 3D, ont permis d'obtenir la géométrie 3D complexe du pluton de Tighza. Les résultats sont les suivants : i) la zone probable de la minéralisation apparaît au début de la mise en place du magma dans la zone perméable (veine W1) et s'étend pour remplir W1 et couvrir la région autour du pluton pendant la phase la plus chaude de mise en place; ii) lors du refroidissement, la zone probable est réduite et limitée à la zone perméable (W1) pendant 0,6 Ma; iii) L'application de la température de fermeture isotopique de la muscovite et de la biotite avec la distribution du R²AI montre que les âges de refroidissement entre la minéralisation au niveau de la veine W1 et l'intrusion ne sont pas séparés de plus de 0,10 Ma. Ceci est confirmé par la datation absolue de la minéralisation de Tighza et permet de discuter la fiabilité des âges obtenus pour la minéralisation dans la veine W1.

Does the individual really matter in the post-modern world, brimming with countless signs and signifiers? My main objective in this writing is to demonstrate how this happens in Verhoeven's films, exploring his central themes and subtext and doing what science fiction does: hold a mirror up to the contemporary world and critique it, asking whether our species' current trajectory is beneficial or hazardous.; Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is a polarizing figure. Although many of his American made films have received considerable praise and financial success, he has been lambasted on countless occasions for his gratuitous use of sex, violence, and contentious symbolism--1995s Showgirls was overwhelmingly dubbed the worst film of all time and 1997s Starship Troopers earned him a reputation as a fascist. Regardless of the controversy surrounding him, his science fiction films are a move beyond the conventions of the big blockbuster science fiction films of the 1980s (E.T. and the Star Wars trilogy are prime examples), revealing a deeper exploration of both sociopolitical issues and the human condition. Much like the novels of Philip K. Dick (and Verhoeven's 1990 film Total Recall--an adaptation of a Dick short story), Verhoeven's science fiction work explores worlds where paranoia is a constant and determining whether an individual maintains any liberty is regularly questionable. In this thesis I am basically exploring issues regarding power. Although I barely bring up the term power in it, I feel it is central. Power is an ambiguous term; are we discussing physical power, state power, objective power, subjective power, or any of the other possible manifestations of the word? The original Anglo-French version of power means "to be able," asking whether it is possible for one to do something. In relation to Verhoeven's science fiction work each demonstrates the limitations placed upon an individual's autonomy, asking are the protagonists capable of independent agency or rather just environmental constructs reflecting the myriad influences surrounding them.