The search for individual identity in the works of eugene lonesco

The thesis aims to demonstrate that the search for individual identity is fundamental to lonesco's work, affecting every aspect of his artistic creation. The crisis of identity, lonesco suggests, stems from early childhood when the individual experiences a separation from himself, from his surroundings, and from others. Thereafter, two states of being divide all existence: joy, wonder, and a firm awareness of being alternating with moods of anguish and estrangement from the self. This inner tension provokes the individual to seek a more secure sense of identity. The theme of the search runs throughout lonesco's theatre, portrayed as an allegorical search for another world or as an attempt to penetrate the depths of the consciousness through dreams or a return to childhood. These searches fail, for the key to the self lies not in escape or a change of material circumstances, but in the painful struggle to maintain one's lucidity and integrity against the forces that oppose individuality. Chapters four to nine examine these forces: the hostility of the material world, the threat of death, the attempts of the family and of society to force conformity to social norms, the more deliberate attempt of politicians to limit individual freedom, and finally the breakdown of communication through the distortion of language into clichés and slogans. Artistic creation is a means of counterbalancing these pressures by exposing the dangers of a mechanical existence and reaffirming the potentials of the individual. Lonesco proposes no final solutions because they would falsify the living, dynamic nature of identity which must constantly be approached afresh by the continual questioning that is fundamental to life and art. Moreover, it is not the solution that is important but the depth and sincerity of the search which lonesco's work challenges each individual to undertake by himself in total freedom

The learning of English by bilingual speakers of ciluba and French in zaire: problems and solutions

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the teaching of English as a foreign language in Zaire in general and Eastern Kasai in particular. For it is evident from personal experience and evidence from examination results that this learning is in general not satisfactory, and particularly poor as far as learners' mastery of oral fluency is concerned. The aim of the thesis is therefore to analyze the learning situation in order to clarify the factors which might be causing this unsatisfactory situation. We take two approaches to this analysis: a theoretical review of the situation and an empirical study of teaching and learning. The thesis thus falls into four parts. In Part One, we describe the learners’ historical and sociolinguistic background and the Zairean educational situation in general and the problems of teaching English in particular. In Part Two, we review the situation in Zaire -and in Eastern Kasai in particular- by an analysis of the literature on language learning and the insights it can give us into the Zairean problem. This review deals first with issues in foreign language teaching. It also focusses however on literature on bilingualism since Zairean learners are always bilingual in, at least, one local language and the French they learn on entry to the education system. Intuitively, we might assume that bilingual learners will be at an advantage in learning a foreign language, and Zairean learners should therefore be in a good position to learn English. Our review of the relevant literature examines the objective evidence for this intuitive assumption and suggests that, other things being equal, bilingual individuals should be good learners of foreign languages. We conclude therefore that other factors in the situation may be responsible for the unsatisfactory standards. Part Three is an analysis of some of those factors, based on an empirical investigation. It is at this point that the thesis focusses more precisely on Eastern Kasai where fieldwork was carried out. Pupils and students, teachers, and inspectors and administrators were given questionnaires and interviews, and lessons were observed in four secondary schools. Many factors were found to be causing problems in EFL learning. Part Four deals with the most important of these factors and their implications, our recommendations for future practice and further research, and the conclusion., The following factors were identified as having a detrimental effect on this learning: learners' lack of motivation to go on/ perseverance, which is caused by the overemphasis teaching methods put on accuracy. This in turn means that every thing done or said in lessons is teacher-centred and teacher-dominated, and this contributes to a reduction in the already scarce opportunities and frequencies of use of English by the learners. We therefore recommend that, to increase learners' motivation to learn (to speak) English, teaching methods and teachers should allow them much more freedom of speech, thus stressing (oral) fluency. This will result in these learners opening up, and in methods becoming more learner-oriented, with the ultimate aim of having them learner-centred. In our conclusion, we give a summary of the thesis, namely its purpose, the way we followed to reach it, the results we got, and our recommendations for future practice and research

Politiques des architectures numériques. Cheminements ethnographiques dans la conception d'alternatives à la centralisation des données

La thèse porte sur les architectures des systèmes et plateformes numériques dont elle s’attache à montrer la portée politique. Elle s'appuie sur un travail de terrain d'un an et demi dans le secteur agricole suisse, où deux projets de plateformes numériques sectorielles pour la gestion des données, l'une centralisée et l'autre distribuée, se sont opposés. Elle comprend cinq articles. Le 1er présente la démarche d’enquête, celle d'un discours non pas sur, mais avec les acteurs de terrain, dont l'ambition est de contribuer à la critique du discours des sciences sociales. Les articles 2 à 4 décrivent l'argument principal de la thèse. Les architectures des systèmes numériques sont politiques parce qu'elles incarnent des structures de gouvernance (article 2). Les architectures sont également politiques dans le sens où elles peuvent être utilisées pour favoriser ou prévenir des asymétries dans les relations de dépendance entre les acteurs appelés à utiliser ces systèmes (article 3). Enfin, elles sont politiques dans le sens où elles peuvent perturber les pratiques associées aux données des acteurs, jusqu'à menacer leur autonomie (article 4). Le 5ème et dernier article revient sur la notion d'architecture numérique et montre la portée d'une perspective processuelle sur celle-ci. L'originalité des contributions de la thèse réside dans cette perspective processuelle et sectorielle des architectures numériques. Elle ouvre sur un questionnement d'actualité sur le rôle des plateformes, et en particulier des plateformes alternatives, c'est-à-dire ne reposant ni sur la centralisation ni sur la standardisation des données, pour la constitution d'infrastructures informationnelles. -- The thesis focuses on the architectures of digital systems and platforms and explores their political significance. It is based on a year and a half of fieldwork in the Swiss agricultural sector, where two sectoral digital platform projects for data management, one centralised and the other distributed, were opposed. It consists of five articles. The first presents the research approach: a discourse not on, but with the actors in the field, whose ambition is to contribute to the critique of the social science discourse. Articles 2 to 4 describe the main argument of the thesis. The architectures of digital systems are political because they embody structures of governance (article 2). Architectures are also political in the sense that they can be used to promote or prevent asymmetries in the dependency relations between the actors called upon to use these systems (article 3). Finally, they are political in the sense that they can disrupt the practices associated with data of actors, to the point of threatening the latter’s autonomy (article 4). The fifth and last article returns to the notion of digital architecture and discusses the scope of its processual perspective. The originality of the contributions of the thesis lies in this processual and sectoral perspective of digital architectures. It opens up a questioning of the role of platforms for the constitution of information infrastructures, and in particular of alternative platforms, i.e., those that do not rely on the centralisation or the standardisation of data

Personality organization diagnostic form (PODF) : étude d'entente interjuges, d'équivalence et de validité

Cette étude présente les premiers tests empiriques auxquels a été soumis le Personality Organization Diagnostic Form (PODF; Diguer et Normandin, 1996), un instrument développé à partir du modèle théorique de la personnalité de Kernberg (1995). Elle est divisée en quatre parties: l'évaluation de l'entente interjuges de deux types de matériel clinique (condition dossier et condition vidéo), l'équivalence entre ces deux conditions et la validité de construit du PODF. Cent quarante-deux sujets adultes provenant de divers milieux cliniques ont été recrutés. La condition dossier est constituée de matériel d'évaluation (SCID-I, SCID-II, récits, données démographiques) et la condition vidéo est faite d'entrevues non-structurées. Les résultats montrent qu'il est possible de s'entendre sur le diagnostic structural de personnalité, d'utiliser le PODF à partir de différents matériels cliniques et que les variables du PODF tendent à se regrouper selon les structures de personnalité du modèle de Kernberg (1995)

Away from end product or genre: a protocol as artistic language: evolving a critical framework for contemporary visual art practice in the public (or social) realm, 2000-2003.

For contemporary visual art to be visible and exist as art in peer networks it usually depends upon its transformation into objects. Can we define and test out an alternative visibility more adequate to a production that is 'an act of supplying'? I propose a method to help us understand the artwork, not as a one-off object, but as 'an experience of supply', through the construction of a specific artistic protocol. Process based works "in socius" do not exist beyond the moment of the experience and are currently diffused, shoe-horned into classic representation (exhibition of traces, documentation of the experience). This research proposes to consider the reciprocal engagement, between artist and people, as a two-way creative exchange. Here, the 'code of conduct' proposed is not a checklist for peers but offers new points of learning about process-based works, to understand the ethical relationship enabling discursive artwork to be presented at its moment of presentation. The term 'provision' expresses an attitude and a production. It connects with my own practice Vernacular (1999-2005, site-specific projects in Europe) and those of other selected artists. These reflect my emergent understanding of 'provision' as a 'code of conduct' to make art, in tandem with a literature review, and cross-referenced through questionnaires (involving artists, writers, curators, and key stakeholders in the projects) and an e-mail correspondence with an artists' project 'Building Underwood'. This research strengthens three aspects of the same phenomenon, 'service', 'provision' and 'protocol', enabling other practitioners to explore and sustain critical practice in the social realm. Although saturated in commercial meanings and having no resonance to peers or collaborators, the notion of 'provision' benefits the practice by making visible the discursive action and inhabits a mode of diffusion at the heart of the experience rather than in an object or in postproduction

Recherche ethnographique sur le Design-Based-Learning (DBL) : le processus de design comme stratégie d'enseignement et d'apprentissage et comme stimulant à la pensée critique, à la résolution de problèmes et au transfert de connaissance

This research presents the teaching methodology called Design-Based-Learning (DBL) and identifies what differentiates it from the traditional methods used in art and design education. This research aims to better understand the contribution of design to education not only as a discipline, but as a strategy for getting the learner to think about his/her environment, about his/her actions and their impact on the environment. This research gives a nuanced description of the dialogue taking place between teacher and learner (any levels, any disciplines or between disciplines). The DBL approach contributes to increasing the learning perspective of students by proposing an active engagement with problems posed and solutions found. DBL offers a dramatic change in teaching approaches by proposing that learners be inventive and in terms of blooms taxonomy, that they operate at the highest levels of the taxonomy. The study reveals that a majority of participants see in the DBL approach a tool that stimulates creativity and that favors critical thinking and problem solving skills. The results show that DBL increases the transfer of learning and the retention of knowledge within a given pedagogical environment. This transfer is facilitated by the development of concrete links between daily life activities of the students and their experiences of creation-invention in class. DBL reinforces the critical spirit, the observational, and problem solving capacity of students through creative stimulation and active engagement with uniquely formulated problems. The DBL approach combines five teaching methodologies that enable students to be actively engaged and responsible of their learning process. The study shows that DBL applied to art and design education favors interdisciplinarity. The transfer of knowledge, and as such constitute an important new pedagogical model. The majority of DBL teachers interviewed in this study insisted that the benefits of the approach outweigh its liabilities. Meredith Davis from North Carolina University is among the several design educators and researchers who support the DBL methodology. This research presentation will conclude with recommendations and suggestions for a future path for research in design education pedagogy. Keys words: apprentissage par l'expérience, résolution de problèmes, enseignement des arts et du design, taxonomie de Bloom, processus de design