L’image numérique entre modélisation et captation : une étude sémiopragmatique de la réception des images depuis la reproduction technique

Si la manière de produire une image depuis la reproductibilité technique a toujours été profondément déterminée par la captation d’une réalité physique, le numérique (qui constitue une méthode d’inscription visuelle distincte) devrait, en théorie, modifier la relation du spectateur à ces « nouvelles images ». Toutefois, en pratique, le spectateur fait-il l’expérience des images numériques d’une manière différente de celles issues de la captation? Afin de répondre à cette question, ce mémoire analyse, à l’aide de l’approche sémio-pragmatique, comment le spectateur a conditionné son regard à travers les techniques de la captation (photographie, cinéma et vidéo). Ensuite, cette étude compare les habitudes et les attentes visuelles engendrées par ces techniques aux images numériques. Enfin, cette étude situe le problème de la rupture dans une perspective plus large que celle des techniques afin de poser le questionnement dans toute une tradition de la représentation artistique.

FROM THE AETHIOPICA TO THE RENAISSANCE: RECOVERING A STAGE TRADITION OF POSITIVE REPRESENTATION OF AFRICANS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

This dissertation looks at the connection between Heliodorus's fifth-century prose romance, An Aethiopian History, certain Renaissance texts, and how these texts helped influence an alternate representation of Africans in the early modern world. Through their portrayals of Africans, early modern English playwrights frequently give the impression that Africans, especially black Africans, were people without accomplishments, without culture. Previously, however, this was not the case. Africans were depicted with dignity, as a tradition existed for this kind of representation--and Renaissance Europe had long been acquainted with the achievements of Africans, dating back to antiquity. As the source of several lost plays, the Aethiopica is instrumental in dramatizing Africans favorably, especially on the early modern stage, and helped shape a stage tradition that runs alongside the stereotyping of Africans. This Heliodoran tradition can be seen in works of Greene, Heywood, Jonson, Shakespeare, and others in the motifs of crosscultural and transracial romance, male and female chastity, racial metamorphosis, lost or abandoned babies, wandering heroes, and bold heroines. In Jonson's Masque of Blackness and Masque of Beauty, I establish a connection between these two masques and Heliodorus's Aethiopica and argue for a Heliodoran stage tradition implicit in both masques through the conceit of blanching. In The English Moore, I explore how Richard Brome uses the Heliodoran and Jonsonian materials to create a negative quality of blackness that participates in the dramatic tradition of the degenerate African on the English Renaissance stage. With Othello, I contend that it is a drama that can be seen in the Heliodoran tradition by stressing certain motifs found in the play that derives from the Aethiopica. Reading Othello this way provides us with a more layered and historicized interpretation of Shakespeare's protagonists. Othello's nationality and faith make his exalted position in Venice and the Venetian army credible and logical. His nobility and heroic status become more sharply defined, giving us a fuller understanding of the emphasis he places on chastity--both for himself and for Desdemona. Instead of a traditional, compliant, and submissive Desdemona, a courageous, resourceful, witty, and pure heroine emerges--one who lives by the dictates of her conscience than by the constraints of societal norms. Recovering the tradition of positive portrayal of Africans that originated from the Aethiopica necessitated an examination of eleven plays that I contend helped to frame the dramatic tradition under investigation. Six of these plays are continental dramas, and five are English. Although three of the English plays are lost and the other two are seventeenth-century dramas, their titles and names of their protagonists, like those of the six extant continental plays, share the names of Heliodorus's hero and heroine, making an exploration of the continental plays imperative to facilitate their use as paradigms in reconstructing the three lost English plays. These continental dramas show that plays whose titles derive from the Aethiopica itself or reflect the names of its major characters follow Heliodorus's text closely, enabling an investigation of the Heliodoran tradition on the early modern English stage. Recovering the Heliodoran tradition adds to the exploration of racial politics and the understanding of the dramatic tradition that constrained and enabled Renaissance playwrights' representation of race and gender.

Res Publica: Citizenship and Political Representation in Portugal, 1820-1926

The term res publica (literally “thing of the people”) was coined by the Romans to translate the Greek word politeia, which, as we know, referred to a political community organised in accordance with certain principles, amongst which the notion of the “good life” (as against exclusively private interests) was paramount. This ideal also came to be known as political virtue. To achieve it, it was necessary to combine the best of each “constitutional” type and avoid their worst aspects (tyranny, oligarchy and ochlocracy). Hence, the term acquired from the Greeks a sense of being a “mixed” and “balanced” system. Anyone that was entitled to citizenship could participate in the governance of the “public thing”. This implied the institutionalization of open debate and confrontation between interested parties as a way of achieving the consensus necessary to ensure that man the political animal, who fought with words and reason, prevailed over his “natural” counterpart. These premises lie at the heart of the project which is now being presented under the title of Res Publica: Citizenship and Political Representation in Portugal, 1820-1926. The fact that it is integrated into the centenary commemorations of the establishment of the Republic in Portugal is significant, as it was the idea of revolution – with its promise of rupture and change – that inspired it. However, it has also sought to explore events that could be considered the precursor of democratization in the history of Portugal, namely the vintista, setembrista and patuleia revolutions. It is true that the republican regime was opposed to the monarchic. However, although the thesis that monarchy would inevitably lead to tyranny had held sway for centuries, it had also been long believed that the monarchic system could be as “politically virtuous” as a republic (in the strict sense of the word) provided that power was not concentrated in the hands of a single individual. Moreover, various historical experiments had shown that republics could also degenerate into Caesarism and different kinds of despotism. Thus, when absolutism began to be overturned in continental Europe in the name of the natural rights of man and the new social pact theories, initiating the difficult process of (written) constitutionalization, the monarchic principle began to be qualified as a “monarchy hedged by republican institutions”, a situation in which not even the king was exempt from isonomy. This context justifies the time frame chosen here, as it captures the various changes and continuities that run through it. Having rejected the imperative mandate and the reinstatement of the model of corporative representation (which did not mean that, in new contexts, this might not be revived, or that the second chamber established by the Constitutional Charter of 1826 might not be given another lease of life), a new power base was convened: national sovereignty, a precept that would be shared by the monarchic constitutions of 1822 and 1838, and by the republican one of 1911. This followed the French example (manifested in the monarchic constitution of 1791 and in the Spanish constitution of 1812), as not even republicans entertained a tradition of republicanism based upon popular sovereignty. This enables us to better understand the rejection of direct democracy and universal suffrage, and also the long incapacitation (concerning voting and standing for office) of the vast body of “passive” citizens, justified by “enlightened”, property- and gender-based criteria. Although the republicans had promised in the propaganda phase to alter this situation, they ultimately failed to do so. Indeed, throughout the whole period under analysis, the realisation of the potential of national sovereignty was mediated above all by the individual citizen through his choice of representatives. However, this representation was indirect and took place at national level, in the hope that action would be motivated not by particular local interests but by the common good, as dictated by reason. This was considered the only way for the law to be virtuous, a requirement that was also manifested in the separation and balance of powers. As sovereignty was postulated as single and indivisible, so would be the nation that gave it soul and the State that embodied it. Although these characteristics were common to foreign paradigms of reference, in Portugal, the constitutionalization process also sought to nationalise the idea of Empire. Indeed, this had been the overriding purpose of the 1822 Constitution, and it persisted, even after the loss of Brazil, until decolonization. Then, the dream of a single nation stretching from the Minho to Timor finally came to an end.

Réécriture et dialogue avec la tradition dans l’œuvre de Irmtraud Morgner : de Schahrazade à Mnèmosunè

Thèse de doctorat effectuée en cotutelle au Département de littérature comparée, Faculté des arts et des sciences de l'Université de Montréal et à l'Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie, Fachbereich Philosophie und Geisteswissenschaften de la Freie Universität Berlin

Échos d’une tradition mythologique américaine : Joseph Légaré et le tableau d’histoire (1825-1855)

Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de ce mémoire a été dépouillée de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

La fragmentation juridique de la terre en droit privé : étude des représentations sociales et historiques de la terre dans la tradition romaniste

Jusqu’à une époque récente, un juriste étudiait un modèle juridique donné car il le considérait comme le meilleur. Telle est la constatation formulée par les comparatistes Antonio Gambaro, Rodolfo Sacco et Louis Vogel dans les premières lignes de leur Droit de l’Occident et d’ailleurs. Cette attitude cadre difficilement avec le contexte globalisant actuel. En revanche, un nombre croissant de juristes manifestent un intérêt renouvelé à l’égard du génie propre aux différentes traditions juridiques. À l’intérieur même d’une tradition juridique, un recul théorique est parfois nécessaire afin de mieux en apprécier la sagesse. Pour H. Patrick Glenn, la tradition juridique est vivante et évolutive. Le droit civil privé du Québec, branche de la tradition romaniste, constitue la résultante d’un processus de transmission de connaissances juridiques dont la pertinence est constamment mise à l’épreuve du temps et du contexte social. Très tôt, les dépositaires du savoir issu de la tradition romaniste ont cherché à définir la place de l’être humain dans la nature et cela, à toute époque confondue. La relation humaine avec la terre a fait l’objet de réflexions juridiques poussées dans le droit classique comme dans le droit moderne. Le droit des biens privé du Québec, branche fondamentale du droit civil, a intériorisé et adapté la somme de ce savoir à son propre contexte social et historique. La conception juridique de la terre a varié considérablement à l’intérieur même de la tradition romaniste. Ce mémoire propose une étude des représentations sociales et historiques de la terre dans la tradition romaniste. Cette étude a été menée en recourant à une approche interdisciplinaire du droit qui puise dans le savoir des disciplines philosophiques et historiques. Au terme de cette analyse, il sera établi que la structure de la propriété civiliste a conduit à une fragmentation juridique de la terre en autant d’utilités qu’il est techniquement possible pour l’être humain d’en tirer.

La Grande Bretagne, patrie des sciences? La representation des technologies scientifiques dans Geoffroy de Monmouth et Layamon

The work of Geoffrey of Monmouth shows a great interest in scientific knowledge. His Vita Merlini in particular echoes Aristotelian theory, but the entirety of his work betrays an awareness of recent developments following the first translations of scientific texts from the Arabic into Latin. The treatment of scientific motifs in Geoffrey's earliest vernacular translations is examined. Wace and Layamon both espouse the clerical, learned filter through which the British past is viewed in their source. The later Brut tradition, however, this aspect is replaced by a political focus.

Landskommunens beslutsfattande kvinnor : Om kvinnors representation i kommunalfullmäktige ochförekomst i fullmäktigeprotokoll i Kalmar länslandskommuner 1939-1951

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka den kvinnliga representationen i Kalmar läns landskommuners kommunalfullmäktige från 1938 till kommunsammanslagningen 1951. Detta innefattar att söka en översikt över i vilken grad kvinnor är representerade i länets kommunalfullmäktigeförsamlingaroch att undersöka hur dessa kvinnliga ledamöter syns i protokollsmaterial i ett par kommuners fullmäktigeprotokoll. Södra Möckelby och Vickleby kommuner med relativt hög andel kvinnliga ledamöter har valts som exempel.Undersökningen av valstatistiken visar en ökning i både antal kvinnor och antal kommunalfullmäktige med kvinnlig representation under perioden. Länet ligger under riksgenomsnittet, men ökningen är ungefär densamma i relativa termer. Närläsningen av protokoll visar att kvinnor främst omnämns vid frånvaro, vid val till olika uppdrag eller vid uppföljning av dessa val. I den kommun som har en längre tradition av relativt hög kvinnlig representation märks kvinnor i fler sammanhang som förutsätter att man tar ett större utrymme på mötena. Dessa tillfällen sammanfaller med en speciell kvinnas aktiva period i fullmäktige och försvinner när den kvinnliga representationen minskar till en ensam kvinna.

The Representation of Motherhood in Polish Cinema

The project aimed to analyse representations of motherhood in Polish cinema as a special case of a more general system within the representation of women. It concentrated on the image of the Polish Mother created during the 19th century in Polish culture under the influence of specific political, social and religious factors. Ms. Ostrowska's initial hypothesis was that this symbolic image became one of the most stable elements in Polish cinema and as her research revealed, it was valuable for the preservation of national identity but nevertheless a fiercely constraining model for Polish femininity. In order to fully understand the nature of this persistent image it was initially necessary to related it to broader contexts and issues in representation. These included the image of the Polish Mother within general mythological structures (using the notion of myth in the Barthesian sense). Following her initial research Ms. Ostrowska felt that it was most appropriate to view the myth of the Polish Mother as a dominant ideological structure in the discourse of motherhood within Polish culture. An analysis of the myth of the Polish Mother can provide an insight into how Polish society sees itself at different periods in time and how a national identity was constructed in relation to particular ideological demands stemming from concrete historical and political situations. The analysis of the film version of this myth also revealed some aspects of the national character of Polish cinema. There the image of woman has become enshrined as the "eternal feminine", with virtues which are inevitably derived directly from Catholicism, particularly in relation to the networks of meanings around the central figure of Mary, Mother of God. In 19th century Poland these were linked with patriotic values and images of woman became part of the defence of the very idea of Poland and Polishness. After World War Two, this religious-political image system was adapted to the demands of the new communist ideology. The possibility of manipulating the ideological dimensions of the myth of the Polish Mother is due to the very nature of the image, which as a symbol of civil religion had been able to function independently of any particular state or church institution. Although in communist ideology the stress was on the patriotic aspect of the myth, its pronounced religious aspect was also transmitted, consciously or not, in the denotation process, this being of great significance in the viewer's response to the female character. This appropriation of elements derived from the national patriotic tradition into the discourse of communist ideology was a very efficient strategy to establish the illusion of continuity in national existence, which was supposed to convince society of the rightness of the new political situation. The analysis of films made in the post-war period showed the persistence of this discourse on motherhood in a range of cinematic texts regardless of the changing political situation. Ms. Ostrowska claims that the stability of this discursive formation is to a certain extent the result of the mythological aspect of the mother figure. This mythological structure also belongs to the ideology of Romanticism which in general continues to prevail in Polish cultural discourse as a meta-language of national community. The analysis of the films confirmed the hypothesis of the Polish Mother as a myth-sign whose signifier is stable whereas the signified depends on the specific historical conditions in which it is set. Therefore in the famous propaganda documentary Kobiety naszych dni (Women of Our Days, 1951) by Jan Zelnik, and in other films made after the October 1956 "thaw" it functions as an "empty sign. She concludes that it would be difficult to deny that the myth of the Polish Mother has offered Polish women a special role in national life, granting them a high moral position in the social, hierarchy. However the processes of idealisation involved have resulted in a deprivation of her subjectivity and the right to decide about her own life. This idealisation also served to strengthen traditional patriarchal structures through this set of female obligations to the mother land. In Polish ideology it is not a man who demands sacrifice from a woman but the motherland, which, deprived of the institutions of male power for nearly 150 years, had functioned as a feminine structure. That is why oppressive aspects of the myth have been obscured for so long. While Polish women were doubtless able to accept the constrictions because of their sense of national duty and any misgivings were overridden by the argument of the cause, it is important to recognise that the strength of these constructions, compounded by the ways in which they spoke of and continue to speak of a certain perfection, make them persist into contemporary Poland. Poland is however no longer embattled and the signs that made these meanings are potentially empty. This space for meaning will be and is already being contested and increasingly colonised by current western models of femininity. Ms. Ostrowska's final question is whether this will help to prevent a possible resentful victimisation of the silent and noble Polish Mother.

Islamic Political Thought: Reviving a Rationalist Tradition

This work develops the foundations of an Islamic argument for secular, liberal democracy from within the Islamic discursive tradition. First, it challenges the presentation of contemporary Islamic political thought as a unified, continuous development of the classical canon by showing the influence of the now marginalized medieval rationalists in the development of Islamic political thought. The classical rationalist concern with divine justice forced the founders of Sunni orthodoxy to state their epistemologies and their positions on ethical ontology. The orthodox positions, and their related methods of legal-juristic reasoning, are shown to be incapable of accommodating the modern Islamic positions on political representation, slavery, and just war. This leads to the second argument of the work, that the modern Islamic discourse is better understood as a reflection of the central concern with justice and its rationalist epistemology and ethical ontology we find in the writings of classical rationalists. This argument is made by examining the works of three classical rationalists, a theologian, a philosopher, and a historian. Their political positions, shaped by their rationalism and concern with justice, challenged their orthodox contemporaries, and provide substantive critiques of the classical political accommodations, methods of politico-legal reasoning, and hence, of modern Islamist political projects. The final chapter reveals how far the mainstream of Islamic political thought has deviated from the classical discourses, since the 19th century, by adopting the language and ideals of the European Enlightenment. This shift is presented as a triumph of classical rationalism over literalism, whose epistemological foundations and ontological implications have yet to be acknowledged and appreciated.

Representation of people of color in the nineteenth century slavery novel in Cuba and Brazil

This dissertation explores the similarities and differences which characterize the depiction of people of color in certain representative nineteenth century Cuban and Brazilian slavery novels as a function of the authorial approach of each territory's literary tradition toward the issues of slavery, racial prejudice, and people of color. The selected texts, derived from the peak periods in slavery literature of each territory, include Francisco , by Anselmo Snárez y Romero; Sab, by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda; Cecilia Valdés , by Cirilo Villaverde; A escrava Isaura, by Bernardo Guimarães; O mulato, by Aluísio Azevedo; and Bom-Crioulo, by Adolfo Caminha. While the present study explores the enslavement, abuse, and discrimination of people of color as a consequence of a deep-seated discourse of power, privilege and racial superiority, it focuses more extensively on the representation of people of color, particularly in their capacity to constructively appropriate the cultural values of the white dominant group and recognize their identity as ambiguous. ^ Said's theories of Orientalist discourse and geography and formation as well as Dube's perspective on subaltern-oriented studies provide a theoretical framework for exploring the response of slavery writers whose common exposure to slavery but dissimilar socio-political contexts generate some startling findings. Crafted within a period of political repression, fear of black revolt, factional in-fighting as well as strong socioeconomic ties to the slaveholding class, the Cuban texts generally fashioned an approach to slavery as one marked by moderation, reform, and cultural counter discourse and consequently depict people of color with a more passive but culturally authentic outlook. On the other hand, the Brazilian response to the issue of slavery, steeped in an ideological amalgam of liberalism, positivism, republicanism, and abolitionism, is characterized by overt opposition to slavery and a representation of people of color that is less concerned with cross-cultural input but reclaims their humanity as highly educable and socially mobile persons in search of greater freedoms. Ultimately, there is a shared message of higher significance couched in the worthwhile mission of raising slaves to the level of men. ^

Jan Steen and The doctor’s visit: Classical Tradition in Golden Age Dutch painting (1st Part)

First one of a two-part analysis on the influence of the Classical Tradition on a favourite theme along the Dutch painters of the Golden Age, The doctor’s visit or The lovesick maiden, especially in the Leiden artist’s production, Jan Steen (1626-1679).

The Drama of History: Representation and Revolutionaries in Haitian Theater, 1818-1907

Since the beginning of the Haitian theatrical tradition there has been an ineluctable dedication to the representation of Haitian history on stage. Given the rich theatrical archive about Haiti throughout the world, this study considers operas and plays written solely by Haitian playwrights. By delving into the works of Juste Chanlatte, Massillon Coicou, and Vendenesse Ducasse this study proposes a re-reading of Haitian theater that considers the stage as an innovative site for contesting negative and clichéd representations of the Haitian Revolution and its revolutionary leadership. A genre long mired in accusations of mimicking European literary forms, this study proposes a reevaluation of Haitian theater and its literary origins.