This thesis takes a cultural studies approach to representations of post-war U.S. suburbia in Richard Yates’ 1961 novel Revolutionary Road, as well as in the contemporary AMC television series Mad Men. These texts explore the postwar time period, which holds a persistently prominent and idealized space in the collective cultural imagination of America, despite the fact that it was a period troubled by isolationism, containment culture, rampant consumerism, and extreme pressure to conform to social roles. This project disrupts the romantic narrative of postwar America by focusing on the latent anxiety within the suburban landscape—by interrogating the performative nature of the planned communities of the 1950s and 1960s and exposing the tensions that were borne out of the rise of domesticity and consumerism. This project explores the descent into a society obsessed with consumerism and conformity, and seeks to interrogate the culture’s false nostalgia for the time period. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

by Chu Wing Ki. / Thesis submitted in: July 1997. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Filmography: leaves 216-219. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-215). / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction: Contemporary Nostalgia Films Understood in the Colonial Context of Hong Kong / Chapter I. --- opular Culture as an Arena ofublicarticipation --- p.2 / Chapter II. --- opular Culture and Colonialism --- p.14 / The Ambivalence of Colonialism --- p.14 / """Status-quo Imaginary"" as the Manifestation of Colonial Ambivalence" --- p.17 / Chapter i. --- Hong Kong in the late 60s --- p.21 / Chapter ii. --- Hong Kong in the 70s --- p.24 / Chapter iii. --- Hong Kong in the 80s and 90s --- p.30 / Popular Culture Understood in the Colonial Context of Hong Kong --- p.35 / Chapter III --- The Contemporary Mode of Nostalgia as Mediation of Colonialrocess --- p.38 / Nostalgia Films Understood inost-Colonial Context -- The Ambivalence of History --- p.38 / Chapter i. --- Nostalgia Films not Targetted towards the Rediscovery of History --- p.40 / "The Appropriation of History as a ""Laughable"" Other" --- p.43 / "The Substitution of History by ""Style""" --- p.47 / Chapter ii. --- Nostalgia Films' Evocation of a Free-Floating Signifier of Hong Kong Historical Identity --- p.50 / Nostalgia Films as a Context-Specific Articulation --- p.56 / Nostalgia Films as a Form of Disavowal --- p.59 / Outline of the Coming Chapters --- p.61 / Chapter Chapter2. --- Nostalgia and History --- p.66 / Chapter I. --- Rouge --- p.66 / The Construction of Nostalgic Effects --- p.67 / "“Sense of Loss"" as Identity Formation" --- p.72 / "Theast as a ""Split Object"" of Identification" --- p.75 / Pessimism as a Collective Empowerment --- p.84 / Chapter II. --- Center Stage --- p.88 / Interrogation of History --- p.89 / Pessimism as Empowerment -- Reification of History --- p.93 / The Ambivalence of History --- p.100 / Chapter III. --- Days of Being Wild --- p.103 / Interrogation of History:History and Subject Formation --- p.103 / """Internal Colonization"" and Fatalism" --- p.113 / "The Image of “Innocence""" --- p.116 / Conclusion --- p.121 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Nostalgia and Urban Space --- p.124 / Chapter I. --- Nostalgia as a Critique of Urban Space --- p.124 / Chapter II --- Chungking Express --- p.131 / "Old Chinese Apartment as Site of “Re-enchantment""" --- p.133 / "The “Urban Spectacle"" -- Old Chinese Apartment as Reified Spatial Construct" --- p.140 / Chapter i. --- "The Traversed Space of ""Contemporariness"" and ""Pastness""" --- p.140 / Chapter ii. --- "The ""Openness"" of Old Chinese Apartment" --- p.147 / Old Chinese Apartment -- An Expression of Nostalgia? --- p.155 / Chapter III. --- "He ´ةs a Woman and She ´ةs a Man, C'est La Vie Mon Cheri，He and She" --- p.158 / "The “ Urban Spectacle""" --- p.158 / Chapter i. --- ositive Human Qualities --- p.158 / Chapter ii. --- A Historical Sense oflace --- p.163 / Chapter iii. --- Interior Design -- The Assertion of Urban Spirit of Change --- p.165 / Chapter iv. --- "Socially and Culturally ""Marginal"" Characters" --- p.167 / Urban Status-quo Imaginary and Cultural Identificationin Hong Kong --- p.170 / Old Chinese Apartment as Reified Spatial Construct --- p.174 / Chapter i. --- Thearadox of Attraction and Anxiety A Discourse ofrogress --- p.174 / Chapter ii. --- The Inscription of the Imperative of Advancement intohysical Surrounding --- p.179 / Chapter iii. --- "The “Urban Spectacle"" of Social Differences ""Cloaked"" Gestures of ´ب´بSubversion""" --- p.181 / Conclusion --- p.191 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- Conclusion: Nostalgia -- The Ambivalence of History --- p.194 / Chapter I. --- Optimism andessimism as Identity Formation --- p.194 / Chapter II --- The Commercialization of Nostalgia --- p.197 / Bibliography --- p.208 / Filmography --- p.220 / Appendix I-IX

In this dissertation, I examine extracurricular music of American universities between the two World Wars and consider it as an indicator of the idealization of collegiate life. Interwar discourse at American universities demonstrated the two contrasting ideals of the older collegiate model and the more recent university model. The collegiate model was associated with ideals related to character building, a sense of community, and a common curriculum, whereas the university model was associated with social utility, research, and liberal culture. Proponents of the collegiate model idealized an older collegiate life in America. One version of this idealized collegiate life captured the popular imagination of Americans in the late nineteenth century – the vision of students developing their social skills in the extracurriculum at the expense of their intellect in the official curriculum. Various members of the university community at Stanford University, The University of Texas, and Yale University promoted this idyllic view of collegiate life in the extracurriculum. Marching bands, glee clubs, and bell instruments were thought to transmit collegiate values of community and character building. The music’s adaptation to modern trends and values, however, reveal that it did not fully adhere to an idealized image of pre-modern college life. The university communities believed that music (and sound in general) with its ability to reach listeners’ memories and emotions, was unique in its access to interior subjectivity. This belief guided university administrators to use campus sounds to instill school spirit and nostalgia. Yet the failure of certain audio memorabilia, namely the Talking Page of the Onondagan yearbook of Syracuse University and The Cactus in Sound of The University of Texas, leads us to question this assumption of special interior access. Administrators, students, and alumni all had a hand in using sounds to elicit these strong sentiments toward their university, which administrators hoped would foster increased financial support / text

This dissertation illuminates the links between agriculture, popular culture, social class, and agrarian nostalgia. Using an interdisciplinary approach, I draw from the fields of American Studies, American History, Agricultural History, Environmental Studies, popular culture, and cultural geography. Consisting of four diverse case studies, my project focuses on America's evolving relationship with its agrarian roots from the late eighteenth century to the present. Each case study pays close attention to the ways in which the forces of modern consumerism have shaped public understanding of agricultural issues. The dissertation pivots on two main arguments: 1) the modern realities of industrialized agriculture have sparked a desire for highly romanticized visions of farming, particularly tourism to rural places that promise temporary pastoral transcendence to consumers, and 2) as a result of the public demand for idyllic constructions of American rural life, agrarian nostalgia has frequently been deployed in the service of commerce. From the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Laura Ingalls Wilder, to Currier and Ives painting, Martha Stewart's media empire, and state fairs of the American Midwest, I analyze a variety of highly romanticized cultural forms that enrich our understanding of the nation's agrarian heritage. Yet, I also make important links between the past and present, and demonstrate how and why debates about such issues as farm policy and the politics of food once again stand at the forefront of popular consciousness in the twenty-first century. / text

New Zealand expatriate artists working in England, Europe and North Africa in the early twentieth century painted a wide variety of market scenes. The subject features in the oeuvre of Frances Hodgkins, Maud Sherwood, Sydney Lough Thompson, Maude Burge, Owen Merton, Robert Procter and John Weeks and made a significant contribution to their artistic development. Like their contemporaries in the artists’ colonies and sketching grounds of England and Europe, New Zealand artists were often drawn to traditional rural and fishing villages and sought to capture the nostalgia of the ‘old world.’ Early exploratory works by New Zealand expatriates have often been dismissed merely as nostalgic visions of colonials, without any real artistic merit. This research offers a re-evaluation of these works, recognising their value as transitional works which illustrate New Zealand expatriate artists experimenting with early modernist trends, as well as revealing prevalent contemporary tastes among the New Zealand public. This study offers a comprehensive examination of the market theme and highlights the aspirations and achievements of New Zealand expatriate artists. This is reflected in both their choice of subjects and in the way in which these were depicted. A key finding of this research is that New Zealand expatriate artists developed a distinctive response towards the market subject. The vibrant atmosphere and activity of the market and colourful views of canvas booths, awnings and costume provided the perfect means of expression for these artists to explore a variety of painterly concerns and techniques, among them plein-air and impressionist painting, watercolour techniques and a modern treatment of colour and light. The hypothesis of a ‘female gaze’ is explored with specific reference to depiction of the market subjects by Frances Hodgkins and Maud Sherwood. Placed within a wider art historical context of images of female market vendors, their market works offer an original interpretation of the female milieu of the European market. Finally, the expatriates’ vision of the exotic and colourful markets in North Africa and Egypt is investigated. They offered an alternative response to more traditional Orientalist interpretations and their Maghrebian explorations were the catalyst for key stylistic developments in colour and form.

本研究利用電影院的殖民建築、設計以及週遭的城市歷史變遷過程，探討「上海電影院」的空間歷史與殖民性。 　　進入本文分析之前，先從文獻中了解「後殖民」意義與源起。建立基本認知後，一併對後殖民理論重要概念，「東方主義」、「戲擬」與「混雜性」加以耙疏，歸納整理出後殖民主義的批評觀點，以作為本文在探討上海殖民及後殖民現象在問題上提供反思與運用。緊接著透過對「全球化」理論的認知，勾勒出上海作為後殖民城市的全球及在地思考。同時，為了讓思考更為緊密，分別就「後殖民主義與全球化」、「後殖民主義與民族主義」、「後殖民主義與帝國主義」作一整組概念的理解，以作為本研究的理論與概念架構。 　　本文分析十九世紀末到二十世紀的上海電影院與城市之歷史系譜，檢視上海殖民租界時期的影院建築與城市。其次，在殖民之後，對中國社會主義主政下的上海影院與城市做一發展脈絡的理解。最後，基於對上海影院與城市歷史的認知，進一步探求當前全球化架構下，「西方」與「中國」對上海城市及影院所採取的觀看方式與干預形式，是否存在著（後）殖民文化意義的肇因轉變。 　　研究結果發現，進入九○年代後，上海存在著「向前看」與「向後看」的兩股想像力量，同時影響上海城市與影院發展：一股「向前看」的想像力量，是在全球化架構下，國家與跨國資本合力打造了一座座新式電影城的崛起，淘汰了老舊電影院的動力來源。同時，在上海城市空間的劇烈變動過程中，中國有意引渡香港作為「第三勢力」，以便在上海城市影城發展上與西方跨國資本勢力抗衡。另一股「向後看」的想像力量則存在於後殖民語境裡。中國政府投入大量資金進行影院改建工程，大面積的修改、摹仿了原初殖民影院建築，以展露出一個全新的歷史空間。在這種狀況下，當前標誌著殖民霸權的上海影院跟過去有了分別：現在的上海殖民影院是中國政府通過與資本共謀，戲擬式的營造出三○年代老上海電影宮的摩登形象，以投射出中國政府積極推動下新的混雜產物。這一切的改變，使得原初上海影院空間所夾雜的殖民符號在意義的閱讀與指涉上有了不同。新創建的殖民影院不僅成了上海城市產業上文化空間及休閒娛樂的消費賣點。同時在九○年代上海懷舊熱潮席捲影響下，也開啟了殖民影院被重新閱讀及詮釋的可能。本文以為，當西方帝國以戀物凝視姿態持續對上海殖民影院刻版印象作確認，以維持“殖民凝視（殖民規訓）”穩定的同時，也一併在國家意志與懷舊氣氛當中，經由各種懷舊媒材創作、重寫，賦予了過去特性新的內涵，虛構了新的歷史深度。 / The study aims to explore the spatial history and colonialism of cinema, process as cinema of architecture, design and urban evolvement in colonial Shanghai. Prior to embarking on the textual analysis, a concise literature review has been made to instill a rudimentary conception on the significance and origin of post-colonialism, which is then used to discern some of the crucial concepts of post-colonial theories: Orientals, mimicy, mestizo. Drawing from post-colonialism, these critical viewpoints are adopted to facilitate the attempt of this study and to examine the issues of colonial and post-colonial phenomena in Shanghai. What follows is, through globalization theories, to map out a global and local thinking on Shanghai as a post-colonial city. In order to conclude the theoretical examination and conceptual ascertaining, this study sorts out the serial subjects of “Colonialism vs. globalization”, “Post-colonialism vs. nationalism”, and “Post-colonialism vs. imperialism” as a comprehensive understanding. 　 This paper reviews the paradigmatic relation between the city and the colonial cinema of Shanghai from late 19th to 20th century. Then, after the colonization, a comprehensive discerning of Shanghai cinemas and the city as a whole under the control of Chinese socialism is examined. Lastly, based on the understanding of Shanghai cinema and the city history, a further attempt is to figure out if there’s catalytic change of significance of the Shanghai City and its cinemas on (post) colonial culture from the West’ and China’s viewpoint and intervention. The study findings reveal that in the 90’s, there are two imagined forces: “looking forward” and “looking backward” that exist in Shanghai and the two forces have influenced the development of Shanghai cinemas and the city. The “looking forward” imagined force had spurred the mushrooming of cinemas, which are advocated by cross-nationally joint venture under the framework of globalization, and that became the dynamic for eliminating the old cinemas. Meanwhile, with dramatic changes in Shanghai, the Chinese regime intends to bring in Hong Kong industry as a third counterforce to withstand the dynamic of Western multinational capital in Shanghai city’s cinema development. On the other hand, the “looking backward” imagined force can be seen in the post-colonial context of China. In order to demonstrate a new historical space, the government of China invested quite a lot to reconstruct cinemas via simulating but refining the original colonial architecture style. Thus, it can be distinguished form the present Shanghai cinemas to the past: the present colonial cinemas in Shanghai are the new mestizo by the efforts of China government, and they have built a modern mimicry of old Shanghai cinemas in the 1930s. The process of transferring has made a difference in the textual meaning from old Shanghai cinemas to the new ones. As the cultural and entertaining space in Shanghai, the newly constructed cinemas has not only become the popular area for consumption, but also turned on the possibility of re-read and re-interpretation under the trend of nostalgia. As a result, when the Western imperialism continues to acknowledge its stereotype and takes a materialistic stance toward Shanghai to maintain the stability of a colonial doctrine, those old features are new-minted different meanings by various kinds of nostalgic creature, so that a new historical depth is fabricated at the same time.

For most writers who deal with displacement, rewriting themselves, articulating and communicating their sense of estrangment is their lifetime work. For displacement forces one to leave behind the familiar and embrace the unknown. In this process of deconstruction, the concepts of home, belonging and identity are renegotiated and questioned constantly. Le Grand Voyage – the working title for the draft of a novel that is presented in conjunction with this exegesis – is a fictional work that is produced out of the implications of displacement, which inscribes itself in a series of explorations I started in 2001, cumulating with two video works Frammento in 2003 and Footnotes in 2004. Le Grand Voyage investigates further the concept of home by questioning the home/mother relationship. The exegesis aims to contextualise the making of Le Grand Voyage by using another woman’s narrative as the main point of reference: Linda Olsson’s Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs (2005). Olsson’s work – like mine – is conceived out of the effects of displacement, and the literary form and structure display symptoms that are characteristics to narratives of displacement. By putting the home/mother/daughter in context, the narrative displays home as a patriarchal construct showing how the idealisation of home/place is predicated on a gendering of home, whereby, as McDermott notes, ‘home is constructed as a maternal, static and past, to which the (male) subjects longs to return’ (2003: 265). The narrative’s point of view is that of daughters but also that of mothers as daughters, and enables not only a feminist discussion of the notion of home but also of motherhood. Therefore, the theoretical approach for this work has encompassed feminists’ writings that have particularly focused their research on space, place and gender. In challenging the dominant form of gender constructions and relations, the first and second wave feminism have empowered many women to leave home in order to shape their own version of identity. I believe it is within the perspective of displacement, of being out of place, that many women continue to find the necessary distance to contest a particular reading of woman and home that still prevails in academic literature and fiction. Thus, an important part of this exegesis concentrates on the critic of home. I want to argue in a feminist way that our ideas of home and belonging still reflect gendered assumptions and are therefore contestable. That displacement as a catalyst for loss, emotional grief and mourning becomes an enabling way for women to rethink home in terms of what was at play rather than in place and to do the ‘memory work’ that feminists ask women to do: to remember in order not to forget because ‘forgetting is a major obstacle to change’ (Greene, 1991: 298). Their attacks on the feminisation of place have opened up for me possibilities to think of home outside the parameters of sameness. They have also enabled me to understand the paradoxical position a displaced person is faced with: if displacement is favored and privileged why then do longings for home still persist for some? – a fact that is well illustrated in the actual resurgence of the preoccupation to belong. The gain in displacement also involves the fact that distance forces one to look at the longing and nostalgia for what they really conceal. In the case of a woman and, motherless daughters, distance, as this exegesis demonstrates, enables the writer to unveil the longings as subversive and fraudulent, tricking women into thinking there was nothing better than the past: home sweet home, the safe, bounded nest where women could be women: could be the mother. With the ‘memory work’ they both learn to think away from the parameters of sameness and the past, outside the nostalgic stances of singularity, safety, boundaries and internalised histories, therefore outside of the maternal, the home/mother relationship. ‘What is home?’ is a difficult question to negotiate for a woman. The exegesis and the first draft of the novel show what is at stake when one asks the question and the responsibility of women when writing about home.

For most writers who deal with displacement, rewriting themselves, articulating and communicating their sense of estrangment is their lifetime work. For displacement forces one to leave behind the familiar and embrace the unknown. In this process of deconstruction, the concepts of home, belonging and identity are renegotiated and questioned constantly. Le Grand Voyage – the working title for the draft of a novel that is presented in conjunction with this exegesis – is a fictional work that is produced out of the implications of displacement, which inscribes itself in a series of explorations I started in 2001, cumulating with two video works Frammento in 2003 and Footnotes in 2004. Le Grand Voyage investigates further the concept of home by questioning the home/mother relationship. The exegesis aims to contextualise the making of Le Grand Voyage by using another woman’s narrative as the main point of reference: Linda Olsson’s Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs (2005). Olsson’s work – like mine – is conceived out of the effects of displacement, and the literary form and structure display symptoms that are characteristics to narratives of displacement. By putting the home/mother/daughter in context, the narrative displays home as a patriarchal construct showing how the idealisation of home/place is predicated on a gendering of home, whereby, as McDermott notes, ‘home is constructed as a maternal, static and past, to which the (male) subjects longs to return’ (2003: 265). The narrative’s point of view is that of daughters but also that of mothers as daughters, and enables not only a feminist discussion of the notion of home but also of motherhood. Therefore, the theoretical approach for this work has encompassed feminists’ writings that have particularly focused their research on space, place and gender. In challenging the dominant form of gender constructions and relations, the first and second wave feminism have empowered many women to leave home in order to shape their own version of identity. I believe it is within the perspective of displacement, of being out of place, that many women continue to find the necessary distance to contest a particular reading of woman and home that still prevails in academic literature and fiction. Thus, an important part of this exegesis concentrates on the critic of home. I want to argue in a feminist way that our ideas of home and belonging still reflect gendered assumptions and are therefore contestable. That displacement as a catalyst for loss, emotional grief and mourning becomes an enabling way for women to rethink home in terms of what was at play rather than in place and to do the ‘memory work’ that feminists ask women to do: to remember in order not to forget because ‘forgetting is a major obstacle to change’ (Greene, 1991: 298). Their attacks on the feminisation of place have opened up for me possibilities to think of home outside the parameters of sameness. They have also enabled me to understand the paradoxical position a displaced person is faced with: if displacement is favored and privileged why then do longings for home still persist for some? – a fact that is well illustrated in the actual resurgence of the preoccupation to belong. The gain in displacement also involves the fact that distance forces one to look at the longing and nostalgia for what they really conceal. In the case of a woman and, motherless daughters, distance, as this exegesis demonstrates, enables the writer to unveil the longings as subversive and fraudulent, tricking women into thinking there was nothing better than the past: home sweet home, the safe, bounded nest where women could be women: could be the mother. With the ‘memory work’ they both learn to think away from the parameters of sameness and the past, outside the nostalgic stances of singularity, safety, boundaries and internalised histories, therefore outside of the maternal, the home/mother relationship. ‘What is home?’ is a difficult question to negotiate for a woman. The exegesis and the first draft of the novel show what is at stake when one asks the question and the responsibility of women when writing about home.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is in interested in the potential of (New) Queer Cinema, with its often cited subversive qualities, as a means to delineate the historical and discursive dimensions of an ongoing relationship between the politics of nature and sexual politics, and to articulate the complex array of ideas that result from this relationship. In this thesis, I investigate how a selection of films actively reproduce, question, deconstruct, or reinforce particular constructions of nature and/or epistemologies of (homo)sexuality, often demonstrating such ideas through particular expressive modes, such as nostalgia, mourning, melancholia, and postmodern play, and by referencing certain literary forms, such as the pastoral, georgic and elegy. To facilitate the analysis I outline above, I have chosen to investigate three films which enable me to move from national to transnational and postcolonial cinematic contexts. I read these films alongside a selection of literary/historical texts that I feel inform or preface each filmic text. The first film is James Ivory’s adaptation (1987) of E.M. Forster’s novel, Maurice. The second is Derek Jarman’s elegiac film, The Garden (1990), which I read alongside the English filmmaker’s journal, Modern Nature (1991). And finally for my third chapter I turn to the work of Canadian filmmaker, John Greyson; specifically Proteus (2003), his recent collaboration with South African activist/filmmaker, Jack Lewis. This final filmic text prompts questions of postcoloniality and Eurocentric modes of knowledge production. I provide context for my argument by outlining recent developments in the history of Queer Cinema and by introducing two distinct but related areas of recent academic enquiry – firstly the notion of Queer Ecology (alongside related studies on the “gay pastoral”) and, secondly, the field of Green Film Criticism or Ecocinema. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis handel oor die potensiaal van (Nuwe) “Queer Cinema”, met sy bekende ondermynende eienskappe, om die historiese en diskursiewe dimensies van ’n voortgesette verhouding tussen die politiek van die natuur en van seksualiteit af te beeld, en om die komplekse verskeidenheid van idees wat volg uit hierdie verhouding, te verwoord. In hierdie tesis doen ek ondersoek na die wyse waarop ’n versameling films sekere konstruksies van ‘natuur’ en/of epistemologieë van ‘(homo)seksualiteit’ aktief herproduseer, bevraagteken, dekonstrueer of versterk. Hierdie idees word dikwels uitgebeeld deur middel van sekere ekspressiewe modusse soos nostalgie, rou, melankolie of postmoderne speelsheid, en deur verwysing na sekere literêre vorme of genres soos die pastorale of landelike gedig en die elegie. Die bostaande analise is gebaseer op drie films wat my in staat stel om te beweeg tussen nasionale, transnasionale en postkoloniale kontekste. Ek beskou elk van hierdie films in die lig van ’n gepaardgaande versameling literêre/historiese tekste wat volgens my sentraal staan tot die volle verstaan van die filmiese tekste. Die eerste film is James Ivory se aanpassing (1987) van E.M. Forster se roman, Maurice. Die tweede is Derek Jarman se elegiese film, The Garden (1990), wat ek tesame met hierdie Engelse filmmaker se joernaal, Modern Nature (1991), beskou. Laastens kyk ek na die werk van die Kanadese filmmaker John Greyson, met spesifieke fokus op sy onlangse samewerking met die Suid-Afrikaanse aktivis en filmmaker, Jack Lewis, in die verfilming van Proteus (2003). Hierdie finale filmiese teks vra vrae oor postkolonialiteit en Eurosentriese vorme van kennisproduksie. Ek kontekstualiseer my argument deur ʼn beskrywing te bied van die onlangse verwikkelinge in die geskiedenis van “Queer Cinema” en van twee afsonderlike, maar verwante akademiese gebiede wat onlangs aandag geniet, naamlik die idee van “Queer” Ekologie (en die nou-geassosieerde ‘gay pastorale’) en Groen Film Kritiek of “Ecocinema”.

Egaré dans l’histoire, dans un devenir horizontal qui le condamne à s’autodétruire pour s’affirmer, l’homme de Cioran s’ouvre par moments à un devenir vertical, soit en s’élevant à travers l’extase qui le transfigure, soit en tombant à travers l’ennui qui le défigure. En envisageant la pensée de Cioran comme une « course thérapeutique en sens cosmique » ou comme une errance infinie issue d’une « théologie sentimentale où l’absolu se construit avec les éléments du désir », cette thèse, consacrée à la fois à l’œuvre française et à l’œuvre roumaine, s’attache à l’évolution de l’auteur de l’une à l’autre tout en dénonçant le mythe de la césure entre les deux. En posant le nihilisme à la fois comme un poison et comme un remède, comme l’horizon d’une fin ou d’un nouveau commencement, l’étude se propose d’analyser les processus et les expériences à travers lesquels le nihilisme est vaincu par lui-même. Le diagnostic du « héros de la rétractation » est interprété à partir de ses tentations et de ses inconséquences ; son exploration des impasses, son évasion dans le virtuel, ses hésitations entre une carrière métaphysique et un rôle historique, sa lutte avec le temps et ses expériences extatiques, sont analysées à partir d’une double tentation d’un même passage : « du néant vers le monde » et « du monde vers le néant ». / Going astray in History, in a horizontal becoming which condemns him to self-destruct to assert himself, Cioran’s man opens at times to a vertical becoming either in rising through the ecstasy that transfigures, either by falling through boredom which disfigures. Considering Cioran’s thought as a « therapeutic run in a cosmic sense » or as an endless wandering stemming from « a sentimental theology, in which the Absolute is built with the elements of desire », this study, devoted both to the French and Romanian works, focuses on the evolution of the author from one to the other by denouncing the myth of the caesura between the two works. Assuming both nihilism as a poison and as a remedy, as the horizon of an end or of a new beginning, the study aims to analyse the processes and experiences through which nihilism is defeated by itself. The diagnosis of the « hero of the withdrawal » is interpreted from his temptations and his inconsistencies ; his exploration of the impasses, his escape into the virtual, his hesitation between a metaphysical career and a historic role, his struggle with time and ecstatic experiences, are analyzed from a double temptation of a same passage : « from nothingness to the world » and « from the world towards nothingness ».