Romance Languages and Literatures electronic theses and dissertations (MU)
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The items in this collection are the theses and dissertations written by students of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Some items may be viewed only by members of the University of Missouri System and/or University of Missouri-Columbia. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
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Item La négritude : des racines historiques aux manifestations textuelles(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2025) Bozo, Raoul Alfred; Muratore, Mary Jo[EMBARGOED UNTIL 05/01/2026] Notre analyse vise à explorer les racines, les manifestations profondes et les principes fondamentaux du mouvement articulés par ses figures emblématiques, tant connues (Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, et Léon-Gontran Damas) que parfois marginalisées ou oubliées (les soeurs Paulette et Jeanne Nardal, ainsi que Suzanne Césaire). En essayant d'identifier les antécédents de la négritude, nous dirons que les forces inspiratrices du mouvement trouvent leurs origines lointaines dans des mouvements historiques et intellectuels majeurs tels que la Révolution Haïtienne (1791-1804), la Harlem Renaissance afro-américaine (1920-1929), et le Surréalisme (1924-1966). Notre discussion sera également éclairée par la critique postcoloniale associée à l'écocritique, une théorie critique qui fusionne les domaines des études postcoloniales et de l'écocritique. Cette approche met l'accent sur l'intersection entre la dégradation environnementale et le colonialisme, notamment sur la manière dont l'héritage colonial a façonné à la fois l'exploitation des ressources naturelles et l'oppression des cultures autochtones. Après une analyse approfondie des fondements de la Négritude, nous porterons notre attention sur deux oeuvres majeures : Une tempúte (1969) d'Aimé Césaire et Les arbres musiciens (1957) de Jacques Stephen Alexis. Ces oeuvres illustrent les multiples dimensions des thématiques fondamentales de la Négritude, tout en révélant son caractère hybride, à la croisée des luttes politiques, identitaires et culturelles.Item Fragile constructs : examining masculinity and power dynamics in Yasmina Reza's Art, Le Dieu du Carnage, and Trois versions de la vie(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2025) Owusu, Beverly; Taylor, ScottWhat happens when the carefully curated image of masculinity begins to fracture--despite embodying all the hallmarks of what it means to be a man? What if stoicism, rationality, emotional restraint, intellectual wit, economic status, and social refinement are nothing but a brittle façade, concealing a desperate fragility? This study interrogates the representation of masculinity as a socially constructed and performative identity, laden with anxiety, competition, and symbolic struggles for dominance. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theories of cultural and symbolic capital, Michel Foucault's analysis of power, knowledge, and subjectivation, and R.W. Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity, the thesis explores how Reza's male characters attempt to negotiate their identities through performances of intellect, taste, and rhetorical control within the confined, often domestic spaces of her plays. The analysis contends that masculinity in Art, Le Dieu du carnage, and Trois versions de la vie is neither stable nor triumphant, but rather a fragile construct continually destabilized, particularly through the failure of the very traits and symbols used to assert masculine authority, the interventions of women, and the subversive deployment of humour and irony. Each chapter examines how cultural capital, discursive control, and symbolic objects are mobilized in the assertion of dominance, only to collapse under the pressures of interpersonal conflict, social performance, and self-contradiction. Ultimately, the thesis reveals how Reza dramatizes masculinity as a precarious and performative battleground where power is fluid, contested, and constantly undermined, laying bare the insecurities at the heart of traditional masculine authority.Item Podcasting como herramienta educativa y potenciador de la literatura hispanoamericana(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2025) Moreno Quesada, Lizette; Mamadou, BadianeEl podcasting se ha vuelto esencial en la era digital, fusionando accesibilidad y diversidad de contenido, transformándose en un instrumento potente para la instrucción en varias disciplinas, incluyendo la literatura de Hispanoamérica. Este medio no solo promueve la propagación del saber literario, sino que también fomenta la reflexión crítica, la valoración estética y el crecimiento cultural, brindando un entendimiento más detallado de los contextos históricos y sociales que enriquecen las narrativas literarias. El proyecto investiga cómo el uso del podcast puede revolucionar la investigación de la literatura hispanoamericana, brindando a los alumnos la posibilidad de acceder a análisis exhaustivos, entrevistas y discusiones en cualquier instante y sitio, promoviendo de esta manera un aprendizaje independiente y personalizado. Historias como aquellas que se encuentran en "Huellas de la literatura hispanoamericana" y "Las tinieblas de tu memoria negra" son perfectos para ser analizados a través de este instrumento, puesto que tratan asuntos como el colonialismo y la identidad cultural, esenciales para comprender la realidad de Latinoamérica. Además, el podcasting fomenta la participación de los alumnos, que tienen la posibilidad de producir contenido propio, potenciando de esta manera sus destrezas comunicativas, críticas y creativas. Esta técnica promueve un sentimiento de pertenencia e identidad al hacer que los alumnos se sientan representados en los textos literarios que estudian, vinculando su aprendizaje con su realidad cultural. El podcasting no solo representa una innovadora herramienta educativa, sino también una vía de empoderamiento para los alumnos, quienes mediante la producción de episodios hallan una voz propia en el entorno académico, expandiendo su entendimiento y valoración de la literatura de Hispanoamérica.Item Comparative aesthetics through an Ivoirian lens : sociopolitical engagement in the selected novels of Ahmadou Kourouma, the music of Tiken Jah Fakoly and the films of Philippe Lacôte(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2025) Jemiluyi, Omotayo; Muratore, Mary JoThis thesis uses a comparative aesthetic approach to demonstrate how various forms of art become a potent mode of socio-political engagement within the Ivoirian context. We will focus on two novels by Ahmadou Kourouma, the music of Tiken Jah Fakoly, and two films of Philippe Lacôte to explore how novelists, filmmakers and singers use their art to motivate social change. Adapting an interdisciplinary approach, this study analyzes how these three prominent Ivoirian artists employ their distinct artistic media--literature, music, and cinema--to confront and critically engage with the enduring legacies of colonialism, postcolonial disillusionment, and socio-political upheaval in Côte d'Ivoire and the broader African continent. In particular, this thesis closely analyzes Kourouma's novels, Allah n'est pas obligé and Les Soleils des Indépendances, highlighting themes of moral decay, symbolic infertility, and the unfulfilled promises of independence. The thesis also explores Fakoly's politically charged music, especially through a critical reading of songs like Quitte le pouvoir and Ça va faire mal, in order to identify how his lyrics serve as both an incisive critique of systemic oppression and an empowering call for Pan-African unity and change. Additionally, Lacôte's films, Run and Night of the Kings, are examined as cinematic interrogations of violence, historical memory, and national identity that use allegory and visual storytelling to expose political crises and advocate social reflection. Ultimately, this study asserts that literature, music, and film not only reflect societal challenges but also actively contribute to shaping socio-political consciousness, reaffirming the transformative potential of art as a means of collective healing and social change.Item Black bodies and the market system(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) Tchatchou, Marcel; Kaussen, ValerieThis dissertation posits that regardless of the current market system's nature and structure, the black body has an already defined and fixed colonial ontological function: a subsidizing entity. In the postcolonial era, three processes are put into place to perpetuate this order: The first is the control of a preferential political black elite. The second is the entertainment of anomy generated by the inability of the market system and preferred subservient elites to create economic development for their ontologized people. The third is the perpetuation of extraction, the goal of prominent market players that derives from the two previous conditions. My study analyses three twentieth-century Afro-Caribbean books. As this work shows, these books represent colonialism and slavery and their socio-economic structures and epistemologies not as history and not even as ghosts that haunt the present but as persistent and continuing in contemporary neoliberal market capitalism structures. The books are Haitian writer Jacques Stephen Alexis's Les Arbres musiciens (1957) [The Musician Trees], two Congolese novels, La Vie et demie (1979) [Life and a Half] by Sony Labou Tansy; Johnny chien Mechant (2002) [Johnny Mad Dog] by Emmanuel Dongala. Despite the religiosity of neoliberal ideologies and market principles, African and Caribbean narratives often reject the dogma of western imposed extractive market principles. Thus, the nonwestern big market players with significant economic and military influence are beginning to demand and invent a revamped global system.