This book examines the social and spatial dimensions of dwelling from the perspective of sustainability. This publication avoids the traditional energy and technological dimensions of sustainability to position the notion of sustainable dwelling at the crossroads of spatial polyvalence and residents' empowerment. In the field of housing, this publication identifies the recurrent properties of 'sustainable space’ and the variety of the socio-cultural practices that can embody them. Its purpose is to comprehend how the concept of sustainability is reflected in housing spaces as well as to analyse how inhabitants put those spaces to the test.

This is the first study systematically to appraise Splendid's, �Elle�, and Le Bagne, the three plays by Jean Genet published after his death, both in the context of the dramatist's dramatic canon and with respect to one another. After showing that their unusual publishing history necessarily sets these works apart from Haute surveillance, Les Bonnes, Le Balcon, Les N�gres, and Les Paravents, it argues that from Splendid'sto Le Bagne, the question of incompletion is 'exteriorized' -- moving from a purely thematic to an increasingly formal context -- and that the status of each posthumously published work differs: Splendid'sis a 'completed' play, thematizing incompletion; �Elle�, with its seemingly incomplete form having thematic currency, is a 'properly unfinished' play; and as the intentionally 'fragmentary', purposefully suspended 'beginning' of a play, Le Bagneis shaped by incompletion.

In his discussion of clowns in nineteenth-century French painting from Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1857 La Sortie du bal masqué to Georges Rouault, art historian Francis Haskell wondered why they are so sad. The myth of the sad clown as an allegory for the unappreciated artist found echoes in the work of literary counterparts like Charles Baudelaire and his "Vieux saltimbanque" who seeks in vain a responsive public. For some, the attraction of the acrobatic clown for the creative imagination may have been his ability to embody the plight of the artist: these artistes generally led an ambulatory and uncertain existence. Other artists and writers, however, particularly the Decadents, perceived in the circus acrobat – including the acrobatic clown – a conceptual and performative tool for liberating their points of view from the prison-house of aesthetic convention. If authors’ protagonists were themselves sometimes failures, their aesthetic innovations often produced exhilarating artistic triumphs. Among the works examined in this study are the circus posters of Jules Chéret, Thomas Couture’s Pierrot and Harlequin paintings, Honoré Daumier’s saltimbanque paintings, Edgar Degas’s Miss Lala au Cirque Fernando, Édouard Manet’s Un bar au Folies-Bergère, the pantomimes of the Hanlon-Lees troupe, and novels, short stories, and poems by Théodore de Banville, Edmond de Goncourt, J. K. Huysmans, Gustave Kahn, Jules Laforgue, Catulle Mendès, Octave Mirbeau, Jean Richepin, Edouard Rod, and Marcel Schwob.

The heroes are Null, a man with neither feelings nor humanity, a near automaton of vengeance, and Boyd, a woman who has lost everything in her life that meant anything to her, ruled by guilt and a sense of duty at war with her compassion. Criminal psychopath Dr. Benway, who saved Null’s sanity with an illegal, experimental therapy, has invented a new designer street drug delivered by a stick of gum. His plan is to distribute the gum, known as “the Chaw”, to Boston and Cambridge clubs for free to create demand. But when the Ecstasy-like sensual pleasure wears off, the after-effect is a murderous, violent rage. Micmac Indian high-rise construction “edgewalker” and mob enforcer Filmore Lakeworry, known as “Lumpy” for his short, thick stature, forces a partnership with Benway at gunpoint. Null and Boyd set out to stop them, but Null changes his mind as the Chaw restores to him some of his lost humanity and Boyd can’t charge Benway because his specially concocted drug isn’t illegal. Null falls into a short-lived, drug-driven romance with Boyd, ending with him tearing up the streets with extreme violence that ultimately installs him as the “Meth King” of Boston.