The project entitled PEACOCK PILGRIMAGE comprises two components: the screenplay for a feature film, entitled Peacock Angel, and an exegesis, which explores the underlying influences on the screenplay. Peacock Angel is the story of a young girl, Deva, who grew up in India with a fascination for peacocks, especially the fictional peacock angel. After a time of isolation as a teenager in the West, she returns to India to reconcile with a tragic past and reconnect with her true longings. India is the place that mends her wounded heart. Within the symbolic realms of the screenplay Deva, as the central character, becomes the peacock ‘goddess’. Her journey allows us to explore layers within the themes of identity, memory and fantasy. The project holds an East/West theme, of disillusionment with Western material values and appreciation of the depth of Indian culture, of “the land where the heart is king”. Field research on the peacock, the key motif of the project, has led me on a journey through India that has been full of synchronicity and given me a particularly rich taste of her timeless culture. The exegesis elaborates on aspects of my journey, on the concepts of synchronicity and pilgrimage, and on the motif of peacock – highlighting its symbolic and mythical meanings. It also situates Peacock Angel within the field of world cinema, in the category of Western films made in India and the genre of magic realism.

The project entitled PEACOCK PILGRIMAGE comprises two components: the screenplay for a feature film, entitled Peacock Angel, and an exegesis, which explores the underlying influences on the screenplay. Peacock Angel is the story of a young girl, Deva, who grew up in India with a fascination for peacocks, especially the fictional peacock angel. After a time of isolation as a teenager in the West, she returns to India to reconcile with a tragic past and reconnect with her true longings. India is the place that mends her wounded heart. Within the symbolic realms of the screenplay Deva, as the central character, becomes the peacock ‘goddess’. Her journey allows us to explore layers within the themes of identity, memory and fantasy. The project holds an East/West theme, of disillusionment with Western material values and appreciation of the depth of Indian culture, of “the land where the heart is king”. Field research on the peacock, the key motif of the project, has led me on a journey through India that has been full of synchronicity and given me a particularly rich taste of her timeless culture. The exegesis elaborates on aspects of my journey, on the concepts of synchronicity and pilgrimage, and on the motif of peacock – highlighting its symbolic and mythical meanings. It also situates Peacock Angel within the field of world cinema, in the category of Western films made in India and the genre of magic realism.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 17, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-56).

Comme son titre l'indique, cette thèse comporte 3 parties.- La première partie est consacrée à la pénalisation de diffusions linéaires régulières récurrentes. Plus précisément, nous étudions, dans un premier temps, la pénalisation de diffusions récurrentes nulles, et nous présentons une large classe de fonctionnelles pour lesquelles le principe de pénalisation est satisfait. Cette étude repose sur la construction d'une mesure sigma-finie W similaire à celle de Najnudel-Roynette-Yor. Nous traitons également, dans un second temps, le cas de la pénalisation d'une diffusion récurrente positive réfléchie sur un intervalle par une fonction exponentielle de son temps local en 0. Les résultats obtenus dans ce cadre se démarquent nettement de ceux du cas récurrent nul, et l'on voit apparaître un phénomène nouveau de composition des pénalisations.- Dans la deuxième partie, nous étendons la notion de pseudo-inverses (introduite à l'origine par Madan-Roynette-Yor dans le cadre des processus de Bessel) à des diffusions plus générales. Nous montrons en particulier que l'on peut réaliser la famille de pseudo-inverses associée à une diffusion à valeurs positives issue de 0 comme les derniers temps de passage d'une autre diffusion obtenue grâce à la transformation de Biane.- La dernière partie de cette thèse traite de peacocks, i.e. de processus croissants pour l'ordre convexe. Un théorème dû à Kellerer affirme que l'on peut associer à tout peacock une martingale ayant les mêmes marginales unidimensionnelles. Guidé par ce théorème, nous exhibons, dans un premier temps, de larges familles de peacocks, construites essentiellement à partir de processus dit "conditionnellement monotones", puis nous associons à certains de ces peacocks des martingales via les plongements de Skorokhod de Hall-Breiman, Bass et Azéma-Yor / As suggested by the title, this thesis comprises three parts.- The first part is dedicated to the penalization of regular recurrent linear diffusions. More precisely, we start by examining null recurrent diffusions, and we exhibit a large class of functionals for which the penalization principle is satisfied. This study relies on the construction of a sigma-finite measure W similar to that of Najnudel-Roynette-Yor. We then deal with the case of the penalization of a positively recurrent diffusion (reflected on an interval) with an exponential function of its local time at 0. The results we obtain in this set-up are quite different from the null recurrent framework, and we see a new phenomena of composition of penalizations.- In the second part, we extend the notion of pseudo-inverses (a notion recently introduced by Madan-Roynette-Yor in the framework of Bessel processes) to more general diffusions. We show in particular that we may realize the family of pseudo-inverses associated to a diffusion started from 0 and taking positive values as the last passage times of another diffusion, constructed thanks to Biane's transform.- The last part of this thesis deals with peacocks, i.e. with processes which are increasing in the convex order. A theorem due to Kellerer states that to every peacock, one can associate a martingale which has the same one-dimensional marginals. Guided by this theorem, we first exhibit large families of peacocks, essentially constructed from "conditionally monotone" processes, and we then associate martingales to some of these peacocks thanks to the Skorokhod embeddings of Hall-Breiman, Bass and Azéma-Yor

Cette thèse porte sur les processus croissants pour l'ordre convexe que nous désignons sous le nom de peacocks. Un résultat remarquable dû à Kellerer stipule qu'un processus stochastique à valeurs réelles est un peacock si et seulement s'il possède les mêmes marginales unidimensionnelles qu'une martingale. Une telle martingale est dite associée à ce processus. Mais dans son article, Kellerer ne donne ni d'exemple de peacock, ni d'idée précise sur la construction d'une martingale associée pour un peacock donné. Ainsi, comme d'autres travaux sur les peacocks, notre étude vise deux objectifs. Il s'agit d'exhiber de nouvelles familles de peacocks et de construire des martingales associées pour certains peacocks. Dans les trois premiers chapitres, nous exhibons diverses classes de peacocks en utilisant successivement les notions de monotonie conditionnelle, de peacock très fort et de positivité totale d'ordre 2. En particulier, nous fournissons plusieurs extensions du résultat de Carr-Ewald-Xiao selon lequel la moyenne arithmétique du mouvement brownien géométrique, encore appelée "option asiatique" est un peacock. L'objet du dernier chapitre est de construire des martingales associées pour une classe de peacocks. Pour cela, nous utilisons les plongements d'Azéma-Yor et de Bertoin-Le Jan. L'originalité de ce chapitre est l'utilisation de la positivité totale d'ordre 2 dans l'étude du plongement d'Azéma-Yor / This thesis deals with real valued stochastic processes which increase in the convex order. We call them peacocks. A remarkable result due to Kellerer states that a real valued process is a peacock if and only if it has the same one-dimensional marginals as a martingale. Such a martingale is said to be associated to this process. But in his article, Kellerer provides neither an example of peacock nor a concrete idea to construct an associated martingale to a given peacock. Hence, as other investigations on peacocks, our study has two purposes. We first exhibit new families of peacocks and then, we contruct associated martingales to certain of them. In the first three chapters, we exhibit several classes of peacocks using successively the notions of conditional monotonicity, very strong peacock and total positivity of order 2. In particular, we provide many extensions of Carr-Ewald-Xiao result which states that the arithmetic mean of geometric Brownian motion, also called "Asian option" is a peacock. The purpose of the last chapter is to construct associated martingales to certain peacocks. To this end, we use Azéma-Yor and Bertoin-Le Jan embedding algorithms. The originality of this chapter is the use of total positivity of order 2 in the study of Azéma-Yor embedding algorithm