Texte remanié de: Thesis Ph. D.--Stockholms Universitet, 2002. / Bibliogr. p. 158-164.

This study investigates the way in which experience comes to givenness in three novels by the early twentieth century American writer Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958). By utilizing a model of affectivity set up by the French phenomenologist Michel Henry, the investigation uncovers unthematized strata in The Brimming Cup (1921), Rough-Hewn (1922), and Her Son’s Wife (1926) in which subjectivity is phenomenalized as auto-affective and immanent. These strata are phenomenologically distinguished from those in which subjectivity comes to givenness as conditioned by transcendent, hyper-presentational presence. The investigation shows that in these novels, objectified presence is predominantly favored as real. Michel Henry’s distinction between affectivity and sensibility helps delineate the asymmetrical way in which affectivity as the primary, pre-self-conscious phenomenalization of subjectivity can be understood in relation to sensibility as the self-reflective, horizon-oriented phenomenalization of subjectivity. Methodologically, the study remains faithful to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological reduction which excludes transcendent considerations of the texts. Michel Henry’s model of affectivity refutes Martin Heidegger’s understanding of subjectivity as always already thrown into a transcendent world. Nevertheless, Heidegger’s distinction between zuhanden and vorhanden is utilized in the study to clarify the integrity of a presence that cannot be posited in front of a presentational gaze. Canfieldian subjectivity is troubled by an inability to disentangle itself from this objective gaze and by its disbelief in the possibility of nonobjectified, yet real, experience. Instead subjectivity comes to validate realness as presentational vitality. Paradoxically, however, relief from suffering occurs primarily in instants that are free from phenomenalizations of life as vitalism. In such moments, subjectivity is phenomenalized as presentationally empty, existing in a nonpresentational space untouched by presentational meaning.

"Because the writings of such an author as Mrs. Fisher would be helpful to students of regional America, and also because the writer of this paper has a parallel regional background, Dorothy Canfield Fisher seemed a particularily interesting subject for a bio-bibliography. She was a prolific writer, publishing ten novels, many books about the education of children and adults, stories for children, and innumerable short stories and articles. In addition she served on the original committee of selection for the Book-of-the-Month Club for twenty-five years. Family and academic life in the middle-West, and experiences garnered during her travels abroad are reflected in many of her stories, but the major portion of her writings is concerned with Vermont and New England. It is beyond the scope of this paper to include all the literary or critical works by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. The present study endeavors to give the reader a resumé of the events in Mrs. Fisher's life and their influence on her writing as evinced only in her novels, together with a critical evaluation of these works as found in contemporary reviews"--Introduction. / Carbon copy of typescript. / "August, 1959." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Sara K. Srygley, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-84).

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