Cette thèse de doctorat s'intéresse aux questions identitaires des sujets multiculturels cubains-américains, hantés par l'île mais habitants du continent nord-américain, ainsi qu'aux phénomènes de passation mémorielle inter-générationnelle exacerbés par l'expérience de l'exil post-castriste. Au cours de cette étude, sont présentées les relations complexes entre Cuba et les Etats-Unis, les grandes étapes de formation de la diaspora cubaine-américaine, en particulier les vagues successives de l'émigration post-castriste (1959) qui ont bouleversé la carte identitaire de la communauté translatée, mais en particulier l'identité d'une ville périphérique du sud de la Floride: Miami. Nous verrons pourquoi cette mégalopole états-unienne est souvent considérée aujourd'hui comme la capitale des Caraïbes, voire la capitale des Amériques. A travers l'étude des mémoires cubains-américains, seront discutées les questions de la nature de l'exil cubain post-castriste, en particulier sa temporalité, et la perception paradoxale de l'exil, à la fois associé par certains à un moment donné de leur vie d'adulte comme foyer et/ou fardeau. La thèse fait une part importante à l'enfance mutilée des membres de la génération dite 'une-et-demi', leur hybridité identitaire qui s'exprime par un nomadisme culturel et linguistique. Leurs témoignages décrivent également de nombreux phénomènes de pollinisations interculturelles, contrebalancés et/ou complétés par une répétition mémorielle obsessive des aïeux conteurs. Un dernier temps de cette étude sera consacré à l'écriture de soi qui est à la fois transcendance et rémanence de l'exil, du passé. Les mémoires cubains-américains illustrent aussi souvent le passage d'une tradition cubaine orale vers une tradition américaine de réalisation de soi par l'écriture. Ils s'inspirent de l'intime pour tendre vers l'universel, tout du moins ils tendent à s'inscrire dans le domaine de la littérature autobiographique latino-américaine, voire dans l'écriture de soi états-unienne. / This dissertation is centered on the questions of identity of the multicultural Cuban-American 'I's, haunted by the island but inhabiting the North-American continent, as well as on the phenomena of intergenerational transmission of memory, exacerbated by the traumatic experience of post-Castro exile. Along this study we discuss the complex relationship between Cuba and the United States of America, the important stages of the emergence of the Cuban-American disapora, particularly the successive post-castrist waves of emigration, which have completely altered the identity card of the displaced community but also redefined the identity and role of a peripheral southern city of Florida: Miami. How and why is this American megalopolis often considered today as the capital of the Caribbean, to some extent even of the Americas?Through a close reading of Cuban-American memoirs, we examine the post-castrist Cuban exile, more precisely its temporality, as well as its paradoxical perception by certain Cuban-Americans, at a certain point in their adult life as both a haven and a burden. The dissertation also considers the mutilated childhood of the 'one-and-a-halfers', their identity hybridity transpiring through their cultural and linguistic nomadism. Their personal testimonies depict multiple phenomena of crosscultural pollinization, counterbalanced and/or completed by an obsessive repetition of their cultural memory thanks to their story-telling grandparents. In the final part of this study we explore self-writing, which is both transcendance and resurgence of their exile and their past. Besides, Cuban-American memoirs often shed light on the passage from a Cuban oral tradition to an American tradition of self-fufilment through writing. They root their inspiration in intimacy to reach the universal, they participate in inscribing their presence their presence both within the realms of Latin-American literature and U.S. self-writing.

The First World War wrought untold destruction on the physical and psychological landscape of Europe. For Britain, the immediate post-war period represented no less than a national “nostos,” or homecoming, and few social institutions were so fragmented by the conflict as the home. This thesis will explore the various conceptions of “home,” from the nation and the domestic sphere to post-war consciousness, through the lens of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier. Though unique in style and scope, Woolf and West interrogate and revise pre-war notions of “home” and suggest a Modernist aesthetic of what it is to be both at “home” and at home in the world.

The First World War wrought untold destruction on the physical and psychological landscape of Europe. For Britain, the immediate post-war period represented no less than a national “nostos,” or homecoming, and few social institutions were so fragmented by the conflict as the home. This thesis will explore the various conceptions of “home,” from the nation and the domestic sphere to post-war consciousness, through the lens of Virginia Woolf’s "Mrs. Dalloway" and Rebecca West’s "The Return of the Soldier." Though unique in style and scope, Woolf and West interrogate and revise pre-war notions of “home” and suggest a Modernist aesthetic of what it is to be both at “home” and at home in the world.

This paper compares Odysseus and Achilles from an existential, psychological and religious perspectives in order to understand the Homeric characters and shed light on the importance of, particularly Odysseus, in our postmodern time. It starts by describing the Homeric field of research and the ideas about Odysseus that were common for the ancient Greek philosophers, and continues with the discussion of the topicality, value and advantage in studying the antiquity. In comparing Odysseus and Achilleus, the paper elaborates on the idea of the relationship between man and god, notably the relationship between Odysseus and Athena and Zeus respectively. It ends with the discussion of the divine connection between Zeus’ and Odysseus’ kingship.

Nikos Kazantzakis� Captain Michales is a freedom fighter in nineteenth century Crete. Patrick White�s Voss is a German explorer in nineteenth century Australia. Two men struggling for achievement, their disparate social contexts united in the same fundamental search for meaning. This thesis makes comparison of these different struggles through thematic analysis of the texts, examining within the narratives the role of food, perceptions of body and soul, landscapes, gender relations, home-coming and religious experience. Themes from the novels are extracted and intertwined, within a range of theoretical frameworks: history, anthropology, science, literary and social theories, religion and politics; allowing close investigation of each novel�s social, political and historical particularities, as well as their underlying discussion of perennial human issues. These novels are each essentially explorations of the human experience. Read together, they highlight the commonest of human elements, most poignantly the need for communion; facilitating analysis of the individual and all our communities. Comparing the two novels also continues the process of each: examining the self both within and outside of the narratives, producing a new textual self, arising from both primary sources and the contextual breadth of such rewriting.

Nikos Kazantzakis� Captain Michales is a freedom fighter in nineteenth century Crete. Patrick White�s Voss is a German explorer in nineteenth century Australia. Two men struggling for achievement, their disparate social contexts united in the same fundamental search for meaning. This thesis makes comparison of these different struggles through thematic analysis of the texts, examining within the narratives the role of food, perceptions of body and soul, landscapes, gender relations, home-coming and religious experience. Themes from the novels are extracted and intertwined, within a range of theoretical frameworks: history, anthropology, science, literary and social theories, religion and politics; allowing close investigation of each novel�s social, political and historical particularities, as well as their underlying discussion of perennial human issues. These novels are each essentially explorations of the human experience. Read together, they highlight the commonest of human elements, most poignantly the need for communion; facilitating analysis of the individual and all our communities. Comparing the two novels also continues the process of each: examining the self both within and outside of the narratives, producing a new textual self, arising from both primary sources and the contextual breadth of such rewriting.