Ma thèse examine quatre romans de l`époque post-1960 qui s’appuient sur le genre de la littérature prolétarienne du début du vingtième siècle. Se basant sur les recherches récentes sur la littérature de la classe ouvrière, je propose que Pynchon, Doctorow, Ondaatje et Sweatman mettent en lumière les thèmes souvent négligés de cette classe tout en restant esthétiquement progressiste et pertinents. Afin d’explorer les aspects politiques et formels de ces romans, j’utilise la « midfiction », le concept d’Allen Wilde. Ce concept vise les textes qui utilisent les techniques postmodernes et qui acceptent la primauté de la surface, mais qui néanmoins essaient d’être référentiels et d’établir des vérités. Le premier chapitre de ma thèse propose que les romans prolétariens contemporains que j’ai choisis utilisent des stratégies narratives généralement associées avec le postmodernisme, telles que la métafiction, l’ironie et une voix narrative « incohérente », afin de contester l’autorité des discours dominants, notamment les histoires officielles qui ont tendance à minimiser l’importance des mouvements ouvriers. Le deuxième chapitre examine comment les romanciers utilisent des stratégies mimétiques afin de réaliser un facteur de crédibilité qui permet de lier les récits aux des réalités historiques concrètes. Me référant à mon argument du premier chapitre, j’explique que ces romanciers utilisent la référentialité et les voix narratives « peu fiables » et « incohérentes », afin de politiser à nouveau la lutte des classes de la fin du dix-neuvième et des premières décennies du vingtième siècles et de remettre en cause un sens strict de l’histoire empirique. Se basant sur les théories évolutionnistes de la sympathie, le troisième chapitre propose que les représentations des personnages de la classe dirigeante riche illustrent que les structures sociales de l’époque suscitent un sentiment de droit et un manque de sympathie chez les élites qui les font adopter une attitude quasi-coloniale vis-à-vis de la classe ouvrière. Le quatrième chapitre aborde la façon dont les romans en considération négocient les relations entre les classes sociales, la subjectivité et l’espace. Cette section analyse comment, d’un côté, la représentation de l’espace montre que le pouvoir se manifeste au bénéfice de la classe dirigeante, et de l’autre, comment cet espace est récupéré par les ouvriers radicaux et militants afin d’avancer leurs intérêts. Le cinquième chapitre explore comment les romans néo-prolétariens subvertissent ironiquement les tropes du genre prolétarien précédent, ce qui exprimerait l’ambivalence politique et le cynisme généralisé de la fin du vingtième siècle. / My dissertation project examines post-1960s novels that draw on the genre of proletarian fiction of the early twentieth century. Building upon current research focused on working-class literature, as well as pertinent literary theory, I argue that Pynchon, Doctorow, Ondaatje, and Sweatman bring to light often neglected working-class themes while remaining aesthetically progressive and relevant. In order to explore these novels in their political and formal aspects I employ Allen Wilde’s concept midfiction. This concept refers to texts that use postmodern techniques and accept the primacy of surface, but nonetheless try to be referential and establish truths. The first chapter of my dissertation argues that the contemporary proletarian novels that I have selected employ narrative strategies commonly associated with postmodernism, such as metafiction, irony, and an “incoherent” narrative voice, to challenge the authority of dominant discourses, including the official histories that tend to downplay labour movements. The second chapter examines how the novelists employ mimetic strategies in tandem with more experimental techniques in order to achieve a believability factor that helps to connect the narratives to concrete historical realities. Referring to my argument in chapter one, I explain that the novelists ultimately use these two modes, referentiality and “unreliable”, “incoherent” narrative voices, in order to both re-politicize the class struggle of the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century as well as to undermine a strict sense of empirical history. The third chapter draws on evolutionist theories of sympathy to argue that the depictions of wealthy ruling class characters illustrate that social structures at the time fostered a sense of entitlement and lack of sympathy in the elites that caused them to adopt a colonial-like attitude towards the working class. The fourth chapter addresses how the novels under consideration mediate the relationships between social classes, subjectivity and space. This section analyses how, on the one hand, representations of space show how power is manifested to benefit the ruling class, and on the other hand, how space was co-opted by radicals and militant workers in order to further their interests. The fifth chapter explores how the neo-proletarian novels ironically subvert tropes from the earlier proletarian genre which, I argue, expresses the political ambivalence and cynicism of the late twentieth century.

This doctoral thesis examines the ways in which contemporary writers have adopted the critical dystopian mode in order to radically deconstruct the socio-political conditions that preclude equality, inclusion and collective political appearance in twenty-first century Britain. The thesis performs theoretically-informed close readings of contemporary novels from authors J.G. Ballard, Maggie Gee, Sarah Hall and Rupert Thomson in its analysis, and argues that the speculative visions of Kingdom Come (2006), The Flood (2004), The Carhullan Army (2007) and Divided Kingdom (2005) are engaged with a wave of contemporary dystopian writing in which the destructive and divisive forms of consensus that are to be found within Britain's contemporary socio-political moment are identified and challenged. The thesis proposes that, in their politically-engaged extrapolations, contemporary British writers are engaged with specifically dystopian expressions of dissensus. Reflecting key theoretical and political nuances found in Jacques Rancière's concept of 'dissensus', I argue that the novels illustrate dissensual interventions within the imagined political space of British societies in which inequalities, oppressions and exclusions are endemic - often proceeding to present modest, 'minor' utopian arguments for more equal, heterogeneous and democratic possibilities in the process. Contributing new, theoretically-inflected analysis of key speculative fictions from twenty-first century British writers, and locating their critiques within the literary, socio-political and theoretical contexts they are meaningfully engaged with, the thesis ultimately argues that in interrogating and reimagining the socio-political spaces of twenty-first century Britain, contemporary writers of dystopian fiction demonstrate literature working in its most dissensual, political and transformative mode.

This thesis takes issue with Fredric Jameson’s suggestion that contemporary science fiction is sending back “more reliable information [about current political and economic organisation] than an exhausted realism” and it develops an alternative Marxist defense of contemporary realist fiction. Can realism's techniques adequately represent the complexity of contemporary political organization? The thesis presents readings of key realist texts — by Pat Barker, Maurice Gee, Kerstin Hensel, James Kelman and David Peace — testing their potential to produce the knowledge of history, industrial politics and the metropolis traditionally central to literary realism’s concerns. (For complete abstract open document).

Este estudo investiga, a partir de um romance de João Gilberto Noll, aspectos que marcam grande parte da narrativa contemporânea brasileira. Privilegia o romance Berkeley em Bellagio, como uma narrativa que concentra questões cruciais de nosso tempo e da ficção contemporânea, tais como: crise das identidades; a fragmentação do sujeito; ficção e autobiografia; a construção da figura autoral; as relações entre trânsito espacial e descentramento da identidade; escrita performática e os usos do corpo / This study investigates, through a novel by João Gilberto Noll, aspects that mark great part of brazilian contemporary narrative. It analyses the novel Berkeley em Bellagio as a narrative that concentrates crucial questions of our time and of contemporary fiction, such as: crisis of identities; fragmentation of subject; fiction and autobiography, construction of authorial figure, relations between spatial transition and the decentering of identity; performative writing and the uses of body

Este estudo investiga, a partir de um romance de João Gilberto Noll, aspectos que marcam grande parte da narrativa contemporânea brasileira. Privilegia o romance Berkeley em Bellagio, como uma narrativa que concentra questões cruciais de nosso tempo e da ficção contemporânea, tais como: crise das identidades; a fragmentação do sujeito; ficção e autobiografia; a construção da figura autoral; as relações entre trânsito espacial e descentramento da identidade; escrita performática e os usos do corpo / This study investigates, through a novel by João Gilberto Noll, aspects that mark great part of brazilian contemporary narrative. It analyses the novel Berkeley em Bellagio as a narrative that concentrates crucial questions of our time and of contemporary fiction, such as: crisis of identities; fragmentation of subject; fiction and autobiography, construction of authorial figure, relations between spatial transition and the decentering of identity; performative writing and the uses of body

The thesis is divided into two parts. The first and crucial part offers a translation of the first two sections of the novel An Equal Music (1999) by Vikram Seth, a postcolonial author of Indian origin. His novel, or "musical romance", is commonly considered to be one of the best novels about music. The translation is followed by a study of the author's life and works, of his style and the reception of his novel and, finally, by an analysis of essential translation problems. The main focus is on speakability issues in various voices throughout the novel; the ambivalence of and difficulty in translating the title; on translation strategies regarding the poetic layers of the text and on the method of translating names and other facts. Given the specific subgenre of the book, the key subchapter analyses the translated musical excerpts from the novel. Keywords Vikram Seth, An Equal Music, contemporary fiction in English, translation, Czech language, style, translation analysis.

This thesis is concerned with an analysis of how David Foster Wallace's treatment of technology defines his understanding of the self in late 20th-century and early 21st-century America. With a primary focus on how this understanding evolved between the publication of his major novel Infinite Jest (1996) and his posthumously published unfinished novel The Pale King (2011), this thesis also takes into consideration Wallace's ideas as expressed through his many short stories, non-fiction works, and critical essays, most prominently "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" (1993). This thesis first briefly places Wallace in the context of contemporary literary scholarship, evaluating the state and extent of the nascent field of Wallace Studies. It then proceeds to examine and map out the philosophical underpinnings to Wallace's conception of the self, emphasising the importance of existential thought and the notion that the self is to be created rather than pre-existing in the individual. Technology as it is presented in Infinite Jest and The Pale King is then examined in relation to this philosophical understanding of the self, proving itself consistently to be an impediment to the existential self-becoming valorised in the novels. Wallace's early interest in entertainment technology as...

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Thesis (MA (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / The noticeable popularity of contemporary German novels set in Africa, as well as the many similarities between these novels, provided the cause for this investigation. Especially the large number of autobiographies, biographies, novels, television productions and films featuring a white female protagonist raised some questions regarding the cause of the popularity of this character. The aim of this thesis is to try and answer some of these questions based on a close analysis of two particular female characters in two contemporary German novels set in Africa. A short overview of the research done on popular fiction, colonial German literature and the history of the white woman in Africa in literature will be given. Theoretical points of departure involve a discussion of the aims and effects of popular fiction in general, as well as a look at how German colonial Fantasies, as found in colonial Literature, are being propagated by contemporary Literature set in Africa, specifically with regard to the representation of the white female Protagonist. Further theoretical background will be provided by a brief appraisal of Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies. Furthermore, a considerable part of the research for this thesis involved the reading of several contemporary popular German novels. Ein Land, das Himmel heißt (2002) by Stefanie Gercke and Die weiße Jägerin (2005) by Rolf Ackermann were selected as prime examples for closer analysis. In this thesis the two female protagonists of the selected novels, Jill Court and Margarete Trappe, will be analysed in order to identify and interpret a pattern followed in the representation of the white female protagonist in Africa in general. A central aspect of the depiction of this protagonist is her ability to cross boundaries between stereotypical representations of both masculinity and femininity. Therefore, she is a versatile character, allowing a large number of readers to identify with her. However, her capacity to cross such boundaries is limited to a certain extent and she never oversteps the boundaries far enough in order to surpass her lover when it comes to strength, knowledge, and maturity. The conclusion of this study is that both the versatility and the limitations of this protagonist explain her immense popularity as a new literary stereotype.

Depuis la valorisation du corps comme site identitaire et comme langage autre dans la théorisation de l’écriture au féminin des années 1970, les représentations du corps, notamment du corps féminin, occupent la scène romanesque jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Dans cette perspective, le présent mémoire s’intéresse au corps fantomatique des héroïnes du Ravissement de Lol V. Stein de Marguerite Duras et de La Maison étrangère d’Élise Turcotte. Le corps se fait littéralement hantise chez Duras et Turcotte : il est marqué d’absence, d’étrangeté, de fatigue et d’errance, ne trouvant plus de lieu d’être ni de repères à la suite d’un événement « traumatique », dans le cas de Lol, ou à la suite d’une séparation, dans celui d’Élisabeth. Les protagonistes sont sous l’emprise d’un sentiment d’étrangeté qui spectralise le corps en introduisant un décalage dans le rapport à soi et à autrui. Ce sentiment est causé en partie par une mémoire défaillante qui fragmente leur identité. C’est par un travail mémoriel que Lol V. Stein et Élisabeth tenteront de résoudre la hantise de leur histoire individuelle et familiale. Le texte fait écho à la corporalité fantomatique – mise en scène selon diverses représentations du corps dématérialisé – en se spectralisant à son tour par l’inscription des « blancs » dans l’écriture. Le processus d’effacement des corps sera mis en parallèle avec une spatio-temporalité elle aussi marquée par la hantise du passé. La spectralité apparaît, dans le récit contemporain au féminin, pour témoigner d’une identité (cor)rompue par la rupture ; celle-ci devient prétexte à une réflexion sur la manière d’habiter son corps et d’un être-au-monde à repenser. / The 1970s have seen the body become a stronghold of identity and offer a new language for the theorization of women’s writing. Since then, representations of the body, especially of the female body, have taken over the novel. In that perspective, this dissertation studies the ghostly body of two heroines in Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein by Marguerite Duras and La Maison étrangère by Élise Turcotte. Their bodies are marked by absence, eeriness, tiredness and wandering, unable to fully exist within a world that has lost its bearings following a “traumatic event” for Lol and the end of a relationship for Élisabeth. The protagonists suffer from an eerie sensation that essentially “spectralises” the body by revealing a gap in their relationship to themselves as well as to others. This sensation is caused in part by a failing memory which breaks up their sense of self. Trying to work through these memory faults, both Lol and Élisabeth aspire to solve the dread of their personal and familial history which seems to be at the root of their ghostly, uncomfortable grasp on their own body. The text echoes back to the spectral corporeality – staged by different representations of the dematerialized body – through « blanks » left within the writing. The process by which the bodies seem to vanish or disappear can be closely associated with a particular spacio-temporality, itself tainted by a haunting past. Spectrality occurs, in women’s contemporary fiction, to express an identity compromised by the ending of a relationship ; this particular event becomes the pretext for a reflection about how one inhabits not only their body, but also the world it binds them to.