Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Exoticism in literature'

This dissertation is centered around two related questions: How does literature contribute to the creation of identity? How does narrative locate individuals in the world? It studies how both individual and ethnic identity is shaped by the imagined landscapes encountered by the protagonists of the Greek novel over the course of their journeys. In this dissertation, I develop a model for reading the protagonists' travels across the Mediterranean as an integral part of the genre's narrative strategy. I begin by tracing the novels’ conceptual geographies of the Mediterranean world and the relationship between geographical movement and narrative. The core of my project examines three aspects of the imaginary worlds encountered by the novels’ protagonists: exotic animals, the relationship between humans and their natural landscapes, and exotic societies, customs, and religions. My study ends in Meroë, in the tenth and final book of Heliodoros’ Aithiopika. Meroë is a terminus in two senses: located on the edge of the known world, it is the most exotic of any place visited in the extant novels; it also represents the undoing of exoticism. Heliodoros’ novel describes a gradual process in the course of which Meroë becomes a Greek cultural enclave in an alien land, one that is parallel to, and associated with, Delphi, the religious center of the Hellenic world. Using literary and epigraphic sources alongside ancient visual media and archaeological evidence from Greco-Roman and Egyptian contexts throughout this study, I rethink the relationship between identity, narrative, and the exoticism in the novels. I argue that through their descriptions of wide-ranging travel and exotic locales, the novels reflect a multiplicity of individual ways to be Greek and the many models against which an individual’s Hellenic identity can define itself. The ancient novel is therefore an important expression of Greek identity in the Roman Imperial period.
The Classics

Sur les territoires colonisés par la France paraissent des journaux locaux qui suivent le développement national de la presse : entre 1830 et 1880, l’époque est médiatique et le journal est un support important des publications littéraires. Dans les colonies, les périodiques contiennent ainsi des textes adaptés à leurs territoires respectifs, mais publiés toujours selon la même structure, ce qui permet une comparaison entre les différentes stratégies conduisant à l’élaboration d’identités coloniales. Ces textes, par leur diversité et leurs évolutions, représentent une sorte de chaînon manquant entre la littérature des récits de voyage et la littérature coloniale qui se définit au tournant du XXe siècle : interrogés et étudiés sous cet angle, ils prennent valeur de corpus signifiant. Ils montrent en effet le rôle identitaire de cette littérature médiatique adaptée aux colonies : en adaptant l’exotisme aux conditions coloniale, en faisant varier le critère d’altérité et par bien d’autres moyens encore, la presse locale fonde en partie une attitude coloniale qui se retrouve, mutatis mutandis, dans l’empire colonial français. C’est également la raison pour laquelle le corpus médiatique colonial du XIXe siècle se trouve être au centre de connexions avec les textes de la littérature coloniale ainsi qu’avec les problématiques de l’écriture postcoloniale : lieu de publication, de nouveauté, de tentatives identitaires et d’essais génériques, le journal colonial a produit entre 1830 et 1880 des mécanismes d’écriture appelés à se développer par la suite
Local newspapers were published in French colonial areas following the same evolution as the national newspapers: between 1830 and 1880, media-rich times, the press represents a significant publishing-platform for literary texts. Colonial newspapers contain texts adjusted to their respective geographic areas, but keep the same structure regardless, thereby allowing the comparison between the strategies leading to the building of colonial identities. The diversity and the different evolution pathways of these texts may then be considered as the missing link between the travel narratives and the early-20th century defined colonial literature. As such, they can undoubtedly be considered as a significant corpus of colonial times. These texts reflect the identity role this colonial-area adjusted media literature had: by adapting exoticism to the colonial conditions, by varying the criterion of alterity and by many other ways, local press founds, partially, a colonial attitude that can further be found, mutatis mutandis, in the French colonial empire. This is also the reason the 19th-century colonial-media corpus is at the crossroads of both colonial literature and postcolonial writing problematics: as a place for publication, novelty, identity essays, and literary genre essays, the colonial newspaper witnessed the creation, between 1830 and 1880, of writing mechanisms that would eventually develop later on

The study is using a method called close reading through adaptation theory, invented by Linda Hutcheon. Through this method we are comparing the book The laugning policeman from 1968 written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö with the movie Beck- The invasion from 2015. The movie is based on the book in the sense that it has many so called Sign elements that appears both in the book and in the movie.   The study is focusing on a comparison between the book and the movie regarding the Other, that is people who as characters in the book and the movie respectively are foreign, both as a citizen as well as the person acts.   The results show that descriptions of some persons go under the definition the Other, but the movie and the book is heavily different concerning in what areas the Other has its qualities from. It also differs from which place the Other has in the story. In the book, the Others role is a side trail, while in the movie they are the central theme of the story.   Key words: Adaptation, The Other, Exoticism, Positioning, Essential, Sign Elements Nyckelord: Adaption, Den Andre, Exotism, Positionering, Essentiell, Sign Elements

Cette thèse interroge la relation entre la littérature et l'idée impérialiste chez Pierre Loti. La vogue du voyage en Orient au XIXe siècle correspond au développement de la colonisation commerciale et politique qui change de façon fondamentale la vision du monde pour les gens de l'époque. L'aspiration vers l'ailleurs s'entremêlant à la perspective impériale, l'expansion territoriale européenne influence la perception du dehors de l'Occident. En poursuivant son rêve oriental, Pierre Loti, quant à lui, découvre la réalité locale à l'étranger et écrit de cette expérience existentielle des récits tout aussi exotiques que banals. Le but de notre réflexion est de mettre en question le rapport de l'écrivain à l'Orient sous influence coloniale. Elle s'efforce d'éclaircir le mécanisme de ses pensées sur l'ailleurs à partir des études sur la représentation de la Turquie, de l'Inde et du Japon

This thesis is concerned with transnational literature and writers of the Middle Eastern and South Asian diasporas. It argues that the diasporic position of the authors enables their roles as comprador subjects. The thesis maintains that the figure of the comprador is always acted upon by its ontological predisposition, so that diasporic positionality often involves a single subject which straddles and speaks from two or more different subject positions. Comprador authors can be said to be co-opted by Western metropolitan publishing companies who stand to benefit by marketing the apparent marginality of the homelands about which these authors write. The thesis therefore proceeds from the notion that such a diasporic position is the paradoxical condition of the transnational subject or writer. I submit that there is, to some degree, a questionable element in the common political and cultural suggestions that emerge upon closer evaluation of diasporic literature. Indeed, a charge of complicity has been levelled against authors who write, apparently, to service two distinct entities – the wish to speak on behalf of a minority collective, as well as the imperial ‘centre’ which is the intended interlocutor of the comprador author. However, it is this difference, the implied otherness or marginality of the outsider within, which I argue is sometimes used by diasporic writers as a way of articulating with ‘authenticity’ the cultures and politics of their erstwhile localities. This thesis is concerned, therefore, with the representation of ‘the East’ in four novels by diasporic, specifically comprador writers, namely Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I suggest that the ‘third-world’ and transnational literature can also be a selling point for the transnational subject, whose representations may at times pander to preconceived ideas about ‘the Orient’ and its people. As an illustration of this double-bind, I offer a close reading of all the novels to suggest that on the one hand, the comprador author writes within the paradigm of the ‘writing back’ movement, as a counter-discourse to the Orientalist representations of the homeland. However, the corollary is that such an attempt to ‘write back’, in a sense, re-inscribes the very discourse it wishes to subvert, especially because the literature is aimed at a ‘Western’ audience. Moreover, the template of the comprador could be used to explain how a transnational post-9/11 text from an Afghan-American, for instance, may be put to the service of the imperial machine, and read, therefore, as a supporting document to the U.S. policy on Afghanistan.

Cette thèse traite de l’évolution des modes de représentations et de l’image du Polynésien dans les littératures française, anglaise et américaine depuis 1842, la date du Protectorat de Tahiti, jusqu’en 1911, la période qui précède la Première Guerre mondiale. Il s’agit d’une lecture postcoloniale analysant l’influence des facteurs temporels et culturels des voyageurs occidentaux sur l’image de l’Autre et sur sa transformation du bon sauvage ou du cannibale païen en métis tiraillé entre les traditions et la modernité. Cette analyse a pour ambition de tracer la métamorphose qui marque le discours occidental sur la Polynésie et qui atteint son paroxysme à partir de la fin du XIXe. Il est question de tracer les origines de cette métamorphose, son impact sur la littérature et de déterminer si cette évolution dans le discours colonial représente une prise de conscience de l’Autre ou bien s’il s’agit des symptômes avant-coureurs d’un état de décadence qui frapperait la littérature coloniale
This thesis deals with the evolution of the modes of representation and the image of the Polynesian in the French, English, and American literatures since 1842, the date of the French Protectorate over Tahiti, until 1911, the period which precedes the First World War. It is about a postcolonial reading of the influence of temporal and cultural factors of Western travelers on the image of the Other, on its transformation from a Noble Savage or a Cannibal into a person who lives in a cultural hybridity, and who is in a conflict between tradition and modernity. This analysis aims to outline the metamorphosis that affects the Western discourse on Polynesia and which reaches its peak starting from the late nineteenth century. It endeavors to study the origins of this metamorphosis, its impact on the literature and to determine if the evolution of the colonial discourse represents a growing awareness of the Other or if it is only a kind of warning symptoms of a literary decadence

Les récits des voyageurs, réputés pour leur caractère authentique, se présentent comme une source d’information véritable et de première main. Pourtant, l’étude littéraire de ces textes fait apparaître un ensemble de problématiques liées à l’écriture de cet ailleurs lointain mais déjà connu grâce aux témoignages des prédecesseurs antiques et médiévaux. Les interférences des différents genres littéraires réactualisent l’imaginaire d’une Inde des merveilles, pour une littérature à sensations fortes. La première partie interroge la mise en récit théâtralisée d’une des premières tentatives de classification humaine. Le voyageur apparaît alors comme soignant son auto-représentation, par rapport à laquelle se dessine le peuple indien, réparti selon les différentes castes perçues. La seconde partie s’intéresse à l’écriture d’une cartographie imaginaire construite à partir de trois pôles : ces derniers sont incarnés par trois figures prototypiques. Les mises en récit de ces personnages héroïques, en plus de s’inscrire dans une forme réaménagée du récit historique et/ou d’aventures, proposent une écriture du pouvoir en mettant au jour les intrigues de cour et autres histoires secrètes. La troisième partie confronte l’écriture de l’imaginaire avec sa mise en image. Il s’agit ici d’étudier la recréation d’une Inde comprise à travers le prisme chrétien mais aussi en réaction contre celui-ci. Ainsi l’élaboration d’un bestiaire indien, principalement contruit autour de grandes figures du panthéon hindou, donne aux voyageurs l’occasion d’interroger à la fois le rapport des indigènes avec leur religion et avec la nature
The stories of travellers, known for their authenticity, they are a source of first-hand and authentic information. However, the literary study of these texts reveals a series of problems linked to the writing of this distant elsewhere but already known thanks to the testimonies of the ancient and medieval predecessors. The interferences of the different literary genres update the imaginary of an India of wonders, to offer a literature with strong sensations. The first part questions the theatrical narrative presentation of one of the first attempts at human classification. The traveller then appears as a healer of his self-representation, in contrast to which the Indian people are drawn up, divided according to the different castes perceived. The second part is concerned with the writing of an imaginary cartography constructed from three poles. The latter are embodied by three prototypical figures. The narration of these heroic characters, in addition to being part of a revamped form of the historical narrative and/or adventures, proposes a writing of power by bringing to light court intrigues and other secret stories. The third part confronts the writing of the imaginary with its image setting. The aim here is to study the recreation of an India understood through the Christian prism, but also in reaction to it. Thus, the elaboration of an Indian bestiary, mainly built around large figures of the Hindu pantheon, gives travellers the opportunity to question both the relationship of the natives with their religion and with nature

Orientador: Mário Luiz Frungillo
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T20:41:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Macario_PaulaGomes_D.pdf: 2046658 bytes, checksum: 5fadb7c1fc29def33ea655c8c32c303f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012
Resumo: A presente tese inclina-se sobre a obra do escritor francês Pierre Louÿs (1870 - 1925). Estudioso dos antigos poetas gregos e entusiasta da arte antiga, Louÿs pode, num primeiro momento ser associado à escola parnasiana. Em seus primeiros poemas, bem como em diversos momentos importantes de seu trabalho, ele dedicou-se à construção de um ambiente pagão, harmonioso e aprazível, munido de uma sensualidade bastante associada à plasticidade das formas. Porém, uma propensão singular transportou igualmente seu trabalho a outro território. Propensão esta que se revela pela adoção da temática do erotismo e, sobretudo, pela forma particular com que ele apropria-se de tal matéria. Pode-se ler em seus livros uma atmosfera bela, sensual e hedonista, que ao mesmo tempo atualiza uma das grandes tradições do erotismo literário: o humor a ironia e os excessos lúbricos postos em cena para caçoar e combater as regras morais e a hipocrisia sexual da sociedade. Na combinação desses dois ideais, um estético e outro subversivo, encontramos a face particular da produção de Louÿs que servirá de guia à nossa investigação: Como defensor de uma nova maneira, mais libertária, de pensar e de lidar com as paixões do corpo, o escritor termina por criar uma série de personagens que, armados de grande beleza e de uma graciosa ironia, cumprem o papel de contestar a moral puritana. Estamos falando prioritariamente de personagens femininas, pois no trabalho deste autor uma atenção especial é concedida às mulheres. Vasta, variada e incontestavelmente sedutora é a procissão de beldades femininas que desfilam por seus livros. Mas o elemento mais interessante a se notar nessas mulheres não se resume ao quadro de seus encantos físicos, e sim algo que segue de par com eles, a saber, uma personalidade espontânea e de tendências licenciosas, dedicada especialmente à realização de uma vida plena de beleza e prazer. Tratamos, portanto, de elencar e analisar, na obra de Pierre Louÿs, uma série de personagens femininos que possuem o atributo de funcionar como um modelo de comportamento permissivo, libertário e atraente. Modelo este que é, sobretudo, o pretexto para uma literatura valiosa, ao mesmo tempo inquietante, e muito deleitável
Abstract: This thesis is based on the work of the French writer Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925). Scholar of ancient Greek poets and enthusiastic of ancient art, Louÿs may at a first moment be associated with the Parnassian school. In his early poems, as well as various important moments in his work, he devoted himself to the construction of a pagan, harmonious and enjoyable atmosphere, equipped with a sensuality somewhat associated to the plasticity of forms. However, a singular inclination transported his work to another territory as well. This inclination is revealed by the adoption of the erotic theme, and especially by the very particular way in which he embraces it. In his books one can read a beautiful, sensual and hedonistic atmosphere which equally updates one of the great traditions of literary eroticism: humor, irony and a lascivious excess brought into play to mock and scuffle society's moral rules and sexual hypocrisy. By combining these two ideals, one aesthetic and another of moral subversion, we find the particular aspect of Louÿs's work that will guide us in our investigation: As an advocate of a new, more libertarian way of thinking and dealing with the body passions, the writer ends up creating a series of characters who, armed with great beauty and graceful irony, play the role of refuting puritanical morality. We refer mostly to female characters, as in the works of this author particular attention is given to women. Vast, varied and attractive is the undoubtedly seductive procession of beauties parading through his books. But the most interesting element to be noticed in these women is not restricted to their physical charms, but rather something that matches that up, that is, their spontaneous and licentious-prone personality, expressly devoted to achieving a life full of beauty and pleasure. We tried, thus, to list and analyze, in Pierre Louÿs's work, a series of female characters that have the attribute of working as a model of a permissive, libertarian and attractive behavior. A model which is above all an excuse for a very valuable and, at the same time, disturbing and very pleasant literature
Doutorado
Literatura Geral e Comparada
Doutora em Teoria e História Literária

Most studies of European exoticism tend to emphasize its complicity with the hegemonic or imperialistic gaze. This dissertation takes a different approach--exploring the tensions/connections between exoticism and resistance within European culture, especially with regard to representations of the exoticized female body. Its interdisciplinary range spans the 19th century British novel, the work of French and British orientalist artists (particularly Gerome), discourses on ethnology, medicine and criminology, conduct books for women, and the operas of Puccini and Bizet. I argue that several artistic constructions of the exoticized woman (in both male and female authored texts) enact ambivalences which rupture and destabilize the ideological structures of domesticity and imperialism. Moreover, I theorize the figure of the Eastern odalisque (which has so far been analyzed as the passive, eroticized object of the European male gaze) as an equivocal, racially hybrid female body, aligning it with the European courtesan. I redefine the odalisque broadly, as including (and blurring) the categories of harem woman, public dancer, nomad, vampire, and courtesan. I argue that often, the hybridized odalisque not only returns a compelling gaze of her own, but also articulates a powerful, transgressive female presence, continually negotiating cultural anxieties about female self-display and miscegenation. The Introduction and Chapter One survey Puccini's opera Turandot, paintings of seraglio interiors by orientalist artists, medical and ethnological texts by Acton, Ryan, Knox, Lombroso and Ferrero, and the positioning of the courtesan. I read Merimee's gypsy Carmen, LeFanu's vampire Carmilla, and Wilkie Collins's detective Marian Halcombe as exoticized women who unravel the plots of Victorian ethnology. Chapter Two explores the possibilities and limitations of female visibility, power and appetite through a discussion of the "haunted odalisques" in Charlotte Bronte's fiction. Chapter Three examines the dynamics of female adornment within orchestrations of imperial spectacle and regulated self-display in Collins's The Moonstone and No Name, and Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds. The final chapter investigates the links between the racialization of disease (in Victorian imperial medicine) and female insurgence in the fiction of colonial novelist Flora Steel, focusing particularly on the ethnology of the Indian courtesan.

My dissertation addresses contemporary Spain's transforming national culture through representations of Cuban sexual imagery from 1989 to 2004. During this period, massive migration from Latin America, and Cuba in particular, has arrived to Spain changing Spanish perceptions of otherness and, consequently, Spanish national identity. For years, the imagery of Cuba in Spain was exemplified by sexual exoticism but, the enhanced presence of Cubans in the Iberian Peninsula, has recast Spain's idea of Cubanness. A resultant transformed desire for lo cubano demonstrates not only new sexual attitudes but also a change of Spanish national imaginary to multicultural transnation. Spain, in a post-colonial gesture, has begun community building with its formerly exotic others and marketing its Latinized-chic image. My research is organized around a series of 'uses', both cultural and political, of new sexual and gender perceptions regarding Cuban imagery in Spain, as reflected in films, literature, and popular culture of the period, which are the sources for the analysis of this dissertation I base my investigation on the studies of Louis Perez, Ann McClintock and Antonio Benitez Rojo, who analyze the transformations of Cubanness imagery; and the works of Paul Julian Smith, Marsha Kinder, Jo Labanyi and Isabel Santaolalla, who study Spain's transforming national identity to transnational representation after Cuban, and Latin American, presence in Iberian Peninsula I will develop four thematic chapters organized around the cultural and political 'uses' of transformed Cuban representations in Spain. In the first chapter entitled 'Uses of Desire: The Erotic Cubania and The Passional Espanolidad', after a historical introduction that illustrates Cuban and Spanish cultural representations from the beginning of 20th century to present, I analyze the particular transformations of Cuban imagery in Spain and the political 'uses' of each period until present Cuban migration phenomenon to Iberian Peninsula. This first chapter has a historical character and it will review the academic works around this issue The second chapter, 'Desexotic Cuban Women, Flowers from this World: The Feminine Subject', will focus on the emergence of a cultural production which represents Cuban women from a different perspective: From exotic sexual objects to 'desexotic' feminine subjects. I will analyze Spanish films, and coproductions Cuba-Spain as well, such as Iciar Bollain's Flores de otro mundo; Eneko Olasagasti's Maite or Manuel Gutierrez Aragon's Cosas que deje en La Habana. I shall study popular as well as visual culture representations, which show the change of perception about Cuban women otherness and the postcolonial implications of this process The third chapter, 'The Cuban conquistador: Encountering masculinities', addresses the transformation of Cuban masculinity stereotypes in Spain after the migration experience. I also analyze the influence of this change in the new representation of Spanish masculinity as well. I study these images in Alex de La Iglesia's La Comunidad; Fernando Colomo's Cuarteto de La Habana and Benito Zambrano's Habana Blues The fourth chapter, 'Posing the invisible difference: Canibalism and chic-latinization in transculture', develops the study of the global representation of Cubanness and Spanishness through the 'latino-chic' essence, and the new gender stereotypes. I also study the transcultural phenomenon now in the Iberian Peninsula, the popular cultural production of this period and the theoretical works about this issue This dissertation is a contribution to investigate the social and cultural consequences of the massive migration from Cuba, and Latin America, to Spain by the late eighties to present
acase@tulane.edu

China inspired and fascinated the Western early-20th-century author. Some, like Pearl S. Buck, writing about a China where she grew up and lived for many years, offered careful, portraits of the Chinese people she loved. Others, such as Fu Manchu creator Sax Rohmer, depicted China as an evil empire and the Chinese as cruel and dangerous criminal masterminds. French author Victor Segalen saw China as the last crumbling frontier of an elusive exotic world that existed in stark contrast to the suffocating modernity and alienation of Europe. This thesis project examines three specific examples of Western literature about China from the early twentieth century: British author Sax Rohmer, whose depictions of exaggeratedly evil Oriental vilains reinforced Western fears of the Chinese Other; French writer Victor Segalen whose mystical portraits of a magnificent Chinese Empire served as the basis for his artistic manifesto on exoticism, and Pearl S. Buck, whose portrayals of sympathetic Chinese peasants helped shift American popular opinion and foreign policy. These three authors, though their styles, approaches and motives varied greatly, all feature the intersecting themes of exoticism, modernity and imperialism. The tensions between these three elements play out in different ways in each chapter of this thesis, and yet all three are examples of exotic writing about China at a time when exoticism was a lost cause, or as Chris Bongie describes it, “an idea with no future” (15). In these examples, imperialism still coloured perceptions of a racially distinct other, and modernity’s inevitability made imagining the exotic a depressing, frightening or naïvely hopeful exercise. In all three examples, this results in an exoticism that seeks to extend the boundaries of what had become a shrinking frontier. Some of the authors succeed in balancing the tensions between exoticism, imperialism and modernity, but in general most do not, and the texts remain deeply conflicted.
Graduate
0295
0332

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2007.
Thesis directed by Margaret Anne Doody and Seamus F. Deane for the Department of English. "July 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 396-449).

Ce mémoire fait appel aux notions de stéréotype (tel que théorisé par Ruth Amossy, Jean- Louis Dufays et Mireille Rosello) et d’auto-exotisme (défini par Nathalie Schon) afin d’étudier les représentations de la sexualité de l’homme noir dans Alléluia pour une femme-jardin de René Depestre et La chair du maître de Dany Laferrière. Le stéréotype et l’exotisme, tous deux tributaires d’une vision de l’autre généralisante, superficielle et éphémère, nous intéressent dans la mesure où ils sont employés de façon auto-référentielle par ces auteurs d’origine haïtienne, qui mettent en scène des protagonistes noirs correspondant souvent au stéréotype du Noir hyper-sexuel, qui est pourtant issu de fantasmagories coloniales avilissantes. Dans le cadre de cette recherche, nous analysons les différentes postures de la sexualité masculine dans les œuvres susmentionnées afin d’y révéler un emploi varié des stéréotypes, tantôt reconduits, tantôt déplacés, voire rendus désuets ou incertains, grâce à diverses stratégies textuelles comme l’humour, l’ironie, l’exagération ou l’omission. Ce faisant, nous remarquons que l’usage complexe des stéréotypes, chez Depestre et Laferrière, quoi qu’il fasse appel aux mêmes tropes, dénote différents moyens de négocier avec sa propre « étrangeté ».
This thesis uses the concepts of stereotype (as theorized by Ruth Amossy, Jean-Louis Dufay and Mireille Rosello) and self-exoticism (defined by Nathalie Schon) to study the representations of the sexuality of the black man in Alléluia pour une femme-jardin from author René Depestre and La chair du maître from Dany Laferrière. Stereotype and exoticism are both dependent on a vision of the other that is generalizing, superficial and ephemeral. Here, they are used in a self-referential way by the authors of Haitian origin, which depict black protagonists often corresponding to the stereotype of black hyper-sexual male, which is derived from yet demeaning colonial fantasies. In this research, we analyze the different postures of male sexuality in the work of Depestre and Laferrière in order to reveal a varied use of stereotypes, sometimes renewed, sometimes displaced or rendered obsolete or uncertain, with various textual strategies such as humor, irony, exaggeration or omission. In doing so, we note that the complex use of stereotypes in Depestre and Laferrière texts, whatever it procedes by the use of the same tropes, denotes different ways for the characters to deal with their own "strangeness".

This thesis deals with the phenomenon of Carpathian Ruthenia, or Zakarpattia, which is one of the most discussed issues in Czech literature. It expands the traditional view of the issue with a chronological survey of works by Czech authors who were inspired by Carpathian Ruthenia, and maps their writings created from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. It focuses on their interpretation, with particular reference to the topology. The first chapter presents the terminological problems associated with the territory of the Transcarpathian region and briefly summarizes its history. The next chapter submits an account of the exceptional nature of this area (its contrasts, periphery, regionalism, myths, exoticism, idylls and adventures), and attempts to characterize its uniqueness (backwardness, belief in superstitions, Jews, alcoholism, poachers, enchanting countryside and outlaws). Carpathian Ruthenia appears to be a place of secrecy, where hypothetical characters grow. The topology of the mountain is also an important element. The following chapter, the longest, presents most of the works by the Czech authors who were inspired by this region. The first of these authors came to Carpathian Ruthenia during the 1920s as government workers or tourists. Their works are arranged...