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Notre recherche explore les mécanismes de transmission du trauma dans le contre-transfert chez les thérapeutes travaillant auprès des patients traumatisés, l’impact de la clinique du trauma chez eux et les processus soutenant le traumatisme vicariant. Des entretiens semi-structurés d’une moyenne d’une heure trente ont été conduit auprès de trente et un participants. Nous avons effectué une analyse phénoménologique interpretative (Smith 2009) des données afin de rester au plus près de l’expérience subjective des participants autour du phénomène étudié. Les résultats de notre étude mettent en lumière des réactions contre-transférentielles invasives : Le corps du thérapeute comme lieu d’inscription transitoire des transmissions traumatiques indicibles ; le vécu émotionnel vif traversé par des moments de questionnements identitaires, de sentiment de honte et de culpabilité, d’agressivité retournée en une crainte de traumatiser le patient ; un sentiment de désinscription de la communauté des pairs dans le contexte humanitaire. Nos résultats répondent à des interrogations soulevées dans des recherches antérieures sur le phénomène du contre-transfert dans le trauma. Ces interrogations portent sur une éventuelle spécificité du contre-transfert auprès des patients traumatisés au regard d’autres problématiques ; la spécificité de cette clinique nécessitant une formation ciblée ainsi qu’un dispositif d’accompagnement particulier pour les professionnels; l’implication du contexte de travail dans les réactions contre-transférentielles et l’interaction avec le matériel traumatique. cette étude démontre l’importance des recherches dans la pratique clinique. Elle témoigne des écarts pouvant exister entre théorie et pratique, et des implications d’une recherche à partir de la clinique sur la théorie elle-même. / The objectives of our study was to explore the mechanisms implicated in trauma transmission through counter transference reactions in therapists working with traumatized patients; to identify trauma impact on therapists and the processes underlying vicarious traumatization. Semi-structured interviews of one hour and a half in average were conducted with 31 therapists working with traumatized patients. Following the principles of the Interpretative Phenomenological, the analysis promoted the therapists subjective experience of the studied phenomenon. Participants expressed a feeling of disinclusion from thetherapists’ community ; inability to re-account the narratives of the patients or to share the emotional confusion stirred by the therapy and that could affect the therapist’s vision of the world around ; experiencing moments of strangeness and inner disquiet; discomfort pertaining to the validity of their theoretical background; resonance in the defense mechanisms deployed by therapists and by patients at certain moments of the therapy ; resorting to disregarding cultural interpretations/ generalizations to make sense of an utterly painful situation and put a protective distance with the patients’ culture of origin ; three types of emergent scenarios. Exploring the disorganization in each therapist’s narrative structure reflects the style of defense mechanisms mobilized. Transgressive aspects of the trauma narratives are the most implicated in the disqualification of the patients’ culture of origin. Trauma transmission is not static and does not necessarily obstruct the therapeutic alliance, in sofar as the examination of counter transference reactions helps transform trauma transmission elements into means to better understand the therapeutic process.

This thesis examines the idea of the non-sovereign self and the role it plays in the work of Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, and Stanley Cavell. Based on their critiques of the subject a philosophical anthropology is forwarded that stresses that humans can only be understood in relation to their environment. This highlights the role of language, embodiment, and psychic attachment for the notion of the non-sovereign self and maintains that humans are finite and contingent beings. The finiteness of the self's knowledge of itself and others also implies that the self cannot give a cohesive narrative account of its emergence. Moreover, its relationship to the unknowable other is constitutive for the relational self. The notion of the other signifies not only the concrete other person, but also those other living beings and social structures on whom the self depends for its survival. From this notion of non-sovereign, relational selfhood the thesis forwards an argument about the interrelation between ethical and political thought. Ethics is defined not in terms of the subject's accountability for its past actions, but by a primary responsibility for the other. By showing that ethical and political thought are closely intertwined, an understanding of political community is forwarded that highlights the role of responsibility towards those excluded from current forms of political representation. Turning to the role of affects for our understanding of political agency the role of cohesiveness, permeability and durability for political communities is interrogated. Stressing that the self remains a 'structure in formation' allows to account for the possibility of political agency which is not bound to a pre-established, shared social identity, but is motivated by one's ethical responsibility for others.

This body of research investigates how visual artists express ideas or meanings about Otherness and issues of belonging in their art. The focus of this study is on women artists with an (East) Asian diasporic background; however, the context of the inquiry includes other American and European artists of various cultural backgrounds. A further aim is to explore the artistic strategies and the historical circumstances of the works as well as to understand the theoretical correlations. The author of this study is a visual artist who has been exploring similar issues in her own artistic practice. In order to examine various themes of Otherness, selected pairs of artists – where at least one is a woman artist of (East) Asian diasporic background – are compared and analysed using the following four categories: literary devices (such as irony, parody, connotation or juxtaposition), reappropriation (cultural references which are reclaimed and transformed), anamorphic situations (distortion of conventional ways of viewing in order to become aware of other bodily senses and experiences), and theoretical correlations (connections between artistic practice and relevant theoretical concepts). The specific artists and artworks chosen are: Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1965) with Patty Chang’s Melons (at a Loss) (1998), Lorna Simpson’s work in the 1980s and 1990s with Nikki S. Lee’s Projects (1997-2001), Guillermo Gómez-Peña with Fiona Tan, and Yong Soon Min with Mona Hatoum. In addition, the author presents critical social and cultural developments that influenced these works such as the historical background of representations of Asian women in America, the rise of the Asian American movement, and the shift in contemporary art discourse from concerns of ‘identity politics’ to a ‘post-identity’ framework. Finally, correlations are made between the artistic strategies and relevant theoretical discussions about representations of race and gender, the role of power, knowledge, and truth in ethnographic practices of identification and categorization, and the function of place and ‘cultural identity’ in relation to concepts of origin and belonging. The results of this research confirm the significance of cultural, historical, and geographic experiences on both the conception and reception of visual art and indicate that various artistic strategies have the potential to expose and undermine culturally constructed meanings of difference. Despite the abundance of research conducted in this area, the scope and framework of this particular study are original not only because it is written from the perspective of a practicing artist, but also because the focus on artistic practices from women artists with (East) Asian diasporic backgrounds is located within a more wide-ranging investigation of artistic approaches that articulate and interrogate themes of Otherness.

Because works of Gothic fiction were often disregarded as sensationalist and unsophisticated, my aim in this thesis is to explore the ways in which these works actually drew attention to real societal issues and fears, particularly anxieties around Otherness and identity and gender construction. I illustrate how the context in which authors were writing specifically influenced the way they portrayed the supernatural in their narratives, and how the differences in their portrayals speak to the authors’ distinct aims and the issues that they address. Because the supernatural ultimately became internalized in the American Gothic, peculiarly within female bodies, I focus mainly on the relationship between the supernatural and the female characters in the texts I examine. Through this historical exploration of the transformation of the supernatural, I argue that the supernatural became internalized in the American Gothic because it reflected national anxieties: although freed from the external threat of the patriarchal English government, Americans of the young republic still faced the dangers of individualism and the failure of the endeavor to establish their own government.

This dissertation analyzes the strategies that Spanish and Hispano-African authors employ when writing about Africa in the contemporary novel (1990-2010). Focusing on the former Spanish colonial territories of Morocco, Western Sahara, and Equatorial Guinea, I analyze the post-colonial literary discourse about these regions. This study examines the new ways of conceptualizing Africa that depart from an Orientalist framework as advanced by the novelists Lorenzo Silva, Concha López Sarasúa, Ramón Mayrata, María Dueñas, Fernando Gamboa, Montserrat Abumalham, Javier Reverte, Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa, and Donato Ndongo. Their works are representative of a recent trend in Spanish letters that signals a literary focus on Africa and the African Other. I examine these contemporary novels within their historical context, specifically engaging with the theoretical ideas of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), to determine to what extent his analysis of Orientalist discourse still holds value for a study of the Spanish novel of thirty years later. In addition, the work of theorists such as Gil Anidjar, Emmanuel Levinas, James C. Scott, Ryszard Kapuściński, Georges Van den Abbeele and Chandra Mohanty contribute to the analyses of specific works. These theorists provide a theoretical framework for my thesis that contemporary Spanish authors are writing Africa in ways that undermine and circumvent the legacy of Orientalist discourse. I seek to highlight the innovative approaches that these authors are taking towards their literary engagement with Africa. The imaginary that pertains to Africa has served an integral role in the history and creation of modern Spain, and it is illuminating to trace the influences that it continues to exert on Spanish writers. In the last thirty years, Spain’s relationship with Africa has dramatically changed through peace treaties, the independence of nations, migratory patterns, tourism, and in other substantial ways. Within this dissertation, I address these changes by focusing on literary representations of political engagement, gender issues, and travel to highlight how Africa is represented in light of these recent developments. As Spanish authors continue to engage with and to write about Africa, this study hopes to show that Orientalism is no longer a prevalent discourse in the contemporary Spanish novel.

The overarching purpose of this study has been to problematise how visual practices and the mediation of affect is linked to the capacity to produce (new) perceptual realities, sensations and imaginaries, ultimately aiming to legitimate or counter-legitimate the hegemonic discourses and practices mobilised in the name of security. The first part of my thesis approaches this matter through an analysis of media cultures and discursive systems circulating within the court and the state military. Here, I discuss the impact of affect in the judicial-policial production of visible evidence (paper 1; published in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law) and the state military (visual) narrative of threat (paper 2; published in MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research). Additionally, as affect runs counter to hegemonic power relations as well as reinforces them, the second part of my thesis focuses on the way in which different resistance collectives cultivate affective dimensions through aesthetic practices in order to foster political attitudes that contest the established discourses of the (in)secure. Here, I examine the online activist group Anonymous’ visual political communication (paper 3; published in TripleC - Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society), and the Spanish movement Podemos’ visual and verbal discursive strategies (paper 4; forthcoming in Cultural Studies). In terms of theoretical and methodological approaches, I have my roots in, among others, Mouffe’s (2005) notion of conflict and (political) affect, Foucault’s (1980) concept of power/knowledge, and Thompson’s (1984; 1990) three-dimensional framework of ideology- analysis. In paper 1, my findings suggest that camera-produced images and technical and dramaturgical elements may have unintentional judicial consequences when they are read as evidence. I detail how this production of visible evidence can potentially stimulate and elicit emotional reaction, as well as discussing the degree to which pictorial crime evidence fails to be an instrumental and neutral representation of truth. In paper 2, my findings point in the direction where the military representation of the ‘Other as threat’ connects to aspects of economic globalisation and the (inter)national production of defence materiel. In article 3 (co-authored with Lindgren 2014) my findings suggest that citizen participation in public matters can be made engaging through the mobilisation of that which Anonymous calls ‘the lulz’; a tickling joy/pleasure (also, a sense of meaningfulness) of standing against power abuse through, for example, online direct action and culture jamming practices. Paper 4 explores the relationship between the affective and the visual using a broader security framework. Here, my findings indicate that Podemos’ discursive battle for social protection and economic security in a context of the crisis of political representation, is no longer framed through the traditional left-right conflict, but within the post- ideological (affective) articulation of ‘the new’ versus ‘the old’ and/or other discursive differences. I show how affect works as a potential for social change, by analysing the strategic production of a ‘We-Them’ discourse using Podemos’ take on social media and the media logic of mainstream television.

La problématique est de suivre comment Le Clézio, en faisant de l'espace une donnée fondamentale, parvient à en faire une donnée déterminante de l'altérité linguistique et à créer un style qui se construit au fil du changement. Cette caractéristique est aussi génératrice d'une identité particulière: grâce à ces espaces revisités tant par la fiction que par le déplacement, Le Clézio fait de l'écriture un espace d'autocréation et de quête de l'identité personnelle. Loin de s'abandonner à l'autobiographie directe et différente de l'autofiction, l'écriture leclézienne s'interroge sur un possible rapport entre le vivre et l'écrire. Elle se veut une possibilité d'exister et de revivre à chaque fois un passé ancestral que l'auteur n'a jamais connu. En cela, elle est réintégration de l'ailleurs dans une perspective de re-conquête de soi. Le Clézio a opté pour une esthétique du divers qui a fait du déplacement un principe fondamental, une sorte d' « errance sur la terre errante ». C'est pour cela que la langue se fait, elle aussi, mobile, une langue qui change à la frontière de l'Ici, là où le français se fait également voix de l'autre dans toute sa différence et voix de l'auteur. L'errance dont Le Clézio a renouvelé le sens depuis Le Livre des fuites touche tous les détails de la création littéraire. Nous assistons à une mobilité constante qui est plutôt "mobilisme" comme chez Bergson, là où la langue se fait parole écrite perpétuellement renouvelée. Ce choix esthétique a tout un soubassement philosophique qui s'inscrit dans la perspective de la rupture avec la pensée occidentale. Le Clézio revendique une nouvelle manière d'être au monde profondément liée à la circonstance. La mobilité appliquée à tous les détails de l'écriture, se trouve ontologiquement transposée en un devenir autre constant qui se présente comme trait définitoire d'un sujet qui vit mal la sédentarisation. Ainsi, le «je », libéré de toute historialité particulière, est toujours en quête d'un espace vital en perpétuel changement. En fait, l’Etre, dans la perspective leclézienne, est plutôt Etre-à. Loin de la conception cartésienne, Le Clézio fait de l'espace une des principales composantes d'un cogito qui est plutôt praxis dans le sens où le sujet doit quitter le cadre de la pensée, qui est aussi une prison, vers l'ouverture sur le monde. L'être-à leclézien est un passage du penser au vivre et du vivre à l'exister dans le sens d'une habitation poétique. C'est en dépassant l'autoréflexivité que le sujet se réalise en tant qu'entité non exclusivement cérébrale. / The main question is to explain how Le Clézio, while considering space a fundamental dimension, manages to make it a determining factor in the linguistic otherness and thus creates a style that is built all the way through change. This feature generates a unique identity. In fact, thanks to these revisited spaces both by fiction and displacement, Clézio is writing a space of self-creation and quest for personal identity. Far from yielding to direct autobiography which is different from autofiction, Le Clézio’s writing questions a possible relationship between living and writing. His writing claims the possibility to live and relive whenever an ancestral past is evoked and that the author has never known. As such, it is the reintegration of the somewhere in the perspective of self re-conquest. Le Clézio opted for an aesthetic of diversity that has made of displacement a fundamental orientation, a kind of "errance sur la terre errante". That is why language is made mobile. It is a language that changes on the borders of “the Here” and where French itself becomes a voice for the other in all its differences and also a voice of the author. The Errand that Le Clézio has renewed its meaning in Le Livre des fuites affects the very details of literary creation. We are witnessing a constant mobility is rather "mobilism" as with Bergson, where language is rendered a perpetually-renewed written word. This aesthetic choice is a whole philosophical foundation that fits in the context of the break with Western thought. Le Clézio boasts a new way of being in the world profoundly related to circumstantiality. Mobility applied to all the details of writing is ontologically transposed into another constant becoming that delimits a subject who badly lives settlement. Thus, the "I", free of any particular historicity, is still in search of a vital space in perpetual change. In fact, Being, according to Le Clézio is rather Being. Away from the Cartesian conception, Le Clézio renders space a major component of a cogito which is rather praxis in the sense that the subject must leave the framework of thought, which is also a prison, to the opening of the world. The Le Clézien l’être-à is a passage from thinking to living and from living to existing in the sense of poetic dwelling. It is by going beyond self-reflexivity that the subject is self- realized as an entity that is not exclusively cerebral.

This dissertation combines a sustained reflection on the European and North American Post-Holocaust theological landscape with the themes of otherness, exclusion, and identity. The study aims to offer a constructive contribution toward ecclesiology in a post-Holocaust world riven with a rejection of otherness. The consensus among Holocaust scholars is that the moral failure of the churches to engage on behalf of the vast majority of victims of the Third Reich evinces a profound sickness at the heart of the Christian faith. Both Holocaust theologians and ecclesial statements have made notable strides towards diagnosing and curing this illness through proposals to radically reshape Christian theology in the shadow of Holocaust atrocities. However, rarely have these proposals outlined revisions in the realm of practical theology, specifically relating to ecclesiology and how the Christian community might live as church in the post-Holocaust era. This study conducts an interdisciplinary analysis of dominant trends within post-Holocaust theology through the hermeneutical lens of the propensity to abandon, dominate, or eliminate the Other. It argues that the leitmotif of post-Holocaust proposals for revision, i.e. the refutation of antisemitism and a renewed emphasis on Christian/Jewish solidarity, is potentially an exacerbation of the problem of otherness rather than a corrective. Chapter one cultivates a conceptual lens of a rejection of otherness, highlighting its pervasiveness and its deleterious implications for Christian churches. Chapter two surveys a wide range of post-Holocaust ecclesial statements as well as reflections by Holocaust theologians in order to portray the churches’ own perception of their role during the Holocaust and how they have begun to reformulate Christian theology and practice in this light. Chapter three analyzes three dominant trends that come to light when the post-Holocaust landscape is assessed through the lens of otherness. Chapter four explores dynamics of Christian and ecclesial identity as a framework for the cultivation of multi-dimensional identities which make space for the Other. Finally, chapter five will briefly envision some ecclesial characteristics and practices that might better equip churches with the moral resources to resist a rejection of otherness and build an ethical responsibility for the Other into the core of ecclesial identity.