Format: Thèse

« In the twentieth century, technology has shown itself to have two consequences in excess of its efficiency and utility. On one hand, it has made and continues to make possible the total destruction of the earth. On the other, it has altered the nature of human discourse by altering the nature of the medium of that discourse. Where discourse is fundamentally altered, so too are human experience and subjectivity. The subject constituted in its relations, through discourse, to an other, is transformed by the new relations to others built into the operation of technologies of discourse.

The central problem of the project is to describe these alterations in the relation between the subject and its other through close analysis of three sets of texts. In order to understand the changes media make in the nature of the other, I first examine three different versions of the same text, each articulated in a different medium: H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles’ 1938 version for radio, and the 1954 American film. The relationships among these three texts begins to describe the condition of media subjectivity, and reveals the seat of alterity in the very mechanism of media. I next discover in the contemporary phenomenon of UFO alien abduction an attempt to describe, in detail, the media-altered relation between subject and other. The eschatological dimensions of the abductee’s experience place the relation to the other within the paradigm of apocalyptic experience at the same time that the testimonials and corroborative photographs produced by abductees describe an experience which is fundamentally and essentially conditioned by contemporary media. In order to explain this link between the media and the apocalyptic, I draw upon the phenomenological work of Emmanuel Levinas in Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being. Finally, in Gertrude Stein’s experimental text Tender Buttons, I uncover, rooted, like Levinas’ work, in the experiences of dwelling, the caress, and the commensal, an articulation of the condition of the subject of modern media. The experience outlined by Stein describes an alternative to the essentially threatened and horrified subjectivity depicted by alien abductees. » (Résumé)

« This study interrogates performances of nonhuman characters in science-fiction and horror theatre and film through the lens of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century western theories of acting. The project identifies common performance characteristics in the representation of specific nonhuman character-types, and then links the requirements of these roles to specific theories of acting. Through a transhistorical interrogation of the relevant performances and theories of acting, this project reveals effective non-traditional theoretical paradigms and practical training methodologies for actors preparing for such roles.

Chapter One examines historical, theoretical and technical intersections between stage and screen acting, historical and ideological relationships between avant-garde theories of acting and horror films, and ways the character-types examined function at the level of allegory, thus challenging the use of psychological realism as a preparatory methodology for actors. Chapter Two examines the characteristics of characters who pass metamorphose from human to non-human, then links these characteristics to German Expressionist performance theory, and the theories and training methodologies of Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski. Chapter Three discusses problems of representation in the performance of characters such as Frankenstein’s monster and vampires, and finds effective preparatory methodology in the theories of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Michael Chekhov. Chapter Four first examines the representation of the body in the performance of the mechanical-being and finds corollaries in these performances with the training methodologies Tadashi Suzuki. Next Chapter Four examines the representation of consciousness in the performance of the mechanical-being and links these performances to the theories and training methodologies of Jacques Copeau and Jacques Lecoq. Chapter Five focuses on performances of extraterrestrials and links them to the theories of Bertolt Brecht and Francois Delsarte. The project concludes with a brief examination of how the non-traditional uses of the various training methodologies discussed might fit within the context of actor training pedagogy. » (Résumé)

« The purpose of the present dissertation is to determine whether the viewing of two particular prime-time television programs, ER and The X-Files, increases viewer knowledge of science and to identify factors that may influence learning from entertainment television programming.

Viewer knowledge of scientific dialogue from two science-based prime-time television programs, ER, a serial drama in a hospital emergency room and The X-Files, a drama about two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who pursue alleged extraterrestrial life and paranormal activity, is studied. Level of viewing, education level, science education level, experiential factors, level of parasocial interaction, and demographic characteristics are assessed as independent variables affecting learning from entertainment television viewing.

The present research involved a nine-month long content analysis of target television program dialogue and data collection from an Internet-based survey questionnaire posted to target program-specific on-line “chat” groups.

The present study demonstrated that entertainment television program viewers incidentally learn science from entertainment television program dialogue. The more they watch, the more they learn. Viewing a pseudoscientific fictional television program does necessarily influence viewer beliefs in pseudoscience. Higher levels of formal science study are reflected in more science learning and less learning of pseudoscience from entertainment television program viewing. Pseudoscience learning from entertainment television programming is significantly related to experience with paranormal phenomena, higher levels of viewer parasocial interaction, and specifically, higher levels of cognitive parasocial interaction.

In summary, the greater a viewer’s understanding of science the more they learn when they watch their favorite science-based prime-time television programs. Viewers of pseudoscience-based prime-time television programming with higher levels of paranormal experiences and parasocial interaction demonstrate cognitive interest in and learning of their favorite television program characters ideas and beliefs. What television viewers learn from television is related to what they bring to the viewing experience. Television viewers are always learning, even when their intentions are to simply relax and watch the tube. » (Résumé)

« Cette étude examine “l’école martienne” de poésie et de fiction britanniques en Angleterre au cours des années 1970 et 1980. Composé de Martin Amis, Craig Raine et Christopher Reid, ce mouvement décrit les angoisses d’une culture aliénée et déracinée, incarnées métaphoriquement par l’observateur extraterrestre de Raine dans “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home”, l’œuvre qui a donné à ces écrivains leur identité collective. À l’instar des autres mouvements littéraires qui caractérisent les décennies au cours desquelles ils ont prospéré, les Martiens se sont inscrits dans la tradition de représenter leur esprit du temps ; ce faisant, ces écrivains ont contribué à revitaliser la fiction et la poésie britanniques. La perspective martienne idiosyncrasique, qui utilise minutieusement un langage figuratif et des images pour défamiliariser les environnements et les expériences quotidiens, met en œuvre une méthode fondamentale pour faire face à ce milieu urbain contemporain. Le martianisme n’est pas seulement un mode esthétique et formel de présentation narrative, mais également une approche critique du monde qui nécessite un engagement cérébral continu du lecteur dans les domaines exotiques et domestiques de l’expérience. Outre les concepts directeurs d’imagisme, de complexité figurative, d’intertextualité, d’ambiguïté ontologique et de défamiliarisation (ou ostranénie, terme employé par le formaliste russe Victor Shklovsky), la poésie et la fiction martiennes articulent une perspective qui présente des affinités avec les principes imaginatifs “dialogiques” de Mikhaïl Bakhtine.

Mon introduction traite du contexte social et esthétique à partir duquel le mouvement martien a émergé dans les années 1970. Les chapitres II et III portent sur les premiers recueils de poésie de Raine, The Onion, Memory et A Martian Sends a Postcard Home, et examinent son traitement de la mémoire, de la perception et de l’aliénation. Le quatrième chapitre analyse les interrogations de Reid sur l’épiphanie personnelle et sur ce qu’Iris Murdoch a appelé la “contingence” littéraire dans Arcadia ; le chapitre V examine ses thèmes du chaos et de l’ordre dans Pea Soup. Le chapitre VI traite du motif d’aliénation temporelle et des préoccupations ontologiques d’Amis en tant que formes d’ostranénie dans ses deux poèmes et son roman de 1981 Other People : A Mystery Story. L’argument d’Amis sur la moralité stylistique et la vigueur intellectuelle à travers son examen de la pornographie et de l’érotisme littéraire est examiné au chapitre VII. La conclusion se concentre sur la dissolution du martianisme au début des années 1980 tout en abordant les écrivains les plus directement influencés par Amis, Raine et Reid. » (Résumé traduit avec ProQuest)

« This dissertation contends that the fiction of Philip K. Dick not only reflects the complex and difficult-to-define relationship between literary modernism and postmodernism, but also enacts a transition between the two. By comparing some of Dick’s significant short stories and novels to the work of Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino, I seek to demonstrate how Dick’s writing both adopts and adapts the conventions of American science fiction to examine the intricacies of human identity and agency in the latter half of the twentieth century. This era witnessed numerous social, political, economic, technological, and cultural innovations that challenged American and European conceptions of freedom, progress, and identity. Dick’s fiction, I argue, is a fascinating barometer of modern and postmodern American life from the early fifties to the early eighties.

The first chapter examines how Dick and Kafka use two specific subgenres of fantastic fiction, the animal allegory and the bureaucratic bestiary, to demonstrate the precarious nature of human identity within the heavily bureaucratized political state that has come to characterize the twentieth century.

The second chapter compares Dick’s and Borges’s use of the alternate-world (or parallel-reality) story to meditate upon the influences and effects of political repression on human agency and consciousness.
The third chapter explores how Dick and Calvino deal with divine, spiritual, and scriptural subject matter in their metaphysical fiction, particularly as these themes relate to the creation and production of textual meaning.

The fourth and final chapter discusses how Dick’s 1966 novel Now Wait for Last Year unites many of his major themes—including extraterrestrial invasion, time travel, and drug abuse—along with a remarkable portrait of a marriage in crisis, to examine the contentious gender relationships and antiwar activities of Vietnam-era America.

I analyze Dick’s fiction through the lens of (post)modernism, a term that imbricates the ambivalent relationship between literary modernism and postmodernism, to illustrate how complicated and ambiguous a writer Philip K. Dick is. His fiction is emblematic of the tensions, anxieties, and possibilities that characterize American fiction from the 1950s through the 1980s. » (Résumé)

« Folklorist, Linda Degh, writes that circumstances of contemporary life suggest the need for a new approach to legend study. Mass communication, rapidly expanding technology, population mobility have changed the contexts in which legends are developed and transmitted. Degh believes that UFO legends are a suitable topic for such a study since the legend is contemporary and addresses technology.

This study is based on field research done between 1975 and 1987. It addresses the UFO legend in two contexts: (1) An “intimate” group of like-minded people who research and discuss UFOs together. (2) An “impersonal” group of people with differing views on UFOs that range from belief to absolute denial. While they participate in the public dialogue about UFOs, they may have little if any close personal contact.
The two groups have a symbiotic relationship. The intimate group I studied attempts to answer a series of complex questions belief in UFOs raises. They share experiences, do research, speculate; and through a consensus building process, form theories that answer the questions raised. Their theories are disseminated to the public through mass media and through the telling of memorates, some of which are modified to include evidence for these theories.

The impersonal group I explored includes people who are not part of a UFO study group but who have seen a UFO and believers who have not seen one. It also includes scientists and researchers who study UFOs or extraterrestrial life, skeptics who are not sure, and debunkers who attempt to convince others that UFOs are not extraterrestrial spacecraft. Because in the impersonal group the spectrum of belief is so broad, the dynamic of the group is debate; and the subject of this debate is usually the “realness” of UFOs. The debate is conducted in legend telling, in the media, and at public lectures. The issues raised in the debate become the questions that the intimate group finds answers to in its consensus environment.

The answers generated by the intimate group have led to creative speculation that has resulted in a “creation myth” that they believe which combines UFO’s, science, and Christian themes. » (Résumé)

« La thèse examine les conceptions standard du “sauvage” et de l’extraterrestre au siècle des Lumières et communique la mesure dans laquelle les conceptions imaginatives des peuples autochtones étaient liées aux conceptions imaginatives des extraterrestres au cours de cette période. Pour les philosophes des Lumières français, anglais et allemands, le sauvage du Nouveau Monde pouvait être imaginé comme un être bon, mauvais et autrement inégal en vertu des gradations inégales de la valeur naturelle que les Européens du dix-huitième siècle supposaient communément dispersées sur les vastes distances spatiales de leur propre Terre. De nombreux philosophes des Lumières, tels que Voltaire, Kant et Herder, ont imaginé des “sauvages” nobles et ignobles dans le Nouveau Monde. Ces mêmes philosophes et d’autres ont imaginé que l’espace extra-atmosphérique était habité par des populations qui surpassaient l’humanité en valeur naturelle et d’autres qui se situaient en dessous de son niveau. Les “sauvages” nobles et ignobles, en vertu de la grande distance qui les sépare de l’Europe et des profondes différences naturelles supposées les caractériser en raison de cette distance, sont devenus des modèles imaginatifs pour ceux qui ont spéculé sur les caractéristiques d’identification spécifiques des extraterrestres de l’espace extra-atmosphérique. Dans les romans, les traités théologiques et philosophiques, les Européens de la fin du XVIIe siècle et du XVIIIe siècle ont dépeint les extraterrestres comme des “sauvages”. (Résumé traduit avec DeepL)