The aim of this thesis is to explore the comic art of Molière through the lens of empathy and narcissism, and reciprocally, to show that Molière nourishes Western thought about these phenomena, which can be viewed as opposite ends of a continuum. Every personality has some of each, but the unbalanced egoist has excessive self-love and cannot put himself in another's place. The narcissist is omnipresent in Molière's theatre, but has been heretofore unidentified as such in criticism. This work attempts to fill this gap, and accordingly, my corpus encompasses his 33 extant plays. Furthermore, these psychological concepts are inherently theatrical, especially with respect to whether or not spectators recognize themselves in characters on stage. There is a dialectic relation between reconnaissance and empathy or antipathy, and, therefore, laughter. Hence, empathy and narcissism provide a way of looking at characters on stage and at the interaction between the dramatic action and the audience. To explore the former, I investigate endogenous words Molière uses to convey empathy and narcissism; how he portrays empathizers and narcissists visually through their adherence to and breaking of social codes; and how cognition influences their ability to change. For the latter, I demonstrate how early modern querelles surrounding Molière's plays involve these notions; and how his metatheatrical discourses reveal that Molière transports his spectators 'hors de soi': a state that mirrors romantic love and provides pleasure. Taken in this framework, I argue that Molière's work can be seen as anti-narcissistic; if his spectators knew themselves in the mirror he held up, laughing was a means of precluding blind empathy. Thus, employing tools from modern psychology and neuroscience and notions from the seventeenth century, this thesis evaluates how Molière's characters provide us, today, with a means for better understanding the place of narcissism in our occidental world.

Thesis advisor: Diana Pullin / Using qualitative research methods, this study looked at the role of the single-sex versus the coeducational school environment as a key factor in determining boys' perceptions of success in French communicative activities as defined in Standard 1.1 of ACTFL 's et al Standards for Foreign Lanquage Learning : Preparing for the 21st Century (1999). A total of twenty-four boys (twelve from a single-sex high school and twelve from a coeducational institution) were observed in class and subsequently interviewed. The goal was to determine if cognitive gender differences surounding foreign language communicative activities, socio-cultural concerns as respects boys' perceptions of the appropriateness of high achievement in French, and teacher pedagogy all lend themselves to the single-sex environment such that it provides a more fertile setting for boys' high achievement. The findings indicated that the single-sex sample's self-perceptions of competence were healthier in the single-sex environment for a variety of reasons. The single-sex school boys were more willing to work hard against the perception held by both sample sets that girls may possess an innate advantage in the speaking skill, they held a wider definition of what is appropriate male behavior (which included high achievement in French), and they (together with their coed counterparts) found the all boys environment more accepting of errors and more risk-friendly in general - crucial ingredients for developing the French speaking skill. The single-sex sample more willingly embraced school as a rigorous academic forum, whereas the coed sample was more likely to see school as appropriate for building social skills and for cultivating an understanding of the opposite sex. These findings suggest that the single-sex classroom environment is superior for boys as they strive to achieve in female sex-typed arenas such as French communicative activities. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration.

Este trabalho busca fazer uma contribuição epistemológica para os estudos sobre o nascimento das línguas românicas e sua convivência com o latim. Tal contribuição toma a forma de uma revisão da literatura sobre o assunto à luz de princípios teóricos que encaram as transformações linguísticas como um processo ecológico e evolucionário (Mufwene, 2008). Partindo da concepção de que as línguas são sistemas complexos, dinâmicos e abertos, compostos por idioletos inerentemente variáveis, esta pesquisa examina as maneiras como fatos históricos de natureza política e cultural atuaram como pressões ecológicas para a evolução do latim em direção à especiação dos romances. Em particular, o papel do Renascimento Carolíngio como disparador de um amplo processo de categorização de tais línguas, conforme estudado por Wright (1982), é analisado a partir dessa perspectiva ecoevolucionária. Este trabalho inclui uma comparação da concepção de língua adotada aqui e da análise histórica que ela fundamenta com outras concepções e análises mais correntes, para explicitar algumas das vantagens do posicionamento assumido. A conclusão é que as fronteiras entre as línguas românicas foram fundamentadas sobre a elaboração de uma percepção metalinguística, embora as maneiras vastamente variáveis como essas línguas são de fato usadas tenha evoluído a partir do acúmulo histórico de interações comunicativas concretas influenciadas por determinada ecologia social. / This work attempts to make an epistemological contribution to the studies on the birth of Romance languages and their coexistence with Latin. That contribution is structured as a review of the literature on the subject, according to principles that consider the transformations of languages as an ecological and evolutionary process (Mufwene, 2008). Based on the fact that languages are complex, dynamic and open systems, composed by inherently variable idiolects, this research examines the ways in which historical facts of political and cultural nature have acted as ecological pressures over the evolution of Latin and its speciation into Romance languages. In particular, the role of the Carolingian Renaissance as the starting point of a wide process of development of a categorization of such languages, as studied by Wright (1982), is analyzed according to that ecoevolutionary perspective. This work includes a comparison between the concept of language adopted here and the historical analysis grounded on it, and the mainstream concepts and analyses, in order to highlight some of the advantages of the chosen stance. The conclusion is: the frontiers between Romance languages have been built upon the construction of metalinguistic awareness, although the vastly variable ways in which those languages are effectively used have evolved from a historical accumulation of concrete communicative interactions influenced by a certain social ecology.

This thesis examines exile in contemporary autobiographical narratives written in French by women from across the Francophone world. The analysis focuses on work by Nina Bouraoui (Algeria), Gisele Pineau (Guadeloupe), Veronique Tadjo (Cote d'Ivoire), and Kim Lefevre (Vietnam), and investigates how the French colonial project has shaped female articulations of mobility and identity in the present. This comparative, cross-cultural, and cross-generational study engages with postcolonial theory, gender theory, and autobiographical theory in order to create a new framework with which to interpret women's experiences and expressions of displacement across the Francosphere. The thesis posits that existing models of exile do not fully explain the complex situations of the four authors, who do not have a well-defined 'home' and 'host' country. Although marginalised by their gender, they are economically privileged and have chosen to live a rootless existence, which nonetheless renders them alienated and 'out of place'. The thesis thus argues that women's narratives of exile challenge and complicate existing paradigms of exile which have a male, patriarchal focus. By turning our attention to these women and their specific postcolonial gendered narratives, a more nuanced understanding of exile emerges: exile is experienced as a sexual, gendered, racial, and/or linguistic otherness.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES / Bibliography: leaves 412-419. / by Joseph Aoun. / Ph.D.

This thesis re-evaluates the relationship between original text and translation through an approach that assumes the equality of source and target texts. This is based on the translation strategy expressed in the work of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges and theoretical approaches by Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault, as well as exponents of Possible World Theory. Rather than considering what may be lost in translation, this thesis focuses on why we insist on maintaining a border between the textual phenomena ‘translation’ and ‘original’ and argues for a mutually enriching dialogue between a text and its translation. The opening chapter investigates marginal cases of translation and determines where one form (original) ends and the other (translation) begins. The case studies derive from the anthology Cuentos breves y extraordinarios (edited by Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares) and include ‘pseudotranslations’: texts presented as translations even though no linguistic transfer precedes them. Another example is Borges’s self-translation of his Spanish poem ‘Mañana’ into German as ‘Südlicher Morgen’ for the Expressionist poet Kurt Heynicke. Although an original text, the pseudotranslation is judged as a translation, problematizing the boundary between the two. Since its perception changes over time, it unsettles the idea of the stable text by positing a text in progress. The analysis of the effects of the translation is supported by a discussion of Michel Foucault’s categorization expressed in Les mots et les choses (1966). Translations are regarded as coins, which gain value through their ability to represent, and create heterotopias: potentially existing non-places, which escape logic and thereby create an ‘uneasy laughter.’ Heterotopias are based on anti-logical orders, exemplified in the organisation of Antología de la literatura fantástica, collaboratively edited by Borges, Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo in 1940. This organisation invites an interpretation based on resemblance rather than comparison, the latter of which always results in the production and reproduction of hierarchies. In Chapter Two, I uncover the fraudulent assumption that an original is a stable text. I make recourse to Walter Benjamin’s definition of origin in ‘Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers’ (1923) as ‘the eddy in the stream of becoming’, and André Lefevere’s notion of the refracted text, explaining that our first encounters with a classic text are mostly made through abridged, altered, and interpreted versions. Collaborative work also unsettles the idea of the single author as source and guarantor of authenticity, exemplified through examples of Borges and Bioy Casares’s collaboration, and Borges’s collaborative translations with Norman Thomas di Giovanni. I elaborate on Possible World Theory (PWT) following Marie-Laure Ryan and Ruth Ronen, explaining key terms and concepts and showing that PWT offers an alternative to thinking about the relationship of original text and translation as hierarchical. PWT can be employed to consider source text and target text to be possible, parallel versions of a fictional world. The findings lead to a link between authenticity and the different reception of original and translated texts. I note that the term ‘authenticity’, often used in reference to the original, also has ‘murderous’ connotations. Applied to a text, ‘inauthenticity’ might therefore be a more helpful term in discussing its ‘afterlife’ (Fortleben; Benjamin) as an inauthentic text. An effective way of ensuring a text can be read as ‘inauthentic’ is to dissimulate its origin and relations, whilst also unsettling the authority of the author and translator. The theoretical examination of hierarchies and categorization is then illustrated in case studies analysing Borges’s contrasting translations of works by Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka. Chapter Three focuses on translations of Orlando and A Room of One’s Own attributed to Borges. While it remains uncertain whether Borges did in fact translate Woolf’s texts himself, the notion of ‘translatorship’ comes into focus. The continuation of claiming Borges as the translator serves to aid the publication of the translations by making use of the famous translator’s name. I give an overview over the publishing environment in Argentina of the 1930s into which the Woolf texts were translated, with particular focus on the readership of the publishing house Sur. I thereby foreground Victoria Ocampo’s particular interest in having Woolf translated into Spanish, since Ocampo considered Woolf a role model for feminism. Feminist discussions show parallels with the way in which translations and original texts are separated. Borges’s Orlando furthermore triggered controversy concerning his handling of gender issues. I offer a reading of the text along the lines of Feminist Translation Studies, as expressed by Sherry Simon, Luise von Flotow and Lori Chamberlain, amongst others. I argue that Borges’s translation can be read ‘inauthentically’ as fidelity becomes a movable factor. I regard the translations of Orlando and A Room of One’s Own attributed to Borges as texts translated in a feminist way as they offer many possible worlds of interpretation and much undecidability. The notion of ‘translatorship’ is picked up again in the final Chapter Four, as it applies equally to the translation of Franz Kafka’s ‘Die Verwandlung’ as ‘La metamorfosis.’ Since there are different versions of ‘La metamorfosis,’ the quest for the translator also questions where ‘translation’ ends and ‘editing’ begins. The popularity of Borges’s version might furthermore be particularly linked to this uncertainty, as I argue that the veneration of Kafka’s work is, at least in part, due to the fragmentary nature in which his work survived. This incompletion enables many possible interpretations of his texts, which thereby appear as perfect pieces of literature since they, like Foucault’s coin, are uncorrodable and have the ability to represent, much like inauthentic texts. The ‘inauthentic’ literary treatment of translating in collaboration, as is the case when Borges and Bioy Casares translate ‘Cuatro reflexiones’, ‘Josefina la cantora’, ‘La verdad sobre Sancho Panza’ and ‘El silencio de las sirenas’ is hence particularly adequate for these fragments. The translations in collaboration, besides undermining the authorial genius of the single author, also feature particular destructions of the perfection of the original. The concluding chapter summarises the findings concerning the questions as to why there should be a hierarchy between the reception of original texts and translations, why this hierarchy is so persistent, and what alternatives may be offered instead. I demonstrate how the selected case studies are exemplary of alternative approaches to Translation Studies and to what effect PWT and Borges have been helpful in pursuing this approach. I then suggest further routes of research, including: an increased visibility of translations in academic disciplines, through publishing books and reviews; further study on the translations of Argentine literature into an Anglo-American context and the ‘decolonized’ effect this could have; and an update of Feminist Translation Studies to expand it to Transgender Translation Studies. I finally suggest that the uncertain and unsettling effect brought about by translation in its creation of multiple worlds should be embraced as a way of reading and writing inauthentically.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 314-319. / by Osvaldo Adolfo Jaeggli. / Ph.D.

Subjunctive is the most complex mood in the Romance languages from a structural point of view. It shows a large diversity of uses. In the present study we have compared the use and values of this verbal mood among the major Romance languages, though sometimes some others have also been included (Galician, Catalan and Sardinian). It is interesting to notice that not all the languages show the same number of tenses and even that the origin of some of the tenses have different sources in Latin. Romanian is the main study target, and it is the starting point for the whole study. It will be seen that, despite all the differences, Romanian follows similar patterns to the rest of the Romance family. Even so, a specific peculiarity of Romanian syntax, the lack of infinitive in completive constructions, contrasts with the overdeveloped Portuguese conjugated infinitive. Apart from the analysis of the values and the uses, the study closes with a selection of chosen sentences in these six major languages allowing us to make conclusions as for the nature and behaviour of current subjunctive mood.

Este trabalho busca fazer uma contribuição epistemológica para os estudos sobre o nascimento das línguas românicas e sua convivência com o latim. Tal contribuição toma a forma de uma revisão da literatura sobre o assunto à luz de princípios teóricos que encaram as transformações linguísticas como um processo ecológico e evolucionário (Mufwene, 2008). Partindo da concepção de que as línguas são sistemas complexos, dinâmicos e abertos, compostos por idioletos inerentemente variáveis, esta pesquisa examina as maneiras como fatos históricos de natureza política e cultural atuaram como pressões ecológicas para a evolução do latim em direção à especiação dos romances. Em particular, o papel do Renascimento Carolíngio como disparador de um amplo processo de categorização de tais línguas, conforme estudado por Wright (1982), é analisado a partir dessa perspectiva ecoevolucionária. Este trabalho inclui uma comparação da concepção de língua adotada aqui e da análise histórica que ela fundamenta com outras concepções e análises mais correntes, para explicitar algumas das vantagens do posicionamento assumido. A conclusão é que as fronteiras entre as línguas românicas foram fundamentadas sobre a elaboração de uma percepção metalinguística, embora as maneiras vastamente variáveis como essas línguas são de fato usadas tenha evoluído a partir do acúmulo histórico de interações comunicativas concretas influenciadas por determinada ecologia social. / This work attempts to make an epistemological contribution to the studies on the birth of Romance languages and their coexistence with Latin. That contribution is structured as a review of the literature on the subject, according to principles that consider the transformations of languages as an ecological and evolutionary process (Mufwene, 2008). Based on the fact that languages are complex, dynamic and open systems, composed by inherently variable idiolects, this research examines the ways in which historical facts of political and cultural nature have acted as ecological pressures over the evolution of Latin and its speciation into Romance languages. In particular, the role of the Carolingian Renaissance as the starting point of a wide process of development of a categorization of such languages, as studied by Wright (1982), is analyzed according to that ecoevolutionary perspective. This work includes a comparison between the concept of language adopted here and the historical analysis grounded on it, and the mainstream concepts and analyses, in order to highlight some of the advantages of the chosen stance. The conclusion is: the frontiers between Romance languages have been built upon the construction of metalinguistic awareness, although the vastly variable ways in which those languages are effectively used have evolved from a historical accumulation of concrete communicative interactions influenced by a certain social ecology.

This dissertation delves into re-casted, re-negotiated, and emergent U.S. and Latino perspectives that are resulting from trans-border cultural and national fusion and undocumented Mexican immigration to the U.S. between the years 2000-2015. Five cultural products-- newspaper headlines, literature, music, political cartoons, and memes-- as produced by Mexican individuals on one side of the U.S.-Mexican Border and undocumented individuals on the other, who are part of the millennial generation, are considered against fossilized notions of gender, race, class, and national identity to determine if and how millennial Mexicans and millennial undocumented individuals are leveraging specific cultural tokens to be tools of defiance and to promulgate a re-writing of self.