Reinventing community: Collective identity and cultural difference in recent theory and literature in French

This thesis examines representations of 'community' in recent critical theory and literature in French. I argue that the theoretical discourses that emerged through the eighties and nineties affirming the extinction of community need to be rethought. Derrida, Lyotard and Nancy have all suggested that the notion of the 'in-common' be replaced with attention to radically diverse and dissimilar beings, arguing that consensus is usually both dangerous and illusory. However, while these conclusions serve to a certain extent to rescue particular cultural perspectives from appropriation by assimilative discourses, the emphasis on intractable difference also risks perpetuating fragmentation and marginalisation. By juxtaposing theory with socio-political debates on multiculturalism in France, I demonstrate how a conception of the coexistence of cultural specificity with various forms of dialogue constitutes a more accurate depiction of actual community formations, as well as providing a more effective means to counteract prejudice. I then use Nancy's more recent work to show how singular beings continually converge and diverge within a wider interactive network. The rest of the thesis explores the complex mediations between singularity and collectivity represented in a range of texts written in French. The intersection of diverse cultural positions is enacted in representations of bilingualism and multilingualism; Khatibi and Glissant, for example, evoke the ways in which any language or idiom is unsettlingly shot through with traces of other dialects. Furthermore, literary works discussing North African immigrant communities testify to a shift from a reflection on cultural frontiers to a more unstable movement between particularity and relationality. While 'first-generation' authors reflect the emphasis on difference proposed in the work of Derrida and Lyotard, Sebbar and various Beur writers hover more uncertainly between exile and cultural or linguistic dialogue. These analyses convey the slippery relation between singularity and collectivity, problematising fixed models and blurring conventional cultural dichotomies. Fictional representation is shown to function as a locus where categories of 'identity' and 'difference' can be undermined, since its ludic and subjective form escapes the identification of any exemplary cultural position

Free electron lasers for transmission of energy in space

A one-dimensional resonant-particle model of a free electron laser (FEL) is used to calculate laser gain and conversion efficiency of electron energy to photon energy. The optical beam profile for a resonant optical cavity is included in the model as an axial variation of laser intensity. The electron beam profile is matched to the optical beam profile and modeled as an axial variation of current density. Effective energy spread due to beam emittance is included. Accelerators appropriate for a space-based FEL oscillator are reviewed. Constraints on the concentric optical resonator and on systems required for space operation are described. An example is given of a space-based FEL that would produce 1.7 MW of average output power at 0.5 micrometer wavelength with over 50% conversion efficiency of electrical energy to laser energy. It would utilize a 10 m-long amplifier centered in a 200 m-long optical cavity. A 3-amp, 65 meV electrostatic accelerator would provide the electron beam and recover the beam after it passes through the amplifier. Three to five shuttle flights would be needed to place the laser in orbit

“Le silence de l’écriture”. Arabic and its Absence in the Works of Assia Djebar and Leïla Sebbar

Dans cet article nous explorons le malaise d’Assia Djebar et de Leïla devant la représentation de la langue arabe dans leurs textes francophones. Malgré les commentaires de Djebar sur les inflexions multilingues de son écriture, et malgré les évocations de l’hybridité culturelle et du métissage dans beaucoup d’oeuvres fictionnelles de Sebbar, les deux écrivains continuent à évoquer l’écartèlement entre les langues, l’impossibilité de la traduction, et le silence de la langue arabe dans une écriture construite sur la rupture linguistique. Notre recherche sur le tiraillement entre le français et l’arabe, et l’aliénation de ces écrivains par rapport aux langues de leur terre natale entend mettre en question le triomphalisme prématuré de la rhétorique des théories récentes de la transculturation, de l’hybridisation et de la littérature-monde : cherchant de façon salutaire à dépasser les frontières linguistiques et culturelles, elles occultent le conflit linguistique et l’exil qu’il continue d’engendre

‘Now that I am connected this isn't social isolation, this is engaging with people’: Staying connected during the COVID‐19 pandemic

BackgroundThe COVID-19 global pandemic has put adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities at greater risk of being socially excluded due to physical distancing. Technology has been looked at as a tool for adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities to stay connected, however, little is known about this topic. The purpose of this study was to explore how a grassroots disability organisation used technology to help adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities feel socially connected during the pandemic.MethodsData were collected through questionnaires, attendance records, and field notes; and analysed through trend and thematic analysis.FindingsFour main themes emerged from the data: active leadership, mental wellbeing, technology/digital inclusion, and safety.ConclusionThese findings suggest that when participants overcome technological barriers they found it easy to socially connect online during lockdown