In this thesis I investigate what ‘authenticity’ means in a contemporary popular context and how it is used in the staging of bodies. Furthermore, I analyse works of dance and fashion from the past fifteen years with a focus on their strategies of challenging the notion of ‘bodily authenticity’.   When ‘an authentic body’ is sought by participants or demanded by judges and ‘experts’ on popular makeover and casting TV shows such as The Swan (Fox 2004) or Germany’s Next Topmodel (Pro 7 2006-present) this refers to the physical visualisation of what is perceived/presented as the participants ‘inner self’. I scrutinise the staging techniques and the codes of appearance that bodies have to comply with in order to be deemed ‘authentic’ on the shows. To define them and place them in the history of the idea of ‘bodily authenticity’, I complement my study with an outline of how ‘authenticity’ was understood in the Enlightenment and what techniques were used to stage the body when the concept gained currency, for instance in the writings of Rousseau. My analysis makes clear that 'bodily authenticity' on the two TV shows is achieved by strictly following gender-normative codes of beauty and by a depiction of 'working hard'. But various techniques also mask the hard work, for example by showing a participant ‘having fun’ performing it.   Contemporary works of dance and fashion challenge the problematic implications in the notion of ‘bodily authenticity’. I analyse three strategies of undermining the ‘authentic’ ideal in a total of seven pieces. These strategies are hyperbole which exaggerates the beauty code implicit in ‘authentic appearance’; multiplicity which undermines ‘authenticity’s’ essentialism and estrangement which denies the notion of individual authorship. In conclusion, I place the staging strategies used in my examples in a wider cultural context and highlight potential problems inherent in their critiques. / <p>Thesis is done in ’co-tutelle’ with Freie Universität Berlin. </p>

De toutes les grandes traditions religieuses le taoïsme est la moins connue. L’objectif de cette recherche est de dresser un panorama de ses représentations et de sa réception en Occident, plus particulièrement en France et en Europe, et d’en identifier les étapes et les modalités, les vecteurs et les publics à un moment charnière où il se diffuse en Occident et où son image de négative devient positive. Ce travail emprunte les voies de l’histoire, notamment missionnaire, de l’orientalisme et de la sinologie, et interroge le rôle joué par les différents acteurs et contextes de réception dans la fabrique de ses représentations qui essentialisent une tradition religieuse chinoise complexe et évolutive. Dans une approche plus socio-anthropologique, il analyse ses modes contemporains de diffusion et d’appropriation par le biais des différentes pratiques d’origine chinoise qui répondent à un souci de soi contemporain tourné vers la réalisation individuelle intramondaine. Empruntant une approche comparatiste qui fait appel à la réception des autres traditions asiatiques en Occident, et du taoïsme aux Etats-Unis, il tente de dégager les traits spécifiques de la fabrique d’un taoïsme occidental en régime de postmodernité. Fabrique qui s’inscrit à la fois dans le mouvement d’internationalisation et de globalisation du religieux et dans les dynamiques du puritanisme libéral anglo-saxon et du New Age qui font converger impératif de bien-être et de réalisation de soi, quête spirituelle individuelle et questionnement de la pensée européenne. / Of all the great religious traditions Taoism is the least known. The aim of this research is to provide a panorama of its representations and its reception in the West, particularly in France and in Europe: to identify its stages of development and its modalities, its vectors and publics. This occurs at a pivotal moment when its spread in the West correlates with an inversion in terms of its public image from negative to positive. This work draws on missionary history, orientalism and sinology. It questions the role played by the various actors and contexts of reception in the fabric of its representations that essentialise a complex and evolving Chinese religious tradition. In a more socio-anthropological approach, this thesis analyzes contemporary modes of diffusion and appropriation through various practices of Chinese origin which respond to a contemporary souci de soi oriented towards individual realization within the world. Using a comparative approach that considers the reception of other Asian traditions in the West and of Taoism in the United States, this study seeks to identify the specific features of the construction of Western Taoism in a postmodern age. This manufacture of Taoism is situated within the movement of the internationalization and globalization of the religious phenomenon and of the dynamics of Anglo-Saxon liberal puritanism and New Age movements. These dynamics bring together the imperatives of well-being and self-realization, individual spiritual quest and questioning of European thought.