This research paper examines the role of the souvenir in terms of social relations and notions of self-identity and/or autobiography. Many types of souvenir objects (commercial and non-commercial) are explored as being agents that participate in the construction of identity. Commodity fetishism, nostalgia and fetishism are examined as key elements that define the social relations surrounding the souvenir. The notion of home and family is also explored as a fundamental aspect of how identity is constructed.

The Officer Fetish examines the fetishized American military officer and the marginalized American enlisted man as they appear in post-World War II American film, television, and literature. The fetishized officer, whose cathexis is most prominent in the World War II-era propaganda film, has persisted as a convention since the war—a phenomenon that has contributed to the rise of militarism in America. Chapter II lays the foundation of Marxist and Freudian definitions of fetishism and fetishization, and then gauges those definitions with two films, In Which We Serve (1942), a standard World War II propaganda film, and Saving Private Ryan (1997), a film that postures itself as anti-war. Chapter III examines war narratives as a medium that polices class in American culture. The military, with its anti-democratic two-tiered rank system, is attractive to many novels and films because of its strict class boundaries. Chapter IV examines the degree to which so-called anti-war narratives contribute to America’s rising economy of militarism.

L’objectif de cette thèse est de repérer les mécanismes psychopathologiques inconscients susceptibles de conduire des sujets gays à prendre des risques par rapport au VIH/sida. D’un point de vue épidémiologique, les homosexuels masculins constituent en effet la « population » la plus touchée par cette épidémie en France. Or, les études de psychologie comportementale et de sociologie constructionniste déjà menées sur ce sujet sont limitées dans leur analysepar des présupposés rationalistes et des méthodologies directives. En partenariat avec des associations de lutte contre le sida, nous avons mené des entretiens basés sur l’association libre, le transfert, et analysés à l’aune du signifiant selon lesenseignements de Freud et de Lacan. S’en dégage un savoir inédit, propre à chaque sujet, et qui traverse l’ensemble des cas. Le moment de bascule dans le risque intervient comme une tentative de séparation par rapport à une problématiqueinconsciente dans laquelle le sujet se vit aliéné. Cette problématique a pour fondement structural le rejet du phallus du don dans l’Autre, auquel le sujet se vit réduit lors de ruptures amoureuses ou quand la réalisation de soi dans une pratiqueartistique devient impossible. Dans ces contextes, le sida fait l’objet d’une fétichisation, susceptible de mortifier davantage encore le sujet. Mais en lui redonnant la parole là où elle lui a manqué dans l’acte, des entretiens orientés par lapsychanalyse sont à mêmes de le détourner du risque. Par rapport à ces cas de structure fétichiste, des cas de psychose sont enfin discutés, qui permettent d’envisager une clinique continuiste des suppléances au manque dans l’Autre / The objective of this dissertation is to identify unconscious psychopathological mechanisms adequate to induce risk behaviour related to HIV/Aids in gay men. Namely, seen from an epidemiological perspective, gay males compose the section of the population most affected by this epidemic. Existing studies in behavioral psychology and constructivist sociology dealing with this question are limited in their analysis by rationalist assumptions and their directiveapproach. In cooperation with associations fighting against Aids, we carried out interviews based on free association and transference and analysed them following the teachings of Freud and Lacan. An unprecedented knowledge is produced byeach person for his individual case and at the same time pervades the totality of the cases. The moment of taking a risk occurs in an attempt of detachment related to an unconscious problem in which the person is alienated from himself. This problem is structurally based on the rejection of the phallus of giving in the Other, to which the person feels reduced after a breakup or when the self-realization by means of artistic activity fails. In this context, Aids becomes an object of fetishisation”, leading to further mortification of the person. By giving back the words where they were lacking in the act, interviews based on psychoanalysis are able to change a person’s risk behaviour. Finally, we will discuss these cases of fetishist structure in comparison with cases of psychosis, which will enable us to make out common traits in theapproach to emptiness in the Other

This thesis reopens the question of subject/object relations in the works of Gertrude Stein, to argue that the fetishisms theorised by Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and later Walter Benjamin and Michael Taussig, and problematised by feminist critics such as Elizabeth Grosz, are central to the structure of those relations. My contribution to Stein scholarship is twofold, and is reflected in the division of my thesis into Part One and Part Two. Part One of this thesis establishes a model for reading the interconnections between subjects and objects in Stein???s work; it identifies a tension between two related yet different structures. The first is a fetishistic relation of subjects to objects, associated by Stein with materiality and nineteenth-century Europe, and the identity categories of the ???genius??? and the ???collector???. The second is a ???new??? figuration of late modernity in which the processual and tacility are central. This latter is associated by Stein with America and the twentieth century, and was a structure that she, along with other modernist artists, was developing. Further, Part One shows how these competing structures of subject/object relations hinge on Stein???s problematic formulations of self, nation, and artistic production. Part Two uses the model established in Part One to examine the detailed playing-out of the tensions and dilemmas of subject/object relations within several major Stein texts. First considered is the category of the object as it is constructed in Tender Buttons, and second the category of the subject as it is represented in the nexus of those competing structures in The Making of Americans and ???Melanctha???. The readings of Part Two engage with the major strands of Stein criticism of materiality, sexuality, and language in Tender Buttons, Stein???s famous study of objects. The critical areas engaged with in her biggest and most controversial texts respectively ??? The Making of Americans and ???Melanctha??? ??? include typology, ???genius???, and Stein???s methodologies of writing such as repetition/iteration, intersubjectivity, and ???daily living???. This thesis contends that the dilemma of subject/object relations identified and examined in detail is never resolved, indeed, its ongoing reverberations are productive up until and including her final work.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology, December 2003. / CD-ROM contains PDF files of entire dissertation. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This thesis reopens the question of subject/object relations in the works of Gertrude Stein, to argue that the fetishisms theorised by Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and later Walter Benjamin and Michael Taussig, and problematised by feminist critics such as Elizabeth Grosz, are central to the structure of those relations. My contribution to Stein scholarship is twofold, and is reflected in the division of my thesis into Part One and Part Two. Part One of this thesis establishes a model for reading the interconnections between subjects and objects in Stein???s work; it identifies a tension between two related yet different structures. The first is a fetishistic relation of subjects to objects, associated by Stein with materiality and nineteenth-century Europe, and the identity categories of the ???genius??? and the ???collector???. The second is a ???new??? figuration of late modernity in which the processual and tacility are central. This latter is associated by Stein with America and the twentieth century, and was a structure that she, along with other modernist artists, was developing. Further, Part One shows how these competing structures of subject/object relations hinge on Stein???s problematic formulations of self, nation, and artistic production. Part Two uses the model established in Part One to examine the detailed playing-out of the tensions and dilemmas of subject/object relations within several major Stein texts. First considered is the category of the object as it is constructed in Tender Buttons, and second the category of the subject as it is represented in the nexus of those competing structures in The Making of Americans and ???Melanctha???. The readings of Part Two engage with the major strands of Stein criticism of materiality, sexuality, and language in Tender Buttons, Stein???s famous study of objects. The critical areas engaged with in her biggest and most controversial texts respectively ??? The Making of Americans and ???Melanctha??? ??? include typology, ???genius???, and Stein???s methodologies of writing such as repetition/iteration, intersubjectivity, and ???daily living???. This thesis contends that the dilemma of subject/object relations identified and examined in detail is never resolved, indeed, its ongoing reverberations are productive up until and including her final work.

Thèse--Paris, 1969. / Bibliography: p. 389-401.

Thèse--Paris, 1969. / Bibliography: p. 389-401.

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published_or_final_version / abstract / Humanities / Master / Master of Philosophy