This thesis attempts to develop a concept of 'ecological misapprehension' by means of an object-oriented ecocritical analysis of several works by J. M. Coetzee. Noting Coetzee's profound, often overlooked interest in nonhuman, nonanimal ecological existents (on the one hand), and his neomodernist propensity to interrogate the viability of signification (on the other), I argue that his works repeatedly gesture towards an ontological reality of ecological objects that is necessarily extratextual. I further argue that if human ‘readers’—both of and within Coetzee’s fiction—are inextricably entangled within modes of discourse by which meaning is made of those objects, the encounter between human subject and ecological object always takes place across a discursive threshold best understood in terms of the ‘irreducible gap’ that object-oriented ontology identifies between an object’s being and its perception. This gap problematises our apprehension of the ecological object as such, thus rendering ecological misapprehension inevitable—and, by extension, demanding that we remain attuned to the character, density, or degree of our propensity to misapprehend. Variants of this dynamic—and its troubling ramifications—are illuminated by means of close readings of a range of Coetzee’s texts, with particular attention paid to Disgrace, Life & Times of Michael K, and the short story ‘Nietverloren’, and are subsequently compared with examples of misapprehension in the world beyond the page. By developing this concept and identifying examples of it both within and without Coetzee’s works, the thesis aims to illuminate a fundamental obstacle to productive modes of environmental thinking in the Anthropocene, to suggest the activist potential of metafiction and the postmodernist reading practices it encourages, and to reaffirm the potential social utility of literary scholarship when it is conducted with an awareness of its own tendency to misapprehend.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Historical ethnographic and early psychoanalytic epistemologies on 'fetishism' focus primarily on the fetish 'object', whereby the subject of 'fetish practices' was identified, pathologised and/or socioculturally invalidated primarily on the basis of affiliation with a taboo object. Such uncritical reliance on dualist, oppositional thinking and divisive, psychopathologising tendencies attenuates subjectivities and agency, and is inconsistent with contemporary postcolonial and queer scholarship. Contemporary discourses around (gay male sexual) 'fetishism', lodged in the definitions and diagnostic criteria of sexual 'fetishism' in the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases, efface the subjectivities of sexual subjects who incorporate material objects into their sexual scripts. I argue that these classifications should be completely revised, since more appropriate subject-oriented epistemologies on sexuality incorporating material objects should acknowledge the constitution of the subject as phenomenologically taking place through intersections between materiality and discourse. This implies that no separate psychopathology of 'fetishism' can exist, since subjects, material objects and discourse cannot be effectively separated from each other.In contradistinction, a subject-oriented approach should, I suggest, be adopted, oriented around the (non-essentialist) constitution and lived experiences of sexual subjects, rather than on human or inanimate objects of sexual attention. This approach focuses on the necessary role of the human(sexual) body, which is neither entirely discursively nor materially constructed, but rather is engaged in a complex interaction with subjectivities, discourse and the phenomenal world. The(non-unitary) 'self' is him/herself subject, object and part of a cultural environment, experientially delineated through 'embodiment', with the phenomenological paradigm allowing for validation of sexual expression from an inclusive perspective, to develop complex cartographies of subjectivities.Based on this foundation, the thesis argues that the embodied sexual experience of the 'gay male fetishist' subject therefore serves to link him, objects and environments dialectically. Rather than being the 'object' of supervening drives, he is a valid agent, exploring his subjectivity and orienting himself in relation to his environment through his embodied experience. 'Sexual fetish' practices therefore function as connecting (rather than divisive) forces in human relations with the world. At the same time, consensual, non-harmful 'gay male fetish' sexualities are potentially selftransformative and socially transformative practices, called on as resources for recognising personal value.

Cette thèse revisite le concept d’accountability élaboré par Robert (1991), défini comme un processus itératif en trois temps, visant pour un individu à justifier un acte qu’il a commis par rapport à des valeurs et des normes, que l’individu reconnaît comme siennes. Au sein des organisations, deux accountability sont définies. L’accountability hiérarchique se réalise à distance, du fait des outils de gestion. L’accountability sociale se réalise en face-à-face par les interactions directes. Cette thèse se concentre les interactions sociales, notamment conflictuelles, pour en comprendre l’influence sur la formation de l’accountability en organisation ; ceci tant au niveau de l’individu que du groupe. La première étude s’intéresse à la formation de l’accountability d’un individu quand il fait face à deux demandes de comptes antagonistes; ceci à partir d’entretiens de salariés qui doivent, au nom de l’entreprise, répondre à une demande sociale, restant alignée sur les principes du monde des affaires. À l’aide de la conceptualisation foucaldienne de la subjectivation de l’individu par lui-même, je montre que ces demandes, sont interprétées par les salariés selon leurs convictions propres. Ils proposent une réponse personnelle. Trop spécifique par rapport aux deux demandes, elle est rejetée. L’individu ne peut plus rendre compte. Pour rétablir l’accountability, une communauté alternative, regroupant les salariés interrogés, leur permet d’être considérés comme ayant bien agi.La seconde étude questionne, à partir d’une ethnographie, réalisée au Mali, la formation de l’accountability d’un groupe dont les collègues remettent en cause la mission. Elle montre que des salariés contrarient l’accountability de leurs pairs car ils mettent en place un produit adapté aux populations rurales, avec lesquelles les salariés urbains ne veulent être assimilés. Pour comprendre ce conflit de classe, les théories post-coloniales sont mobilisées. Elles aident à révéler un déplacement de la dichotomie entre « Nord / Sud », vers une séparation des Suds « élite urbaine / populations rurales ». Pour contrer ces difficultés à rendre compte, les salariés concernés développent une relation de redevabilité envers les villageois. Ils se rendent également mutuellement des comptes pour se soutenir, et réhabiliter leur accountability hiérarchique en s’appuyant sur leurs positions respectives. Cette étude démontre qu’au sein de l’accountability hiérarchique s’opèrent des ruptures, provenant de situations interactionnelles conflictuelles, et compensées par le développement d’accountability sociales alternatives. / This doctoral thesis examines Robert’s (1991) conceptualization of accountability in conflicting situations. In organizational contexts, individuals give account in two ways; at a distance, to show that their actions are aligned with the main goals of the company – hierarchical accountability -; in face-to-face situations, to provide explanations to people they meet - social accountability. First I study how accountability takes shape when an individual faces two antagonist demands for accountabilities towards the same act. Interviews were conducted with employees from CSR departments, whose mission is about providing an answer to social demands in the name of the company, while staying aligned with business principles. With the help of Foucaldian concepts of “Ethics” and “Moral” (1991), I show that employees interpret those two demands within their own norms and provide an answer that satisfies themselves first. This specific answer is rejected. Accountability is interrupted. In order to re-establish accountability, a community is created around that specific answer, gathering employees from various companies. This community provides a space to give accounts and confirms CSR managers are acting appropriately.Second, analysing ethnographic material, I try to understand how accountability takes shape when certain employees oppose the mission of their colleagues. Precisely, the discussion takes place regarding a product, which has been developed especially for poor rural populations, who are assimilated into the “underdeveloped world” and with which the Malian elite would not be associated. First, with the help of Saïd (1978) and Fanon’s (1952) work, I explain the reason for that class conflict through the dichotomy between “North and South”. This dichotomy has been translated south to “local elite / rural population”. Second, I show that to overcome difficulties, employees develop alternative forms of accountabilities toward villagers and toward themselves. The second form aims to develop mutual support but also reinstate accountability toward hierarchy by using their personal positions and degree of power in order to take a coordination action.Overall, this doctoral thesis shows that hierarchical accountability can be momentarily interrupted and later can be restored by the development of alternative types of social accountability.

The Republic of Ghana is the legacy of the colonial amalgam of multiple, and previously distinct, ethnic homelands. The Trans-Volta Togoland became the Volta Region of Ghana following a Plebiscite in 1956. The dominant ethnic group in this region; the Ewe, has long maintained a claim of neglect of the Volta Region and the marginalization of its people in this postcolonial state. Protests in the street and at media houses ensued against the State. This qualitative case study explores the undercurrents of this conflict in the context of the Ewe group’s identity and their experiences of neglect and marginalization in the postcolonial state. The main objective of the study was to understand why the Ewe group has not revolted despite the perceptions of deprivation. This study focused on the Ewe group in the Volta Region of Ghana a as sub-colonial construct that has managed its perceptions of deprivation without revolting against the host State.

Cette thèse se propose d'interroger l'écriture littéraire de l'esclavage dans une perspective diachronique et comparée entre la France et ses colonies et les États-Unis, et en regard de la construction de la mémoire de l'esclavage transatlantique et de sa transmission. La dimension diachronique vise à éclairer l'écriture contemporaine de l'esclavage, notamment à partir d'un constat initial : plusieurs centaines de témoignages d'esclaves – regroupés sous le terme générique "slave's narrative" – ont été publiés aux États-Unis, plus rarement en Angleterre, à partir du XVIIIe siècle ; aucun texte de ce type n'a été recensé dans la sphère francophone. Une disparité saisissante qui a semblé un signe fort à analyser, posant la question des causes ou de l'origine de cette disparité, mais aussi de ses conséquences sur la mémoire et surtout sur l'écriture de l'esclavage. En effet, la littérature africaine américaine est souvent présentée comme une héritière de ces témoignages. Sous la désignation de « neo-slave narratives », la critique américaine a même réuni et analysé nombre de romans africains-américains portant sur l'esclavage depuis la fin des années 60. Point d'aboutissement de ce travail, l'écriture caribéenne francophone de l'esclavage est ainsi appréhendée au regard de la production africaine-américaine et de sa différence notable quant à l'héritage mémoriel et discursif des slaves' narratives. Constatant leur absence dans le champ critique francophone, il s'agit également de proposer les premiers jalons d'un appareil critique et d'une analyse de l'écriture caribéenne francophone contemporaine de l'esclavage ainsi qu'une terminologie générique : récit d'esclave francophone. / This thesis proposes a two-fold examination of the literary writing of slavery in France and its former colonies, and in the United States, using both a diachronic and comparative approach. It also takes into account the perspective of the construction and transmission of the memory of transatlantic slavery. The diachronic dimension adopted in this work aims to enlighten on the contemporary writing of slavery. Indeed, several hundreds accounts of slaves– known as “slave narratives” – had been published in the United States, more rarely in England, as early as the 18th century, but there were no such narratives in the francophone world. This striking disparity turned out to be a case worth analyzing to find out about its causes, its origins and its consequences on both the memory and the writing of slavery. As a matter of fact, African American literature bears the direct influence of these testimonies. Identified as “neo-slave narratives”, African American novels dealing with slavery have been collected and analyzed by critics since the 1960's. The last part of this dissertation focuses on the Francophone Caribbean writing of slavery. It is examined in comparison with the African American production and the striking difference noted in the historic and discursive heritage of the slave narratives. This lack in the francophone critical field led us to prepare the ground for the analysis and the review of the contemporary Francophone Caribbean writing of slavery, and for a generic expression: francophone slave narratives.

Le groupe de musique Zebda est né d’une aventure associative pendant les années 1980 à Toulouse.Composé de français issus de l'immigration maghrébine postcoloniale et des immigrations espagnoleset italiennes du début du XXème siècle en région Midi-Pyrénées, Zebda connaît un certain succès enFrance pendant les années 1990. En revenant sur l'histoire de la création du groupe, liée notamment aumouvement des marches pour l’égalité des années 1980 et à une aventure associative et militante quiaboutira à la création du Tactikollectif dans les années 1990, cette thèse cherche à comprendre etcaractériser l’outil musical Zebda. La problématique de recherche est la suivante : en quoi la musiquedu groupe Zebda permet-elle de questionner les fondements de la société française : son processus decitoyenneté comme son vivre ensemble ? / Zebda, a musical group from Toulouse, appeared during the 1980s. Closely linked to a local voluntaryorganisation, it includes French citizens of foreign descent, whose families migrated to the Midi-Pyrénées region from the Maghreb, but also from Italy and Spain. Zebda became famous in the 1990sas a “mixed band” playing “hybrid” music. This dissertation begins by analysing the conditions inwhich the band emerged and its relationships with the movement of the Marches pour l’égalité in the1980s, and with a militant organisation that will eventually become Tactikollectif in the 1990s. Then itshows that Zebda can be defined as a “musical tool”, which allows answering the question: How doesZebda’s music question the foundations of French society? That is, conceptions of citizenship andconditions for living together in harmony.

My dissertation maps the "scattered hegemonies" of the British Empire in the nineteenth-century British feminist utopian tradition. Beyond recovering this significant tradition of feminist thought and women's writing, my project considers the way these works both contest and replicate the dominant hegemony of the Victorian period. In the first chapter, "A Feminist Satirical Disutopia, Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett's New Amazonia," I argue that New Amazoniais a satirical disutopiathat bears witness to the dystopic reality of women's status in nineteenth-century Britain. Through elliptical critiques of her own feminist utopia, Corbett creates a hybrid genre, enabling a multifaceted critique of her present and the space for theorizing a feminist future. The second chapter, "The Extinction of Patriarchy: F.E. Mills Young's War of the Sexes as a Parody of Patriarchy," considers the function of the gendered role-reversal in Young's feminist utopia. War of the Sexes, like New Amazonia, is less concerned with imagining an ideal future and focuses instead on exposing and investigating gendered oppression in the Victorian period. Through role-reversal, Young critiques the separate spheres doctrine that constructs gender difference and shows that the doctrine has deleterious effects on the nation's development. While both New Amazoniaand War of the Sexescritique gender inequality through role-reversal, Florence Dixie's Glorianadirectly addresses inequality through sustained gender performance. In "From Reform to Revolution: Gender Subversion in Florence Dixie's Gloriana," I aver that Dixie uses the title character's cross-dressing to undermine the gender roles created by the separate spheres doctrine. Throughout Gloriana, Dixie illustrates that gender is a social construction and that gendered oppression has a complex relationship to other intersecting forms of oppression, especially classism and imperialism. In "India as Feminist Utopia: Gender, Identity, and Nation in Amelia Garland Mears' Mercia," I demonstrate that Mears unlike Dixie, sees the scattered hegemonies of Victorian culture as too embedded to correct. Whereas Dixie's heroine starts a feminist revolution in Britain, Mears' heroine abandons England to find feminist utopia in India. Yet even as Mears replicates stereotypes and exoticizes the Other, she, like Dixie, recognizes the value of intersectional feminist critique. All four of these chapters highlight the heterogeneity of feminist thought to be found in nineteenth-century feminist utopias. Yet, even the most disparate visions of a feminist future respond to the same scattered hegemonies of the British Empire. In the conclusion, I bring two feminist utopias not traditionally categorized as British into the conversation: Annie Denton Cridge's Man's Rightsand Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's Sultana's Dream. I include Cridge and Hossain as necessary components to complicate my analysis of the transnational flows of knowledge and the ways in which the scattered hegemonies of Empire continue to be replicated in Victorian literary studies and contemporary feminist thought in the Global North. I argue that the exclusion of works like Cridge's and Hossain's from the study of British literature further illustrates the persistent adherence to imperialistic nationalism in the Global North and point to a Global Anglophone feminist utopian tradition.

It seems as of late the most acclaimed advertising campaigns have found a formula to commodify the politically correct through what has come to be described as “woke advertising”. This winning strategy has won public appeal for connecting with an ever-evolving audience that is young, diverse and liberal. Specifically, newcomer agency, Anomaly, has publicly proclaimed themselves as the “change-agent” in the space of advertising, capitalizing on the culture wars by positioning themselves as the leading advertising experts in challenging societal stereotypes and biases. This is a case study that explores one of Anomaly’s 2016 campaigns for Johnnie Walker, “Keep Walking America”, as they attempt to engage in cultural politics with the Latinx community during a period of heightened political tension for immigrant populations. Through a Social Semiotics analysis and postcolonial criticism, the focus of this thesis is to explore how Johnnie Walker leveraged woke capital and consequently attempted to represent the lived experiences of marginalized groups whose stories are generally silenced.

Child marriage, usually regarded as an issue pertaining to the non-‘developed’ parts of the world, can still be found in the United States (US), though efforts to combat it shape foreign policy goals. Is child marriage represented as a ‘problem’ in the same way internally as externally, and how do human rights play a role? Using Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” approach, the problem representations emerge, showing that child marriage functions as a ‘solution’ to welfare ‘problems’ in national policy, as an obstacle to economic prosperity in foreign policy; and as a ‘foreign’ culture ‘problem’ in immigration policy. Postcolonial feminist theory’s “Third World Girl” allows for a deeper understanding of some of the subjectivities these representations entail, and the biopolitical nature of the assumptions which underlie these problem representations are explored through Foucault’s theoretical work on sexuality and production.

The primary question of this study is: How does the disruption of African art discourse influence a group of university students’ perceptions of African aesthetics? This inquiry developed from previous studies on the exclusion of modern and contemporary African art in Western art museums. Through the theoretical lens of Postcolonial Theory and Critical Multiculturalism, this research conceptualizes the dominance of traditional African art in art museums, art history, and art education as a Western hegemonic discourse that normalizes perceptions of Africa and African aesthetics as the fixed primitive Other. Thus, this research applied Action Research (AR) methodology coupled with Transformative Learning Theory (TL) to disrupt the discourse of African art; with the purpose of affecting positive changes in perceptions of African aesthetics. The participants for this study were 10 students in a course (Art 1301 Honors Art Appreciation) I instructed at the University of North Texas in the fall (September–December) 2013 semester. Data was collected, analyzed, and interpreted from participants’ assignments and my research journal. This study comprised a dual enquiry on: 1. Discourse and Meaning-making; and 2. Disruption and Transformation. First, the study analyzed students’ perceptions of African aesthetics from their learning experience of traditional African art in an art museum. The findings affirmed traditional African art at the museum as a discourse of Africa as the Other of the West. Secondly, the study analyzed how students’ perceptions were influenced from their experience (in my classroom) of learning histories of modern and contemporary African art that disrupt the authenticity of traditional African art. The findings revealed that 80% of participants developed positive transformations. This research demonstrates how art education grounded in critical theory and transformative learning subverted African art as the discourse of the Other, developed students’ understandings of the multiple realities of Africa and African aesthetics, and encouraged positive transformations in students’ perceptions of African aesthetics.