NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Les entreprises multinationales et les politiques publiques ; enquête sur leur engagement institutionnel au Canada

This thesis participates in a wide reflection on the interaction between government and multinational companies that is required in the current context of an accelerated globalization of the capitalist economy. We approach this issue by focusing on the institutional engagement of multinationals within different organizations, associations, forums or networks related to various development, innovation or labor market policies. What are the different dimensions of the institutionnal engagement of canadian subsidiary of multinationals ? How are those behaviors influenced by the various characteristics and strategies of these companies ? A comprehensive theoretical model, borrowing from many approaches used to understand the general behaviors of multinationals, is verified by quantitative analysis using original data obtained through the author’s participation in the Multinationals in Canada survey associated with the global INTREPID research initiative.   By highlighting the different facet of institutional engagement of the firm, this thesis establishes a more accurate operationalization of the broad concept of the “embeddedness”. Doing so, it put in question the essentially positive interpretation of the lather. The results reaffirm the relevance of various economics approach, but question the centrality of macro-intuitionalist approaches, particularly the Varieties of capitalism paradigm. Our analysis also illustrates the relevance of the Resource dependence theory and the impact of the presence in a firm of a structured actor able to counterbalance managers. Despite our theoretical venture, we were unable to observe a moderator effect of autonomy or power of the subsidiary on the country of origin influence on its institutional engagement behaviors.  This thesis provides some insight for better targeting institutional and economical interventions that seek to ‘embed’ multinationals and their capital inside the Canadian economy. It also draws light to the contributions of different stakeholder in the consolidation of the institutional engagement of multinationals, especially unions for training forums or employers networks.

Keyphrases: Public policies, Economic development theory, Institutional embeddedness, Varieties of capitalism
Misrepresenting Russia : Western perceptions of the Putin years, 1999-2008

The ascension of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency was a turning point in the history of Russia. Using articles from four influential western newspapers—the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and the Independent—this text will show the West perceived Russia during Putin’s between 1999 and 2008. Putin was heavily criticized as he was moving the country away from the “democracy” installed by the West after the Cold War, to a path more in line with traditional Russian principles. Russia refused to be subservient to Western interests. The western mainstream media reflected their government’s interests and critiqued Russia’s new path. The western media’s perceived obligation to promote “freedom” and “democracy” around the world has led it to condemn Russia and Putin and to create a sense of “russophobia” in the West.

Keyphrases: Vladimir Putin, Russia, USSR, West, democracy, newspapers, media, Chechnya, Ossetia, russophobia
Les discours de Pierre Plaoul au Parlement de Paris (1406) : un exemple des rhétoriques française et latine au Moyen Âge tardif

On May 27th 1406, the Parisian theologian Pierre Plaoul appeared before the court of the Parliament of Paris as a delegate of the University of Paris. His alma mater was involved against the University of Toulouse in an affair concerning the great schism. Plaoul made a speech in Latin, which the court immediately reproved, intimating him to speak French the next time. He did so on his second appearance on June 7th, but in a speech dramatically different from the first one. The French speech had a different genre and cited different authorities. Both instances are preserved in the X1a4787 register of the Archives nationales de France. The edition of both speeches helps us to understand the motivation behind such dramatic changes in style. But above all, it shows that the French speech was perhaps even more scholarly than the Latin one, and that the orator was not at all hindered by the use of French rather than Latin. Further analysis of the text shows that this instance is totally in line with the actual research’s tendency. Rather than viewing the relation between the vernacular and Latin of the late Middle Ages as being diglossic, current research prefers a dynamic of language contact. This view is supported by the many instances of medieval academics exhibit an excellent mastery of high-level French, be they poets, preachers or practitioners of law. A closer look at the use of the vulgar language by the doctors of theology during the reign of Charles VI also supports the hypothesis according to which late medieval scholars considered French as an apporiate mean of transmission for scholarly culture.

Keyphrases: Pierre Plaoul, Latin, Epistola tholosana, Middle Ages, Great schism, University of Paris, Faculty of theology, French
Dancing double binds : feminine virtue and women’s work in Kinshasa

While women in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo have historically participated in commerce at the local level, with an increase in higher education levels, and with dire economic circumstances putting additional pressure on already limited family incomes, women are increasingly entering new professions. In so doing, and as they become more visible in political and economic spheres, women are subjected new forms of moral suspicion. It is within this context that notions of femininity and female virtue in Kinshasa continue to be redefined. Historically, as Congolese women migrated to the city of Léopoldville, they were confronted with new demands to become “modern” and “civilized” they were also expected to remain “traditional” by staying home and tending to their families. I suggest that these binaries continue to inform conceptions of female virtue in Kinshasa today, namely in the form a distinction between “virtuous” and “non-virtuous” women, and this dissertation explores the ways in which women actively negotiate new gender roles and expectations influenced by such binaries.  Rather than of falling into the trap of the local dichotomy drawn between “virtuous” and “non-virtuous” women, I focus on the underlying causes and the unexpected outcomes of these local categories. I discuss how notions of female virtue have been shaped and influenced by what can be referred to as a “triple patriarchy,” consisting of “traditional” values, colonial and post-colonial state-led initiatives, and Christian Pentecostal discourse. I also examine how these factors have engendered new perceptions of female virtue that put women in a position of double bind, having to carefully manage impressions of themselves in public. Further, I show how this kind of impression management fuels problems of trust between and across the genders, ultimately impacting perceptions of women in the workplace and in society more generally through the performance of popular culture.   Because it is one of the most visible occupations among women in Kinshasa, the role of the popular concert danseuse is useful in illuminating the new challenges faced by women in Kinshasa. As such, this dissertation provides an ethnographic account of danseuses, their particular status as public objects of desire, and how this visibility comes to bear on local notions of freedom, power and femininity.

Keyphrases: women, virtue, work, popular culture, dance, gender dynamics, public sphere, Kinshasa, visibility, danse
Ce ne sont que des corps ; suivi de L'idéal de l'androgynie dans le réservoir des sens de Nelly Kaplan

This M.A. thesis combining research and creative writing explores the concepts of hybrid identity and the desire to escape standard expectations. In the novel Ce ne sont que des corps, two strangers are alternately sharing significant events of the past few months, while waiting for the train. Emmanuel, twenty-five, fall in love for Michelle, a strong-minded woman in her fifties, which he met in a bar. Michelle wants to fulfill some of her fantasies and Emmanuel decides to play along with the game until it turns sour. As for Alex, a young twenty something woman who left her village to study in Montreal, she falls in love with Gabriel, an aspiring musician for whom she is ready to give everything up. Each of the characters in this novel blurs sexual identities and gender. Furthermore, the essay explores the way Nelly Kaplan manipulates the sexuality and gender of her protagonists to suggest an “androgynous poetry” in some of the compendium’s Le reservoir des sens short stories. The essay bring forth knowledge from studies on irony, surrealist poetic, gender as well as intertextuality to underline how the author blurs sexual identity and gender.

Keyphrases: Nelly Kaplan, Gender studies, Creative writing, Identity, Surrealism, Irony, Intertextuality, Epigraphs
Archive(s) : approche dialectique et exploitation artistique

This thesis proposes a dialectical reversal in the archival science concept whose central point is the use of archives rather than the production of records. The first chapters outline the various understandings of the archives since the creation of national institutions in the 19th century until a renewed approach done by some archivists defining themselves as postmodernists in the late 20th century. The history of the archives and the archival science shows two coexistent views which appear as essentially contradictory in that one (traditional) is centered on the creator of the records, and the past understood as the set of actions performed by the creator, while the other (postmodern) is based on the social functions of the archives and the archivist’s role. Following the dialectical thought of Walter Benjamin, the fourth chapter proposes to think the dual nature of archives as documents and testimony while articulating that thought about the archive as a means of inscription of self in time. It appears that the archives can be considered as an objectification of the past within a chronological temporality at the heart of which resides, latently, the archive as a potential emancipator. The artistic use of archives as presented in the fifth chapter shows how this particular type of exploitation highlights the fact that the archives are bound by their conditions of use, which are also the conditions of existence of the archive. Among the issues addressed by the artists, those of memory, authenticity, archives as a means of appropriating the world, and as a poetical object become as many possible entry point to revisit the archival science. The last chapter summarizes all the proposed renewals detailed throughout the thesis. We envision a non-chronological temporality where the archives, objects of the past handled by a singular current dialectic, are being oriented towards both the past and the future. New opportunities are being offered for the archival science from the new properties being assigned to the archives by the artists. Finally, it is the life cycle of the archives itself that can be revised by including the exploitation as a key dimension.

Keyphrases: Archives, Archive, Art contemporain, Walter Benjamin, Archival Art, Dialectic, Critical Theory, Walter Benjamin, Exploitation, Dissemination, Archival science, Memory
Théorie du langage et esthétique totalisante dans l’œuvre poétique de Christophe Tarkos

This dissertation takes as its object the tie between self-reflexivity and aesthetic form in the poetry of Christophe Tarkos, produced in the 1990s. It highlights the relationship between the development of a theory of language within his poetic oeuvre and aims to illustrate its “totalizing” aesthetics. “Theory” is understood as the combination of reflections, meditations and concepts about language and poetry. This thesis endeavors to identify the generating principles in his poetic oeuvre, which are inscribed within the crisis of representation often seen as originating in the mid- nineteenth century. By revisiting this crisis of representation, Tarkos’s poetry can been seen as being located in a historicity. My thesis attempts to interpret this revisiting process through an analysis of a poetic form that gives shape to the world and to individual memory. My assumption is that the theory of language facilitates the intelligibility of his poetry because it provides a reflexive medium. My thesis, which favors a method based on textual analysis, is divided into three parts. The first provides a review of the critical reception of the work, in which I track major lines of interpretation, ranging from Christian Prigent to Jean-Michel Espitallier. Placing Tarkos within the French poetic field allows me to position my research within the commonplace of criticism. The second part investigates the theory of language in his manifestos (Le Signe =, Manifeste chou, Ma langue est poétique et La poésie est une intelligence) that reveal several principles, powers and limits of language and poetry. In order to demonstrate the specificity of the concept of « pâte- mot » (a dough of words) developed by Tarkos, I compare it to the poet Danielle Collobert’s figurative representation of « dough », as « paste ». The third part offers a study of the will and “totalizing” aesthetic present in the work of Tarkos, which seeks to shape the real. Indeed, poetry answers to the excess of the real by various strategies. While wanting to represent his brimming nature through a language akin to logorrhea or by using methods such as repetition, it also seeks to control it in stable textual forms such as « squared » fragments of prose (Carrés, Caisses), in enumerative lists (Anachronisme) or in networks of figures. Tarkos’s willingness to “totalize” also seems to be rooted in a sense of urgency concerning, ultimately, a battle against finitude.

Keyphrases: Christophe Tarkos, Danielle Collobert, Contemporary French Poetry, Theory of Language, Crises of Representation, Manifestos, Totalizing Aesthetic
Un centenaire, des faire mémoire : analyse des pratiques de mémoire autour du Canadien de Montréal

This dissertation explores the heterogeneous practices of memory that emerged during the centennial anniversary of the hockey team Canadien de Montréal in 2009. The dissertation’s goals are twofold: 1) bring a theoretical and a communicational light on the object ‘memory’; 2) produce a contextual analysis of these memory practices and of the issues they render effectives. My dissertation is situated in the fields of memory studies (especially in its current media turn) and cultural studies. In the first chapter dedicated to the ‘problematization’ of the centennial, I explore this event by a communicational approach of memory. This approach aims to interrogate the materiality of the practices of memory and their co‐constitutive relation with media of memory. In the two following analytical chapters, I proceed by analyzing a heterogeneous archive (newspaper articles, websites excerpts, observation notes, interviews, tv shows, etc.) from different registers of memory.The second chapter focuses on the practices of memory regarding the former hockey player Léo Gravelle. I analyze how practices –such as archive digitalization, constitution of a ‘shoebox’,‘biographization’, conservation and ‘fetichization’ –render present some pasts in specific manners. This chapter highlights how familial relations, aging issues and particular forms of friendships are rearticulated through these practices of memory. The third chapter analyses the practices of memory developed by the organization of the Canadien de Montréal. I explore the commemoration and the patrimonialisation of the team. I also focus on the particular ways in which these practices of memory rearticulate the relationships between a professional sport team and the city of Montreal and how they put forward new issues such as philanthropy and consumer activism. The fourth chapter discusses about the implications of ‘doing memory’, which I conceive as a means to ‘space’, as a manner of being involved as well as a project that mobilizes and organizes. I conclude the dissertation by outlining the singular elements which constitute this centennial anniversary.

Keyphrases: Hockey, Canadien de Montréal, Practices of memory, Media of memory, Centennial, Ice hockey, Contextual analysis
L’effet d’un programme de santé et de mieux-être en milieu de travail sur les invalidités de courte durée, les accidents du travail et le retour sur investissement

This thesis aims to study the effect of a health challenge focusing on weight loss, as part of a health and wellness program, in a Quebec organization, on short-term disability, workplace accidents and the resulting return on investment.  Quantitative analyses were conducted using an existing database of 1 981 employees in a large Canadian company employing more than 2 400 employees. Data was analysed over a period of 15 months: 6 months pre-intervention, 3 months during the challenge and 6 months post-intervention.  Results indicate that only the frequency of workplace accidents is significantly higher among non-participants when compared with participants in the post-intervention period. When comparing these two groups between pre and post-intervention period, we observed that the participants’ results remained stable over time, whereas non-participants deteriorated with regard to the frequency and duration of short-term disability and workplace accidents. Participants’ age had a moderating effect on workplace accidents because analyses showed that younger participants (18 to 44 years) experienced a lower frequency of workplace accidents compared to older (45 years and more) in the same group. Conversely, gender did not have moderating effect on short term disability and workplace accident.  The results obtained allow us to show employers that investing in a health challenge focused on weight loss with the framework of a Health and Wellness program has significant quantitative and qualitative positive effects on their workforce. This program helps to educate employees to eat well and be physically active, which helps to achieve a healthy weight and thus slows the annual increase absenteeism that we observe on the job market.

Keyphrases: Health and wellness, Health challenge, Health program, Workplace accident, Short term disability, Return on investment
L’importance  de la polyphonie organisationnelle dans un processus  de  changement stratégique

This master thesis illustrates the ways by which polyphonic narratives reveal some information about the employees’ experiences during a process of organizational change.  In order to identify these multiple voices, we analyzed the employees’ and managers’ narratives. Through the employees’ narratives, we tried to empirically illustrate the way narratives are constitutive of organizational change. Furthermore, we sought to bring to light employees’ preoccupations that feed and are constitutive of the change process as well as the organizational entity. The employees’ stories were analyzed through a polyphonic perspective, that is, an approach that highlight the existence of multiple voices in tensions, voices that are part of the employees’ narratives. To help us investigate these stories, our theoretical framework was based on the ventriloquist approach, as proposed by Cooren (2012, 2013). These preoccupations were analyzed as several voices animating and authoring these narratives, hence creating a polyphonic narrative that we attempted to identify and categorize in our interviews. This polyphonic analysis, by the tracking of voices, figures and tensions allowed us to shed light on preoccupations that are constitutive of the change process.  In this master thesis we identified and analyzed the voices, figures and tensions that illustrate the ways by which each employee experienced the process of organizational change. Consequently, we were able to contribute to the literature on polyphonic narratives and organizational change. As we show, this literature does not allow us to understand the way by which employees voice their concerns emerging from the change process and how these preoccupations interact with one another and integrate into organizational change narratives. Our findings suggest that all the employees’ preoccupations and concerns provide a global picture of their experiences during the process of organizational change and a better understanding of the tensions that are also part of the change process.

Keyphrases: Organizational change, preoccupations, figures, tensions, ventriloquism, discourse analysis, communication mechanisms
Malek Bennabi (1905 – 1973 É.C.) et les conditions d’une nouvelle renaissance de la société arabo-musulmane

Malek Bennabi (1905 – 1973) was a Muslim philosopher, and reformer from Algeria.  He was born in Constantine. Bennabi was particularily interested in understanding the civilization of the Arab-Muslim world. As an engineer who graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, he combined both Franco-Western and North-African Islamic cultures. His publications received a number of awards and prizes primarily due to his unique combination of expertise, experience, innovation, and emancipation. He wrote numerous articles and books on a variety of issues such as civilizations, culture, ideology, societies, Orientalism, democracy, and the phenomenon of the Qur'an. His writings focused mainly on the causes of contemporary Arabo-Muslim social problems as well as the conditions for a new renaissance or rebirth.  The colonial and post-colonial contexts of Bennabi affected his thought. He did not consider an independent and modern state as sufficient conditions for reaching economic development or socio-cultural advancement. Similar to other thinkers, like the late Al Djâbiri Mohamed Arkoun, Malek Bennabi pursued to the logic that only through empowering Arab societies can there be prevention of their underdevelopment and decadence.  This thesis focuses precisely on this point: the rebirth of the diverse Islamic society. It seeks to answer the following question: “What innovative thinking did Bennabi contribute to improve the lives of Arab-Muslims?”

Keyphrases: Malek Bennabi, Renaissance, Malek Bennabi, Islamic Thought, Arabo-Muslim Society, Civilization, Renaissance, Rebirth, Reformation