Plastic / Explosive: Claude Cahun and the Politics of Becoming Otherwise

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Female Exiles in Language: Reading for New Poetic Subjects in Modern and Contemporary Feminist Experimental Poetry

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Women in Europe between the wars:politics, culture and society

The central aim of this interdisciplinary book is to make visible the intentionality behind the 'forgetting' of European women's contributions during the period between the two world wars in the context of politics, culture and society. It also seeks to record and analyse women's agency in the construction and reconstruction of Europe and its nation states after the First World War, and thus to articulate ways in which the writing of women's history necessarily entails the rewriting of everyone's history. By showing that the erasure of women's texts from literary and cultural history was not accidental but was ideologically motivated, the essays explicitly and implicitly contribute to debates surrounding canon formation. Other important topics are women's political activism during the period, antifascism, the contributions made by female journalists, the politics of literary production, genre, women's relationship with and contributions to the avant-garde, women's professional lives, and women's involvement in voluntary associations. In bringing together the work of scholars whose fields of expertise are diverse but whose interests converge on the inter-war period, the volume invites readers to make connections and comparisons across the whole spectrum of women's political, social, and cultural activities throughout Europe.

Alberto Girri, or poetry as hermeneutic reason

One of the main factors that makes the poetry of the Argentine Alberto Girri (1919–1991) a whole world of its own is my argument that in a fragmentary world like the present, poets search for a formal integrity which in the act of reading creates not only their own inner world but also the readers'. It is important to insist on this turning point in which most of the Symbolist work is circumscribed. Later, this would be of capital importance for the avant-garde as well as for the post-avant-garde: Mallarmé's Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard would make poetry something absolutely modern. An original distribution of the white and black opened a new space for the text, shifting the then dominant phonocentrism. My close reading of this author as well as the given theoretical frame avoids the failure into an instrumental use either of the page or of the writing but ignoring physical reciprocity. What follows is, that this “shift” privileged heightened vision over audition of the “musical score”. Thus, an intense materialization of the language is achieved that increases the anonymity of the text. ^ Following this new arrangement of words, so to speak, Girri's poetic work now drives deeply inside words in order to lend them dignity from meaning. I conclude that the best way to “render” this poetry with religious aim (L. “re-ligare” to bind the fragmented) is by way of the philosophy of language. I also propose that Girri's task as a translator, mainly from English poetry, represented—with Jorge Luis Borges—a paradigmatic shift in the Spanish American horizon which had been under “logocentric” French rule since the time of Independence. This seismic change of perspective in late Modernism and post-Modernism is represented by a radical screening of Romance rhetoric, it was a shift not only over the inherited mother tongue but over his own work which was increasingly moving towards transcendent and/or metaphysical poetry. ^ Therefore, I did find that Girri's poem was constructed as a mirror closely related to that which was represented in the angelological tradition. ^

La represión sexual como tema recurrente en la obra de Federico García Lorca

The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate that sexual repression is a recurring theme throughout a selection of works by Federico García Lorca. The introductory chapter focuses on the sexual theories of Sigmund Freud and Michel Foucault in setting the foundation for an analysis of sexually frustrated characters. In chapter two, an analysis of Lorca's rural trilogy reveals how marginalized female characters struggle to preserve societal customs that subjugate them to the patriarchal hegemony by limiting their free will and their sexual freedom. The subsequent chapter elaborates on the theme of repression in poems where the oppressed voice expresses and denounces the intolerance and persecution of those who condemn homosexuality through metaphors of darkness, impurity, and barren love. Chapter four analyzes two avant-garde plays where the underlying message is that of a society that hampers the expression of homosexual love by silencing desire and forcing individuals to mask their identities. The conclusion demonstrates once more the effects of society on sexual freedom, as well as explaining that the recurrence of repressed women is not a pretext in portraying the homosexual saga, but a pre-text in presenting them as an equally marginalized group.

Artisans, génies et vedettes : le statut des compositeurs dans la presse musicale française

Ce mémoire propose d’explorer quel(s) statut(s) sont accordés aux compositeurs contemporains dans le contexte musical parisien des premières années du XXe siècle à travers une analyse de la presse musicale spécialisée de l’époque. Le corpus de notre recherche est constitué de trois revues, chacune ancrée dans des sphères de sociabilités bien distinctes : La Revue musicale (histoire et critique), une « revue savante » proche du milieu de la Schola cantorum ; Le Mercure musical, une « petite revue » d’avant-garde militant en faveur de la musique de Maurice Ravel ; et Musica, une « grande revue » destinée à un lectorat issu de la petite bourgeoisie en plein essor, essentiellement féminin et pratiquant la musique en amateur. Cette étude révèle que la traditionnelle opposition entre la conception du compositeur-artisan et celle du compositeur-génie issue de la fin du XVIIIe siècle et du XIXe siècle voit apparaître un troisième joueur à l’aube du XXe siècle : le compositeur-vedette, un statut qui était jusqu’alors généralement réservé aux interprètes. Ces trois statuts coexistent dans le panorama de la presse musicale du tournant du XXe siècle, et leur promotion par certains organes de presse spécifiques répond à une logique tantôt esthétique, tantôt économique. Il se dégage de cette étude que la presse musicale constitue non seulement un indice des variations qu’a subies la figure du compositeur dans le spectre de la grandeur en culture, mais qu’elle a également joué un rôle actif dans ces transformations.

Diez de Juan Emar y la tétrada pitagórica : iniciación al simbolismo hermético

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Other Than a Citizen: Vernacular Poetics in Postwar America

Few symbols of 1950s-1960s America remain as central to our contemporary conception of Cold War culture as the iconic ranch-style suburban home. While the house took center stage in the Nixon/Khrushchev kitchen debates as a symbol of modern efficiency and capitalist values, its popularity depended largely upon its obvious appropriation of vernacular architecture from the 19th century, those California haciendas and Texas dogtrots that dotted the American west. Contractors like William Levitt modernized the historical common houses, hermetically sealing their porous construction, all while using the ranch-style roots of the dwelling to galvanize a myth of an indigenous American culture. At a moment of intense occupational bureaucracy, political uncertainty and atomized social life, the rancher gave a self-identifying white consumer base reason to believe they could master their own plot in the expansive frontier. Only one example of America’s mid-century love affair with commodified vernacular forms, the ranch-style home represents a broad effort on the part of corporate and governmental interest groups to transform the vernacular into a style that expresses a distinctly homogenous vision of American culture. “Other than a Citizen” begins with an anatomy of that transformation, and then turns to the work of four poets who sought to reclaim the vernacular from that process of standardization and use it to countermand the containment-era strategies of Cold War America.

In four chapters, I trace references to common speech and verbal expressivity in the poetry and poetic theory of Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka and Gwendolyn Brooks, against the historical backdrop of the Free-Speech Movement and the rise of mass-culture. When poets frame nonliterary speech within the literary page, they encounter the inability of writing to capture the vital ephemerality of verbal expression. Rather than treat this limitation as an impediment, the writers in my study use the poem to dramatize the fugitivity of speech, emphasizing it as a disruptive counterpoint to the technologies of capture. Where critics such as Houston Baker interpret the vernacular strictly in terms of resistance, I take a cue from the poets and argue that the vernacular, rooted etymologically at the intersection of domestic security and enslaved margin, represents a gestalt form, capable at once of establishing centralized power and sparking minor protest. My argument also expands upon Michael North’s exploration of the influence of minstrelsy and regionalism on the development of modernist literary technique in The Dialect of Modernism. As he focuses on writers from the early 20th century, I account for the next generation, whose America was not a culturally inferior collection of immigrants but an imperial power, replete with economic, political and artistic dominance. Instead of settling for an essentially American idiom, the poets in my study saw in the vernacular not phonetic misspellings, slang terminology and fragmented syntax, but the potential to provoke and thereby frame a more ethical mode of social life, straining against the regimentation of citizenship.

My attention to the vernacular argues for an alignment among writers who have been segregated by the assumption that race and aesthetics are mutually exclusive categories. In reading these writers alongside one another, “Other than a Citizen” shows how the avant-garde concepts of projective poetics and composition by field develop out of an interest in black expressivity. Conversely, I trace black radicalism and its emphasis on sociality back to the communalism practiced at the experimental arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina, where Olson and Duncan taught. In pressing for this connection, my work reveals the racial politics embedded within the speech-based aesthetics of the postwar era, while foregrounding the aesthetic dimension of militant protest.

Not unlike today, the popular rhetoric of the Cold War insists that to be a citizen involves defending one’s status as a rightful member of an exclusionary nation. To be other than a citizen, as the poets in my study make clear, begins with eschewing the false certainty that accompanies categorical nominalization. In promoting a model of mutually dependent participation, these poets lay the groundwork for an alternative model of civic belonging, where volition and reciprocity replace compliance and self-sufficiency. In reading their lines, we become all the more aware of the cracks that run the length of our load-bearing walls.

Reimagining the Baroque in Italian Modernism. From the fin-de-siècle to Lucio Fontana

While Italian art of the twentieth century is usually associated with either the avant-garde practices of Futurism or the classicism of Fascist visual culture, the Italian modernists' complex engagement with concepts of the ‘Baroque’ has yet to be explored. Through an extensive analysis of paintings, sculptures, publications, collecting practices, and exhibitions, my dissertation addresses this lacuna by investigating how the Baroque was discursively constructed and visually represented in Italian modernist artistic and cultural debates between 1880 and 1945. I study how artists and critics such as Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio De Chirico, Adolfo Wildt, Lucio Fontana, and Roberto Longhi championed or disparaged the Baroque in the context of heated debates over the import of Italy’s rich cultural heritage, its status in modern Europe, and the potential role of avant-garde art as a catalyst for national regeneration. In contrast to previous scholars I argue that the development of modern art in Italy was actively shaped by cultural perceptions about the Baroque. My dissertation therefore sheds new light on the role of style in the cultural politics of Italy, which in turn will transform our understanding of visual culture in modern Italy, and of twentieth-century representations of the Baroque in art, literature, and aesthetics.

Diez de Juan Emar y la tétrada pitagórica : iniciación al simbolismo hermético

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Arte y política : Un estudio comparativo de Jacques Rancière y Nelly Richard para el arte latinoamericano

En este artículo se indagan y comparan las teorías de Jacques Rancière y Nelly Richard sobre la relación entre arte y política desde el pensamiento posfundacional, y se producen reflexiones y análisis de manifestaciones artísticas latinoamericanas vanguardistas o críticas en diálogo con ambas. Para ello, se parte de una presentación de las teorías de Rancière y Richard en términos generales, se focaliza en las ideas que dichos autores ;tienen de la política y, específicamente, en la conceptualización que hacen del arte y su relación con la política. Al mismo tiempo, se desarrolla una interpretación de producciones artísticas desde una mirada centrada en sus diversas conexiones con lo político, más allá del contenido temático de estas. Se utiliza la perspectiva metodológica cualitativa transdisciplinaria, que articula distintas áreas de conocimiento (filosofía política, sociología, historia del arte). En el caso de los desarrollos de Jacques Rancière, se recurre a herramientas teóricas metropolitanas para resituarlas y repensarlas en función del arte de Latinoamérica. En este sentido, se trata de potenciar sus ideas en el análisis de casos ;locales. En cuanto a la teoría de Nelly Richard, sus conceptos de arte crítico y vanguardista se ponen en relación con el arte latinoamericano. Finalmente, se propone una comparación en la cual se destacan similitudes y diferencias conceptuales entre ambos en combinación con análisis de casos para abrir el panorama analítico e interpretativo que vincule teorías actuales con estudios de manifestaciones artísticas locales

Arte y política : Un estudio comparativo de Jacques Rancière y Nelly Richard para el arte latinoamericano

En este artículo se indagan y comparan las teorías de Jacques Rancière y Nelly Richard sobre la relación entre arte y política desde el pensamiento posfundacional, y se producen reflexiones y análisis de manifestaciones artísticas latinoamericanas vanguardistas o críticas en diálogo con ambas. Para ello, se parte de una presentación de las teorías de Rancière y Richard en términos generales, se focaliza en las ideas que dichos autores ;tienen de la política y, específicamente, en la conceptualización que hacen del arte y su relación con la política. Al mismo tiempo, se desarrolla una interpretación de producciones artísticas desde una mirada centrada en sus diversas conexiones con lo político, más allá del contenido temático de estas. Se utiliza la perspectiva metodológica cualitativa transdisciplinaria, que articula distintas áreas de conocimiento (filosofía política, sociología, historia del arte). En el caso de los desarrollos de Jacques Rancière, se recurre a herramientas teóricas metropolitanas para resituarlas y repensarlas en función del arte de Latinoamérica. En este sentido, se trata de potenciar sus ideas en el análisis de casos ;locales. En cuanto a la teoría de Nelly Richard, sus conceptos de arte crítico y vanguardista se ponen en relación con el arte latinoamericano. Finalmente, se propone una comparación en la cual se destacan similitudes y diferencias conceptuales entre ambos en combinación con análisis de casos para abrir el panorama analítico e interpretativo que vincule teorías actuales con estudios de manifestaciones artísticas locales

Arte y política : Un estudio comparativo de Jacques Rancière y Nelly Richard para el arte latinoamericano

En este artículo se indagan y comparan las teorías de Jacques Rancière y Nelly Richard sobre la relación entre arte y política desde el pensamiento posfundacional, y se producen reflexiones y análisis de manifestaciones artísticas latinoamericanas vanguardistas o críticas en diálogo con ambas. Para ello, se parte de una presentación de las teorías de Rancière y Richard en términos generales, se focaliza en las ideas que dichos autores ;tienen de la política y, específicamente, en la conceptualización que hacen del arte y su relación con la política. Al mismo tiempo, se desarrolla una interpretación de producciones artísticas desde una mirada centrada en sus diversas conexiones con lo político, más allá del contenido temático de estas. Se utiliza la perspectiva metodológica cualitativa transdisciplinaria, que articula distintas áreas de conocimiento (filosofía política, sociología, historia del arte). En el caso de los desarrollos de Jacques Rancière, se recurre a herramientas teóricas metropolitanas para resituarlas y repensarlas en función del arte de Latinoamérica. En este sentido, se trata de potenciar sus ideas en el análisis de casos ;locales. En cuanto a la teoría de Nelly Richard, sus conceptos de arte crítico y vanguardista se ponen en relación con el arte latinoamericano. Finalmente, se propone una comparación en la cual se destacan similitudes y diferencias conceptuales entre ambos en combinación con análisis de casos para abrir el panorama analítico e interpretativo que vincule teorías actuales con estudios de manifestaciones artísticas locales

Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Music

Noise seems to stand for a lack of aesthetic grace, to alienate or distract rather than enrapture. And yet the drones of psychedelia, the racket of garage rock and punk, the thudding of rave, the feedback of shoegaze and post-rock, the bombast of thrash and metal, the clatter of jungle and the stuttering of electronica, together with notable examples of avant-garde noise art, have all found a place in the history of contemporary musics, and are recognised as representing key evolutionary moments. Noise therefore is the untold story of contemporary popular music, and in a critical exploration of noise lies the possibility of a new narrative – one that is wide-ranging, connects the popular to the underground and avant-garde, fully posits the studio as a musical instrument, and demands new critical and theoretical paradigms of those seeking to write about music. Resonances is a compelling collection of new essays by scholars, writers and musicians – all seeking to explore and enlighten this field of study.

La dimensión mítica de los personajes vanguardistas. Una reflexión en torno a la teoría de Ortega y Gasset

En el realismo de finales del XIX se consolida el desarrollo de los personajes novelescos, pero muy poco tiempo después se produce un giro en la narrativa hacia la abstracción que induce a Ortega y Gasset a reflexionar sobre cuáles son las características que definen un personaje literario. En Meditaciones del Quijote (1914), La deshumanización del arte e Ideas sobre la novela (ambos de 1925) hace un análisis histórico que concluye ofreciendo un diagnóstico de la literatura contemporánea. Muchos de los narradores vanguardistas, formados a su sombra, tienen en cuenta sus escritos y experimentan con sus propuestas. En este proceso el mito juega un papel principal, como sustancia de lo poético y como sustrato cultural de muchos de los protagonistas de la novela experimental de los años 20.