NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
L’empreinte d’une expérience performative en littérature : le cas de Sophie Calle et de Miranda July

This master’s thesis proposes to establish a dialogue between the practices of two contemporary writers and artists, Sophie Calle and Miranda July. The four studied pieces of work – Calle’s Douleur exquise (2003), Aveugles (2011) and Rachel, Monique (2012) and July’s Il vous choisit (2013) – are based on concrete experiences occurring beforehand, prior to the act of writing itself. Those experiences mobilize the body of the writers engaging them in a real action and often in interactions with other people. This form of action art becomes the foundations of their writing and could be linked to the theories of pragmatic philosopher John Dewey and artist Allan Kaprow – one of the first to develop a reflexion on performance art. The intermedial writing that Calle and July practice as a game of relations between different medias in the same work allows both artists to revive the performative value of the experience. It impulses the writing and initiates a reading experience which itself becomes performative. Exemplary of a relational aesthetic, polyphonic in the voices that are expressed, the studied body of work reveals glimpses of community to feel and experiment. It is a literature that is interdisciplinary and intersubjective but primarily performative in its constant questioning of art’s capacity to transform life.

Keyphrases: Sophie Calle, Miranda July, Happening, Contemporary literature, Performance art, Action art, Pragmatism, Intermediality, Intersubjectivity, Relational aesthetic, Writing of real
La requalification professionnelle : cas des aides familiales résidantes du Québec

The Live-in caregiver program was in place from 1992 until November 30st 2014.  The program is a Canadian federal program whereby women native mainly from the Philippines and who have obtained a post-secondary degree, have migrated across Canada.  Under this program, they were granted with the temporary migrants status.  They had the possibility of a permanent residency after having completed 24 months of employment as a caregiver.  They had to work at a private residency where the name of the employer was indicated on their work permit, where they were required to live. By working as a caregiver, these women were and are always placed in a situation of professional deskilling that seems to extend in long-term.  This situation is due partly to the non-recognition of their foreign qualifications and LCP structure. This research therefore focuses on the course of professional requalification of these migrants, that some of them use as a strategy to remedy to the situation. In addition to looking at the period of work as live-in caregivers, this research studies the course of their professional requalification in four stages:  decision to undergo training, career choices, training process and access to employment related to that training.  The objective of this research is to explore the impact that their path under the LCP will have on the course of  their professional requalification. The results obtained from interviews with women having come to Montreal by the program indicate that in the long term, the degree obtained locally can improve their professional situation, but it’s not a guarantee. Obstacles like the isolation created by the LCP and the impossibility for these women to build financial and social capital, affect all of these women, women who have returned to studies and those who have not.

Keyphrases: migration, women, live-in caregiver, domestic worker, Live-in caregiver program, work, professional reskilling, professional deskilling
Impact et résonances du théâtre In-yer-face au Québec : Shopping and Fucking de Mark Ravenhill (adaptation de Christian Lapointe), Faire des enfants d’Éric Noël et En dessous de vos corps je trouverai ce qui est immense et qui ne s’arrête pas de Steve Gagnon

This master's dissertation focuses on the presence of violence and sexuality on the Québécois theater scene, as well as the influence of the British movement In-yer-face on contemporary Québécois theater. Via the comparative study of stage directions in the texts and the staging of three Quebec productions - Shopping and F ** king (from Mark Ravenhill’s text, translated by Alexandre Lefebvre, directed by Christian Lapointe), Faire des enfants (by Éric Noël, directed by Gaétan Paré) and En dessous de vos corps je trouverai ce qui est immense et qui ne s’arrête pas (written and directed by Steve Gagnon) -, this paper explores ways of representing violence and sexuality  on the Québécois contemporary theater stage. This work goes beyond textual study, it presents a cogitation on the Quebec theater and the many constraints that artists face when they want to present a theater performance that includes violence and sexuality in Quebec.

Keyphrases: Violence, In-yer-face, Steve Gagnon, Éric Noël, Christian Lapointe, Gaétan Paré, Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane, Sexuality, Nudity, Contemporary Quebec theatre
La fantasmatique du grand remplacement dans le roman français contemporain (Renaud Camus, Éric Zemmour, Michel Houellebecq)

A haunting fear pervades the French social imaginary. In the early twenty-first century the demographic and cultural anxieties of certain intellectuals took root in the popularization of the "great replacement" phantasmatic ; a scenario that announced changes in the populations of French territories, a conspiracy that would lead to Eastern culture eventually replacing "occidental ideals". Literature makes it possible for representations and precise debates circulating in the social imaginary to come alive through storytelling. The present study will evaluate the invention work, specific to literature, that was produced in Renaud Camus's L’Épuisant désir de ces choses, Éric Zemmour's Petit frère and Michel Houellebecq's Soumission. The novels in question create, alter, and reconfigure, albeit in different ways, this phantasmatic, describing and anticipating the end of the Fifth Republic as it is known today. Be it for ethnic, civic, or metaphysical reasons, they suggest that, henceforth, "la France, c'est les autres!".

Keyphrases: Renaud Camus, Éric Zemmour, Michel Houellebecq, Contemporary french literature, Social imaginary, New reactionairies, Great replacement, National decline
Une mémoire oublieuse : théorie et pratique de l'énonciation de l'acteur chez Larry Tremblay, Daniel Danis et Christian Lapointe

Based on the concealment of verbal memory by theatrical theory, this master’s dissertation questions the memorial exercise of contemporary actors from the memory/oblivion dialectic in the enunciation theories and practices of Larry Tremblay, Daniel Danis and Christian Lapointe. The first chapter focuses on the main foundations of enunciation defended in the theoretical discourses of the practioners – Le crâne des théâtres (Tremblay), « La mémoire intime au théâtre » (Danis), « Petit guide de l’apparition à l’usage de ceux qu’on ne voit pas » (Lapointe) –, more specifically in the value they place on verbal memory. The second chapter shows that their dramatic texts – The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi (Tremblay), Mille anonymes (Danis), Sepsis (Lapointe) – also undertake a slant to learning by heart. Finally, the third chapter seeks to define the concept of forgetful memory in the light of which the theories and practices of Tremblay, Danis and Lapointe can be analyzed and to identify some implications in their staging.

Keyphrases: Mémoire, Daniel Danis, Larry Tremblay, Christian Lapointe, The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi, Mille anonymes, Sepsis, Contemporary Quebec theatre, Enunciation, Memory, Oblivion, Acting
La réactualisation du testament littéraire et du tombeau poétique dans Testament et Drama Queens de Vickie Gendreau

This thesis explores the appropriation by Vickie Gendreau, a contemporary Quebec writer, of two death-laced genres: the literary testament and the poetic crypt. In her two novels, Testament and Drama Queen, Gendreau presents female narrators who are about to succumb to a brain tumor, thereby raising a certain number of questions: what kind of intertexual networks exist between her writing and the aforementioned genres? How does the appropriation of these genres helps conquer the fear of her impending death? How is it possible to rethink the writing of one’s body and self-fictionalization, contemporary motives par excellence, and how they manifest themselves in two genres dating back to the medieval and Renaissance eras?   In the first chapter, we examine Gendreau’s construction of the literary testament in its medieval form in her novel Testament, as well as the resurgence in Drama Queen of testamentary issues such as heritage, filiation and transmission. This rewriting allows the incorporation of self-mockery and depiction of a soon-to-be dead body in the narrative.  The second chapter studies the poetic crypt as it appears both in Renaissance texts and in modern works. It also focuses on commemoration discourses in remembrance of the deceased, as well as the appropriation of this commemoration by the two narrators and, ultimately, by Vickie Gendreau herself.

Keyphrases: Vickie Gendreau, Quebec literature, Contemporary literature, Vickie Gendreau, Literary testament, Poetic crypt, Self-fictionalisation, Intertextuality
La famille nucléaire au 21e siècle : quelle place pour le père?

Since the onset of second-wave feminism, the nearly universal participation of women in the labour market has loosened fathers’ grip on the role of exclusive household provider that they had held for so long. Increasingly, heterosexual women in contemporary society have higher levels of education and more advanced careers than their male partners; in direct proportion as women are breadwinners, men are required to assume more active, participatory domestic roles.  In this time of rapid transition, transformation, and redefinition of gender roles within the heterosexual domestic economy, fathers participate more equitably in raising children and homemaking, roles that historically and culturally had long been assigned exclusively to women. These new responsibilities sit uneasily with popular culture’s stereotypical representation of men, and with identificatory models of normative masculinity that men have required under the auspices of compulsory heterosexuality. Consequently, western men younger than fifty often find themselves straddling two worlds of competing imperatives.   The place that fathers can and must take in their families requires a critical inquiry. The irony of the father’s place can be understood as the tension between retrograde or conservative gender norms and the demands – both political and pragmatic – of contemporary middle-class masculinity.   This underlying, structuring tension of contemporary masculinity is experienced in gender alignment anxiety, along with filial, paternal, and inter-generational difficulties.  This thesis adopts a deconstructionist approach to the analysis of contemporary constructions of reproductive masculinity.  Working among gender studies, queer theory, and psychoanalysis, it offers analytical readings of the ‘self-help’ discourses of John Stoltenberg, the fictional autobiography of Karl Ove Knausgaard, and the American television series, Dexter.

Keyphrases: Queer, Filiation, Gender, Temporality, Masculinity, Paternity, Gender relations, Family
Forms of the Postmodern Historical Novel : Christoph Ransmayr, Daniel Kehlmann, Wolfgang Hildesheimer

Postmodernism, an aesthetic movement that rejects modernist dogmas, emerged in the U.S.A. in the 1960s and became, over the last decades of the twentieth century, the paradigmatic aesthetic in architecture, literature and the arts. Postmodernism also created the conditions for a renaissance of the historical novel. However, the postmodern historical novel now constitutes a new form of the genre which confronts the dominant discourses with parody, irony and skepticism. This new form does not limit itself to narratives situated in a realist historical setting. Rather, it questions the validity and, consequently, the very nature of historical discourse, problematizing and often foregrounding the process of interpretation and reconstruction of the past. In this manner, contemporary historical fiction reflects current debates about the forms of historiography, debates triggered by the work of Hayden White.  The 1980s saw a renewed flowering of historical fiction in the German cultural space and elsewhere. This paper examines postmodern forms of historical fiction through an analysis of three postmodern historical novels in the German language published between 1981 and 2005: Christoph Ransmayr’s Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, Daniel Kehlmann’s Die Vermessung der Welt and Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s Marbot: Eine Biographie. The analysis is based upon various models of postmodern fiction, in particular Ansgar Nünning’s five level categorization schema of the historical novel. This paper illustrates the extent to which these novels deploy postmodern stylistic devices and comment critically and comically upon German and Austrian history and culture.

Keyphrases: Postmodernism, Parody, German literature, Austrian literature, Historical novel, Literature and history, Historiography
Quel mode de gestion politique en éducation? Le cas de l’enseignement des langues étrangères au primaire dans le Bade-Wurtemberg (1998-2011)

In Baden-Württemberg, a German federal state neighboring France, a first foreign language has been taught at school starting in grade one since 2003-2004. Along the French border, all municipalities in a 30km-wide corridor have been required to teach French, whereas schools in the eastern part of the state have to teach English. The new ministerial imposition concerning which foreign language has to be taught in school has been the cause of tension since it was publically announced in 2001. In a first step, this thesis reconstructs the events surrounding the development, implementation, and reception of this education policy between 1998 and 2011, using the data collected in documents published by the ministry, the parliament, and the administrative court. We will explore, in a second step, the reasons why this tension arose between the ministry of education and citizens, systematizing the different positions in the debate. This study suggests citizens were not only aggravated by the language required (French or English), but also, as users of educational services, they felt they should have the freedom to choose. The citizens’ main interests will be synthesized from a corpus of newspaper articles. A third step compares the case studied with theorized trends in the evolution of educational governance, thereby offering new perspectives from which to understand the debate.

Keyphrases: Baden-Württemberg, Education policy, Foreign language teaching, Elementary school
Leer juntos : la recepción del libro-álbum colombiano

In this thesis we propose a study of reception of picturebooks published in Colombia or by Colombian authors and illustrators during the period from 2000 to 2013. From the definition of the picturebook that we will expose, we understand picturebooks as a cultural object that is designed and manufactured, which supports and is involved in the story and that is shared while reading. In this sense, we will not only consider its dynamic narratives but it will also be linked to the concept of the child, to the act of reading and the book to which this kind of artistic expression seems to respond; that is, an aesthetic vision of the children's book, the act of reading as a goal itself and the reader child as an active receptor. To do this, we will use the notion of interpretive communities proposed by Stanley Fish in order to include in the analysis the context of aesthetic reading mediation in Colombia as the framework defining the interpretive strategies that direct the construction of meaning in the experiences of reading of our corpus.

Keyphrases: Picturebook, Reception, Child, Book, Reading, Interpretive communities, Interpretive strategies
Les instruments actuariels d'évaluation du risque de récidive : applicables aux auteurs d'infractions sexuelles ayant une déficience intellectuelle?

Interest in the risk assessment for offenders with intellectual disabilities (ID) has particularly grown during the last 10 years. Two opinions are shared on this subject: some believe that the instruments used to measure risk in sexual offenders can apply to sexual offenders with ID while others support the idea of using and developing actuarial measures for these people. Three objectives were set in an attempt to clarify these two visions: 1) Compare recidivism rates between the two groups of sexual offenders (with and without ID), 2) Analyze the predictive validity of the eight most commonly used actuarial instruments (and the PCL-R) based on a sample of sex offenders with ID and 3) Analyze the composition of the instruments according to their domains (Knight and Thornton, 2007). The sample consisted of 550 sex offenders of which 54 have an ID. The results suggest that the two groups of sexual offenders have similar rates of recidivism. A limited number of instruments also seems to be effective for sex offenders with ID. The SVR-20 was found to have predictive validity regarding sexual recidivism, the RMC, the RMV and the MnSOST-R for violent recidivism and the VRAG for non-violent recidivism. However, it is justified to question how the risk of recidivism is assessed for this particular clientele. The composition analysis of the actuarial instruments seems important among sex offenders with ID since some domains could predict differently the risk of recidivism. Finally, many of the risk factors that may be more useful in predicting recidivism has not been identified yet, thus delaying the creation of instruments tailored to offenders with ID.

Keyphrases: Sexual delinquency, intellectual disabilities, Recidivism, Prediction, Risk assessment, Survival analyses, ROC curves
Une étude sur le processus de changement menant au désistement criminel d’un détenu purgeant une peine à perpétuité dans la collectivité

This research explores the life trajectory of an offender serving a life sentence in the community after having been granted a full parole.   The goal of this research is to identify which of the five main theoretical concepts, explaining the cessation of criminal behavior, best indicates what led him to cease his criminal behavior.  To reach this objective, an exploratory qualitative research was preferred.  A man serving a life sentence in the community was interviewed on numerous occasions.  These interviews were aimed at getting the utmost account of his life story and then, by integrating the appropriate theories in the research process, selecting the concepts that best explained the cessation of his criminal behavior.  A series of nine interviews, each one lasting approximately an hour and a half, were conducted.  For the purpose of this memoir, the life story of Mr. P is presented and analyzed so has to illustrate the application of the main theoretical concepts linked to the cessation of criminal behavior. By analyzing the data collected, the importance of considering the identity concept in the cessation of criminal behavior was noted just as the psychological change that comes with it.  The discussion also addresses certain intervention strategies that are likely to offer an improved support for people working with offenders serving long sentences.  These interventions take into account the challenges that arise when working with this type of clientele and they aim at maximizing the social reinsertion potential of these individuals upon release.

Keyphrases: desistance, process of change, parole, life sentence, life trajectory, life story
De la maltraitance à l’enfance aux comportements d’agression à l’âge adulte : quel est le rôle de la réactivité émotionnelle et comportementale?

Despite efforts to reduce the prevalence of childhood maltreatment, it is known to be associated with a variety of physical and mental health difficulties, including the manifestation of aggression. Emotional and behavioral reactivity, including anger, fear and avoidance, is proposed as a mechanism to explain the relationship uniting maltreatment and aggression. Four objectives are pursued to this end: to examine the relationship found between (1) maltreatment and aggression, (2) maltreatment and anger, fear and avoidance, (3) anger, fear and avoidance and aggression and (4) to formally test the mediator and moderator role of anger, fear and avoidance in this relationship. Data from 160 men aged between 18 and 35 and who were exposed or unexposed to maltreatment were compiled through questionnaires and a social provocation task measuring the facial expressions of anger and fear as well as avoidance behaviors. Results suggest that maltreatment experiences and avoidance behaviors are associated with aggression. Maltreatment experiences are however not linked to anger, fear and avoidance. While the results suggest that these indicators have no mediator roles in the relationship between maltreatment and aggression, responsiveness to anger and avoidance would magnify this relationship. Thus, results suggest that maltreatment experiences and the intensity of emotional and behavioral reactivity should be taken into account in interventions in order to target those most at risk of using aggression.

Keyphrases: Maltreatment, Aggression, Anger, Fear, Avoidance behavior, Emotional reactivity, Behavioral reactivity, Facial expression
Le retour en communauté des détenus âgés : entre marginalisation et insertion, des expériences plurielles

Nowadays in Canada, one out of five prisoners under federal jurisdiction is aged 50 and over, representing a 101% increase since the early 2000s. While everything seems to indicate that an increasing number of seniors will be released in the coming years, only a few studies have focused on life after prison. This thesis aims to understand their reentry process and to highlight the meaning they give to their experience. Our semi-structured interviews focused on the lived experiences of seventeen senior men, all of whom had served their sentence in Quebec detention centers. We found that the reentry of senior prisoners is marked by multiple difficulties, often intensified by their age, penal status and the institutional environment they evolved in. However, the reentry is experienced differently depending on whether the familial solidarity has allowed them to reach a gratifying social status and enables them to exist.

Keyphrases: Reentry, Older inmates, Prison ageing, Familial solidarity, Social reintegration