NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Le livre à la télévision : dispositifs comparés des émissions littéraires en Allemagne, Espagne et France (1950-2010)

Siegfried Kracauer famously noted, in 1931, that the bestseller is the « sign of a successful sociological experience ». In the case of televised literary shows, we witness a double configuration of such a success: that of the television show and that of the book. Like the book, the literary shows depend on various factors that are sometime difficult to identify, such as the socio-historical context, the collective imaginary tied to the book and to the activity of reading, as well as the media context. Beyond their influence on the purchase of books, these literary shows constitute a part of the common spaces (Robert, 2002) and, just like the schools and literary institutions, participate in the establishment of reading traditions. They present – explicitly or implicitly – the titles considered desirable and prescribe the norms for accepted readings. By selecting books for thousands of people at a time, by inviting authors to present their works or by featuring literary critics, these shows participate in the process of cultural legitimation. This thesis describes and analyses the various ways of portraying the literary world on television and its evolutions through time and in changing cultural contexts. By analysing a selection of successful shows, it describes the existing relationship between the two media that are the book and the television. Establishing thus the characteristics of an experience that touches both media and sociology, this thesis explores the literary show’s apparatus as it developed between 1950 and 2010, mainly by studying literary programmes that marked national television and the literary field in France, Germany, and Spain. By describing the media apparatus that establishes the link between the conception, the production, the content and the impact of these shows, through a comparative and intermedial approach, this research analyses the complex network of mediations that interplay in the construction and the reception of these shows. It does so by following four key points: the media apparatus, the changing relationship with the writer, the primordial role of the presenter, and the staging of the readers.

Keyphrases: Instances de légitimation, France, Literary shows, Media apparatus and configurations, Contexts of transmission and reception of literary works, Instances of legitimation, Etnography of reading, Germany, Spain
Imperfect flâneurs : anti-heroes of modern life

This dissertation begins with a simple question in response to “the perfect flâneur” model that Baudelaire elaborated in his 1853 essay “The Painter of Modern Life”: can a flâneur be imperfect? I suggest three possible inferences behind the word “imperfect.” First, it should liberate the flâneur from the strict context of nineteenth-century Paris, and allows for imperfect translations of the figure into other urban contexts. Second, the flâneur also strolls in the “imperfect” dimension of fictional imagination, a dimension comparable to the anamorphic skull in Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors. Third, in the grammatical meaning of imperfect verb tenses, “imperfect flâneur” can also refer to the anti-heroic figure of the living, whose existence remains incomplete and mundane as in the phrase “it was.” All three implications contribute to the reinterpretation of the flâneur in late twentieth-century contexts. My premise is that to experience the city as a flâneur, or to make flânerie possible in the city, one should concede being imperfect, anticipate imperfections, and come to terms with them. Four in-depth studies of contemporary novels and their respective cities constitute the main chapters. Chapter One reads Robert Majzels’s City of Forgetting and Montreal. I examine the ways in which homeless characters could be said to occupy – or, fail to occupy – contemporary Montreal from their dislodged position. Chapter Two focuses on Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and Bombay. My reading evolves around the question of hospitality in relation to the accommodation and un-accommodation of strangers in the city. Chapter Three brings us to XiXi’s Feituzhen series and Hong Kong: I address the special method of hopscotching as a unique form of imperfect flânerie in XiXi’s works. In Chapter Four, I study Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book and Istanbul. Inspired by Edward Said’s notions of beginning, I frame my argument with the enquiry: how and when does a narrative begin? In lieu of Conclusion, I imagined a conversation between the writing subject of this dissertation and the imperfect flâneurs featured in each chapter.

Keyphrases: flâneur, anticipation, imperfection, vie quotidienne, flâneur, anti-hero, city, late twentieth-century novel, anticipation, disappointment, translation, imperfection, everyday life, urban culture
Les représentations du Moyen Âge au Québec à travers les discours muséaux (1944-2014) : pour une histoire du goût, du collectionnement et de la mise en exposition de l'art médiéval au Québec

This thesis aims to study the various representations of the Middle Ages in Quebec through a corpus of temporary exhibitions held during the twentieth century and the early 2000s. We question the role played by the Quebec museums in the diffusion of discourses about this European period. In order to highlight the religious, cultural, political or linguistic reasons for museums to focus on a specific representation of the Middle Ages, each exhibition is replaced within its original context of creation.

Keyphrases: Middle Ages, Representation, Museum, Exhibition, Medievalism, Museography
Destruction, puissance et limites du cinéma dans les films d'Ozu Yasujirô

In this dissertation, the films of Japanese director Ozu Yasujirô (1903-1963) are studied according to the main hypothesis that the destruction they picture – disappearing family bonds, death – cannot be accounted for by plot development, its non-dramatic stance being well-known. As it is depicted in his films, family dissolution in fact testify for the world's vulnerability to cinematographic take: the medium's destructivity is especially expressed as an ability to mobilize what comes into its range and to transform it as a stooge for its own capacity to produce effects. This study then portrays moving images, inasmuch as they conform to the logic of modern technology, as a kind of disaster affecting family as a commununity, as an experience of being out-of-oneself. But Ozu's cinematographic practice shows as well ways to face such a destructivity, and points to another, restaurative potentiality for cinema. This study of Ozu's cinema shows its profound affinity with Giorgio Agamben's conception of inoperativeness, the filmmaker's work and the philosopher's thought throwing light on each other. Through the concept of inoperativeness, the issues at the heart of Ozu's films are considered anew at a level both thematic and formal, immaterial and material, articulating these two aspects in order to tackle their very mediatic register. My approach, then, is not foremost aesthetic or formal but focuses on Ozu's films from the point of view of practice: it deals with ethical issues raised by the cinematographic medium, which express themselves in relation to power (or potentiality). This ethical concern relates to Ozu's attention to collectivity as well as to his care for cinema's expressive potentialities that is to say to the way in which his films face their medium's limits.

Keyphrases: Ozu Yasujirô, Giorgio Agamben, Ozu Yasujirô, Japanese cinema, cinematographic medium, cinema and movement, philosophy of technique, community, Giorgio Agamben, inoperativeness
De la polémique au catéchisme : les méthodes d'évangélisation des morisques en Espagne (XVe-XVIe siècle)

What links are there amongst the reinforcement of monarchical power, the evolution in methods of preaching, and the persistence of minority religious identities? In the XIVth century, the old Christians of Spain made considerable efforts to convert infidels to the catholic faith. After having pressured the muslims of Spain into being baptized, they attempted to open their hearts to the catholic faith and to behave like good christians.  In order to do this, they had recourse as much to persecution as to preaching. While persecution has been well studied by historians, our understanding of preaching remains fragmented. This thesis seeks to remedy this by studying methods of evangelizing Valencian Moors between 1492 and 1570. In order to do so, this thesis studies the published manuals used in support of missionary efforts over the course of the century. It suggests that the evangelizing methods of preachers evolved out of a period privileging polemical argumentation over catechetical instruction. The methods used thus focussed primarily on encouraging Moors to take responsibility for their own conversion, rather than placing responsibility with the preacher to convince them to embrace Catholicism. We therefore observe that the transition to what we call the “Catechetical period” corresponds to an increase in the intensity of persecution.  In studying preaching campaigns in the kingdom of Valencia, this thesis reconstructs the contexts in which these polemical manuals (“antialcorans”) and Catechisms were utilized. It shows how preaching methods were shaped by their institutional contexts. The transition from polemics to Catechism was guided in part by European reforms that sought to banish religious polemics in the vernacular and to catechize populations, and in part by security concerns and fear that that the Moors would revolt. Preachers were thus encouraged to use discretion. However, these campaigns were considerably crippled by the contradictions that lay in considering Moors at once as Muslims to be converted, new converts in need of instruction, and bad Christians to be punished. The thesis concludes by proposing a redefinition of the concept of integration, adapted to the reality of Moorish history and offers explanations in order understand how the disciplinary dynamics of the Spanish Catholic Monarchy encouraged Moors to fallback on their ethnicity.

Keyphrases: Missions, Inquisition, Moriscos, Spain (1500--‐1600), Missions, Evangelization, Confessionalization, Ethnicity, Inquisition, Polemic, Catechism
Prise de parole au féminin : la paix et les relations internationales dans les revendications du mouvement de femmes pour la paix en France (1919-1934)

Few people came out of the Great War (1914-1918) without dreaming of a better world. After four years of suffering and anguish, peace appears as a driving force for the populations that have been affected by the war, notably for those who have experienced its consequences first hand. A record number of peace movements emerged from the ashes of the war, many of which were specifically feminine. Deprived of the right to vote and therefore excluded from political life in a traditional sense, these movements created new grounds for women’s political action. Through their pacifism, they invested the political and social fields, and debated all the major issues of the interwar period.  It is in this perspective that women speak out: even if they have not seen the battlefields like men, they have also suffered during the conflict and claim their right to “create a new world”. These few women have long been left in the shadows: ignored because of their pacifism and their gender. The historiography of the interwar period in France has indeed neglected their work in the establishment of peace and in international relations. This thesis seeks to fill a void left by a historiography focused solely on political men and which links too strictly political actions and the right to vote. Looking at five women’s peace associations – the Section française de la Ligue internationale des femmes pour la paix et la liberté (SFLIFPL), the Ligue des femmes contre la guerre (LFCG), the Union féminine pour la Société des Nations (UFSDN), the Union fraternelle des femmes contre la guerre (UFFCG), and the Ligue internationale des mères et des éducatrices pour la paix (LIMEP) – this research offers a new analysis of international relations giving a gendered analysis of peace, reconciliation and disarmament. It also focuses on the discourse on women’s role and place in the after-war society and seeks to understand how these pacifists worked around their exclusion from political life to enter a field traditionally reserved to men.

Keyphrases: Paix, Genre, Femmes, Peace, Pacifism, Interwar period, Gender, Women, Feminism, International relations, Reconciliation
Le pouvoir impérial romain et les cultes isiaques à Rome (IIIe-IVe siècles)

Isiac worship spread around the mediterranean basin between IVth c. BC and late IVth century AD, arriving to Rome at Ist century BC and disappearing there at the same time as traditional pagan worship, with or soon after Theodosius’policy. So, their Italian distribution spreads during a large part of the history of Western Empire, and thus, they’re going to meet the man henceforth considered as primus inter pares, thanks to the accumulation of his powers. The emperor is pontifex maximus that is master of the public worship and the religious right, thus he is the powerful agent who possesses the religious and legislative potential to have a varied discourse on other religious traditions. It seems inevitable that the sphere of isiac worship meets and interacts with Roman traditional religious sphere, and that some emperors interfere, by reinforcement or opposition, with the isiac cults arrived not enough time before the advent of the imperial power. This thesis studies non only the dialectic between Roman institué (inertial force) and isiac instituant (force of changes) in the direction of a potential included otherness (that to say the evolving dialogue of Us in relation to the Other), but especially by Roman publics links (and processing) between the isiac worship and the emperors. We do this research with four types of antique sources : literature for the views of the Greco-Roman literary elite ; the isiac inscriptions for (popular) definition of the identity of the isiac instituant ; the coins and the monumental works for the public (and sometimes more personal) imperial point of view. We focus our study from the Severan dynasty, what can let suppose that these romano-oriental worship take advantage of this new imperial configuration with emperors from Africa and the East, in a phenomenon of isiac " imperialization " intensified by both imperial and popular involvement. Moreover, we soften the consequences on isiac spread of disorders that arise in the second half of the IIIth century. Finally, the IVth century, with the christianization of the Empire and so christianity becoming institué, brings to an analysis of the debates between the active defenders of the paganism and the christian writers, and from there, on questions over the intervention of the isiac group in this face to face.

Keyphrases: Isiacologie, Rome, Isis, Isiacology, Isiac worship, Imperial power, Sarapis, Severan dynasty, Late empire
Social capital and natural hazards : trust and cohesion in the eastern visayas of the Philippines

This thesis analyzes social capital and preparations for natural hazards in the Philippines. The research emphasizes the importance of inequalities, contextualization, and scale. It underlines the significance of historical and political contexts to better understand social dynamics. There is a growing body of scholarly literature that shows the detrimental repercussions of inequality on social capital. Social capital is still a debated concept but it can be useful for thinking about how human societies interact with natural hazards. The thesis thus contributes to the growing scientific inquiries which have begun to address the connections between social capital and “natural” disasters. This dissertation contributes to the links between these two fields of knowledge by analyzing the Filipino situation in general, as well as making a specific case study of a rural municipality in the Eastern Visayas region. The thesis’ central argument is that economic inequality is detrimental to social capital which then has negative repercussions on preparing for natural hazards. In an analysis at several geographical scales, this thesis shows how inequality, via social capital, makes societies more at risk of having natural hazards turn into disasters. The thesis argues that a cautious use of the concept of social capital, which is cognizant of the complexities of the context it is applied to, has the potential to improve the way people collectively prevent hazards from turning into disasters.

Keyphrases: Philippines, Social capital, Eastern Visayas, Communities, Preparation to natural hazards, Socioeconomic inequalities, Trust
Maestros de Oaxaca. Ethnographie post-exotique des pratiques et espaces politiques locaux au Mexique

This thesis proposes an analysis of the links between teachers, local populations, and the State within the local context of Oaxaca, Mexico. The « maestros », privileged operators of political mediation, members of a union that represents an important opposition to local government, historical carriers of the State via the school system, occupy a specific crucial and ambivalent position within the Mexican political configuration. From the plantón to the schools, from local cultural festivals to municipal issues, today they are situated at the heart of contemporary negotiations and declinations – liberal and decentralized – of political « modernity ». Through an approach that combines anthropology and political science, this research attaches itself to the places and the concrete framework of political relationships that engage these maestros, it explores the articulations and implications between union spaces and villages, Indian movements and education. This contribution sheds an empirical, historical, and critical light on mediation and contentious politics in Mexico. It examines the reconfiguration of the channels that join the State with the population, and is interested in the process of the redefinition of the contours of the nation and citizenship. Transversely, this work analyzes the ongoing dispute that is at play in the different meanings of the nation and of citizenship during the time of neoliberalism and multiculturalism.  Linking theoretical rigor and epistemological concern, the writing of this descriptive and narrative thesis contributes to ethnographic knowledge and gives access to new aspects of the social and political realities being studied. This research also contributes to work on the cultural and political dimensions of the State. Finally, it shows how the nation remains a symbolic and concrete territory of political contest.

Keyphrases: Teachers, State, Mediation, Union, Ecole, School, Oaxaca, Mexico, Ethnicity, Ethnography
La déqualification des immigrantes universitaires : le rôle de l’origine ethnique

Chicha (2009) observes a ‘’black hole’’ in publications regarding the process that allows for a a higher rate of employment deskilling of immigrant women with university education; a ‘’black hole’’ that is considered to be a real problem. On one hand, the Quebec government is trying to implement immigration policies to increase the recruiting of immigrants with higher human capital, in the hope that they will readily find employment. On the other hand, a higher rate of employment diskilling in this group of workers shows that there is a dichotomy between their actual situation on the job market, and the government’s political objectives. Therefore, there appears to be systemic discrimination on the subject of employment diskilling targeting immigrant workers. In order to address this social justice issue and in the hope of getting a better understanding of the process that leads to employment diskilling of immigrant women, we hope this thesis will better define the concept of discrimination in employment and set the table for implementing more efficient policies that will effectively fight this particular type of discrimination. We consider that the holistic views that caracterize the systemic approach make it the best way to explain this ‘’black hole’’. We have met with 52 university-educated immigrant women; they have shared with us their professional work experience prior to and following their emigration to Canada. We addressed numerous issues such as their education; their professional experience; their planing for the migration of their family; the active steps they took both for the recognition of their foreign university degrees and for getting a job; their workplace experience, etc. The results of our research reveal that discrimination remains an issue in the job market in xv Quebec. Furthermore, issues relating to ethnic origin and skin color still permeate attitudes, behaviors and language, targeting immigrant women with university education in the job market. Van Laer & Janssens (2011) typologies were useful for identifying attitudes, behaviors and comments which could be considered subtle racism. We hope that one of the contributions of the present thesis will be the improvement of the systemic analysis framework , which will lead to a better understanding of university-educated immigrant women. Diverse theories pertaining to social psychology such as similarity attraction theory; social categorisation theory, LMX, (Roberson & Block, 2001) make it possible to refine this systemic analysis framework, and allow for a better understanding of the sometimes complex relations that can develop between individuals and result in open or subtle racism.

Keyphrases: discrimination, university-educated immigrant women, ethnic origin, racism, subtle racism, social categorisation, ethnic minorities, visible minorities, diskilling, human resources management, employment discrimination