Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Simultaneous Book: Women's Writing In Contemporary Art, Maryse Lariviere

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Novels written by women authors who don’t adhere to the classification “visual artist” are nonetheless gaining momentum in today's contemporary art world. Yet works by authors such as Chris Kraus or Catherine Millet are often not recognized as artist’s novels because their authors are not or/and do not consider themselves to be visual artists. I contend that we can usefully situate their work within the genre of the artist’s novel by addressing how they invent artistic postures and artistic alter-egos within the autofictional worlds of their texts. My dissertation The Simultaneous Book proposes to open up the definition of the …

Imaginaire De La Fin, Icônes, Esthétique. (Ir)Représenter La Post-Apocalypse Dans La Bande Dessinée Et Le Cinéma Du Génocide Tutsi., Alain Agnessan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Cette étude sur la bande dessinée et le cinéma du génocide tutsi s’écarte de l’analyse désormais canonique des politiques mémorielles et pratiques testimoniales pour en investir le parti pris post-apocalyptique . Elle s’agence en deux volets, ou, plutôt, en deux lieux de regard. Envisageant l’imaginaire de la fin qui s’est constitué autour du génocide tutsi, le premier volet de l’étude s’attelle à décrire une scène « cross-traumatic » ou transtraumatique, appelée génoscape, sur laquelle la pensée, les images et les discours critiques lient le destin éthique, esthétique et épistémique du génocide tutsi à celui de la Shoah. Cette démarche …

Sanaugavut: Art From Kinngait, Nakasuk Alariaq

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

“Sanaugavut: Art from Kinngait” explores 20^th century Inuit art from an Inuk’s perspective to highlight the work Inuit participants contributed to in the development of commercialized art production in the North. The author Nakasuk Alariaq is from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) and is the first Inuk graduate student at Western University to be offered space within the university’s formal settings to curate an Inuit art exhibition. This exhibition and thesis go hand in hand and are therefore very important to advocates of Indigenous self-representation in academia and in galleries. The exhibition “Sanaugavut: Art from Kinngait” was …

Han And Dada: Early Expressions Of New Affliction, Maxwell Hyett

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis studies affliction as it appears in the proto-avant-garde art movement of Dada. I analyse affliction through the theoretical frameworks of the ‘neuronal’ and ‘immunological,’ as presented by cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han in The Burnout Society. By applying Han’s theories to Dada, I challenge Han’s argument that our affliction underwent a shift at the end of the Cold War: No longer produced by negativity (the immunological), affliction is now produced by excess positivity (the neuronal). Such excess blocks our access to and erodes the existence of ‘somewhere else,’ causing a crisis in the arts, which I argue should …

Rui(N)Ation: Narratives Of Art And Urban Revitalization In Detroit, Jessica Ks Cappuccitti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation considers the City of Detroit as a case study for analyzing the complex role that artists and art institutions are playing in the potential re-growth and revitalization of the city. I specifically look at artists and arts organizations who are working against the popular narrative of Detroit as “ruin city.” Their efforts create counter narratives that emphasize stories of survival and showcase vibrant communities. By focussing on artist-led and institutional initiatives, I emphasize the importance of art in both community and narrative-building.

This research has taken the form of a written dissertation and two adapted projects, and positions …

Affective And Sensuous Critique In The Undergraduate Art Classroom, Claire Bartleman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Drawing on the ways that art history, art theory, and art criticism have used affect theory, I ask how an affective approach can align the undergraduate classroom art critique with the historical definition of aesthetics, or aesthesis, and create a space for sense and feeling. The first chapter reviews literature in the field and demonstrates the perceived benefits and drawbacks of current critique models. In the second chapter, I consider how affect has the potential to disrupt traditional approaches to critique in order to assist in rethinking stated goals, disrupt power dynamics in the classroom, and generate transformative knowledge. In …

Spanning, Mary Katherine Carder-Thompson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dossier consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 is a comprehensive artist statement describing my system for spirit communication that leverages the latent power of wool processing tools. This system borrows strategies from varied sources including living history, paraconceptualism, and bricolage. Chapter 2 visually documents my studio practice over the two years of my MFA candidacy at Western University. Chapter 3 is a case study of Luanne Martineau’s 2009 drawing, Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you. This case study addresses Martineau’s engagement with Modernism’s legacy and discusses how her work builds an equitable …

Philosophical Archeology In Theoretical And Artistic Practice, Ido Govrin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The aim of this thesis is to examine philosophical archeology and the feasibility of knowledge that derives from researching it simultaneously through theoretical and artistic practice.

Philosophical archeology essentially embodies one’s relation to history and historiographic research—a research methodology at the core of which lies a “historical a priori”, that which a priori conditions the historical development of a phenomenon. However, this research conceives of philosophical archeology more broadly, as a multifaceted term that traverses the discourse of the humanities at large.

By pursuing this doctoral research, my original contribution to knowledge is twofold: (1) I historicize philosophical archeology—a …

More Than A Spasm, Less Than A Sign: Queer Masculinity In American Visual Culture, 1915-1955, Thomas D. Baynes

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research considers the contribution of visual culture to queer masculinity among white American men during a profound reorientation both in popular understandings and the practical conditions of eroticism between men. From about 1915 to 1955 a pragmatic libidinal economy centered on the theatrical effeminacy of “fairies” was displaced by one founded on the presumption of strongly delineated and relatively fixed hetero- and homo-sexual identities. Although medical discourses about queerness had been developing since the middle of the Nineteenth Century in Europe, what Americans of the opening decades of the twentieth century knew about queerness they learned unsystematically from hearsay, …