Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Outlaws And Traitors: Justifying Rebellion In The Old French Epic Of Revolt, Klayton Tietjen

Doctoral Dissertations

The plot of many chansons de geste hinges on acts that would have been considered treasonable by medieval legal custom. Yet despite conspicuously treasonous behavior, rebel characters remain the heroes of the tales. Coming to an understanding of the esoteric way that medieval poets and their audiences would have perceived the difference between rebel characters and traitor characters is the pursuit of this study. Through an investigation of the narrative logic and poetic details of epic poems like Girart de Vienne and other chansons de geste, the divergence between treachery and rebellion can be shown to reside in narrative …

Defining Black Masculinities: Intersectional Analyses Of Gender, Race And Sexuality In Caribbean And Latin American Literature, 1955 To Present, Jerry Eugene Scruggs Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

The objective of my dissertation is to define and construct parameters for analyzing the Afro-descendant male experience in four specific texts: Mi compadre el General Sol [General Sun, My Brother] (1955), Adire y el tiempo roto [Adire and Broken Time] (1967), Sortilégio II: mistério negro de Zumbi redivivo [Sorcery 2: Black Mystery of Resurrected Zumbí] (1979), and Negro: Este color que me queda bonito [Black: This Color Looks Good on Me] (2013). Black masculinities are distinct and this study sets five parameters: 1) Sexual Prowess, 2) Contentious relationship with the White woman, 3) Violence and Toxic Masculinity, 4) Emotive Numbness, …

The Adoption Of The Citizen-Soldier Model In French And Caribbean Revolutionary Identities (1789-1848), Lucas Sharp

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the influence of the citizen-soldier model on revolutionaries from the French Revolution, the Guadeloupean Resistance, the Haitian Revolution, and in Georges, a literary text written by Alexandre Dumas. The history of the citizen-soldier concept goes at least as far back as ancient Greece and has been implemented in a variety of ways since then. The citizen-soldier model combines the civic and political engagement of citizens with the martial attributes of a soldier. Throughout these different contexts, revolutionaries were inspired by the citizen-soldier model and incorporated it into their identities in different ways. This study reveals the …

Les Auteures Surréalistes : French And Francophone Women Surrealist Writers -- Joyce Mansour, Valentine Penrose And Gisèle Prassinos, Maitland Sierra Dunwoody

Masters Theses

The notion of the “author” and the purpose of its existence have been the subject of many contemporary debates, with Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault as key. For Barthes, language defines a literary work and the author is relegated to a minor place. And he believes that certain movements, surrealism as an example, effectively aided in the “death” of the author. Though that may sometimes be the case, within the movement of surrealism the author and their language are of almost equal importance – which differs entirely from Barthes’ view considering his notions on the surrealist movement and authorship. In …

“This Is A Woman Speaking”: The Feminist Writing Of Three French Journalists, Holly Anne Gary

Masters Theses

Over the past several centuries, women in France have been attracted to journalism as a forum for self-expression and a way to promote the causes that they cared about, particularly women’s rights. This paper examines the work of three French women journalists who wrote in favor of equality of the sexes and more active social roles for women. In the 18th century, the radical Madame de Beaumer shocked royal censors in her Journal des Dames. In the 19th century, the first bachelière Julie-Victoire Daubié wrote extensively about women in poverty. In the 20th century, Louise Weiss fought for suffrage and …

Repenser Une Double Altérité: Expérience Commune Et Trajectoires Plurielles De La Femme Étrangère En France Métropolitaine (Xviiie-Xxe Siècle), Joanna Merkel

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the figure of double alterity represented by foreign women living in metropolitan France, from the 18^th to the 20^th century. I argue that although these varied figures offer different trajectories, possess diverse origins, and have been described or described themselves through a variety of literary genres and non-literary genres; they share a common experience revealing unicity. My objectives are, first, to establish the outlines of this shared experience through the analysis of general trends and micro-events; and second, to explore what this analysis has to teach us about French society, past and present. The texts …

Rethinking L'Exception Culturelle In French Music Then And Now: Language, Memory, And Political Order, Melanie Ann Lafoy

Masters Theses

Through this thesis, entitled “Rethinking l'exception culturelle in French Music then and now: Language, Memory, and Political Order,” I explore the concept of exception culturelle as it relates to music in France. I break down this concept by situating current French music trends within a historical landscape, highlighting certain moments of tension between music, politics, and language that appear in the decades after the Dreyfus Affair (1894), which I consider to be a turning point in the way French music is and was perceived inside and outside French national borders. I also examine the years after the second World …

Identité, Genre, Et Proto-Nationalisme Chez Christine De Pizan Et Alain Chartier, Matthew Lee Blair

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Parables Of Love: Reading The Romances Of Chrétien De Troyes Through Bernard Of Clairvaux, Carrie D. Pagels

Doctoral Dissertations

In three romances Yvain, Lancelot, and Perceval, Chrétien de Troyes utilizes the intimate relationships of his courtly knights and their lady loves to explore and present the Christian ideology of Bernard of Clairvaux as expressed by his four degrees of love in the treatise, On Loving God. Previous scholarly works have only examined the Christian ideology and symbolism in Chrétien's romances as isolated occurrences specific to a single text. In contrast, I argue Chrétien's romances form a progression mirroring the Bernardian steps (or degrees) man must make in order to draw closer to and deepen his relationship …

The Deeds Of William Of Villehardouin: An Annotated Translation Of A Part Of The Medieval Work, La Chronique De Morée, Houston Franklin Mcclure

Masters Theses

In this thesis, titled The Deeds of William of Villehardouin: An Annotated Translation of a Part of the Old French La Chronique de Morée, I have translated a portion of one of the remaining French texts from a period just following the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204). The portion I used of the text is taken from Jean Longnon's critical edition in Middle French based on the sole 14^th century manuscript now at the Royal Library in Brussels 15702. However, the events related in the Chronique span an earlier period of 1095-1304[1]. The stanzas that I will translate, …

L'Altérité Des Femmes Dans La Littérature Française Contemporaine, Loren Lee

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Challenges Of Advancing Equal Rights For Lgbt Individuals In An Increasingly Diverse Society: The Case Of The French Taubira Law, Ashley Jakubek

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Spectacle, Consumer Capitalism, And The Hyperreality Of The Mediated American Jury Trial: The French Perspective On O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony, And Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Bailey Miller Wamp

Masters Theses

This study investigates modern French criticism of jury trial mediation in the United States. By engaging the work of twentieth-century French theorists Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord, and Pierre Bourdieu, as well as French journalistic reporting on the jury trials of O.J. Simpson, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Casey Anthony, this study argues that mediated images of the American jury trial abandon the pursuit of justice in favor of a consumer capitalist endeavor to create spectacle. Ultimately, jury trial mediation generates a hyperreality in which the media simulates the pursuit of justice with no reference to the “real” pursuit of justice.

In order …

The Sensual, The Monstrous, And The Everyday In The Cinemas Of Claire Denis And François Ozon, Amy E. Bertram

Doctoral Dissertations

Claire Denis and François Ozon create thought-provoking, compelling, sensual films that intersect in terms of theme, genre play, and adaptation. The purpose of this study is to examine their work for points of connectivity. Phenomenology, postcolonial theory, queer theory, and globalization studies inform the analysis. As French filmmakers whose careers began at about the same time, Denis and Ozon have both produced almost a film a year. They continue to make new films. They have been grouped with other contemporary French filmmakers under labels such as New French Cinema, New French Extremity, or French Queer Cinema, yet their films have …

Isolation Nation: Representations Of The United States In The Photographs Of Rémi Noël, Pascal Aimar, Yves Marchand And Romain Meffre, Mary Elizabeth Downing

Masters Theses

Visions of America vary greatly. There is an extensive variety found in foreign and domestic portrayals of the United States and these representations are affected by both pro and anti-American ideologies. Such juxtapositions can be found in contemporary French photography. In analyzing the works of photographers, Rémi Noël, Pascal Aimar, as well as the collaborative works of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, I will argue that their vision of America is influenced by their own perceptions and their viewpoint as French artists. These photographers seek to picture their versions of Texas, Detroit, and New York in ways that reveal aspects …

L’Imaginaire D’Albert Cossery – Une Modalité De Transcender Le Temps Et L’Espace, Lavinia Adina Horner

Masters Theses

This thesis offers an analysis of the works of Albert Cossery, an Egyptian writer who wrote novels in French, even though all of them – with the exception of a single book – describe only the country he left behind – Egypt. In order to continue to live mentally in « Egypt » while in Exile, and to cope with the malady of nostalgia, he recreated his own Egypt in his books with the help of the five senses, which made this imaginary Egypt plausible. He also played the role of his characters, thus defying time and space. Although he …

From Shell To Center: Gaston Bachelard And The Transformation Of Domestic Space In The Nineteenth-Century French Novel, Emily Pace

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation will look at the house-occupant relationship in four major French novels of the long nineteenth century: Balzac’s Le Père Goriot (1835), Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856), Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1867), and Proust’s “Combray,” from Du côté de chez Swann (1913). Each of these novels relies heavily on the use and description of interior and domestic space, and the manner in which the characters in each novel inhabit and relate to this space is a reflection of the specific and evolving cultural landscape of the moment when these works were composed, I argue, as well as of the particular obsessions …

La Résistance Dans La Poésie Des Années Noires : L’Engagement Politique D’Aragon, De Desnos Et D’Éluard Pendant L’Occupation Allemande, Megan Dyer

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

I See London, I See France, Molly C. Kessler

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Remixing Identity: Language Re-Imagined And Voices In Flux In France’S Beur Fiction, Mary Carnes

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Configurations Spatiales Dans Terre Des Hommes Et Le Petit Prince D’Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, Annelise Bright

Masters Theses

Saint-Exupery asserts that man’s empire is the interior. In lieu of this assertion, we aim to delimit certain spaces of the intimate geography of the writer. The first level of this study thus consists of identifying the spatial configurations which organize the two major works of maturity belonging to Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Terre des hommes and Le Petit Prince.

We consider the spatial configuration a vast field, a constellation rich in referential diversification to which belong multiple intimate spaces.

The second level consists of detailing the intimate spaces belonging to this spatial configuration. From the tremendous density of Saint-Exupery’s work, …

Utopia Of Equality In Monsieur Vénus: Roman Matérialiste: Transgressing Gender Lines Or Transgressing Social Lines?, Ennio A. Nuila

Masters Theses

When the first edition of the novel by Rachilde, née Marguerite Eymery, Monsieur Vénus: Roman Matérialiste was published in Brussels in 1884, it was deemed pornographic and therefore banned. A revised edition was published in1889. The novel deals with gender inversion themes and the crossing of social boundaries. The novel’s main characters, Jacques and Raoule, belong to different social strata. Raoule is an aristocrat and Jacques is a florist. In the novel Rachilde presents Raoule as a strong woman who wants not equality but rather the privileges that men have.

In Jacques and Raoule the author conflates the drama and …

An Omen Of Things To Come: Translated From The Original Text "L'Ombre Des Choses À Venir" By Kossi Efoui, Amber Vandivort

Masters Theses

An Omen of Things to Come follows the story of a young man, recently entered into adulthood while he recounts the horrible histories, his own and those of his comrades and acquaintances, that have followed him through childhood, war, and the rediscovery of his father. He draws you into the story through first person narrative and allows you to walk alongside him and relive his past. His personal experiences open the readers eyes to the violence, disappearances and uncertainty that surround people in a time of war: in particular how these atrocities affect the lives of abandoned children and those …

Litterature Quebecoise Et Problematique Identitaire: Poetique De L'Exil, Veronique Lamothe Bell

Masters Theses

This thesis is an analysis of problematic identity in French Canadian literature ("Quebecois literature"). I propose to study this issue through two works, the first written by a French-Canadian writer, Jacques Poulin, and the second, created by an Arab author who immigrated to Quebec, Wajdi Mouawad. My investigation demonstrates how the unique context of Quebec's writing explores identity while highlighting a status that is reminiscent of exile. The metaphor of identity, adjoined to the literature from Quebec, as represented by Poulin’s "Volkswagen Blues" (1984) manifests itself in the works of Mouawad, particularly in the play "Incendies" (2003) and the novel …

Virtual Representations Of The American Far West In 20th Century French Theater, Sarah Christine Lloyd

Doctoral Dissertations

The American Far West is, perhaps, one of the foremost images of the United States, one that has influenced many authors, especially during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is a place of vast, empty spaces, of adventure and danger, of heroes and villains. It is a space that excites the imagination in its grandeur and possibility. Writers such as Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco have written of this grandeur, of the space of the American Dream. There they find the hyperreality of America, the constant drive to re-create aspects of European history and culture to fill the cultural void. …

La Modernité Esthétique Chez André Malraux : La Quête Du “Primitif”, Yulia Draganova Kovatcheva

Doctoral Dissertations

André Malraux is a prolific French writer, adventurer, art historian, statesman, and Minister of Cultural Affairs for 11 years (1958-1969). Malraux was a man of action in the service of noble causes. In 1933, one of Malraux's most famous novels, La Condition humaine (Man's Fate), was published. It won the Goncourt Prize and established his international reputation. Born on November 3, 1901 in Paris, he was a son of the 20^th century. A witness to the history of his century, he left to the future generations a literary heritage of great importance. His main preoccupation was the “mystery of …

There’S An App For That: Foreign Language Learning Through Mobile- And Social Media-Based Video Games, Trenton Edward Hoy

Masters Theses

There is no doubt that the video game industry is undergoing a major upheaval, yet in spite of the recent reconceptualization of video games, educational games as a whole remain the pariah of the industry. Very little has been done in the wake of recent social and industry trends to adapt instruction of academic subjects, especially foreign language, for delivery through video games. Prior studies discussing the potential of games developed specifically for language learning have focused primarily on general principles and have offered no recommendations for platform, genre, or other aspects of design. Through an online survey as well …

Mongo Béti Ou L’Écriture D’Un Révolté En Exil: Anatomie, Analyse Et Impact De Ses Critiques À Travers Ses Articles Dans « Peuples Noirs, Peuples Africains » (1978 À 1991), Kodjo Adabra

Doctoral Dissertations

Following their independence in the 1960s the new governments of such French-speaking, African nations as Togo, Ivory Coast, Congo and Chad (to name only few), for the most part embraced policies that were authoritarian. A direct upshot socially of the lack of free speech imposed by certain African regimes was the migration of a large number of intellectuals from the black continent, yearning to rediscover their voices in more developed, democratic countries. Many, while living in exile, turned to writing or continued to write in such a way that the painful stories of the Africa they left behind could unfold …

Translating With The Devil: A Fresh Look At Baudelaire Selections From Les Fleurs Du Mal, Levi Jackson Rowland

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

L’Impératif Passé: La Mémoire Comme Protagoniste Du Théâtre De Michel Tremblay, Fátima Elizabeth Costa Buchert

Doctoral Dissertations

Michel Tremblay, the most important contemporary playwright (and novelist) in Quebec, has written for the theatre for over forty years. The study of his plays, beginning with the very first ones, reveals the capital importance that he attributes to the problem of the past and of memory.

This dissertation examines how memory plays the role of protagonist in Tremblay’s drama: the study of Les Belles-Soeurs, (the writer’s first famous play, where memory is a tool for building gender identity), of Le Vrai Monde? (one of his most complex plays, where memory is concretely represented on the stage) and of …