Defence of thesis of Agnes Vannouvong

Composition of the jury:

Mr François Noudelmann, reader (University Paris 8)
Mr Albert Dichy (Directing arts person, IMEC)
Mrs Evelyne Grossman (University Paris 7)
Mrs Mairéad Hanrahan (University London College)
Mr Robert Harvey (State University off New York, Stony Brook)


SUMMARY:

“Jean Genet or reverses of the kind”
(Esthetics of the kind and setting in scene of the identity in the theatre of Jean Genet)
Reverse, towards, through. Borders, interval, variations. As many terms which state the instability of the postures and the representations that Jean Genet fictionnalise. In its work, bottom côtoie the top, the masculine is incorporated in female and conversely, back rubs at the place, the monk attends the sexual one. Our thesis, entitled “Jean Genet or the reverses of the kind”, examines how the author puts in scene poetic ambiguity through a sexual polymorphism. The starting point of this research shows, in the plan of the representation, how the playwright, through disguised figures and androgynes, produced play and identity variation in its construction of the sexuée image. The selected step falls under an approach deconstructionnist which makes it possible to establish a critic of the paradigmatic system of the standards. In the first part, the image and the play on visual material occupy a central place. The second part shows how the theatrical device is built on a model of monitoring which questions the statute of the spectator. The third part, centered on a writing of the transgression and evil, specifies the features of one
polysexuée esthetics which exhibe the circulation of the sexual, social and imaginary identities, by faking the images and by trapping the visual identification. Lastly, the fourth part considers the way in which Genet leaves the play and draft poetic and a policy of the identities and kind as a sociocultural construction. The author collects the metamorphic character of the identity, fact and demolishes the kinds, thus putting at the day the racking of the subject. This work, unclassable, disturbs because she speaks about human, of the fluence of the identities which destabilizes the reference marks, of the instinctual energy which is incarnated in an object of desire which can be female, male or concerning a third kind.