Volume 12, numéro 1, 2016
Simon Laflamme
“Foreword to the subject of death” (p. 15-17)
David Le Breton
“Dying in glory: school shootings” (p. 19-39)
Abstract: The school shootings are committed by teenagers in a school. They are planned and staged always carefully to provoke the fame of the killer via videos or statements on the Internet. They give themselves as morbid shows which instigate the curiosity and feed the fame of the killers.
Key-words: school shooting, mass murder, adolescence, teen agers, school, death, Internet
Maud Desmet
“Those Deaths That Are Never Forgotten: Return and Survival in Contemporary Television Series” (p. 41-72)
Abstract: Among the various recurring figures representing death in television series, a particularly troubling one is the one of a dead person refusing to die completely: the revenant. It may be described as the figure of the staging of death on screen, because it shares with the serialised-series form some persistent qualities postponing and denying the end. Banality of the medium and banality of the figure also meet: the revenant is indeed the figure of a “dead person who returns” the most detached from any otherness. It is neither a zombie, nor a spectre, only a dead person refusing to physically disappear, and who looks like a living person. This specific staging of death, in which the revenant is placed, makes it possible for a fictional reunion of the dead and the living, thus probably questioning more accurately, and expressing with all the complexity it requires, our real relationship with the dead.
Key-words: staging of death, revenant, television series, Middle Ages, appearance, amended stories, unmotivated return, individualisation and medicalisation of death
Luc Bussières
“Anticipation in Funeral Organization in Northeastern Ontario” (p. 73-110)
Abstract: This article presents the results of an empirical investigation into the phenomenon of preplanning funerals in the West. How does the fact that people who, during their lifetime, become clients of funeral homes can potentially change the course of history for the upcoming funeral rituals? Relying on more than 1500 preplanned contracts not yet executed for which we had access through six funeral homes in Northeastern Ontario (Canada), we look at who are the customers of these funeral homes then distinguish eight funeral preset options offered to the customer. We then observe the main trends of these options, as well as the variables that influence these choices. We then put these results in conjunction with the issues raised in prior research, questions that engage thanatology.
Key-words: funeral rites, prearranging funerals, direct disposition, funeral home, death, thanatology, postmodernity
Dominique Trouche
“The Form of the Monumental: Usage and Circulation in the Representation of the Second World War Deaths” (p. 111-132)
Abstract: The article analyzes the hypothesis of a transformation by circulating the form of monumental rather than his disappearance from a corpus of war memorials from World War II. If the monument is associated with the size, the strength, the imposing, we show that from the second half of the twentieth century, these features are still present despite being profoundly transformed. Four aspects are identified that often work in conjunction, through representation, in collective deaths due to wars: the passage of verticality to horizontality, burst fractures break from the monumental mass, the false disappearance of the monumental by his confinement underground and finally, the imaged projection of monumental.
Key-words: monumental, war memorials, collective deaths, World War II, shape, circulation
Gilles Ernst
“Representation and Transposition of the Christian Beyond in Hubert Aquin’s writing” (p. 133-155)
Abstract: This article analyses the representation of the Christian and more specifically of the Catholic hereafter in three of Hubert Aquin’s major books: The Invention of Death, Blackout and Next Episode. This representation, nourished by a solid religious culture (Bible, dogma, liturgy) of a writer who was notably a student of the Jesuits, is not true to his roots. On the contrary, reverting to counter-eschatology, it systematically contradicts the discourse of the Church. Two methods are used: pure and simple rejection of the main dogmas or of Biblical events often presented in a blasphemous manner; the misappropriation of the major symbols connected to the figure of Christ in the Bible (the Transfiguration) and to the liturgy (the Transubstantiation). In The Invention of Death where the hero dies theatrically by suicide and where the death of Christ is presented as a suicide, the author uses the two methods, whereas in the other two books, centered around the independent movement from Quebec, to which Aquin belonged, favour a major event in the Passion of Christ. He actually choses His descent into « hell » to free the souls of the Just, an event which becomes for Aquin the symbol of Quebec waiting its freedom.
Key-words: eschatology, Bible, Christ, death, dogma, Catholicism, suicide, Quebec, resurrection, « hell ».
Luce Des Aulniers
“ ‘Poetry of Things Subject not to Last Longer’: Antipodes to Contemporary Death?” (p. 157-185)
Abstract: The staging of death originally based on the symbolic mastery of an “odd” event that happens on its own terms. Through the exploration of the “retaining” theme, this control is examined under three of its evolutionary meanings which can nevertheless be experienced in contemporaneity : 1) emotional ambivalence ritually recognized face up the human personification of death ; 2) the phenomenon of discreet “mourning”, if in excess private form, would contribute to the vagaries of unbridled emotion, through various movements such media coverage of famous people and show the layout of violent death, which are not without effect on the modalities of dying process and currently rituals ; 3) in the name of the distinction of the individual, technological mastery of the image that engages in the “retention” of the death, from three examples. Thus, slides in turns, death increases in “style”. But the question lies in what it loses more or less of its “autonomy”, being subject to defensive methods that would make it acceptable, if not pleasant.
Key-words: emotional restraint, symbolic control, show culture, technical control, death as if life
Off Topic
Sophie Fierdepied, Gesine Sturm and Thierry Baubet
“Life Narrative and Social Precariousness Experience: Example of a Research in Psychology Supported by Qualitative Data Program” (p. 189-219)
Abstract: In this article, we describe the design of a qualitative research in psychology about the psychological dimension of social insecurity, exclusion and extreme poverty.
Our methodological choices include a conceptualizing approach in the tradition of the grounded theory, a phenomenological reading of the narratives and the use of a clinical reading. The interviews for this research were made with the help of a guide which uses the OPD-2 (Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis-2), a multi-model and multi-axis tool developed in psychoanalytic research. We use triangulation by referring to multiple theoretical (psychoanalytical, philosophical or sociological) and methodological perspectives (grounded theory, phenomenology, use of the OPD-2).
The use of the qualitative data processing software NVivo has facilitated the work with this complex methodological approach. NVivo helps to organize data but also facilitates the creation of categories. The latter are written by the researcher while using a comparative approach and a constant confrontation of data with emerging ideas, theoretical references by the use of memos. After a short description of the results of our research, we discuss benefits and limits of the NVivo software in this research, will be discussed.
Key-words: CAQDAS (Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Systems), grounded theory, OPD-2, complementarism, social precarious
Philippe Gambette and Nadège Lechevrel
“A Textometrical Approach to Study the Transmission of Biological Knowledge in the XIXth Century” (p. 221-253)
Abstract: This article addresses the issue of the relationship between qualitative and quantitative analysis (i.e. computerized analysis of textual data) through experiments (and their results) conducted in a research project focusing on the impact of biological knowledge on French literary work in the XIXth century (Biolographes: http://biolog.hypotheses.org). The first part sets out the practical aspects of digital corpora, from access to the texts, to their transformation by OCR, to the storage of their metadata. The second and third parts illustrate how textometrical tools and visualizations (TXM, TreeCloud) serve as a point d’appui to many working hypotheses. In conclusion, the article emphasizes the role played by NLP in computerized tools for literary analysis.
Key-words: computer analysis, textual data, literary work, biological knowledge, corpora, metadata, textometry, visualization, NLP