Notre étude concerne la précarité, la violence et le danger chez les adolescents du quartier Hatikva, situé dans la banlieue-sud de Tel Aviv en Israël ; et la prise en charge de ces adolescents par l'institution Beit Ham au moyen de la psychothérapie institutionnelle. La précarité organise ici le quotidien de l'adolescent, ce déjà enfant : ici, l'enfant et l'adolescent sont confrontés à la précarité dans les domaines les plus élémentaires soit l'alimentaire, le jeu, le développement, l'accueil familial et sociétal, la protection, l'espace et la relation. C'est alors ce rapport intersignifiant élémentaire, structurant, entre ensemble et partie, entre nécessité et légitimité qui manque ou est très insuffisant pour permettre à la parole et à la demande de l'adolescent de s'articuler à l'extérieur, et par conséquent de constituer un appui et un recours. D'où notre problématique : la violence et le danger chez l'adolescent sont fonction de la précarité de la relation. Alors c'est cette "relation de connexion" (J. Lacan) élémentaire, ce rapport intersignifiant structurant entre énoncé et énonciation, entre "matériel signifiant" (J. Lacan) et sens, entre organisation déjà là et une présence qui n'opère pas. Ce qui confronte nombre d'adolescents et d'enfants à une difficulté de rencontre entre l'espace psychique et l'espace social, à une errance psychique et sociale, et à une difficulté de s'appuyer et de recourir au soutien extérieur pour faire face aux violences et aux dangers fortement présents dans leur milieu de vie. Mais ici c'est cet "espace du politique" (H. Arendt), cet espace de la relation, cette "signification de la participation" (L. Lavelle) qui sont sérieusement à interroger; soit ce "pas décisif culturel" (S. Freud). Mais la situation est critique car le potentiel de danger est très grand pour beaucoup de ces enfants et de ces adolescents. C'est donc la politique que ces adolescents interpellent directement, et nous avec : soit le sérieux de cette garantie d'un espace commun pour tous, du droit à la Cité, du droit à l'accueil et à la protection ; soit ces fondamentaux politiques non négociables pour la présence d'un enfant et d'un adolescent au monde c'est-à-dire de cet espace de la relation, de cet espace du rapport – intersignifiant – élémentaire et structurant. Qu'en est-il de cette existence politique d'un adolescent et d'un enfant, dont l'inconscient semble l'expression, quand le préjudice politique, quand la « misère symbolique » (P.-L. Assoun) auxquels sont confrontés tant d'enfants et d'adolescents sur ce terrain, ne permettent plus cette solidarité – existentielle – entre une présence au monde et espace, relation et structure, ou encore ce rapport intersignifiant élémentaire entre présence et participation, entre unité et continuité? / Our study concerns the precariousness, danger and violence among adolescents in the Hatikva neighborhood, situated in the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv in Israel; and the care provided for these adolescents by the Beit Ham institution by means of institutional psychotherapy. Here, precariousness rules over the daily life of the adolescent, who is yet a child: here, the child and the adolescent are confronted with precariousness in the most basic of domains, be it that of nutrition, play, development, family and societal climate, protection, space, and relationships. It is thus this relation of basic, structuring, cross-signifying relation, between whole and part, between necessity and legitimacy, which Is lacking or which is too insufficient to allow the verbal exteriorization of the adolescent’s own speech and demands, and thereby constitute support and remedy. Hence, our difficulty: violence and danger among adolescents are linked to the precariousness of the relationships. So it is this basic ”relationship of connection” (J. Lacan), this structuring cross-signifying relation between an utterance and the act of uttering itself, between “signifying material” (J. Lacan) and sense, between the existing organisation and a non-operating presence. Which makes it that numerous adolescents and children are confronted with a matching difficulty between physical and social space, with a psychic and social vagrancy, and with a difficulty to draw on and to resort to external support in order to face the ever-present violence and danger in their living environment. But in this case, it is this “political space” (H. Arendt), this relational space, this “significance of participation” (L. Lavelle) that are to be seriously questioned; or this “decisive cultural step” (S. Freud). But the situation is a critical one because the potential danger is very high for many of these children and adolescents. It is thus politics that these adolescents are directly calling out to, along with us: either the reliability of this guarantee of a common space for all, the right to a housing project, the right to acceptance and protection; or these fundamental, non-negotiable politics for the presence of a child or an adolescent in the world, that is to say, in this relational space, this connective space – cross-signifying – basic and structuring. What about this political existence of an adolescent and a child, whose unawareness is taken as expression, when the political prejudice, the “symbolic misery” (P.-L. Assoun) that so many children are confronted with in this region, no longer allow for this existential solidarity between a presence in the world and in the physical space, relationship and structure, or even this basic cross-signifying relation between presence and participation, between unity and continuity?

In utilizing Kristeva's psychoanalytic discursive theory of identity-formation within literary symbolic structures, my thesis seeks to follow the ontological processes involved in identity and signification in “subversive” signifying practices. Specifically, I'm interested in the ways modern poetry (such as Elizabeth Bishop) defies traditional patriarchal discourse as dominant literary devices while embracing plurality and inherent virtues of the female voice. My project will trace Kristeva's semiotic/psychoanalytic evolution from linguistic models of the signifying process, to particulars of her psychoanalytic/linguistic theories, and finally, will attempt to construct a space within modern poetry, where it can be said, the subject (poet) remains on trial/in crisis, and poetic expression reveals the “jouissance” or unspoken voice of repression. Bishop's poetry constantly questions reality, knowledge, sexuality and the self. I strive to expose how Bishop's poetry performs Kristeva's theory of the self in writing; her poetry puts at the core of the self a sense of loss in her attempts to express herself in language. I offer close readings of “The Fish,” “Questions of Travel,” and “One Art,” to show how Bishop's self exposes the unconscious process of poetic activity. Kelly Oliver articulates Kristeva's contributions to linguistics and psychoanalysis quite succinctly, “When we learn to embrace the return of the repressed/the foreigner within ourselves, then we learn to live with, and love, others” (14). / Master of Arts

Este trabalho busca examinar as relações de poder alegorizadas no romance Todos os Nomes, de José Saramago. Usando principalmente as teorias de Mikhail Bakhtin e Michael Foucault sobre o processo de constituição do sujeito moderno (entendido, neste caso, como um sujeito que se reconhece como portador de uma identidade própria, ainda que, paradoxalmente, se saiba também integrante de um grupo social que o concebe e o solicita como um \"corpo dócil e útil\"), este trabalho enfoca desde a arquitetura \"panóptica\" do espaço impessoal da Conservatória do Registro Civil, que mantém seus funcionários numa rígida e produtiva disciplina de trabalho sob o olhar vigilante do Conservador, até os comportamentos transgressores do Sr. José em seu processo que investiga a identidade da mulher desconhecida, passando pelo exame dos recursos carnavalescos que visam a desmascarar o poder instituído. A análise visa provar que existe uma intrínseca e inextricável relação entre o poder instituído (representado pela figura do conservador) e o sujeito que se submete a esse poder (representado, no romance, pela figura do Sr. José), de tal modo que o desenvolvimento da autoconsciência do sujeito e a sua libertação em relação à condição anterior de assujeitamento (na terminologia de Foucault) acarretam, necessariamente, mudanças nas diferentes microesferas de poder (também com base no pensamento de Foucault). / This work aims to analyse the power relationships allegorized in the novel Todos os Nomes (All the Names), written by the Portuguese writer José Saramago. Using mainly Bakhtin\'s and Foucault\'s theories about the process of modern subject constitution (that who recognizes himself as owning his own single identity, though he also recognizes the use social forces and power instances make of him as \"a teachable and ductible body\"), this work focuses on the social and functional \"panoptical \"architecture of the register office (\"Conservatória\"), whick keeps the workers in a rigid but productive discipline, under the watching eyes of the \"Manager\". But it also focuses on \"Sr. José\'s transgressive attitudes along his investigatory route to discover the unknown woman\'s identity. And it also investigates the unmasking of the hegemonic power by means of the Bakhtinian carnavalization procedures which have the power to relativize the official conceptions of reality. This analysis aims to prove that there\'s an inextricable link between the institutional forces and the subject who\'s submitted to this power, so that the development of one\'s consciousness causes a direct consequence on the hegemonic power forces, with subtle changes in the power relationships.

Este trabalho busca examinar as relações de poder alegorizadas no romance Todos os Nomes, de José Saramago. Usando principalmente as teorias de Mikhail Bakhtin e Michael Foucault sobre o processo de constituição do sujeito moderno (entendido, neste caso, como um sujeito que se reconhece como portador de uma identidade própria, ainda que, paradoxalmente, se saiba também integrante de um grupo social que o concebe e o solicita como um \"corpo dócil e útil\"), este trabalho enfoca desde a arquitetura \"panóptica\" do espaço impessoal da Conservatória do Registro Civil, que mantém seus funcionários numa rígida e produtiva disciplina de trabalho sob o olhar vigilante do Conservador, até os comportamentos transgressores do Sr. José em seu processo que investiga a identidade da mulher desconhecida, passando pelo exame dos recursos carnavalescos que visam a desmascarar o poder instituído. A análise visa provar que existe uma intrínseca e inextricável relação entre o poder instituído (representado pela figura do conservador) e o sujeito que se submete a esse poder (representado, no romance, pela figura do Sr. José), de tal modo que o desenvolvimento da autoconsciência do sujeito e a sua libertação em relação à condição anterior de assujeitamento (na terminologia de Foucault) acarretam, necessariamente, mudanças nas diferentes microesferas de poder (também com base no pensamento de Foucault). / This work aims to analyse the power relationships allegorized in the novel Todos os Nomes (All the Names), written by the Portuguese writer José Saramago. Using mainly Bakhtin\'s and Foucault\'s theories about the process of modern subject constitution (that who recognizes himself as owning his own single identity, though he also recognizes the use social forces and power instances make of him as \"a teachable and ductible body\"), this work focuses on the social and functional \"panoptical \"architecture of the register office (\"Conservatória\"), whick keeps the workers in a rigid but productive discipline, under the watching eyes of the \"Manager\". But it also focuses on \"Sr. José\'s transgressive attitudes along his investigatory route to discover the unknown woman\'s identity. And it also investigates the unmasking of the hegemonic power by means of the Bakhtinian carnavalization procedures which have the power to relativize the official conceptions of reality. This analysis aims to prove that there\'s an inextricable link between the institutional forces and the subject who\'s submitted to this power, so that the development of one\'s consciousness causes a direct consequence on the hegemonic power forces, with subtle changes in the power relationships.

This dissertation is a critical investigation of the engagements of scriptures in the life and speeches of U.S. Congresswoman Barbara C. Jordan (1936–1996). I engage in a research methodology that utilizes critical historical, auto/biographical, literary, and rhetorical analyses. My research agenda is to explain how scriptures work and are used by Barbara Jordan to illustrate an example of a larger phenomenon of scripturalizing and scripturalization outside of the context of institutional religion. In order to give a fuller context to Barbara Jordan’s rhetorical strategies, as an African American woman, I first consider the lives, speeches and use of scriptures of formidable 19th century African American women orators and political activists, Maria W. Stewart and Anna Julia Cooper, who serve as functional equivalents or precursors to Barbara Jordan. In this study, I found that Barbara Jordan makes American scripture, i.e. the Constitution, function in her speeches as a central component in a discursive rhetorical strategy of indirection, which I refer to as signifying on scriptures. She uses the Constitution, along with her personal history as an African American woman, to pretend mere sociopolitical conviction about social injustice. However, at the same time, she is strategic and intends to promote advocacy for racial justice and gender equality. Jordan uses the Constitution to signify on scriptures in a similar manner to how Maria W. Stewart and Anna Julia Cooper use Christian scriptures, i.e. the Bible, in their speeches to negotiate social and political power.

This essay discusses how language, culture and spirituality are intertwined and used as a defensive mechanism as well as an identity marker, with strong emphasis on Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Language is not just a means of communication, but an interweaving of cultural nuances and a means of establishing identity, demanding autonomy and defying powerlessness. Language is a tool that is embedded in the culture and traditions as well as the experiences of the user of that language. In Morrison’s Beloved, language is not just words used for the purpose of communication, but as a link between that which is real and that which is not; as a representation of a culture that celebrates the importance of remembering – linking the present with the past in a continuum that is particular to the culture, tradition and beliefs of the users. It also symbolises a means of defiance to powerlessness, by defecting from the norm. In Morrison’s Beloved, language as vernacular or “Black Man’s Talk” is characterised by puns, taunts, double-meanings and innuendos that are particular to the Black Race as a way of rejecting the status quo, of defying the white man’s language; of saying “Ah kin signify all Ah please, …., so long as Ah know what Ah’m talkin’ about” (Gates 212).

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010. / Title from screen (viewed on July 19, 2010). Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Susan C. Shepherd, Frederick J. DiCamilla, Stephen L. Fox. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-50).

Il est rare dans la littérature de trouver déclinaison de l’errance psychique en tant que concept ou autrement que sur le versant de la psychopathologie. Il s’agira dans cette présente recherche de construire un modèle conceptuel métapsychologique de l’errance psychique, par la croisée des conceptualisations psychanalytiques et phénoménologiques. Nous démontrerons que l’errance psychique est une dynamique qui permet au sujet de s’adapter à ses environnements interne et externe. L’errance psychique nait de l’imprévisible du Réel par lequel le sujet ne peut savoir ce qui l’attend. Par sa confrontation au Réel, dont l’issue est aussi imprévisible, le sujet devra revisiter, déconstruire et restructurer son système représentationnel en remaniant les repères intrapsychiques et ancrages identitaires qui le régissaient jusqu’alors. Les troubles que certains auteurs imputent à l’errance psychique seront en fait dus à l’aspect traumatogène que revêt la confrontation au Réel, potentialisé par la difficulté voire l’incapacité du sujet, dans certaines situations, à trouver manière d’habiter son errance. Les manifestations erratiques discursives et autres que nous révèlerons, témoigneront de la position passive ou active du sujet face et dans son errance, mais selon aussi s’il s’en laisse porter ou au contraire qu’il lutte contre cette force. Comme principal symptôme de l’errance dans son entrave, nous interrogerons la dépression en tant qu’affect corollaire de toute crise existentielle qui atteint le sujet ne sachant plus faire avec son errance, c’est-à-dire ne sachant plus faire résonner ses environnements interne et externe et ainsi éprouver cohérence et mêmeté à son être. / In the psychological or psychoanalytical literature, it is uncommon to find the “psychic errancy” understood as a concept or as a healthy process. This research presents our construction of a conceptual and metapsychological model of the psychic errancy by cross referencing some conceptualizations of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. We demonstrate that the psychic errancy is a dynamic that allows the subject to adapt to his/her internal and external environments. The subject never knows what to expect because the Real is unpredictable, which is the starting point for the psychic errancy. The issues of a confrontation with the Real cannot be known in advance, but the subject will have to overhaul his/her intrapsychic bearings and identity anchors in order to deconstruct, redefine and restructure his/her representational system. Contrary to what most authors claim, disorders are not due to psychic errancy itself. In fact, they are due to the traumatogenic confrontation with the Real, which can be traumatic if the subject is unable to find a way to live within his/her errancy. Here we reveal some discursive erratic manifestations which testify to the subject's positioning either within his/her errancy or facing it. Positioning can be active or passive, and the subject can use the errancy or fight against it. We will examine depression, the main symptom of a hindered errancy, as a corollary affect of any existential crisis: the subject can be depressed if he/she does not know how to live within the errancy, meaning when the subject no longer feels sameness, because of his/her inability to echo his/her internal and external environments.

The American musical team John Kander and Fred Ebb created many celebrated works, yet musicologists have carried out little research on those works. This study examines the role of music in the parodic narration of Kander and Ebb's final collaboration, The Scottsboro Boys. Kander and Ebb use minstrelsy to tell the story of the historic Scottsboro Boys trials with actors portraying the Scottsboro Boys as minstrels; at the same time, they employ a number of devices to subvert minstrelsy stereotypes and thereby comment on racism. Drawing on African American literary theory, sociolinguistics, and Bakhtin's dialogism, this study illuminates how Signifyin(g), a rhetorical tradition used to encode messages in some African American communities, is the primary way the actors playing the Scottsboro Boys subvert through minstrelsy. This study not only contributes to the discussion of Signifyin(g) in African American musicals and theatre as a tool of subversion, but also provides an example of non-African American creators—Kander and Ebb—using Signifyin(g) devices. They use these in the music and the book; in particular, Kander and Ebb do some Signifyin(g) on Stephen Foster's plantation melodies.

This essay analyzes three poems written by African American poet Amanda Gorman, by carrying out a close reading based on Henry Louis Gates Jr’s theory of Signifying, and concepts from African American and feminist literary criticism. Firstly, a diverse range of Signifying elements are identified on both a structural and figurative level, where distinct rhyming patterns, as well as frequent clustering of alliteration and rhymes are examples of the first, whereas usage of rhetorical and figurative tropes, such as chiasmus and metaphors, are examples of the second level. These findings are then connected to the Signifying concepts of indirect intent and metaphorical reference. The essay concludes that though several intertextual references to racism, racial stereotypes, and a shared cultural heritage are indeed found, there are also passages Signifying a critique of patriarchal structures, which illuminates the experiences of African American women in particular.