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1	This demented land : representations of madness in contemporary Scottish fiction Walker-Churchman, Georgia January 2016 (has links) This thesis analyses representations of madness and mental illness in Scottish fiction from 1979. I begin by exploring the development of the relationship between Scottish identity on one hand, and madness and unreason on the other, arguing that in criticism of Scottish fiction, representations of schizoid experience are often understood as contributing to discourses centring on Scottish identity and the construction of a Scottish literary tradition. The contention of this thesis is that reading madness in this way often simplifies the complex relationship between representations of psychosis and other forms of unreason on the one hand, and political, philosophical and theoretical structures on the other. Its purpose is to proffer a corrective to this simplification and to develop a thematic mode of approaching Scottish writing. This thesis analyses representations of madness in the work of Alasdair Gray, Janice Galloway, Alan Warner, Elspeth Barker, Bella Bathurst, and Alice Thompson. In Chapter One, I discuss the relationship between madness, creativity and autonomy in Gray's Lanark, 1982, Janine and Poor Things; Chapter Two deals with the significance of traumatic experience to Janice Galloway's The Trick Is to Keep Breathing and Foreign Parts, and the environmental concerns of Alan Warner's Morvern novels form the basis of Chapter Three. The second section of the thesis deals with representations of madness in the work of three women authors. In my fourth chapter, I attempt to formulate an approach to Gothic stylistics by comparing the function of madness and other Gothic traits in Barker's O Caledonia and Bathurst's Special. The final chapter approaches Alice Thompson's enigmatic work by theorising how she aestheticises her concern with the limits of rational knowledge in The Existential Detective, The Falconer, and Pandora's Box. The purpose of this thesis is to place the writing of madness in Scotland within the context of broad literary and philosophical traditions. This contributes to the field of Scottish literary studies by widening its scope to think through questions raised by the representation of madness. In particular, it allows for the analysis of the ways these writers distinguish between madness and sanity, the nature of the distinction between reason and unreason, and the implications these questions have for wider epistemological inquiries into the nature of knowledge and narration. In doing so, it allows for engagement with current debates in literary theory, particularly feminist and ecologically-orientated criticism, affect theory and trauma, as well as asking how a concern with literary style and genre can contribute to readings of unreason. 823
2	La ville de Rebus : polarités urbaines dans les romans d'Ian Rankin (1987-2007) / Rebus's City : urban polarities in the novels of Ian Rankin (1987-2007) Dujarric, Florence 07 December 2013 (has links) La présente étude analyse les représentations de la ville dans la série policière d’Ian Rankin dont l’inspecteur John Rebus est le protagoniste. La polarité étant l’un des principes organisateurs de l’écriture rankinienne, notre analyse s’articule autour de plusieurs couples de notions antinomiques. Nous remettons d’abord en cause la légitimité de l’antinomie qui oppose la littérature à la « littérature de masse », dans laquelle est souvent classé le roman policier. Cela nous conduit à redéfinir le roman policier, et mettre en perspective la série dans le contexte du monde littéraire et artistique écossais contemporain. Puis nous étudions l’articulation entre topographie réelle et lieu imaginaire dans l’Edimbourg de Rankin. Toute une géographie urbaine se dessine dans les romans ; l’arpentage incessant de l’espace par le protagoniste fournit l’occasion de références très spécifiques à la topographie et à la toponymie, et la sérialité tisse peu à peu un dense réseau de points nodaux ainsi qu’une multiplicité de trajets potentiels que nous avons représentés par des cartes fournies en annexe. Mais dans d’autres cas, l’espace se fait générique, se réfère plus à des conventions cinématographiques qu’à la carte de la ville. Nous envisageons enfin la ville d’Edimbourg comme un personnage ambivalent dans la lignée des personnages du roman gothique. La filiation gothique est perceptible dans l’esthétique de la ville, et la surface de la carte est compartimentée suivant un ensemble d’axes polarisants. Toutefois, cette carte se déploie elle-même par-dessus un double souterrain et non cartographiable d’Edimbourg, à la fois mémoire et inconscient de la ville. / The aim of the present study is to analyse the representations of the city to be found in Ian Rankin’s crime fiction series of which Inspector Rebus is the protagonist. Polarization being one of the structuring principles of the author’s writing, our work focuses on several pairs of antagonist notions in turn.The first one is the opposition between “high” and “low” (or “popular”) literature, the latter category being often associated with crime fiction. New categorizations of contemporary Scottish crime fiction are thus put to the test so as to assess its role and place within the landscape of Scottish literary and artistic life.Next the way Rankin’s novels map Edinburgh as a topography both real and imaginary is explored. As John Rebus endlessly paces the streets of the city, a literary geography gradually emerges and takes shape from one novel to the next, thus determining a network of focal points and potential trajectories which are depicted in the maps to be found in the annexes. This does not preclude the use of a more urban-generic type of space, which seems to have been modelled on representations of the city deriving from movies.In time, Rebus’ Edinburgh can be seen as a character in its own right, one fraught with ambiguities stemming from the Gothic novel tradition. This Gothic filiation is visible in the aesthetic of the city, while the polarity between surface representations and subterranean depths, full of twists and turns, calls into question the very possibility of mapping the city as it gradually discloses its past and unconscious memories. Littérature écossaise contemporaine Roman policier Ian Rankin Etudes urbaines Géographie littéraire Tartan Noir Polarité Géocritique Espace fictionnel Doppelgänger Inspecteur Rebus Littérature populaire Edimbourg Série romanesque Cartographie Poétique de la ville Toponymie Détective Roman gothique Puritanisme Simulacre Hétérotopie Western Science-fiction Métafiction Dystopie Scottish contemporary literature Crime fiction Ian Rankin Urban studies Literary geography Tartan Noir Polarity Geocriticism Fictional space Doppelgänger Inspector Rebus Popular literature Edinburgh Novel series Cartography Poetics of the city Toponymy Detective Gothic novel Puritanism Simulacrum Heterotopy Western Science-fiction Metafiction Dystopia

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This demented land : representations of madness in contemporary Scottish fiction

La ville de Rebus : polarités urbaines dans les romans d'Ian Rankin (1987-2007) / Rebus's City : urban polarities in the novels of Ian Rankin (1987-2007)