Browsing by Author "Johnson, Sharon P."

Now showing 1 - 20 of 22
  • Academy of Teaching Excellence CTE/Wine/Alumni Award dossier workshop
    Johnson, Sharon P. (2021-10-26)
    Workshop that presents best practices for the candidate and preparer of the dossier
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    Afterword
    Johnson, Sharon P. (Virginia Tech Publishing, 2019-12-18)
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    Appréciation thermodynamique des Rougon-Macquart d'Émile Zola
    Mahan, James R. (Virginia Tech, 2024-08-13)
    In 1975 the eminent French philosopher and historian of science, Michel Serres, published Feux et signaux de brume: Zola, in which he postulates that the well-known Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola was an "epic of entropy." His seminal book stirred up interest in the Zola criticism community, with several literary scholars seeking to interpret the work of the founder of the naturalism movement in terms of thermodynamics. This thesis was partially informed by our reading of Serres' book, enlightened by our own expertise as an engineer specializing in the field of thermodynamics. We hypothesize that the difference between Zola's somber naturalism and the more optimistic literary realism movement from which it emerged in the latter half of the 19th century reflects the timely appearance and vulgarization of thermodynamic principles in the French popular press. We begin by presenting an overview of this then-new branch of science, whose foundations were established by Nicolas Sadi Carnot in 1824 and whose maturation was assured, principally by Rudolf Clausius, between 1850 and 1865. We then present the thermodynamic principles which we postulate arguably could have played a determinant role in the emergence of Zola's naturalism in 1870, as outlined in his Roman experimental (1880). Foremost among these is the celebrated Second Law and its distressing consequence to many, the inevitable entropy death of the universe. Having established the fundamental concepts of thermodynamics, we undertake an analysis of Serres' book aimed at exposing and critically commenting on the theoretical basis of his thermodynamic reading of Zola. We then follow the same approach in our analysis of several critical articles from the archival literature that owe their genesis to Serres' work. Finally, we undertake a close reading of three novels from the Rougon-Macquart series that we have either not considered elsewhere in the thesis or whose thermodynamic implications we have not yet exhausted: Nana, La Bête humaine, and L'Assommoir. According to the hypothesis of this thesis, Zola consistently followed the same disastrous paradigm, informed by thermodynamic principles, when he imagined the disastrous life trajectories of his principal characters. We have applied a version of this paradigm in interpreting our own close reading of a representative sample of works from the Rougon-Macquart series. Michel Serres sought to point out the obvious parallels that exist between the catastrophic nature of the series and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We wish to go a bit further in promoting the idea that the transformation of literary realism into Zola's brand of naturalism may have been prompted by the vulgarization of thermodynamics in the contemporary popular press. Lastly, the content of this master's thesis provides a new perspective to and vocabulary for naturalist criticism.
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    Consumption, Domesticity and the Female Body in Emile Zola’s Fiction [Book review]
    Johnson, Sharon P. (University of Nebraska, 2016-04-02)
    A book review of Hennessy, Susan S. Consumption, Domesticity and the Female Body in Emile Zola’s Fiction. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2015. Pp. 185. ISBN-13: 978-4955-0361-0
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    The Convent: A Place of Refuge in Les Misérables and Histoire de ma vie
    Fleming, Teresa Apple (Virginia Tech, 2020-04-10)
    In the nineteenth century, amidst the rise of anti-Catholicism in the Western world, narratives served as a persuasive medium to influence the reading public. Anti-clerical sentiment was conveyed in various forms of text, often depicting the Catholic convent as a place of sinister confinement. This thesis offers an alternative representation of the French nineteenth-century convent. Considering the prevailing social, economic, and political environment in France, along with the conception of social space, I argue that the convent represents a place of sanctuary and opportunity for some women and girls. Further, in view of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, I examine the representation of the convent as a place for rebirth. Likewise, in analyzing George Sand's autobiography Histoire de ma vie, I explore the representation of the convent as a haven for reviving creativity. Thus, by close reading and critical examination of these literary representations, I contend that the nineteenth-century convent can provide a place of refuge.
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    Engendered: An Artistic Treatise Against Gender
    Shepard, Kathryn Ann (Virginia Tech, 2016-07-06)
    As humans, we are enslaved by language. The kind of knowledge we hold is both created and limited by language. Gender is a category socially constructed in language that helps to determine our expression. Today, however, we are living in a world where the meaning of the words 'man' and 'woman' in our language are far more blurred than they used to be. Gender and sex are no longer considered binary structures by many and this presents interesting philosophical discussions. In fact one might even say there are 1,000's of tiny sexes (or genders) . So with the topic of gender (and sex) becoming a gray area what would a world completely devoid of gender terms look like? Are we constraining individuals by placing them within such a category as gender or are we taking something significant from them if we were to remove this label? Would we provide empowerment to oppressed genders by removing such labels or simply put them at further risk of domination by the oppressors? In this thesis I would like to argue that the removal of gender terms would create more accurate self-identity by allowing for a broader spectrum of diversity and, as a result, further equity. Due to the strong bond between language and culture, my theory is that by slowly tweaking our language over time, while intermediately allowing for the resulting cultural changes, until gender terms are removed from our everyday lives we could develop a culture that has no ability to discriminate between what we currently consider different genders.
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    Heroics and humanism: A study of intra-genre divergence within modern French fantasy literature
    Sielaff, Kevin Michael (Virginia Tech, 2022-06-17)
    This study explores the manner in which modern French fantasy novels have diverged from the Tolkienian, high-fantasy precedent established in the late 90s and the very early 2000s. From 2010–2020, authors Jean-Philippe Jaworski, Justine Niogret, Pierre Pevel, and Claire Duvivier have re-imagined the fantasy realm by deliberately working in opposition to the tropes of high-fantasy. The following work is split into two segments–the first of which analyzes how this high-fantasy divergence manifests within the evolved role of the hero, as it pertains to Jaworski, Pevel, and Niogret. The latter tackles the inverse, being the de-heroized, humanist approach of Duvivier that further depicts how the genre continues to evolve. Through a varying theoretical framework, this interdisciplinary work establishes that the following novels mutually support one another in an effort to diverge from the historic, high-fantasy precedent: Jaworski's Gagner la guerre (2009), Niogret's Chien du heaume (2010), Pevel's Le Chevalier (2015), Duvivier's Un long voyage (2020).
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    « L'illusion de l'amour n'est pas l'amour trouvé » : Camp and queer desire in Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, and Peau d'âne
    Finch, Frank Frederick (Virginia Tech, 2020-11-03)
    Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), and Peau d'âne (1970), though quite popular with the public at their time of release and continuing to leave an aesthetic stamp on contemporary cinema, have been received by some critics and viewers in general as pure contrivance with little edification. This thesis puts forward, however, that such interpretations of these Demy musicals as primarily saccharine, superficial, and light miss the elemental melancholy belied by the charming varnish. Here, the three are unified as a triptych that thematizes and aestheticizes lack and desire in ways that can speak directly to the queer viewer. This thesis first situates the films among criticism from the 1960s to the present, opening a discourse on the potential for diverse political and aesthetic readings of Demy's work that continues to the present queer reading. Through a method of narratological close reading, I unify the three films as a triptych, each a variation on themes of isolation, absence, and amorous lack. Jean-Pierre Berthomé's Jacques Demy et les raciness du rêve (1982) is a rich resource in presenting these three seemingly distinct films as a totality. Once justified for study as a triptych, my thesis presents a queer reading of the films' ostensibly heterosexual narrative structures. With the buttressing of the queer theory of Harold Beaver, Andrew Ross, and Michael Koresky, among others, this chapter demonstrates how the narratives of longing Demy crafts can speak to the queer viewer and transcend a heterosexual framework. Finally, my thesis moves beyond narrative to another continuity, the aesthetic of camp present throughout the triptych. Through an exploration of the interconnectivity of camp, gender performance, and seduction, drawing on scholars Susan Sontag, Judith Butler, and Jean Baudrillard, respectively, the aesthetic of Demy's triptych is situated in a queer sensibility. Catherine Deneuve, Demy's "princesse idéale," is read as the reification of this sensibility in her potent performance of gender at the confluence of masculine and feminine qualities, as well as the ideal tabula rasa onto which the queer viewer's desire and longing can be projected. Ultimately, the triptych's reconciliation of the visually confectionary and the narratively somber is celebrated, as it points to a victory over tragedy through affective agency.
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    L'impérialisme linguistique au Québec des années 1965-1975: Analyses littéraires de Speak White (Michèle Lalonde) et Salut, Galarneau! (Jacques Godbout)
    Melaku, Azeb (Virginia Tech, 2019-02-15)
    Dans la foulée de la Révolution tranquille qui démarre au début de 1960 et s’étend jusqu’à la fin des années 1970, le Québec connaît une période de secousses terribles liées à la demande d’un statut défini de la langue française et de l’identité des Québécois. Les francophones sont soumis à l’hégémonie anglo-saxonne, et la langue est le facteur qui décide leur statut économique. Les luttes linguistiques pour un statut équitable par rapports aux anglophones – luttes qui se sont poursuivies pendant les siècles précédents -- s’intensifient surtout dans la décennie de 1965-1975. C’est l’époque où, au Québec, l’enjeu linguistique devint la plus grande préoccupation des gouvernements (fédéral et provincial), conséquemment entraîna la promulgation de nombreuses lois diverses. La période est aussi marquée par la prise de parole des élites comme Jacques Godbout et Michèle Lalonde. La présente thèse fait une analyse littéraire de leurs œuvres -- respectivement, Salut Galarneau ! et Speak White. Toutes deux ressortent comme l’expression du Québécois ordinaire contre l’hégémonie anglo-saxonne et anglo-américaine qu’il a subie dans les domaines socioculturel, économique, politique mais en particulier, linguistique. Aussi, dans le climat tendu de la fin des années 1960 par les revendications profondes, ces deux œuvres sonnent comme un réveil fort aux oreilles du Québécois : l’état de sa langue est en grand danger et ainsi son identité, sa survivance!
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    La Loi, les narrations juridiques et la Violence : Le Procès du Prêtre Contrafatto
    Johnson, Sharon P. (2021-06-01)
    Law through narrative seeks to maintain a world of right and wrong, of lawful and unlawful of valid and void. Violence in the case of Contrafatto represents not only the violent acts he committed, but the ramifications of legal acts: interpretations in law constitute justifications for violence which has already occurred or which is about to occur. Contrafatto’s crime and 1827 trial underscore these concomitant themes. This paper analyzes the rhetorical strategies used by the prosecution and the defense. For the prosecution, the 5-year old Hortense LeBon’s painful, “naïve” account respire la vérité in all of its “sincerity.” Her attorney argues that she is a victim of des attentes à la pudeur avec violence, having suffered physical violence and “de la violence morale.” The King’s attorney adeptly introduces the idea that a lack of consent represents violence, intertwining law with morality. These positions challenge the traditional interpretations of the Penal Code’s Articles 331 and 332 on rape. Law restores order through narrative. The prosecution questioned a narrow judicial understanding of how Article 332 defined violence on a child younger than 13. This is a perfect example of moral and legal innovation that Robert Cover advances in Justice Accused. Hence, the law did not inflict additional violence to Hortense le Bon by exculpating her rapist. Contrafatto was found guilty of rape and sentenced to a life of hard labor (Travaux à Perpétuité), a justified end to his freedom.
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    Le Code en toutes lettres: Écritures et réécritures du Code Civil au XIXe siècle [Book review]
    Johnson, Sharon P. (American Association of Teachers of French, 2021)
    A book review of MAS, MARION et FRANÇOIS KERLOUÉGAN, éd. Le Code en toutes lettres: Écritures et réécritures du Code Civil au XIXe siècle. Classiques Garnier, 2020. ISBN 978-2-406-10046-1. Pp. 309.
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    Legacies of the Rue Morgue: Science, Space, and Crime Fiction in France [Book review]
    Johnson, Sharon P. (2016-10-01)
    A book review of Andrea Goulet, Legacies of the Rue Morgue: Science, Space, and Crime Fiction in France. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. viii + 295 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $65.00 U.S. (cl). ISBN 978-0-8122-4779-4.
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    Living and Learning Abroad
    Fralin, Scott; Wemhoener, Jane; Johnson, Sharon P.; Beamish, Julia O.; Goss, Rosemary Carucci; Sguerri, Michael; Kumazawa, Yasuko; Efird, Robert; Nassereddine, Ragheda; Hesp, Annie; López-Romero, Nancy; Quesenberry, Brandi; Woolly, Jared (Virginia Tech, 2018-09-24)
    Exhibit highlighting the experiences of students from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences who participated in study abroad programs, featuring quotes and testimonials from the students, photos, and select artifacts. More than 300 students in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences traveled abroad last year – the largest number of any college at Virginia Tech. They participated in faculty-led trips, enrolled in international programs, studied at partner universities, completed internships, and engaged in undergraduate research. This exhibit shares some of their experiences. 2018/09/24 - 2018/12/21
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    L’Affaire Contrafatto: Law and Narrative
    Johnson, Sharon P. (2021)
    On October 15 1827, a 28-year old priest, Joseph Contrafatto, was sentenced for raping five-year old Hortense Le Bon. My article analyses the trial of this cause célèbre, especially the rhetorical strategies used by the prosecution and defense. This is the first study that interprets Contrafatto’s 58-page trial within Robert Cover’s legal framework. Applying Cover’s analyses of “innovative legal arguments” to the Contrafatto case illuminates how the prosecution’s closing arguments were the precursor to new legal definitions of especially article 332 of the Code Pénal. Moreover, omissions and unclear language in the Code contributed to judges and lawyers’ ability to modify rape penal code over time. French jurisprudence would come to include la violence morale (a type of coercion or abuse of an individual’s trust or naivety) and the requirement of consent as constitutive parts of the rape statues concerning children and adults in 1857. This paper considers how narrative shapes law to reflect social mores. For Cover, when a dynamic model of law and judicial processes occur, legal statutes are not static; they are always “becoming” (6). Contrafatto’s trial, analyzed within the context of 19th-century rape penal law, laid the foundation for the evolution of France’s 1810 Penal Code as differing interpretations and social understandings of rape entered into French jurisprudence throughout the century.
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    Making the American Aristocracy: Women, Cultural Capital, and High Society in New York City, 1870-1900
    Bibby, Emily Katherine (Virginia Tech, 2009-06-10)
    For over three decades, during the height of Gilded Age economic extravagance, the women of New York High Society maintained an elite social identity by possessing, displaying, and cultivating cultural capital. Particularly, High Society women sought to exclude the Nouveaux Riches who, after amassing vast fortunes in industry or trade, came to New York City in search of social position. High Society women distinguished themselves from these social climbers by obeying restrictive codes of speech, body language, and dress that were the manifestations of their cultural capital. However, in a country founded upon an ethos of egalitarianism, exclusivity could not be maintained for long. Mass-circulated media, visual artwork, and etiquette manuals celebrated the Society woman's cultural capital, but simultaneously popularized it, making it accessible to the upwardly mobile. By imitating the representations of High Society life that they saw in newspapers, magazines, and the sketches of Charles Dana Gibson, Nouveau Riche social climbers and even aspirant middle and working class women bridged many of the barriers that Society women sought to impose.
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    The Medical Gaze of Rape: Pedagogy, Power, and Blindness
    Johnson, Sharon P. (2021-10-30)
    Luce Irigaray asks in Speculum de l’autre femme “What if the ‘object’ started to speak? Which also means beginning to ‘see,’ etc. What disaggregation of the subject would that entail?” (135). Irigaray’s question elucidates the theoretical framework of this paper when analyzing eight medical reports (1836-1893) that represent an essential, unstudied source for documenting the crime of rape as they furnish important definitions and statistics about viol, attentats à la pudeur or attentats aux moeurs. In his Human Remains, Jonathan Strauss demonstrates that from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries, medicine gained unprecedented credibility as a discipline. It redefined and asserted its legitimacy in respect to other institutions, notably the courts and the church, while its theories and approaches gained a broader truth-value, extending their reach beyond the domain of health to issues of fundamental social interest (6). Those reports’ facts and narrativization contributed to an already booming field accumulating data on other crimes and criminal acts. Moreover, those reports pedagogically (in)formed contemporary and future practicing doctors with a protocol for reading and presenting evidence of violated bodies to magistrates and presiding judges who determined whether a rape had occurred or not. While analyzing the efforts to narrate rape what remains absent are the patients’ voices and points of view. What if the object began to speak? Certainly, she would articulate a resistance to the method, the medicalization of her body and the practice’s blindness to women’s truths about the violence they have lived.
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    Models and Their Artists: The Dichotomous Representation of Women in The Unknown Masterpiece, Manette Salomon and The Masterpiece
    Donaldson, Sharon Olivia (Virginia Tech, 2000-05-09)
    This thesis proposes to analyze the dichotomous representation of the female model as benevolent and malevolent in three 19th-century French novels. Honoré de Balzac's The Unknown Masterpiece (1834), Jules and Edmond de Goncourt's Manette Salomon (1867), and Émile Zola's The Masterpiece (1886) are all novels set in artist's workshops and all portray the female model as playing an essential role in determining the success, then demise of the male painter. My study of these texts will therefore focus on the juxtaposed presentations of the female models in terms of their relationships to the male artists. It will reveal how as the artists succeed in transforming their models' bodies into aesthetic nudes and containing these representations within the parameters of their canvases as a means of asserting their authority, the models are positively portrayed. On the contrary, when the artists fail to transform and contain their models' bodies, these female characters are negatively depicted as being the source of the painters' ruin. By examining this dichotomous representation of the female models, I will reveal the complex means by which the patriarchal order within the texts oppresses the female characters.
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    Models of Utopia: Representations of Nineteenth-Century Paris
    Stone, Shiloh Joseph (Virginia Tech, 2013-12-19)
    In the texts analyzed in this thesis, nineteenth-century Paris illustrates the utopian principles formulated by Karl Mannheim whose conceptualizations concern the social and moral order that makes up human existence. His utopia is characterized by human thoughts, behaviors, and actions. In our analysis of the works by Charles Fourier, Victor Hugo, and Emile Zola, common themes emerge as each writer undertakes the task of representing the past, present, and future Paris. They describe ideas of poverty, sickness, and revolution as well as the importance of education, progress, and moral order. The most telling conclusion of utopia unveiled in the thesis is that each writer also depicts his vision of Paris with a specific and unique designation. For Fourier, a utopian Paris is described as Harmony. A harmonious state of being represents a society built on agreement, cooperation, and order. Hugo's representation of Paris comes under the epithet of Humanity and Fraternity. Hugo believes that Paris held the key to unlocking a society built on benevolence, cooperation, and camaraderie. Zola designates Paris as Modernity. For Zola, modernity creates a paradox of utopia/dystopia and order/disorder. However, Paris offers the hope of a ville beatitude wherein the well-being of all the families would be of highest priority to create happiness, security, and order. Though each writer had a different idealization of Paris, the analysis of utopian mentalities foregrounds their outlook on not only the city-space but of humanity which held much promise for harmony, happiness, and order in a future "utopian" state.
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    The Representation of Jewelry in 19th-Century French Literature
    Capone, Caitlin Chew (Virginia Tech, 2023-06-01)
    Often overlooked, yet still a significant and visible social code, jewelry and its symbolic power are barely analyzed in literary criticism. In this thesis, by tracing jewelry's various functions and representations throughout the 19th century, one discovers its ability to also blur and reinforce boundaries that so typifies the tensions and redefinitions happening throughout this era. With the rise of the bourgeoisie and industrial production, jewelry became more available to the masses than it ever had before. Its transformation occurred alongside the newfound desire for women to be seen, perhaps as a direct result of patriarchal society's attempt to relegate them to the private sphere where they were to carry out their domestic duties. For women, the beginning of the century marked itself as an "[époque] stricte, corsetée, guindée et protégée," the fin-de-siècle was an era that promoted the sensual liberation for women whose existence had been relegated to the private sphere to perform only domestic duties (Coupeau 85). Thus, by tracing jewelry's representation in the 19th century, I unveil how women broke through social restrictions by transforming their literal chains of submission and esclavage into pieces of adornment that brandished their desire to be seen, to be liberated, to be desired.