Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The author of this auto-ethnographic study argues that the Falcon functions as a third-wave place with women constructing, reconstructiong, co-constructing, questioning and performing their identities and their feminisms in and around "The L Word," a cultural phenomenon that has taken the lesbian community by storm. This show is viewed by mass audiences/publics and it is important to examine the counter-public that has gathered around it to watch it, question it, perpetuate it, and critique it. The author uses third-wave feminism, poststructuralism and critical theory as a lens to inform this particular project.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: L’affirmation épistémologique de la liaison réciproque entre théorie de l'objet et théorie de l'instrument peut apparaître en sociologie comme une infériorité structurelle, traduisant une différence de nature entre connaissance commune et connaissance scientifique, notamment expérimentale. Pour la logique pragmatique, il s’agit seulement d’une différence de degré.
La socianalyse s’inscrit dans cette logique : elle met l'observateur dans l'obligation théorique de rechercher les modalités techniques de contrôle de l'interaction. Elle s’appuie sur un choix initial, celui d'utiliser un analyste collectif pour interpréter les relations intra-intergroupes d'une entité institutionnelle qui le demande. Ce choix, expérimental au départ, a été consolidé par les effets constatés de la relation intergroupe sur le fonctionnement et les relations internes au sein d’entités sociales. Les niveaux d’activité cognitive, comportementale, communicationnelle et organisationnelle, souvent traités séparément, ont exigé d'identifier des éléments moteurs, d'en analyser les interdépendances afin de pouvoir interpréter in situ les paramètres de l’action.
Deux paramètres sont constitutifs de l’outil socianalytique (Van Bockstaele & al., 2004) : 1) la relation intergroupe et 2) la relation réciproque cognition/action incluant le support d’une intentionnalité collective, désigné « nous » cognitif. La maîtrise de ces paramètres implique le contrôle empirique de l’outil socianalytique ou « tâche diapoétique d’imagination-cooptation ».

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As the first television series to represent a lesbian community, Showtime’s The L Word had to confront the question of how to portray lesbian and bisexual women without reproducing the stereotypes and preconceptions of a sexist and heterosexist dominant culture, while accommodating commercial pressures to attract the largest possible audience. Responding directly to this challenge, The L Word takes a sophisticated feminist perspective on the history of female and lesbian representation, and makes that history a central theme of the program. The show critiques the stereotypical and objectifying portrayals of women that are normative in U.S. culture—in both popular and high cultural forms—and then presents clear, and sometimes queer, alternative representations. This paper focuses on one aspect of this larger project of The L Word: the representation of gender and sexuality in contemporary art, a topic that is both the subject of a major story arc in season one and an important subtext of the program in its entirety.

The L Word is a serial melodrama that follows the lives of a circle of lesbian and bisexual women, who live in West Hollywood. Among them is Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals), the director of a contemporary art museum. Her position as a cutting-edge curator provides the program with a device through which to explore complex issues of representation; probing the inter-textual relationships between high art and other forms of visual culture is central to the show’s narrative and mise en scene. Using specific artworks, The L Word makes an argument for the need for innovative female and queer self-representation, in the face of a long history of erasure, misrepresentation, and objectification. The program also offers a spirited defense of the right of artists to make work that challenges convention and that questions the boundaries between artistic expression and pornography or obscenity.

The L Word explores these topics through several strategies. First, each week, the work of different real-world artists appears on screen. What these artists have in common is that their work thematizes female, lesbian, and/or queer representation. Second, several featured artists appear briefly in the show, with their work, which is highlighted and sometimes even discussed by the characters. I will focus on three of these artists and analyze how showcasing their work advances the program’s goals. Lisa Yuscavage’s grotesque and cartoony (but beautifully painted) female figures explore the effects of pornographic representations on viewers’ perceptions of women, especially lesbians; Laurie Papou’s large-scale paintings re-stage well-known female nudes from the western art canon so as to reinvent the conventions of representation of female sexuality; and Catherine Opie’s elegant portraits of queer and transgender subjects make clear that lesbian communities are much more diverse than the show’s wealthy and gender-normative characters would suggest. Highlighting these artists, who are working to transform the representation of women and queers, allows the show to make claims about the possibility of making new meanings from within familiar forms on commercial television; these artists are all doing what the show means to do.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explores the impact that status (or rang) occupies in the bilateral relationship between France and the United States. The title is an allusion to André Tardieu’s 1927 book Devant nous, l’obstacle, which remains one of the classic works on a r