An analysis of the thought of Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte) with regards to his literary tastes and influences as part of his wider philosophy. The thesis considers how the literary influences to which Napoleon was subject impacted upon his aesthetic ideas and in turn affected the nature of his rule.

My thesis offers the first full exploration of the literature and art associated with the Genoese noblewoman Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci (1453-1476). Simonetta has gone down in legend as a model of Sandro Botticelli, and most scholarly discussions of her significance are principally concerned with either proving or disproving this theory. My point of departure, rather, is the series of vernacular poems that were written about Simonetta just before and shortly after her early death. I use them to tell a new story, that of the transformation of the historical manna Simonetta into a cultural icon, a literary and visual construct who served the political, aesthetic and pecuniary agendas of her poets and artists. It is an account of the Florentine circles that used women to forge a collective sense of identity, of the emergence of Simonetta and her equally idealised peers as touchstones in contemporary debates regarding beauty and love, and of their corresponding lack of importance as 'real' women in the conservative republic in which they lived. In doing this, my thesis makes an important contribution to our understanding of how and why female beauty was commodified in the poetry and art of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Florence.

This thesis examines contemporary literary and cinematic representations of Paris in relation to the dynamics of collective memory, arguing that the city emerges as a privileged site in which to explore critical questions of identity, memory and citizenship in France. In this comparative approach to representations of memories of the Holocaust and the Algerian War in France, I identify a shared lexicon of urban space simultaneously hiding and revealing traces of the past in the contemporary city. This study of memories and their urban and palimpsestic representations challenges the tendency to separate the disciplines of postcolonial and post-Holocaust studies, and in so doing contests the conceptual separation of metropolitan, European and colonial histories. As such, it contributes to a growing interdisciplinary field of French and Francophone studies that extends the object of study beyond the purely metropolitan. I draw on and engage with theoretical work in the fields of memory studies, postcolonial studies and post-Holocaust studies to consider how urban space opens up a legitimate new way of engaging with the overlaps and intersections between different memories without undermining the crucial element of difference. Underpinned by poststructuralist concerns, memory emerges here as an inherently constructed concept.

Most research into contemporary French West Indian literature focuses on writing that stresses the significance of the plantation and urban cultures of the islands in the early to mid-twentieth century or, more recently, on the desire of some writers to explore broader trans-national influences or environments. Despite the prominence of migration in post-war French West Indian history, however, less has been said about the engagement of French West Indian literature with migration to metropolitan France. Although commentators have recently begun to discuss the work of a handful of writers in connection with migration to the métropole, this thesis offers a full-length analysis of the issue, bringing writers, texts and literary and cultural theories together with the cultural and sociological context of migration to metropolitan France. I comment on a variety of well-known authors and texts, while also presenting writers and writing that have frequently been neglected in other studies. I also consider the reasons for what I believe to be both the slow development of a literature of migration, as well as the low profile of this issue within Francophone literary studies. Part One, ‘French and West Indian: Historical and Sociological Contexts’, considers the broad context of migration, reflecting on how that context impacts on the West Indians and their descendants in the métropole. Part Two, ‘Theory and the French West Indian Diaspora’, looks at colonisation, postcolonial criticism, and the current scholarship devoted to them, as these concern the issues of migration and identity in sociological and literary terms. Part Three, ‘Patterns of Discourse: Reflections of the Métropole’, takes recurrent themes that have appeared in the works of a variety of less well-known writers, including writers of West Indian origin born in the métropole. In Part Four, ‘Siting the Métropole’, I examine three successful yet very different writers and consider their contributions to the literature of migration, in the light of the reflections made and the patterns uncovered earlier in this thesis. My conclusion unites the themes of inclusion and exclusion that this subject brings to the fore, and suggests potential literary and scholarly developments for the future.

This thesis explores the interaction of gender and the construction of the Argentine state. It pays particular attention to the emergence of women’s movements as well as women’s writing and the way in which both reflect and express the history of the Argentine state after independence. Beginning with a brief account of Argentine independence and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as founding-father of the Argentine nation, part one focuses on the historical periods of the Liberal State, Peronism, and the military dictatorships of the 1960s and early 1970s. It investigates how national discourse incorporated gender discourse without including women as citizens in their full right. It then explores how women’s movements articulated their ensuing discontent with the patriarchal system that attempted to ensure continuity of this exclusion. Part two identifies and analyzes selected texts by nineteenth and twentieth century Argentine female authors. Written from a specifically female standpoint, these novels and short stories articulate women’s grievances with the political developments addressed in part one.

The story of Thomas Day’s attempt to educate a young girl according to the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with the aim of marrying her, has often been referred to as a footnote in Enlightenment history. However, the girl chosen by Day, Sabrina Sidney, has never been placed at the centre of any historical enquiry, nor has the experiment been explored in any depth. This study places Sabrina at its centre to investigate its impact on her and to examine the intellectual and societal debates that informed Thomas Day’s decision to educate a wife. This thesis argues that Sabrina Sidney was in a constant state of construction, which changed depending on a myriad of factors and that constructions of her were fluid and flexible. These constructions were both conscious and unconscious and crucially, they were created as much by Sabrina as by those around her. This research concludes that placing minor historical figures to the centre of historical enquiry fundamentally changes the histories of which they are a part and that it is possible to use a variety of sources to construct a rich and detailed biographical study that offers a new perspective on the English Enlightenment.

My thesis explores language policy and practice in the history of the people of Gibraltar between 1940 and 1985. This period covers the wartime Evacuation and the Spanish border restrictions and closure, and it is also fundamental in the emergence of Gibraltarian identity and democratic rights. My contention is that these developments were facilitated by growing accessibility to the English language. From being largely the preserve of the colonial establishment and the elite, it emerged as pre-eminent in official use, the media and culture, and higher oral registers. This change was hastened by the Evacuation, which increased awareness of the need for English. The Clifford Report of 1944 reformed the whole education system and gave a central role to English. Clifford, Gibraltar’s Colonial Secretary, and indeed educationalists at the Colonial Office, proved themselves far more enlightened than their governing counterparts in Gibraltar. Their reform greatly contributed to political development in the following decades. With the Spanish border closure, the English language and the sense of attachment to Britain gained further consolidation, co-existing with the move away from overt colonialism. In my examination of language behaviour in Gibraltar, including bilingualism and the use of Spanish, interview material supplements written sources.

As bolsas de Produtividade em Pesquisa (PQ) do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) são destinadas aos pesquisadores que se destaquem entre seus pares, valorizando sua produção científica. O perfil desses bolsistas tem sido objeto de análise frequente em diversos estudos, majoritariamente com foco específico em determinadas áreas do conhecimento. O presente estudo busca caracterizar toda a população de bolsistas PQ do CNPq, oferecendo uma visão mais ampla e contribuindo com o desenvolvimento de políticas de aperfeiçoamento e valorização da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação em todas as áreas. Nesse sentido, o trabalho apresenta e discute dados referentes aos bolsistas e sobre sua produção científica e tecnológica, extraídos dos currículos cadastrados na Plataforma Lattes. As informações referentes aos bolsistas foram divididas em dados gerais sobre os pesquisadores, sobre sua formação em nível de doutorado e sobre a bolsa PQ que possuem atualmente. As informações referentes à produção foram divididas em dados gerais de produção, orientações concluídas, produção bibliográfica, artigos por faixa de JCR e índice H. Os resultados apontaram que há predominância de diversas características dos bolsistas, tais como no sexo, distribuição geográfica, áreas do conhecimento e local de realização do doutorado. Quanto à produção dos pesquisadores, foi possível perceber que há características diferentes entre as áreas do conhecimento, em especial quanto a relevância dos indicadores de produtividade relacionados a artigos publicados para cada área. Observou-se, ainda, que o tempo de formação e o tempo de experiência científica estão diretamente relacionados à classificação dos pesquisadores nos diferentes níveis de bolsa, onde a produtividade e impacto dos bolsistas dos níveis mais altos são efetivamente maiores que os dos bolsistas que ocupam os níveis inferiores. / Research Productivity grants (PQ) of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) are intended for researchers who stand out among their peers, valuing their scientific production. The profile of these scholarship holders has been the object of frequent analysis in several studies, mostly with specific focus in certain areas of knowledge. The present study aims to characterize the entire population of CNPq PQ fellows, offering a broader view and contributing to the development of policies for the improvement and valorization of Science, Technology and Innovation in all areas. In this way, the study presents and discusses data about the scholarship holders and their scientific and technological production, extracted from the curricula registered in the Lattes Platform. The information about the scholarship holders was divided into general information about the researchers, about their doctoral training and about the PQ scholarship they currently have. Production information was divided into general production data, concluded academic advisory, bibliographic production, articles by JCR and H index. The results showed that there are predominant characteristics of the scholarship holders, such as gender, geographical distribution, areas of knowledge and location of the doctorate. Regarding the production of the researchers, it was possible to perceive that there are different characteristics between the areas of knowledge, especially as the relevance of the productivity indicators related to articles published for each area. It was also observed that the time of formation and the time of scientific experience are directly related to the classification of the researchers in the different levels of scholarship, where the productivity and impact of the scholars of the highest levels are actually greater than the scholarship holders of the lower levels.

Ce travail de thèse traite du maintien dynamique de représentations géométriques de graphes. Le manuscrit met en avant des connexions fortes entre trois types de représentation de graphes : les décompositions de graphes, les modèles géométriques et les représentations arborescentes à degrés de liberté (PQ-arbres, PC-arbres et autres structures du même type). De nouvelles relations entre ces objets sont mises en évidence et d'autres déjà connues sont approfondies. Notamment, il est établi une équivalence mathématique et algorithmique entre la décomposition modulaire des graphes d'intervalles et le PQ-arbre de leurs cliques maximales.<br /><br />Les connexions entre les trois types de représentation précités sont exploitées pour la conception d'algorithmes de reconnaissance entièrement dynamiques pour les cographes orientés, les graphes de permutation et les graphes d'intervalles. Pour les cographes orientés, l'algorithme présenté est de complexité optimale, il traite les modifications de sommet en temps O(d), où d est le degré du sommet en question, et les modifications d'arête en temps constant. Les algorithmes pour les graphes de permutation et les graphes d'intervalles ont la même complexité : les modifications d'arête et de sommet sont traitées en temps O(n), où n est le nombre de sommets du graphe. Une des contributions du mémoire est de mettre en lumière des similarités très fortes entre les opérations d'ajout d'un sommet dans un graphe de permutation et dans un graphe d'intervalles. <br />L'approche mise en oeuvre dans ce mémoire est assez générale pour laisser entrevoir les mêmes possibilités algorithmiques pour d'autres classes de graphes définies géométriquement.

De nombreux développements sont actuellement en cours dans le réseau Internet, particulièrement sur la gestion de la QoS et sur l'intégration des différents services. Les aspects portant sur l'amélioration des performances des flux élastiques ont été quelque peu négligés par la communauté scientifique. Le travail effectué porte sur l'évaluation et l'amélioration des performances des flux élastiques. Plus exactement, nos études mettent en avant l'importance d'assurer une bonne qualité de service à ce type de trafic. Deux architectures de QoS ont été proposées. La première architecture est basée sur la classification et le contrôle d'admission appliqués sur les deux types de flux TCP: courts et longs. La classification des flux nous permet d'avoir un système plus prévisible et plus facile à dimensionner puisque les flux d'un agrégat parviennent à partager équitablement la bande passante qui leur est allouée au sein d'une même classe. Le contrôle d'admission prend en compte la caractérisation en flux longs et flux courts ainsi que les contraintes de QoS propres à chaque type de flux. Un modèle analytique ainsi que des simulations ont été réalisés afin d'évaluer les avantages de l'architecture proposée et d'analyser l'impact des seuils d'admission. Il est important de signaler que, outre l'amélioration des performances dans les cas étudiés, l'approche proposée fournit un outil de dimensionnement du réseau permettant d'atteindre, pour une structure de trafic donnée, les mesures de performances attendues. La deuxième architecture est basée sur le traitement préférentiel. Ce dernier est appliqué aux premiers paquets de chaque connexion favorisant ainsi les connexions courtes. Nous comptons sur l'architecture DiffServ pour classifier les flux aux bordures d'un réseau. Plus spécifiquement, nous maintenons la longueur (en paquets) de chaque flux actif aux routeurs de bordures et l'employons pour classifier les paquets entrants. Cette architecture a la particularité de ne pas nécessiter le maintien en mémoire d'un état par flux au coeur du réseau. Dans ce dernier, nous utilisons la politique de gestion de file d'attente RED avec des seuils différents pour les deux types de classes. Ceci nous permet de réduire le taux de pertes éprouvé par les paquets des flux courts. Nous montrons, à travers des analyses et des simulations que notre modèle peut réaliser une meilleure équité et un temps de réponse plus petit pour les flux courts que les modèles sans traitement préférentiel.