NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Bonne fille, suivi de Figures de la compétition entre femmes dans l’œuvre de Nelly Arcan

This M.A. thesis, combining research and creative writing, is divided in two parts: a fragmented fiction and an essay. The first part, Bonne fille, explores a personal interpretation of female competitions that takes roots in the opposition of a ghostly absent figure. This intimate story offers a reflexion on the body, the performance of femininity and romantic relationships. It gives a certain importance to territories and spaces to occupy in order to take the place of the previous woman who did not fail to leave her mark in the life of the desired man. The «I» on the novel ends up consumed by the memory of the other woman and by the desire to replace her. The second part of this M.A thesis is an essay entitled Figures de la compétition entre femmes dans l’oeuvre de Nelly Arcan and focuses on Folle and À ciel ouvert, both written by Nelly Arcan. The essay, divided into three chapters, examines competition throughout Arcan’s work combining a feminist approach and literary interpretation. In the first chapter, the girl next door figure allows an interpretation of the fear of being replaced. The second chapter concentrates on the figure of the double, which prevents any individuality of the characters. The last chapter takes into account the mother figure and explains how she takes part in the very birth of the need to please and the feeling of jealousy in young girls. We will see that these figures all take roots in an alienation that fits in with their gendered body.

Keyphrases: Nelly Arcan, Folle, À ciel ouvert, contemporary novel, female competition
Comme un roman : regards sur la littérarité de trois ouvrages classiques de la cuisine ménagère

Although cookbooks constitute an immense corpus, few studies have been made on them even though they hold a large place in the collective mind. The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on their cultural value by analyzing three classic cookbooks: L’Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne by Jehane Benoit, Les Recettes faciles de Françoise Bernard and The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken. First examined as a textual genre, then as a unitary work and ultimately as a piece of literature, the cookbook reveals an aestheticisation of the relationship between the writer and the reader. Studying the display of this aestheticisation through the authorial voice, the creation of a diegetic space and the personification of the reader brings a better comprehension of the way these books participate in the elaboration of a societal narrative.

Keyphrases: L’Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne, Les Recettes faciles de Françoise Bernard, The I Hate to Cook Book, Jehane Benoit, Peg Bracken, cookbook, narrative, discourse analysis, home cooking, Françoise Bernard
La collaboration au féminin : les livres surréalistes de Lise Deharme

Mostly known for her role as a muse within the surrealist group, the author Lise Deharme stands behind a voluminous body of literary work, including three collaborative projects produced alongside visual artists: Le Cœur de Pic (1937) with Claude Cahun, Le Poids d’un oiseau (1955) and Oh ! Violette ou La Politesse des végétaux (1969) with Leonor Fini. These works have been largely neglected by literary criticism, despite being entirely in keeping with the aesthetics of the so-called surrealist book advocated by the group gathered around André Breton where it was a matter of breaking down the boundaries between the arts and media, to free oneself from literary genres (poetry, fiction, theatre and essay). Several questions emerge from the joint reading of the three books: what is the distribution of collaborative work? How does the sharing of pages in the book actually take place? Is there a sharing of the aesthetic experience that is done with the reader of a hybrid work? These methodological questions will allow me to carry out an intermedial reading (more specifically relating to the Word and Image Studies) of my corpus, as a purely literary framework of analysis does not do justice to works created at the crossroads of diverse artforms. I will demonstrate that the works of Lise Deharme made in collaboration with Cahun and Fini certainly renew the strategies and dominant themes dear to the surrealists, all while exposing a marginal and multifaceted discourse that focuses on femininity as a creative vector of choice among the surrealists.

Keyphrases: Dialogues texte/image, Lise Deharme, Claude Cahun, Leonor Fini, Collective imaginary on the feminine, Historical avant-garde, Woman in surrealism, Intermediality, Word and image studies, Artistic collaboration
Paris et Shanghai : l’imaginaire de la ville dans l’œuvre de Balzac et de Mao Dun

In the early 1910s, Balzac’s works began to be translated in China, Mao Dun immediately became a faithful reader of Balzac and drew upon the prose of Balzac to build his own literary universe. We can see a surprising similarity between the two writers: they both explore, at heart of their works, urbanity. More precisely, Shanghai is for Mao Dun what Paris is for Balzac: an inexhaustible source of inspiration and a privileged field of investigation. The thesis aims to analyze the literary representation of Paris and Shanghai by comparing two novels of Balzac, Le père Goriot (1835) and Lost Illusions (1837-1843), and two novels of Mao Dun, Disillusion (1927) and Midnight. (1933). This comparative study begins with a treatment of the identity of writers in the urban context, and then develops around the city’s capitalist economy and women’s fashion. The purpose of the study is to show the links between the writer, the narrative and the city, as well as the covert dependency of Mao Dun upon the perspectives Balzac developed.

Keyphrases: Balzac, Mao Dun, Paris, Shanghai, city, capitalism, modernity, feminism, fashion
Le témoignage en littérature d’un héritage traumatique : le cas du génocide des Arméniens

According to certain approaches to genocide studies, the denial of genocide is not a phenomenon that manifests itself after the genocide itself but is instead an integral part of its mechanism. Therefore, a genocide would only really end once its perpetrators admit to their intent, once they are judged and convicted on the world stage by a legitimate judicial body. According to this definition of genocide and considering that the Armenian genocide was not recognized by the ottoman government, and that it is not recognized by the current Turkish government, the contemporary Armenian can feel like the victim today of an ongoing genocide, as well as the inheritor and the descendant of a survivor of the genocide that occurred a century ago. He is the inheritor of three or four generations of victims who have each inherited, to different extents, of a trauma, of an undone grief, and of an identity crisis. The third-generation survivors, living in the diaspora, who attempt to bear testimony, through literature, of their ancestor’s genocide often feel limited by a lack of information or by the incomprehension of the facts from which they are removed in both space and time. When they try to testify of their current situation, of the genocide that is stretched into their present, they can also be confronted to an inability to name the identity crisis that inhabits them and to determine the effects of the delegitimizing efforts that have been acting on themselves and on their ancestors for more than a hundred years. This research paper will study the ways in which this testimony occurs in fiction, by studying the novel L’étrangère (2015) by Valérie Toranian and the short story collection Embâcle (2008) by Martine Batanian, and will address the issues of inherited trauma, of grief and of the legitimacy of the victim and the witness.

Keyphrases: mémoire, diaspora, Batanian, Toranian, genocide, witness, testimony, heritage, memory, deportation, literature, trauma
Robert Musil et le problème du cheval génial : contribution à la discussion sur le mythe du génie (et de sa mort)

The present essay intends to investigate the problem of genius, as it has been formed throughout the romantic and modern eras, becoming somewhat the inmost quality of each unique human being. But the history of the idea would seem to be over : the american historian Darrin McMahon proclaimed in 2013 the death of the genius considered as an elitist belief, for it would have undergone a complete democratization process. For our part, we will consider the myth of genius as an ongoing reality, although it has been fiercely and rightfully attacked, and as a concept that still structures the modern artistic, philosophical and social understanding of the self and its world. The myth of genius in both arts and politics seems to be composed of perpetually renewable and reusable forms that range from more democratic ones or more elitist ones, materialist or spiritual, exclusively individual or collective. The originality of the proposed method is to bear in mind the thought of genius in its reluctance to be sized by one form or another, to stay confined in a specific structure, in the aim of making this protean mode of being the focus point of our concerns, for it is the unthought source of the ambiguity in every previous approach towards the concept of genius as well as the main reason for the seemingly invincible character of genius. We shall examine this question with the help of the austrian author Robert Musil (1880-1942). On the one hand, because Musil, instead of having addressed the issue as a philosoph, has vividly felt the obsession of genius in his life and literary work. On the other hand, because the concept of genius appears here as a historic residuum processed by a long and rich evolution in which each phases, far from having superseded each other, have been accumulated and have multiplied themselves in thousand voices and echos. The Man without Qualities, as the critics have frequently overlooked, contains numerous occurrences of the term in critical passages of the work, in which three chapters are to be found, for example, that are dedicated to the discussion of the word as well as an important chapter in the beginning of book one, where the apparition of a « race-horse of genius » sets the protagonist’s « quest » in motion. We shall show how Musil, as a novelist, intends to move past a certain « crisis of geniality », which is but an eternal swinging between these two thesis : there are no more geniuses, and everyone is a genius. How he intends, instead of rejecting his romantic legacy, to suspend and embrace it at the same time in the aim of recovering the true meaning of geniality, longing paradoxically for a world where even the word itself, genius, would have no meaning, no existence. He indeed wrote around 1935 that it would be of great benefit for mankind if one could ever find a replacement for the word « genius ».

Keyphrases: Robert Musil, Genius, Exceptionality, History of ideas, Epistemology of literature, Austrian literature
Shapeshifting in Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed and Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon

This study examines shapeshifting as a post-colonial metaphor of race, gender and resistance in the novels Wild Seed and Lagoon. In both science fiction novels, the conceptions of race and gender are highlighted through portrayals of shapeshifting and the post¬¬-human. From this position, this study explores the ways in which novelists, Octavia Butler, in Wild Seed, and Nnedi Okorafor, in Lagoon in particular, deploy shapeshifting, that is, the blurring and destabilization of boundaries, as a tool for aesthetic and socio-political engagement in postcolonial and post-independence narratives. In both novels, the technology of the immortal shapeshifters does not threaten the nature/culture nor does it serve colonialism. Indeed, science and knowledge are productive and shared among people. Shapeshifting is a narrative device in postcolonial science fiction that functions as a mode of resistance against colonialism, oppression and imperialism in different historical contexts in both novels. This study demonstrates how shapeshifting symbolically facilitates a process of decolonization by resisting and altering received constructions of gender and race. Furthermore, it explores effective sites of decolonization aiming at demonstrating “resistant” identities represented as an immortal shapeshifter in Wild Seed and an extraterrestrial in Lagoon.  Wild Seed and Lagoon, deploy the juxtaposition of traditional magical elements with science fictional materials, and the way the shapeshifting protagonists establish justice in society.

Keyphrases: Shapeshifting, Wild Seed, Lagoon, science fiction, resistance
La filosofía de un marginal : el rastro bergsoniano en las nouvelles de Felisberto Hernández

This work analyzes the philosophical basis of Felisberto Hernández' writings, with a focus on the influence of Henri Bergson's philosophy on the two short novels from his "memorialist" period: "Por los tiempos de Clemente Colling" and "El caballo perdido". These stories unveil a deeply philosophical dimension, scarcely exploited in literary works, by giving a fundamental role to subjectivity, understood as the only possible means of knowledge, and allowing space for inner dialogue and the analysis of memories, for descriptions of impressions and perceptions, and for reflections on the limitations of knowledge. This analysis considers the proximity of many of the traits of Hernández's writing style, such as automatism or animism, to Bergson's theories of perception and memory. Secondly, it posits that this philosophical foundation strongly contributes to explain both the uniqueness of his literary style and his modest success among the general public.

Keyphrases: Henri Bergson, Philosophy and literature, Henri Bergson, Twentieth Century Uruguayan Literature, Memory and perception, Subjectivity
L’écriture et la réécriture des failles de l’utopie religieuse : analyse comparative de The Scarlet Letter de Nathaniel Hawthorne et The Handmaid’s Tale de Margaret Atwood

This mémoire de maîtrise is a comparative exploration of two literary representations of American dystopic theocracies : The Scarlet Letter (1850), a historical romance; and The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), a speculative projection. The argument is focused upon the regulation and deployment by the totalitarian state of women’s bodies and reproductive capacities, in the broad and remarkably convergent contexts, historical and futuristic/hypothetical, of Puritan literalism. Beginning with a brief survey of utopianism, the mémoire explores the interlinearity of utopian projection with its precise opposite. Literary history suggests that there is no binary opposition between the genres of utopic and dystopic fiction : the latter arises from the very impossibility of social perfection that is internal to the narrative economy of the former.  In sharp contrast to the linear temporality envisioned by American progressives, the fictions studied here entertain – as jeremiad – the circularity of historical and future Christian fundamentalism. For the novels represent a similar, often identical, state regulation and instrumentalization of women’s bodies.   Essentially, this mémoire explores three dimensions of the representation of dissident women in theocratic dystopias.  First, Michel Foucault’s model of the public spectacle of the scaffold, in Discipline and Punish, is brought to bear on the modalities by which the dissident women in these religious societies are punished. Secondly, Erich Auerbach’s theory of figura – the conjoining of prophecy and fulfillment – offers a conceptual context for the historical temporalities of feminist resistance to patriarchal tyranny.  Finally, and consistently, Derridean theory Writing and Difference, 1967 ; Archive Fever – A Freudian Impression, 1995), amplifies the resistances, authorial and figural, to hegemonic assujettissement. This project was written in response to the ominous threats to democracy in the contemporary United States : the access to power of fundamentalist Christian conservatism, the precarious balance between left and right on the US Supreme Court and its implications for women’s access to reproductive control. Ironically, however, dystopian fictions can be both galvanizing and emancipating.

Keyphrases: figura, violence, religion, utopia, dystopia, perfectibility, totalitarianism, prophecy, feminism
La fécondité des natives et des immigrantes au Canada en 1911 : à l’intersection de deux transformations démographiques

In the first decade of the 20th century, two major demographic transformations took place in Canada: the arrival of a large wave of immigrants, which remains the largest in Canadian history, and the gradual decline in legitimate fertility. These two trends are examined in this study of the marital fertility of international immigrant women and native women in 1911. To do this, a series of logistic regressions were carried out using the microdata in the 5% sample of the 1911 Canadian Census of Population. We assessed three relationships between recent fertility and the following variables: migration status, country of birth and length of residence in Canada. The fertility is measured by the presence of a child under one-year-old (child of the woman) in the household. Our analyses, for which we took into account a set of demographic, cultural and economic variables, show that immigrant women had a higher propensity than natives to live with a child under one year of age. However, variations in the fertility behavior of immigrant women were observed by country of birth, length of stay, and region of residence, either « east-center» or «west» of the country. A positive association was observed between recent fertility and the origin of Eastern Europe, regardless of the region of Canada where they lived. On the other hand, Americans were less likely to have a child than natives in east-central Canada. The British had a propensity similar to that of natives to have a child in the west of the country. Yet their fertility was higher in the east-central part of the country. As for the length of residence in Canada, immigrant women who arrived in the last three years, both in the east-central and the west of the country, were less likely to reside with a young child. However, those who lived in Canada from four to nine years of age were more likely to reside with a baby than natives. Given that Canada's current fertility rates are declining; immigrant women play an important role in Canada's fertility trends. This study suggests the need to be sensitive to the heterogeneity of fertility behaviors that immigrant women might experience once settled in the country.

Keyphrases: Reproduction, Natives, Canada, 1911, Historical Demography, Fertility, Census, Microdata
La réponse de l’Approche de communauté d’entraide et de justice aux besoins d’intervention des adolescentes hébergées en centre de réadaptation

According to critics, the cognitive-behavioral approach (CBA) does not adequately meet the specific need of establishing relationships shown by adolescent girls housed in youth residential centers. The “Approche de communauté d’entraide et de justice” (ACEJ), a gender-sensitive cognitive-developmental approach, was implemented in some residential units for adolescent girls to meet that specific need. Through a quasi experimental design, this study evaluates the response to this need in adolescent girls by comparing the social climate in residential units using the ACEJ or the CBA program developed by Le Blanc et al. (1998). The study enrolled 213 adolescent girls housed in Quebec youth residential centers (ACEJ=60; CBA=153). The study combines self-reported questionnaires, clinical administrative data and focus groups. The results indicate that some components of the ACEJ (the values of mutual aid and justice, as well as the democratic community) seem to facilitate a better response to that need by enabling more harmonious relationships and a stronger feeling of involvement in the residential unit’s decisions. However, more non-physical violence by their peers and a lower feeling of equity are perceived by the adolescent girls exposed to the ACEJ. Only the relationships with care workers do not show differences by the intervention approach. These relationships could be influenced by the therapeutic alliance and the important turnover of care workers. The conclusions of this study supports the importance of including gender-sensitive components to the principles of the “what works” literature for the development of intervention programs delivered to adolescent girls.

Keyphrases: Cognitive-developmental approach, Cognitive-behavioral approach, Evidence-based practices, Gender-sensitive approaches, Adolescent girls, Youth rehabilitation center, Rehabilitation needs
Exploration des perceptions d’étudiants allochtones envers la réconciliation avec les peuples autochtones au Canada

In criminology, it is important to consider both offenders’ and victims’ perspectives. Thus, when we study reconciliation in a post-colonial context, we need to include the advantaged group, and not only the victimized group as is often found in the literature. By using focus groups, we explored the emotions and attitudes of Quebec's non-aboriginal people (n = 15) towards indigenous issues, considering the process of reconciliation as a dynamic and multidimensional one for whom an active participation of the advantaged group is needed. This research assumes that several factors play a significant role in reconciliation, including the recognition of victimization, the expression of anxiogenic and prosocial emotions, nationalized attitudes and competition between victims. Our three groups, composed respectively of francophone Quebecers, Anglophones and recent immigrants, demonstrated favourable attitudes towards the reconciliation process while expressing feelings of helplessness. Although the recognition of historical victimization is unanimous, the recognition of structural violence is largely raised by the recent immigrant group of Quebeckers but overlooked by Anglophone and Francophone Quebecers. This non-recognition of the current state of indigenous peoples then plays a role in several attitudes that may hinder the reconciliation process.

Keyphrases: Canada, Statu quo colonial, Indigenous people, Recognition of victimization, Structural violence, Indian residential school, Colonial status quo, Non-aboriginal people, Defensive attitudes