This thesis is concerned with the experiences of an under-researched group of long-term unemployed young adults aged 18 – 24 years old. The research was undertaken in the South West of England between July 2010 and January 2013; a period of economic uncertainty and social instability in the UK. The initial sample comprised nineteen young adults, chosen to represent the diversity of those who were unemployed at that time. The longitudinal approach allowed for an exploration of their changing attitudes and self-understandings over a two year period. Whilst the interviewees shared much in common with their younger counterparts whose experiences have been the focus of previous research, there were also some significant differences. Not only did their priorities differ as they approached their mid-twenties, but they also held the capacity to project themselves further into the future; contemplating what life might be like in five years’ time. The findings revealed a tension between culturally embedded ideas that continue to support the primacy of paid work, and the ways in which some of the young adults were able to (re)define their lives. The importance of experiences outside of paid employment emerged as significant, suggesting the need for a broader understanding of what constitutes ‘work’. Whilst some of the young adults seemed to have adopted late-modern perspectives, engaged in a form of reflexive life management, others appeared to be struggling to reconcile the opportunities available with their expectations. In part, some of the differences between the participants were linked to gendered subjectivities; with the young men finding it more challenging to make sense of their lives beyond the world of paid work. However, the young adults’ experiences could not be divided by gender alone, nor could gender be disembedded from the broader context of their lives: their family backgrounds; their historical contexts; their educations; the discourses that influence their lives; their location. These structural factors were continuously at play in the lives of the participants, but did not preclude the possibility of them exercising their agentic abilities. When considering the findings as a whole it was the young adults’ ability to experience a sense of agency, combined with a feeling of belonging, which emerged as significant.

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate an aesthetic position in the late writings of Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003), hence exploring the aesthetic dimensions of the authorship that seem to have remained unnoticed. By focusing on the fragmentary work Le Pas au-delà (1973) I attempt to trace an aesthetics of worklessness (désœuvrement) through the figurations of movement, space, and relation within the book. This attempt is realized through a hermeneutic reading that emphasizes the affective, rhetorical, and aesthetic expressions which appear in the literary practice of Blanchot as well as further illustrating the definition of worklessness as the absence of work. Although there is a tendency to treat the late writing of Blanchot as corresponding to his notion of the neutral rather than worklessness, I argue that the literary language of Le Pas au-delà still can be comprehended as a linguistics of worklessness which cannot be conformed into positive knowledge. Thus, the commonly deployed ontological interpretations of Blanchots’ writing are deemed to be problematic, as the notion of worklessness indicates an absence of work that cannot be conceptualized. My study shows that the absolute alterity which Le Pas au-delà appears to thematize – through its’ uncategorisable fragments, that moves between the non-places of fiction and theory, gaze and hearing, the self and the other – can be maintained through the thought of an aesthetics of worklessness. According to my reading, such a notion implies the understanding of aesthetics as a subversive practice where the sensuous is presented in its’ unpresentability.

Le terme désœuvrement apparaît comme une des grandes notions qui peuplent la critique littéraire du 20ème siècle. Il marque la mise en mouvement de l'absence de l’œuvre dans laquelle l'écriture tend vers l'espace où rien ne peut être fait. La Trilogie romanesque de Beckett et les romans de Blanchot se croisent dans cet espace du désœuvrement. Les deux écrivains tentent de faire opérer la fin de la littérature en cherchant une nouvelle forme qui réalise le chaos. Dans leur œuvre, le temps, l'espace, la narration et le langage sont mis en redéfinition en abandonnant tous leurs caractères traditionnels. L’œuvre s'approche donc du fragmentaire. / The term worklessness became one of the main concepts in the literary criticism of the 20th century. It marked the absence of the work on the way to a literary space where nothing can be done. Both Beckett and Blanchot tried to put an end to literature by creating a new form that could express the chaos. In theirs novels, time, space, narration and language no longer remain their traditional characteristics. The works of the two authors are close to what we call fragmented novel.