This thesis argues that attitudes of inhospitality operate subtly in our politics, in our religious beliefs and practices, and in our understandings of who we are. Consequently, the question of hospitality - what it is and what it signifies - is an urgent one for us to address. In this thesis I examine and outline the hermeneutics-deconstruction debate over the experience of otherness and what it means to respond to others ethically (or hospitably). In the first two chapters I defend the importance of properly understanding the ethics of both Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Against the concerns of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney, I maintain that a Levinasian and Derridean insistence on answering to the call of an unconditional hospitality is the best way forward in our attempt to respond with justice to strangers. Next, by engaging Martin Hagglund's objection to an ethical reading of Derridean unconditionality, I give attention to the theme of negotiation in Derrida's later work, a theme which I take to be the central feature of his account of hospitality. I conclude by proposing five theses concerning hospitality. These theses provide an overview of the main themes discussed in this thesis and once more address the various tensions internal to the concept of hospitality.

In this study, I propose through the thought of Jacques Ellul that humanity has perverted the original creation. In doing so, we have constructed what I will call a Counter-Creation; a second creation. In this counter-creation, mankind has replaced the creativity and the fluidity of the original. Along with this I argue in the second chapter that we have socially constructed new gods, which I will call sacred myths. These sacred myths are unquestionable, and hold power over against humanity. In the third chapter, I depart from Ellul, and go beyond his reflections on the vanity of life, on the vanity of socially constructing the world around us. Through the story of Cain and Abel, I propose that in Qoheleth there are two types of vanities in play: One that is unrighteous and one that is righteous. In doing so, I hope to help people recognize their finitude, while not being paralyzed or being tempted to plunge into chaos due to the meaninglessness of life.

This study offers a Lacanian-informed analysis of the rhetorical shifts, significant absences and elisions in the Bush administration’s justificatory war rhetoric prior to, during, and after the 2003 Iraq War. Lacan’s conception of the Subject, I suggest, is indispensable for the study of how ideology succeeds and fails rhetorically to avoid traumatic kernels, inconvenient facts, unspeakable historical truths, voids, etc. This project presents an opportunity to re-examine rhetorical studies’ assumptions about the emergence of subjectivity, including the process of interpellation, in ways that allow us to theorize not only the constitution but also the failure of identity. In so doing, it revisits the question of agency and calls for an increased focus on desire in matters rhetorical. Finally, the study invites reconsideration of the relation between rhetoric and time by suggesting that a psychoanalytic understanding of temporality can enrich and expand the existing scholarship.

Ce travail s’intéresse à la façon dont l’actualité française des guerres de religion a eu une influence sur la manière dont les autorités anglaises ont pris conscience du pouvoir de l’imprimé entre 1570 et 1610. À partir d’un corpus rassemblant des textes polémiques publiés en France et traduits puis diffusés en Angleterre, l’étude examine la prise en main par la Couronne d’Angleterre de l’utilisation du livre imprimé comme instrument d’action politique à part entière. Après une difficile phase d’apprentissage pendant la décennie 1570, le pouvoir anglais s’empare du livre pour combattre les Jésuites venus de France et promouvoir Henri de Navarre comme héros protestant. Cependant, la conversion du roi met un terme à l’engouement des Anglais pour la geste huguenote, tout en permettant au livre imprimé d’investir le champ des études historiques. L’accession de Jacques Stuart au trône d’Angleterre et l’expérience acquise pendant les trente années précédentes permettent aux libraires anglais, en concurrence avec le monarque, de diffuser les écrits royaux sur l’île mais aussi dans toute l’Europe. / This work studies how the French events of the religious wars have had an influence over the way in which the English authorities became aware of the power of the printed book between 1570 and 1610. It focuses on a corpus composed of polemical texts published in France, then translated and scattered in England. It shows how the English Crown gradually learnt to use the printed book as a political instrument. After a first period during which the authorities strove to master the polemical printed text, they made use of it in order to fight against the Jesuits coming from France as well as to promote the king of Navarre as a Protestant hero. Yet, Henri IV’s recantation put an end to the English passion for Huguenot victories, even though they remained interested in French history books. James Stuart’s coming to the throne in 1603, along with their experience of the previous thirty years, enabled English printers to compete with the new king for the spreading of royal treatises, in England as well as in Europe.

À première vue inoffensif, le conte de fées parodique français du XVIIIe siècle dissimule, sous le couvert de la féérie, un discours anticontesque et antiromanesque. Qu'ils soient explicites ou non, ces propos prennent généralement forme dans les métalepses émises tant par les narrateurs que par les narrataires dans le texte lui-même ou dans le péritexte auctorial. L'élaboration d'une typologie, à partir de dix contes publiés entre 1730 et 1754, offre une vue d'ensemble de ce phénomène narratif épars et ouvre la voie à une analyse transversale des discours tenus dans ce trope. Loin d'être innocent, le contenu des métalepses contesques laisse poindre une nouvelle poétique du conte et du roman qui s'éloigne progressivement de l'idéal classique régissant toujours ces deux genres au XVIIIe siècle. / Seemingly harmless, the satirical French fairy tales of the 18th century contain a hidden discourse against the novel, which does not abide by the rules of traditional fairy tales. Explicitly stated or not, these utterances are generally voiced as metalepsis by the narrators, the witnesses within the story, or an authority outside the main text. The development of a specific typology based on ten fairy tales published between 1730 and 1754, helps to present an overview of this uncommon narrative phenomenon, and allows for a more transversal analysis of these figures of speech. The contents of these fairy tale metalepsis give rise to a new poetics concerning novels and short stories. In turn, these tales gradually distances themselves from the established norms governing these two 18th century literary genres.

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Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

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I den här uppsatsen ämnar jag att undersöka retoriken i ordet farmakon så som det behandlats av Jacques Derrida. Genom en nära läsning av Derridas texter identifieras farmakon först som ett ogripbart koncept och sedan som en typ av paradox. Funktionen av denna paradox beskrivs först ur en derrideansk kontext och senare i en mer klassisk retorisk sådan. I den här uppsatsen visas farmakon fungera som något som låter oss inse tänkandets gränser, samtidigt som vi ges en förklaring på vad som utgör dessa gränser. Farmakon visas också förlänas en större retorisk effekt på grund av Derridas dubbla läsning, medan retoriken i farmakon visas vara beroende av ett kunskapssökande hos publiken.

Thesis advisor: Lisa S. Cahill / This dissertation makes a case for renewed attention to the notion of collective agency and responsibility in Christian ethics. The overarching argument is that the kinds of moral claims we frequently make on social groups cannot be adequately reduced to individual or structural terms, and that a rightly construed sense of collective agency can help fill this conceptual gap. This view is in keeping with important elements of Christian reflection on the nature of social interaction and social life, and the main goal of the dissertation is the development of a model for understanding some groups as collective moral agents. After a survey of treatments of the problem of collective agency and responsibility in the Bible and Christian theology in the introduction, the dissertation turns to the work of two major figures in twentieth century Christian ethics, Jacques Maritain and Reinhold Niebuhr, to provide the central elements of this view of collective agency. Namely, these figures supply contrasting but mutually correcting accounts of individual intersubjectivity, structural non-reducibility, and collective intentionality in social groups. Perspectives from the social sciences and from analytic philosophy help clarify the issues at hand and adjudicate the differences between Maritain and Niebuhr. The dissertation ends with a theological synthesis of the forgoing discussion, proposing a view of the potential for collective moral agency that takes account of the capacity for both friendship and coercion in human intersubjectivity, for both community and conflict in social organization, and for both intentional creativity and impersonal functionality in the interaction of individual and structural elements of social life. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.