This dissertation examines the preservation of Chinese kunqu, one of China’s indigenous operatic genres, in recent years with a special focus on renowned writer Pai Hsien-yung’s new adaptation of classic kunqu play The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting). I use this adaptation as a case study to demonstrate how the actual shape of a stage production can be determined by a producer’s choice between tradition and innovation. The contention between the two variables can be identified in the hundreds of years of kunqu history. The introduction provides a brief overview of the ascension of kunqu to its dominance as a national opera between late Ming and early Qing dynasties (late sixteenth century to early nineteenth century). The first two chapters analyze the downfall of this genre and its struggle for existence and development from mid-Qing through the turbulent twentieth century with particular emphasis on exploring the interplay between tradition and innovation. The next two chapters focus entirely on Pai Hsien-yung’s stage production of Peony and its wide distribution. The last chapter examines the latest kunqu production modes developed under the influence of Pai’s approach. Through this detailed analysis of Pai’s kunqu production and its impact, this research identifies one of the most prominent trends in kunqu preservation and development in the twenty-first century. It explores the dialectical approach adopted in this trend to handle the relationship between tradition and innovation, and the particular redefinition of audience construction. A renewed wave of kunqu preservation efforts within China during the past decade created a favourable environment for Pai’s productions. The success of his works has drawn new attention to the opera and eased kunqu crisis to a fairly large extent. The most significant contribution of Pai’s works to Chinese kunqu discourse can be seen from the expansion of audience base, particularly among the educated youth, and the increasingly varied and creative strategies for kunqu production and distribution. These changes have greatly transformed the overall Chinese kunqu scene, and ushered in a new era when new kunqu stage works are made into collages of intrinsic kunqu aesthetics and certain traditional artistic values. Pai’s ability to negotiate a space for kunqu amidst fierce competition against the many different forms of modern entertainment has restored people’s confidence in both kunqu and Chinese cultural traditions at large. Pai’s experience of finding a particular balance between tradition and innovation, between art and market, has contributed critically not only to the emergence of more hybridized kunqu productions, but also to the preservation and development of other forms of traditional Chinese performing arts genres in the age of globalization and commercialization.

La thèse porte sur l'intervention d'artistes dans les ateliers d'insertion sociale. Un ancrage théorique interactionniste permet de montrer en quoi le modèle traditionnel de l'insertion est déstabilisé par la présence d'artistes. Le matériau recueilli est d'ordre qualitatif. Les acteurs interrogés rassemblent des tribunitiens (porteurs de changement), des ambivalents (oscillant entre tradition et innovation) et des conservateurs (s'opposant au changement). La première partie montre en quoi les tribunitiens perturbent les valeurs et les normes de l'insertion traditionnelle. La seconde partie montre en quoi ils perturbent les pratiques et les modes de conduite. La troisième partie se centre sur le type d'innovation proposé par les porteurs du changement. Tandis que les ambivalents proposent le développement d'une insertion culturelle perçue comme un nouveau sas, les tribunitiens proposent l'émergence d'une insertion citoyenne. Mais si cette dernière proposition ouvre des alternatives à la statique du système, elle est aussi porteuse d'une forme utopique qui, si elle passait à l'état de pratique sociale légitime, pourrait renforcer le processus de marginalisation des bénéficiaires de l'aide sociale. / The thesis relates to the intervention of artists in the workshops of social integration. A theoretical anchoring interactionnist makes it possible to show in what the traditional model of insertion is destabilized by the presence of artists. The material collected is of a qualitative nature. The questioned actors gather tribunitiens (carrying change), the ambivalents (oscillating between tradition and innovation) and of the conservatives (being opposed to the change). The first part shows in what the tribunitiens disturb the values and the standards of traditional insertion. The second part shows in what they disturb the practices and the modes of control. The third part is centered on the type of innovation proposed by the carriers of the change. While the ambivalent ones propose the development of a cultural insertion perceived like a new hopper, the tribunitiens propose the emergence of a citizen insertion. But if this last proposal opens alternatives to the statics of the system, it is also carrying a utopian form which, if it passed in a state of social practice legitimate, could reinforce the process of marginalisation of the recipients of the social assistance.

Zugl.: Kiel, Univ., Diss., 2008

This study seeks to contribute to a growing discussion about Islamic intellectual endeavours in the Middle Periods, providing new evidence from the genre of anti-innovation tracts (anti-bid‘a tracts) that has hitherto received relatively little modern scholarly attention. Specifically, this thesis examines tradition and innovation in Islam during the Mamluk period (648/1250 – 922/1517) through the lens of two jurists and their anti-innovation tracts. Ibn al-Ḥājj (d. 737/1336) was a Mālikī from North Africa who wrote Madkhal al-shar‘ al-sharīf. Ibn al-Naḥḥās (d. 814/1411), by contrast, was a Shāfi‘ī (and former Ḥanafī) from Damascus, who wrote a tract contained within his Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn, a work concerned with the duty of commanding right and forbidding wrong, and with naming and briefly discussing various sins and innovations. Ibn al-Ḥājj’s and Ibn al-Naḥḥās’ anti-innovation tracts are studied here for the first time in their own right, together with English translations of representative passages of their work that allow the reader to gain a direct impression of them. In addition to this, this thesis makes three unique arguments. First, anti-innovation tracts should be read as prescriptive yet flexible examples of furū‘. Second, the authors of the tracts investigated here, Ibn al-Ḥājj and Ibn al-Naḥḥās, were both ‘outsiders’ to Mamluk Egypt, who used this genre to define and regulate correct Muslim practices, in less formal ways that were both new and continuous with earlier thinking. Ibn al-Ḥājj’s programme - urging fledgling scholars, in almost encyclopaedic fashion, to know about and teach against innovative practices - was more important for him than addressing the topics of intention and innovation that feature in the full title of his work. Ibn al-Naḥḥās is an interestingly obscure figure. In an abbreviated and direct style, he urged non-specialists in Mamluk lands to censure innovations, and even to prevent them. Third, Ibn al-Ḥājj and Ibn al-Naḥḥās conceived of loyalty to their legal school in ways that require us to expand the terms of modern scholarly debates about such loyalty. This study contributes to the relatively recent, and fast-growing, literature on the Mamluk period in general, and its legal literature in particular. It supports a recent perspective on the Mamluk period, by illustrating the continuity and evolution of legal thinking during this period, which is both predicated upon, and differs substantially from, earlier periods of Islamic history. and deserves study in its own right.

Notre travail se propose d’examiner la littérature roumaine dans l’esprit de la théorie de l’antimodernité énoncée par Antoine Compagnon dans son ouvrage Les antimodernes. De Joseph de Maistre à Roland Barthes (Gallimard, 2005). Après une partie consacrée à la théorie des formes sans fond, qui est le principal repère, dans le champ culturel roumain moderne, du débat modernité/antimodernité, notre étude dresse le portrait de quelques écrivains de première importance engagés dans cette polémique : Titu Maiorescu, Vasile Alecsandri, Ion Luca Caragiale, Beniamin Fundoianu (Benjamin Fondane), Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran. Un chapitre à part est consacré à la façon dont fut accueilli dans la littérature roumaine Baudelaire, et aux disputes engagées à cette occasion autour de l’idée de modernité entre les partisans de celle-ci et ses adversaires.Je tiens à exprimer ma gratitude aux deux directeurs de cette thèse et à les remercier pour leur appui et leur disponibilité pendant les quatre années de son élaboration. / The purpose of this thesis is to apply to Romanian literature Antoine Compagnon’s theory upon antimodernity, as it is formulated in his study Les antimodernes. De Joseph de Maistre à Roland Barthes (Gallimard, 2005). We analyze the theory of „forms without substance”, the main illustration of the modernity-antimodernity debate in the Romanian culture, as well as different profiles of Romanian authors, such as Titu Maiorescu, Vasile Alecsandri, Ion Luca Caragiale, Beniamin Fundoianu (Benjamin Fondane), Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran. The thesis also deals with the perception of Charles Baudelaire in Romanian literature, which further reflects the issues of modernity and its denial.I would like to thank both coordinators of my thesis for the support and kindness shown during our colaboration in the last four years.