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Self-destruction or Fulfilment: avatars of anorexic asceticism in French Literature from the 19th to the 21st centuries
No full textRESUME
S'anéantir ou s'épanouir : avatars d'ascétisme anorexique
dans la littérature française du XIXe au XXIe siècle
Intriguée par une ressemblance frappante entre quantité de comportements, caractéristiques et préoccupations chez, d'une part, des personnages des textes littéraires français du XIXe siècle, et d'autre part chez les anorexiques modernes, nous avons entrepris d'examiner des représentations de l'abnégation. En lisant la piété féminine ascétique, surtout dans une forme stérile et extrême nommée « scrupule », telle qu'elle est montrée dans Madame Gervaisais, des frères Goncourt, et dans la représentation de l'adolescence dans L'Histoire de ma vie, de George Sand, je me donne pour but l'exploration des similarités et différences entre ces deux « conditions ». Ensuite, certains textes de Zola, de Vincent van Gogh, et de Simone de Beauvoir me permettent de scruter une variété de réponses aux mêmes questions qui motivent l'anorexie mentale et le scrupule : questions d'équilibre entre le spirituel et le matériel, de perfectionnisme, d'obéissance excessive, de refus du plaisir, et de capacité à s'anéantir. Paradoxalement, tous les « personnages » étudiés ici (y compris les « personnages » créés à travers l'autobiographie ou l'art épistolaire) sont représentés comme possédant des tendances qui définissent ces deux « conditions », tendances qui peuvent mener soit à un épanouissement extraordinaire, une créativité inouïe, soit à l’anéantissement de soi motivé par un désir de vertu parfaite. Lire ces textes en rapport avec l'anorexie mentale, c'est les considérer sous un jour nouveau, ce qui offre à son tour une nouvelle optique sur l'anorexie mentale, suggérant son imbrication de longue date dans l'histoire culturelle de l'Europe.Intrigued by a striking resemblance between certain behaviour, characteristics and preoccupations in characters from French literary texts, on the one hand, and in modern-day anorexics on the other, we have undertaken a study of representations of abnegation. In reading female ascetic piety, particularly in an extreme and sterile form known as “scrupulosity,” as it is seen in Madame Gervaisais, by the Goncourt Brothers, and in the representation of adolescence in L’Histoire de ma vie, by George Sand, I aim to explore similarities and differences between these two “conditions.” Next, certain texts by Zola, Vincent van Gogh and Simone de Beauvoir allow me to study a wide range of responses to the same questions as those which motivate anorexia nervosa and scrupulosity: questions of balance between the spiritual and the material, of perfectionism, of excessive obedience, of refusal of pleasure, and of a capacity for self-destruction. Paradoxically, all the “characters” studied here (including those “characters” created by means of autobiography or letter writing) are represented as possessing tendencies which define these two “conditions,” tendencies which are capable of leading either to extraordinary fulfilment, an unheard of creativity, or to self-destruction motivated by a desire for perfect virtue. Reading these texts in the light of anorexia nervosa allows new insights into them, in turn offering a new perspective on anorexia nervosa, suggesting its long involvement in the cultural history of Europe
La notion de contreviolence créative dans l'autobiographie postcoloniale franco-algérienne: paroles d'identité et de résistance chez Assia Djebar, Malika Mokeddem et Nina Bouraoui
No full textFull text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.This thesis, whose problematic lies at the crossroads of postcolonial criticism and postmodern theory, examines violence in the autobiographical texts of three women writing in the postcolonial entre-deux of the French-Algerian encounter. Investigating the poetics of the autobiographies of Assia Djebar, Malika Mokeddem and Nina Bouraoui unveils the literary strategies these writers deploy to accommodate into their writing both an experience of violence and resistance against violence.
The analysis undertaken in this research of the thematics and the textual and linguistic functioning of six autobiographical texts reveals how these writers transform, through textual violence, an identity inherited from colonial and patriarchal discourses in order to construct a new subjectivity that escapes fixed structures and existing power relations. While many theorists have denounced postmodernism's apparent inability to adopt a political position, this research, through its evaluation of the oppositional force of this intrinsically postmodern corpus, is able to enact a rapprochement between postcolonial and postmodern theories.
In their struggle against the violence inherent in dominant discourses, the writers examined in this thesis underline the ambiguity of Franco-Algerian relations and stage acts of resistance by women and the colonised. By means of textual and linguistic counterviolence, they deconstruct the binary oppositions that underpin inherited forms of identity in order to assert a hybrid space that generates creative power. Like Deleuzian nomads, the three writers deterritorialise inherited ethnic and sexual identities, creating for themselves lines of flight towards a new conception of identity. Due to the need to resist the violence inflicted upon the group, the autobiographers anchor this new identity in their community of origin and in female memory. Rather than inscribing their identity in a nationalistic project they claim for themselves the identity of a Deleuzian subject group, an identity invested with becoming
Enfance et déracinement: Nathalie Sarraute, Romain Gary
No full textCette thèse examine les enjeux associés au déracinement culturel vécu dans l’enfance et
ses effets sur la créativité dans la vie adulte. Elle applique les acquis de la psychologie
interculturelle et de domaines rapprochés à l’étude de deux auteurs français d’origine
juive russe, Nathalie Sarraute et Romain Gary, dont les liens à leurs cultures d’origine
n’ont pas jusqu’à présent fait l’objet d’études approfondies.
Notre analyse des traces dans le discours autobiographique et l’oeuvre de fiction de ces
deux auteurs de la présence de leurs cultures d’origine, d’accueil et de celles de
l’expérience du déracinement révèle des phénomènes analogues : comment les propos
autobiographiques deviennent un moyen de positionnement au sein de la culture
d’accueil ; comment leur oeuvre de fiction expose une attitude critique commune envers
cette culture d’adoption ; comment les facteurs culturels influent sur la réception de leur
oeuvre ; comment la réception agit sur le discours autobiographique ; comment la
créativité est mise en oeuvre pour interroger les enjeux de l’identité personnelle.
Cette thèse montre comment, malgré la rareté des représentations manifestes des
cultures d’origine dans leur fiction et leur discours autobiographique, l’influence de la
tradition littéraire russe (et de l’humour juif, dans le cas de Gary) est cruciale pour la
lecture de leur oeuvre, et pour rendre compte de son caractère innovant dans le champ
littéraire français : l’oeuvre de Sarraute peut être perçue comme étant écrite contre
Tolstoï et comme prolongeant les explorations des relations humaines de Dostoïevski ;
l’oeuvre de Gary montre sa dette envers la culture yiddish et les modèles russes de
mystification dans sa création d’Émile Ajar.
En outre, cette recherche découvre que certaines différences dans la démarche artistique
des deux auteurs sont attribuables à des stratégies identitaires contrastées endossées
comme moyen de dissimulation d’une interrogation ou d’un vide identitaire communs, causés par l’expérience traumatisante du déracinement dans l’enfance. Ces stratégies
identitaires peuvent se résumer comme silence et anonymat dans le cas de Sarraute, et
dissimulation et invention dans le cas de Gary, et peuvent être perçues comme les
caractéristiques constantes non seulement des contenus mais aussi de la production de
leur oeuvre littéraire.
Notre examen de la fiction et du discours autobiographique de ces deux auteurs sur une
longue période offre de nouveaux apports au domaine de la psychologie interculturelle :
il confirme le caractère traumatisant du déracinement culturel vécu pendant l’enfance et
ses effets persistants dans la vie adulte, la complexité des processus d’acculturation, y
compris le rôle des relations de groupes, et la difficulté et l’intérêt de la représentation
ou de l’expression de tels traumatismes par la créativité littéraire.This thesis examines issues asociated with childhood cultural displacement and its effects on creativity in adult life. It applies insights from intercultural psychology and related fields to the study of two French authors of Russian Jewish origin, Nathalie
Sarraute and Romain Gary, whose links to their cultures of origin have not before been the subject of sustained scholarly attention.
Our investigation of the traces in these authors’ autobiographical discourse and fictional works of their cultures of origin, host cultures, and of the experience of displacement, reveals similar patterns: how their autobiographical statements become a means of positioning themselves within French society; how their fiction displays a common critical stance towards their host cultures; how cultural factors impact on the reception of literary works; how reception shapes autobiographical discourse; and how creativity is used to explore questions of personal identity. This thesis shows that while manifest representations of Sarraute and Gary’s cultures of
origin may be scarce in their fiction and autobiographical discourse, the influence of the
Russian literary tradition (and of Jewish humour, in the case of Gary) is crucial in understanding their work, and in explaining its innovative contribution to French letters: Sarraute’s work can be seen as writing against Tolstoy, and continuing Dostoevsky’s
explorations of power in human relationships; Gary’s work shows its debt to Yiddish culture and to Russian models of mystification in his creation of the heteronym Émile
Ajar. In addition, this research shows that many of the differences between the two writers can be ascribed to contrasting identity strategies, taken up as a means of dissimulating a 6 common questioning or lack of personal identity, which is caused by the traumatic early experience of cultural displacement. These identity strategies can be summarized as
silence and anonymity in the case of Sarraute, and dissimulation and invention in the case of Gary, and can be seen as consistent features not only of the content but also of
the production of their literary works. The examination of these authors’ fiction and autobiographical discourse over the span of their careers offers new understanding to the field of intercultural psychology: it
shows the traumatic nature of childhood cultural displacement and its lasting effects on adult life, the complexity of processes of acculturation, including the role of group relationships, and the challenges and benefits of representing or expressing such trauma through literary creativity
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Autobiographical Fictions: Duras, Sarraute, Simon, Robbe-Grillet: Re-writing History, Story, Self
Get PDFKANAK IMAGINARIES: A SENSE OF PLACE IN THE WORK OF DÉWÉ GÖRÖDÉ
Get PDFThe study of the Kanak imaginary in the work of the first published Kanak (indigenous) New Caledonian writer shows this to be permeated by a sense of place. Rootedness in, and intense community with the land is not incompatible with the fluidity of ancestral criss-crossing of the Pacific or of constant border-crossing(pathways of exchange between groups) but nonetheless remains central. The ‘hinterland’ constituted by the places of the tribu (customary lands) sets up a challenge to the dominance ofNouméa la blanche and Déwé Görödé’s articulation of places of identity re-negotiate the urban/regional or Noumea/Bush/Tribu nexus to counterbalance or contest national (French) imaginaries. Yet Görödé’s work presents both a return to a Kanak Place to Stand and a critical self in process (the latter situated in a ‘no man’s land’). The places in her work are ultimately ‘cognitively dissonant’: the marginal or hinter-land of Kanak imaginaries (the tribu), can hold (to) their own both outside and inside the city yet also open themselves up internally to multiplicity and critique
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