Major Research Projects

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/14110

This is the University of Waterloo Major Research Projects (MRP) collection.

This collection includes a set of digitized MRPs donated by the University of Waterloo’s French department, but is open to all graduate departments and students for contributions.

Students and departments interested in adding to this collection can contact us.

NOTE: This collection does not include graduate Theses & Dissertations.

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Now showing 1 - 18 of 18

L'Adultère e(s)t la souffrance : analyse thématique et exemplifiée de l'œuvre fictive de Guy de Maupassant
(University of Waterloo, 1991-01-07) Richter, Klaus Bodo
Partant de la suggestion d'André Vial, ''l'un des critiques les plus importants" de l'œuvre de Guy de Maupassant, que l'infidélité conjugale est un des thèmes parcourant son œuvre, cette étude visera à développer la pensée de l'auteur quant à l'adultère en traçant ses idées à travers son œuvre fictive. Par ceci, elle comblera une lacune dans la recherche sur l'auteur et son œuvre et contribuera à éclairer un coin négligé par l'étude scolaire de la litterature française. [...]
L'apprentissage du français langue seconde chez les immigrés chinois, coréens et japonais à Montréal
(University of Waterloo, 1997-06-01) Kraus, Vivienne
Présentement au Canada il existe un nombre considerable d'immigrants asiatiques. Quoique la présence des immigrés ait des conséquences positives pour le Canada (pour son economie, pour ses relations internationales, etc.), du côte de l'immigré, c'est patiois le contraire. Depuis l'essor de l'immigration provenant d'Asie, des difficultés surgissent du fait que ces nouveaux arrivés ressemblent beaucoup moins aux Europeens, source privilegiée des immigres au Canada dans le passé, sur les plans physique, culturel et linguistique. Cette étude va porter sur trois groupes asiatiques en particulier, asavoir, les Chinois, les Japonais, et les Coréens, en raison de leurs similarités linguistiques et culturelles. Ces trois groupes se trouvent aussi parmi les communautés linguistiques les plus nombreuses du monde. Si le Canada reste un pays destinataire de ces immigrés, ces chiffres témoignent de l'importance d'une meilleure compréhension des difficultés auxquelles se heurtent ces immigrés. Cette étude se concentre sur les obstacles qu'ils rencontrent dans le contexte scolaire. [...]
L'identité ethnologique chez Annie Ernaux
(University of Waterloo, 2003-08-01) Crawley, Christine
Pour Annie Ernaux, écrivaine obsédée par le rapport entre le "soi" et le monde qui l'entoure, il n'y a rien de plus important que la recherche sur la réalite. Née en Normandie en 1910 d'une famille ouvrière, Annie Ernaux connaît directement la transition sociale de la classe ouvriere à la classe bourgeoise. Élevée dans une famille ouvriere, où elle était très consciente du fait que même leur façon de parler soulignait leur infériorité sociale, Ernaux a été fort encouragée par ses parents (surtout par sa mère) à quitter ce milieu. [...]
La represéntation des femmes espagnoles dans la Relation du voyage d'Espagne (1691) de Madame d'Aulnoy
(University of Waterloo, 2008-08-01) Guenther, Melissa
Cette analyse a pour objet d'étude la Relation du voyage d'Espagne (1691) de Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Bameville, comtesse d'Aulnoy. L'objectif de ce travail consiste à définir la represéntation faite par Madame d'Aulnoy de la femme espagnole, et ce, en regard d'un cadre littéraire, culturel et historique specifique : celui du recit de voyage au féminin, en France, à la fin du XVIIe siècle.
Memoire de Maitrise: Epistre Othéa par Christine de Pizan : Une étude du récit visuel pédagogique dans les miniatures du Manuscrit British Library Harley 4431 et du Manuscrit Bodmer 49
(University of Waterloo, 2010-09-18) Muller-Germann, Jazmine
Christine de Pizan vivait à la fin du Moyen Âge entre 1365 et 1432? comme la première femme qui a réussi à gagner sa vie de sa plume et à en soutenir sa famille. Dans ses œuvres, elle traite les thèmes politiques comme dans L'ÉpÎtre à la reine Isabeau et le Livre des faits d'armes et de chevalerie; l'amour courtois notamment dans L' ÉpÎtre au Dieu d'Amours ; la vie de femmes dans Le livre de la cité des dames et L'Épistre Othéa, et bien d'autres sujets. À travers ses œuvres au sujet de femmes, qui contiennent souvent un grand nombre de miniatures, nous apprenons à mieux comprendre la position unique que les femmes à la fin du Moyen Âge occupaient. [...]
Les éléments de l’existentialisme dans les pièces d’Eugène Ionesco, dramaturge du Théâtre de l’Absurde
(University of Waterloo, 2012-04-01) Schuessler, Jessica
« Est absurde ce qui n’a pas de but…Coupé de ses racines religieuses ou métaphysiques, l’homme est perdu, toute sa démarche devient insensée, inutile, étouffante ». Voilà la conception de l’absurde selon Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994), auteur d’un genre théâtral devenu populaire en France et dans les autres pays occidentaux pendant les années cinquante. Ionesco appartenait à un groupe qui se faisait connaître sous le titre de dramaturges du Théâtre de l’Absurde. [...]
Le déclin de l'idéal utopique : l'uchronie dans La Trilogie de la Lune de Johan Heliot
(University of Waterloo, 2014-08-01) Ives, Alison
Les êtres humains aiment les questions. Dès notre plus jeune âge, nous posons des questions sur tout et n'importe et quoi : Qui ? Quoi ? Où ? Quand ? Pourquoi ? Comment ? Ces six questions nous accompagnent tout au long de nos vies. Cependant, une autre question hante aussi nos cerveaux, une question qui nous plonge dans le domaine de l'hypothétique : la question « Si ? » Notre présent est le résultat d'une Histoire longue et complexe construite avec des événements innombrables ; c'est l'entrecroisement des vies d'un nombre incalculable d'individus qui forme le monde que nous connaissons. [...]
La poésie engagée : la modernisation de l’imaginaire acadien dans les années 1970
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-01) Gauthier, Lauren
Ce mémoire portera sur l’évolution de la notion d’imaginaire collectif en Acadie tel qu’elle apparaît dans trois œuvres poétiques majeures de la première moitié des années 1970. Il s’agit de Cri de Terre (1972) de Raymond Guy LeBlanc, Acadie Rock (1973) de Guy Arsenault, et Mourir à Scoudouc (1974) d’Herménégilde Chiasson. Ces trois poètes sont considérés comme des figures centrales de la modernité acadienne et il est souvent dit que leurs recueils représentent une rupture dans la représentation littéraire de l’imaginaire des Acadiens. C’est à partir de la parution de ces recueils que l’imaginaire des Acadiens s’est transformé dans le sens d’une ouverture plus grande aux conceptions du monde actuel. [...]
La liminalité et l’imagination du personnage-seuil dans un corpus romanesque québécois contemporain
(University of Waterloo, 2016-01-01) Funston-Mills, Jesse
Dans cette étude, nous nous donnons comme objectif l’analyse du personnage-seuil et, plus largement, du concept de liminalité dans deux romans québécois contemporains publiés par deux auteures importantes, reconnues surtout pour leur polyvalence. Il s’agira, d’une part, de Champagne de Monique Proulx, mettant en scène le personnage de Jérémie, et, d’autre part, de Mère, rouge et fils, œuvre romanesque majeure de Suzanne Jacob dans laquelle nous nous concentrerons sur le personnage du fils, prénommé Luc. Certains facteurs anthropologiques, psychologiques et sociologiques joueront un rôle clé dans l’étude de ces romans, dont la présence du non-dit, les anecdotes, le mensonge, les représentations complexes de la réalité et la création de l’identité. Ces deux récits fort différents sur le plan de l’intrigue pourront cependant être rapprochés par leur recours à des personnages polysémiques qui montrent de nombreux points en commun. L’analyse de ces œuvres nous amènera à découvrir l’importance des deux personnages qui, bien que marginalisés et impuissants à première vue, évolueront positivement au fil des récits. [...]
L’affaire Dubuisson : Je vous écris dans le noir et La petite femelle
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-01) Lidder, Mannat
Le fait divers est une réalité quotidienne qui fait partie de notre culture et de notre société. Il insiste sur la rareté et l’imprévisibilité d’un incident tout en donnant l’impression, de par sa forte médiatisation, que de tels événements arrivent plus souvent que nous ne le pensons. Le fait divers est donc un concept paradoxal et universel. Dans son essai intitulé « Structure du fait divers », Roland Barthes nous explique certaines caractéristiques du fait divers. En premier lieu, il précise que : « le fait divers […] est une information totale, ou plus exactement, immanente; […] il ne renvoie formellement à rien d’autre qu’à lui-même » (189). Le fait divers est donc « une structure fermée » (189) et il contient toute l’information dont nous avons besoin pour le comprendre. Barthes continue à développer cette définition et il indique que « les relations immanentes au fait divers [peuvent] se ramener à deux types. [...]
Collocation in Rhetorical Figures: A Case Study in Parison, Epanaphora and Homoioptoton
(University of Waterloo, 2019-06-19) Tu, Katherine
This paper is a pilot study on the collocation of rhetorical figures, or when more than one figure occurs in a single instance. It examines examples from rhetorical figure handbooks, which only look at figures individually. Detection algorithms for parison, epanaphora, and homoioptoton are developed and run against the handbook examples to check for collocation. The findings suggest that figures of parallelism are more cognitively salient than lexical repetition, but that marked figures like antimetabole, polysyndeton, and asyndeton are more salient than figures of parallelism.
The Garden of Humanity: The Manifestation of Hope in (Post) Apocalyptic Video Games
(University of Waterloo, 2020-07-31) Schmidt, Pamela Maria
The purpose of this project is to explore the juxtaposition of hope before and after cataclysms in apocalyptic video games. Specifically, I will be exploring why hope is found either after the apocalyptic scenario has happened (post mortem) or just before (prope mortem). The cause of these scenarios, usually a form of human invention and/or creation, always result in a return to the natural in the aftermath of their removal, the core theme for my analysis. Considering our current environmental emergency and technological paranoia surrounding AI and other technologies, these games perpetuate the false pretense that action is not necessary, as humanity will endure. The methodology I will use for my MRP is a close reading of three games that constitute my object texts. These games are: Jak II (2003), Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017), and Final Fantasy XIII (2009). To complete this project, I will need to investigate and analyze the function of the core theme in the games, individually and as a genre by understanding their narrative structure through a closer reading with an ecocritical and hauntological lens. The major research goal of this project is therefore to understand why hope is found post-mortem. A secondary goal will be to understand why the environmental and the technological are intertwined and why games are the perfect avenue to analyze this connection. A third goal will be to postulate whether this is correlated to current day attitudes towards the environmental emergency and technological paranoia by using games as a medium from which to make cultural commentaries.
Rhetorical Figures in Music
(University of Waterloo, 2023-04-01) Slater, Maire
This paper looks at rhetorical figures in music, focusing on figures within the chiastic suite. It argues for a cognitive provenance of these figures, accounting for their appearance in both literature and music. It looks at examples of chiasmus found in instrumental music from across the world and throughout history and suggests the proliferation of these examples has implications for our understanding of the relationship between language and music and may shed light on the neural processes involved in producing both.
Laying the Foundation: How Municipalities can Utilize Existing Tools to Boost Housing Supply
(University of Waterloo, 2023-05-24) Boswell, Tyler
The current housing crisis has worsened the access to housing as a necessity for many, including society's most vulnerable groups. These groups include seniors, young adults, immigrants, and low-income earners. The housing crisis has been made worse by limited supply, an increase in second home purchasers or other forms of housing speculation, and a lack of purpose-built rentals. This paper explores the federal, provincial, and municipal government interventions to understand what is being done to increase the housing supply. Furthermore, municipal tools such as land-use planning, taxation, and policy direction are explored to see if these methods adequately address the crisis or if more needs to be done. Municipalities have a wide range of available tools, but their effectiveness and implementation may provide more difficult if not done correctly. Subsequently, if these tools are not used correctly, the housing crisis will continue to worsen. When examining the federal and provincial levels and their responses to the housing crisis, key indicators are presented by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Statistics Canada, and the Province of Ontario's Housing Taskforce Report.
Making-With the Burrowing Owl: Value Sensitive Design as Sympoietic Method in Environmental Communication
(University of Waterloo, 2023-08) Goudie, Bella
How can we learn to live with vulnerable species like the Burrowing owl? This paper looks to Value Sensitive Design methods as a way to expand upon Post-Humanist Design and answer Donna Haraway’s call to learn to live on a damaged planet. Value Sensitive Design proves a compelling tool as it includes non-humans in its definition of stakeholders and it encourages designers to think relationally across the human and non-human divide and with the value tensions between humans and non-humans. This research project examines how Value Sensitive Design can be used in environmental communication to practice and embody relational thinking. This project engages Wakkary’s notion of designer as biography. This project also engages Freidman and Hendry’s methods of Stakeholder Analysis and Ethnographic enquiry into values and technology. In utilizing these concepts, this research project will seek to determine how Value Sensitive Design methods allow designers to make-with non-humans. This is demonstrated through a digitally produced zine about burrowing owl conservation efforts in Phoenix, Arizona. The digitally drawn, zine acts as an “object-to-think-with” and has been developed as part of an existing series of environmental education pamphlets by the Arizona State University Institute for Humanities Research.
Sustainability-Enhancing Initiatives in the Ontario Greenbelt: Evaluation of Three Exemplary Cases
(University of Waterloo, 2024) Mary Rosalind, Snyder
The overwhelmingly complex challenge of intensifying environmental issues and rising social inequities at all scales, community to global, and the lack of impactful policy and action, contributes to the negative narrative of the environmental and sustainability field. The severity of the crisis deserves to be critically analyzed; however, the negative narrative does little to encourage genuine engagement and motivation for progress. Therefore, the objective of this master’s research paper (MRP) is to explore stories of positive, creative sustainability initiatives to illuminate examples of sustainability success and how lessons from these stories can inform sustainability practice. This MRP examines three case studies, selected through developed criteria, and explored through a constructed conceptual framework informed by core sustainability concepts in the literature to account for complexity, interconnectivity, and depth. The Ontario Greenbelt, the focal system, provides a specific region that is sustainability-minded due to the protection of land, associated agricultural landscape, and structural support from sustainability organizations, including the Greenbelt Foundation. Three case studies – the Greenbelt Farmers Market Network, the Alderville Black Oak Savanna and the Shared Path Consultation Initiative – were selected through application of explicit sustainability-based criteria and examined through a conceptual framework lens informed by core sustainability concepts in the literature. Each one is centered on a different dimension of sustainability. Together they reflect the complexity of the Greenbelt as a social-ecological system. The reporting uses a storytelling approach, informed through peer reviewed and grey literature, available documentation about initiative activities and interviews with organizers of the initiatives. Each case study provides consistent insights into practices that enhance sustainability, including understanding and appreciating complexity and interconnectivity, supporting community capacity, networking, and forming respectful relationships, and ensuring equity. Unique lessons from each initiative were also observed, providing further insight into sustainability thinking and practices given the social-ecological context of the respective initiative. These stories illustrate the value of focusing on how sustainability is actively being enhanced within communities and the importance of support systems like Greenbelt to encouraging sustainability. Implications on the broader literature includes applications of the framework in examining project in other social-ecological contexts, applying practices in other communities or larger scales, and encouraging research focused on positive pathways to progress towards greater sustainability
"She's Telling All the World:" The Agency and Legacy of Female Beatles Fan in Beatles Monthly Correspondence
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-22) Clarke, Robyn Marie
In February 1964, when the Beatles landed at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, media attention fixated on the throngs of fans awaiting their arrival. What was overlooked, however, was the significant role these young women played in the band's meteoric rise. Long before the Beatles' U.S. debut, British fans had already fueled their global success through a combination of relentless enthusiasm, fan letters, and grassroots promotion. Far from being passive admirers, these young women were the driving force behind the Beatles' international phenomenon - an influence that journalists failed to recognize at the time. This paper examines the overlooked labor of female Beatles fans during the height of Beatlemania (1963-1966) and their critical role in shaping the band's global success. While often dismissed as hysterical or overly enthusiastic, these young women created dynamic fan communities that amplified the Beatles' reach and influence through print media and fan clubs. By focusing on fan letters in Beatles Monthly, the only authorized fan magazine for the band, this study argues that the agency and leadership of female fans were key drivers behind the Beatles' meteoric rise. Through an analysis of gender stereotypes, societal expectations, and media narratives, this research challenges the simplistic portrayal of these fans and highlights their crucial contributions to the Beatles phenomenon.
Planning for Intercity Mobility: A Business Case for High-Frequency Intercity Bus Services in Ontario's Greater Golden Horseshoe
(University of Waterloo, 2025-04) Lodhi, Binesh
Like most metropolitan regions in North America, areas in southwestern Ontario suffer from auto dependency which results in congestion, negative environmental impacts, and limits on societal and economic well-being. This phenomenon, which is especially prevalent in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH, the area surrounding the City of Toronto) is caused in part by the absence of high quality, attractive intercity public transportation. This study provides a unique investigation of intercity commuting trends for the GGH region and addresses critical gaps in existing intercity public transit services. The research examines the costs and benefits of introducing highfrequency intercity bus services (IBS) in the GGH to support intercity commuters across the region with the introduction of a viable alternative to private vehicle travel. Unlike the traditional service models of intercity bus services, that appeal to the travel and tourism sector, this research proposes the use of intercity commuter bus services as a means to connect major urban and employment areas within the GGH region, that are currently underserved or not captured by existing intercity transit services. While existing transit agencies may not have the capacity to fund and operate these services, governments can consider innovative service models such as performance-based contracts with private bus companies to provide intercity bus services and fill critical service gaps between outer regions of the GGH. In the GGH, the governance of transportation systems has been delegated in part to Metrolinx, a Government of Ontario Agency. As such, in this research the Metrolinx Business Case Framework is used to develop an Initial Business Case for a high-frequency, intercity bus service between Waterloo Region and Wellington County. A wide range of high-level assessments are conducted to identify current issues, evaluate a business-as-usual scenario, and determine the feasibility of multiple intercity bus service options. It concludes that there is a strong business case for governments to provide high-quality services along major corridors between the two regions. The Initial Business Case assessment develops a preliminary framework that can be replicated and used to assess similar intercity bus service opportunities among the outer regions of the GGH.

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