This dissertation explores the numerous literary representations of the femme de lettres during the first half of the nineteenth century in order to illustrate the complexities of women’s entrance into the male-dominated domain of literature and also to suggest the impact these fictional characters might have had on the reception of actual women writers as well as their omission from the century’s literary canon. The works that will be included in this analysis include: Mme de Staël’s Corinne, ou l’Italie, Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir, Honoré de Balzac’s Béatrix, La Muse du département and Illusions perdues, Delphine de Girardin’s La Canne de M. de Balzac, Napoline and La joie fait peur and George Sand’s Histoire de ma vie, Lettres d’un voyageur and Un Hiver à Majorque. In compiling such diverse works of literature, it becomes clear that both male and female authors from the early nineteenth century were unable to envision a publicly embraced female genius. Although almost all of the fictional femmes de lettres in this study faced a destiny of professional silence, the reasons given for their failures are split between the male and female authors. For the male authors, the woman as a successful intellectual, artist or author was ultimately impossible because of her inability to combine her female body and psyche with the “masculine” pursuit of knowledge. Conversely, the female authors wrote characters whose inability to fully embrace a public literary or artistic career stemmed from society’s unwillingness to tolerate her exceptionality rather than from an inherent disconnect between genius and the female sex. / text

In this dissertation, I examine antagonistic relationships between women writers in the first half of the eighteenth century, focusing on the works of Delarivier Manley, Martha Fowke Sansom, Eliza Haywood, and Laetitia Pilkington. Professional rivalry among women writers represents an under-studied but vital element of the history of print culture in the early eighteenth century. I argue that the shared burden of negotiating the complicated literary marketplace did not, as critics have at times suggested, inspire women who wrote for print publication to feel for one another a sisterly benevolence. Rather, fine gradations in social class, questions of genre status and individual talent, and -- perhaps most importantly -- clashing literary ambitions spurred early eighteenth-century women writers into vicious rivalries recorded in print and driven by print culture. Women documented their literary battles in poems, in prefaces, and in autobiographical texts replete with self-justification and with attacks on former friends or disappointing patronesses. This dissertation recognizes rivalry as a crucial mode of interaction between eighteenth-century literary women and analyzes the ways in which these professional women writers labored to defend themselves not just against patriarchal pressures but against one another. In doing so, it contributes to the construction of a more complete literary history of the first half of the eighteenth century by exploring how early eighteenth-century women writers imagined their own professional lives, how they imagined the professional lives of other women, and how they therefore believed themselves influenced (or claimed themselves influenced) by the support or detraction of other women. The first two chapters of this dissertation focus on Delarivier Manley's career and writings, while the second two address the entangled writing lives of Eliza Haywood and Martha Fowke Sansom. The concluding chapter briefly examines Laetitia Pilkington's Memoirs. I investigate the way these women employed the practice of life-writing as a means of self-construction, self-promotion, and public appeal. / text

Cette thèse cherche à explorer le rôle que les perceptions culturelles peuvent jouer pour redéfinir collectivement l’action humaine envers la nature. Dans le temps long, de manière accidentelle ou intentionnelle, l’homme a globalement modifié puis progressivement détruit de manière exponentielle la nature. Or, l’étude de l’idée de nature démontre la multiplicité et la force des attachements culturels à la nature. Cette thèse cherche donc à étudier plus précisément la diversité, la multiplicité des perceptions culturelles, et dans quelle mesure celles-ci pourraient aider à redéfinir l’activité humaine envers la nature. A cette fin, les idées de nature et leurs évolutions à travers l’histoire sont étudiées dans plusieurs pays cultures afin de déterminer si et comment la diversité peut devenir un facteur de changement de paradigme. Trois pays sont étudiés à cette fin : la France, le Japon et les États-Unis, afin de dégager les perceptions culturelles uniques et d’envisager comment cette unicité peut servir à refonder l’action collective. / This thesis aims at exploring the role cultural perceptions of nature could play in redefining in depth human action towards nature. Whether on purpose or as an incidental result, humankind has since the dawn of humanity first modified then destroyed nature. Yet, when looking at cultural perceptions of nature it appears that cultures developed a strong attachment to some representations of nature. The presumption explored here is that these cultural perceptions, in their diversity, in their multiplicity, could be key to redefining our whole relation towards nature. To that effect, this thesis studies the idea of nature and its evolutions throughout history in different cultures in order to render it effective in international negotiations. Three countries are explored: France, Japan and the United States in order to isolate cultural perceptions and to understand how they can be mobilized to redefine collective action.

Extant literature on academic identities claims that academic identities not only represent academics’ subjectively construed understandings of who they are but they also derive from roles, statuses, membership in disciplinary communities and characteristics that make academics unique individuals. Even so, research focusing exclusively on academic identities is unprecedented in the Lesotho higher education (HE) sector; therefore, this study describes how narratives of experiences and meanings attached to being an academic relate to the construction of academic identities at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). How do reflexive interpretations of cultural expectations tied to membership in disciplinary communities influence the negotiation of academic identities and work behaviour of academic staff? How do descriptions of the (mis)alignment between job facets, individual values and expectations influence the meaningfulness and fulfilment for academics’ professional self-concepts? How do stories of internalised meanings of involvement and symbolic identification with NUL influence academic identity trajectories? Being interpretive in nature, this study used narrative interviews to collect data from a sample of thirty-one academics from NUL. The findings revealed that ‘who’ an academic is derives from meanings of ‘lived experiences’ of work enjoyment, applicability, exploitation, facilitation, multitasking, prestige and burnout. The findings also showed that academic identities were negotiated by reflexively interpreting the cultural expectation of ‘finishing work on time’ through work behaviours such as managing time, working overtime, self-motivation, underperforming, balancing roles and seeking work assistance. The participants’ narratives also revealed that the fulfilment for academics’ professional self-concepts derived from autonomy, accomplishments, learning, interdependencies, work environment, students’ attitudes and recognition. Lastly, the study showed that participants’ academic identity trajectories were influenced by altruism, passion, options, disillusions and relations. Overall, the ‘narratives of experience’ reiterated that academic identities at NUL were contextualised constructs of ‘work experiences’, ‘membership in communities’, ‘job attitudes’ and ‘self -discovery,’ based on the self as a unique individual, a group member and a role holder. Consistent with the interactionist perspective, academic identities at NUL represent structurally, culturally and institutionally located stories of experiences and meanings derived from the work situation, the setting and social relationships that academics participate in daily at NUL. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)

La compagnie des Ballets russes, fondée par Diaghilev en 1911, constitue un tournant dans l’histoire de la scène occidentale. Reprenant le principe de l’œuvre d’art totale, la troupe propose des spectacles composés par des peintres, des chorégraphes et des musiciens. Leur succès est fulgurant et leur influence décisive. Cette thèse se propose d’étudier la réception des Ballets russes en Espagne. Alors que l’Europe est en guerre, la Péninsule constitue une terre d’accueil propice aux échanges. Les intellectuels du pays s’interrogent sur les possibilités de rénover la scène théâtrale et sont attentifs aux expériences qui viennent de l’étranger. Les ballets que propose la compagnie entrent en résonnance avec leurs propres préoccupations. Ils posent à la fois la question de la tradition au sein de la modernité, du national et du cosmopolitisme et s’exportent à l’étranger. Ce travail s’attache à confronter les différentes réceptions qui sont simultanément menées dans les deux capitales culturelles de l’Espagne au moment où les régionalismes s’affirment toujours plus. La présentation de l’état des lieux de la scène espagnole constitue le premier moment de cette thèse. La deuxième partie est entièrement consacrée à la première saison (1916) que la compagnie donne en Espagne ainsi qu’aux débats auxquels elle donne lieu. Les troisième et quatrième parties mettent en miroir les lectures qui sont faites à Madrid puis à Barcelone et présentent les singularités de chacune des deux capitales culturelles du pays. / The Ballets Russes company was founded by Diaghilev in 1911, and marked a turning point in the history of the Western European stage art. Taking up the Gesamtkunstwerk, the company offered shows composed by painters, choreographers and musicians. Their success was immediate and their influence was decisive. This work will examine how the Ballets Russes were received in Spain. The Spanish peninsula offered a fertile ground for exchange while Europe was at war, with the country's intellectuals wondering about how to renew the theatre scene and being receptive to foreign experiments on the matter. The ballets offered by the company reflected those concerns by addressing the question of the role of tradition within modernity as well as the concepts of nationalism and cosmopolitism while managing to find an audience abroad. This study aims at confronting the simultaneous reception of the Ballets Russes in the two cultural capitals of Spain at a time when regionalism was becoming increasingly strong. The first part will give a description of the Spanish theatre and arts scene. The second part will be entirely dedicated to the company’s first season in Spain (1916) and to the debates it raised. The third and fourth parts will deal with the way the ballets were received and understood in Madrid and Barcelona, through a presentation of the particularities of each of these two cultural capitals. / La compañía de los Ballets russes, fundada por Diaghilev en 1911, constituye un momento relevante de la historia de la escena occidental. Inspirándose del principio del Gesamtkunstwerk wagneriano, la compañía presenta espectáculos compuestos por pintores, coreógrafos y compositores. Su éxito es enorme y su influencia decisiva. Esta tesis estudia la recepción de los Ballets russes en España. Durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, la Península aparece como una tierra de acogida propicia a los intercambios. Los intelectuales españoles se interrogan sobre las posibilidades de renovar la escena teatral y están atentos a las experiencias realizadas en el extranjero. Las obras estrenadas por la compañía llaman su atención. Compaginan la tradición y la modernidad, lo nacional y el cosmopolitismo y se exportan al extranjero. Este estudio presenta una comparación entre las diferentes recepciones llevadas a cabo en las dos capitales culturales españolas en un momento en que los regionalismos se afirman cada vez más. Una presentación general de la escena español de aquel entonces constituye el primer momento de esta tesis. La segunda etapa se centra en la primera temporada rusa que la compañía presenta en España (1916) así como en los debates que surgen entonces. Las etapas 3 y 4 estudian las recepciones que tienen lugar en Madrid y en Barcelona comparando las características de cada una de las capitales culturales del país.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

All bodies of critical discourse on any given literary canon seek visibility through self- celebration, subversion of competing critical ideas and identification with supposedly popular, scientific and incisive critical theories. Thus, the literary-critical quest for significance and visibility is, in essence, a quest for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in the discussion of aspects of a given literary corpus. This research explores the politics of „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. It unfolds in the context of the realisation that as a body of critical discourse on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟, „white critical thought‟ does not only emerge in an intellectual matrix in which it shares and competes for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ with other bodies of critical thought on the literary episteme in question; it also develops in the ambit of Euro-African cultural politics of hegemony and resistance. Thus, the research sets out to identify the ways in which „white critical thought‟ affirms and perpetuates or questions and negates European critical benchmarks and cultural models in the discussion of selected aspects of „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. The investigation considers the fissures at the heart of „white critical thought‟ as a critical discourse and the myriad of ways in which it interacts with competing critical discourses on the „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. It derives impetus from the fact that while other versions of critical thought on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ have received extensive metacritical discussion elsewhere, „white critical thought‟ remains largely under-discussed. This phenomenon enables it to solidify into a settled body of critical thought. The metacritical discussion of „white critical thought‟ in this research constitutes part of the repertoire of efforts that will help check the solidification of critical discourses into hegemonic bodies of thought. The research makes use of Afrocentric and Postcolonial critical tenets to advance the contention that while „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ is fraught with fissures and contradictions that speak directly to its complexity and resistance to neat categorisation, it is largely vulnerable to identification as part of the paraphernalia of European cultural and intellectual hegemony in African literature and its criticism, given its tendency to discuss the literature outside the context of critical theories that emerge from the same culture and history with the literary corpus in question. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines the literary journal Horizon, its editor Cyril Connolly, and a selection of its editorial articles, poems, short stories and essays in the context of the Second World War, from 1939-45. Analyses of these works, their representation of wartime experience, and their artistic merit, serve as evidence of a shared and sustained literary engagement with the war. Collectively, they demonstrate Horizon’s role as one of the primary outlets for British literature and cultural discourse during the conflict. Previous assessments of the magazine as an apolitical organ with purely aesthetic concerns have led to enduring critical neglect and misappraisal. This thesis shows that, contrary to the commonly held view, Horizon consistently offered space for political debate, innovative criticism, and war-relevant content. It argues that Horizon’s wartime writing is indicative of the many varied types of literary response to a war that was all but incomprehensible for those who experienced it. These poems, stories and essays offer a distinctive and illuminating insight into the war and are proof that a viable literary culture thrived during the war years. This thesis also argues that Horizon, as a periodical, should be considered as a creative entity in and of itself, and is worthy of being studied in this light. The magazine’s constituent parts, interesting enough when considered separately, are shaped, informed, and granted new shades of meaning by their position alongside other works in Horizon. Chapters in the thesis cover editorials and editing, poetry, short stories, political essays, and critical essays respectively. Analyses of individual works are situated in the context of larger concerns in order to demonstrate the coherence of debate and discourse that characterised Horizon’s wartime run. In arguing that Horizon is a singular creative entity worthy of consideration in its own right, this thesis locates itself within the emerging field of periodical studies. Further, by arguing that the magazine demonstrates the value of Second World War literature, it articulates with other recent attempts to reassess the scope and quality of that literature. More specifically, this thesis offers the first focused and in-depth analysis of Horizon’s formative years.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines the literary journal Horizon, its editor Cyril Connolly, and a selection of its editorial articles, poems, short stories and essays in the context of the Second World War, from 1939-45. Analyses of these works, their representation of wartime experience, and their artistic merit, serve as evidence of a shared and sustained literary engagement with the war. Collectively, they demonstrate Horizon’s role as one of the primary outlets for British literature and cultural discourse during the conflict. Previous assessments of the magazine as an apolitical organ with purely aesthetic concerns have led to enduring critical neglect and misappraisal. This thesis shows that, contrary to the commonly held view, Horizon consistently offered space for political debate, innovative criticism, and war-relevant content. It argues that Horizon’s wartime writing is indicative of the many varied types of literary response to a war that was all but incomprehensible for those who experienced it. These poems, stories and essays offer a distinctive and illuminating insight into the war and are proof that a viable literary culture thrived during the war years. This thesis also argues that Horizon, as a periodical, should be considered as a creative entity in and of itself, and is worthy of being studied in this light. The magazine’s constituent parts, interesting enough when considered separately, are shaped, informed, and granted new shades of meaning by their position alongside other works in Horizon. Chapters in the thesis cover editorials and editing, poetry, short stories, political essays, and critical essays respectively. Analyses of individual works are situated in the context of larger concerns in order to demonstrate the coherence of debate and discourse that characterised Horizon’s wartime run. In arguing that Horizon is a singular creative entity worthy of consideration in its own right, this thesis locates itself within the emerging field of periodical studies. Further, by arguing that the magazine demonstrates the value of Second World War literature, it articulates with other recent attempts to reassess the scope and quality of that literature. More specifically, this thesis offers the first focused and in-depth analysis of Horizon’s formative years.