In this thesis I address the following questions: (1) How do dykes take up space in public in contemporary cities? (2) How does the ‘marching dyke’ emerge as a subject and what kind of subject is it? (3) How, in turn, do marching dykes affect space? In order to examine these questions I focus on the Toronto Dyke March to ask how it emerged in this particular time and place. The answer to each of these questions is paradoxical. I argue that the Dyke March is a complex, complicated and contradictory site of politics, protest and identity. Investigating ‘marching dykes’ reveals how the subject of the Dyke March is imagined in multiple and conflicting ways. The Toronto Dyke March is an event which brings together thousands of queer women annually who march together in the streets of Toronto on the Saturday afternoon of Pride weekend. My research examines how the March emerged out of a history of activism and organizing and considers how the March has been made meaningful for queer women’s communities, identities, histories and spaces. My analysis draws together queer and feminist poststructuralism, cultural geography literature on sexuality and space, and the history of sexuality in Canada. I combine a Foucaultian genealogy with visual ethnography, interviews and archival research. I argue that the Dyke March is an event which is intentionally meaningful in its claims to particular spaces and subjectivities. This research draws connections across various bodies of scholarship and offers an interdisciplinary contribution to the literature, contributing to discussions of queer women’s visibility and representation. Although my analysis is focused on Toronto as a particular site, it offers insight into broader queer women’s activist organizing efforts and queer activism in Canada.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 20-22).

This study examines the interaction between portraits by the exponent of French colourist painting Nicolas de Largillierre (1656–1745) and elite spectatorship in the early eighteenth century as enactment of the idea of painting as an art of pleasing the eye. As developed in the theory of art of Roger de Piles (1635–1709), the idea of painting as an art of pleasing the eye coexisted with the classicist view, which in turn emphasised the potential of painting to communicate discursive meanings and hence to engage the mind. The idea of painting as an art of pleasing the eye was associated with a taste that valued the pictorial effects of painting and related to the ideal of honnêteté, which expanded on the art of pleasing in polite society by means of external appearances as a sign of social distinction. The aim of the study is to explore how portraits by Nicolas de Largillierre address the spectator and how such paintings might have come to have meaning for spectators in the early eighteenth century. To do this, the study takes a performative approach and defines meaning as a product of the interplay of pictorial effects and spectatorial response, progressing from the initial encounter throughout the sustained exploration of the paintings. Building on close analyses of selected paintings and readings of texts that bear on issues of pictorial imitation, spectatorship and social interaction, the study brings into focus the interplay of cognitive and sensory activities, including verbal articulation and bodily movement, which come into play in the production of meanings through the act of spectatorial experience. The study also emphasises the interplay of the mimetic and the material aspects of the paintings as an important bearer of meanings and identifies several interrelated sites of tension in which the pictorial effectiveness of the portraits resides. The study concludes by suggesting that to infer such meanings, the spectator should be prepared to respond to the address of the paintings actively, by engaging the mind, the senses and the body. Such an interpretation of the interaction between portrait paintings and spectators proposes a complex view of the ways in which artistic and spectatorial practices in the early eighteenth century might have interacted to create meanings while reproducing at the same time social and aesthetic conventions and ideals, such as the art of pleasing the eye. / <p>Fulltexten går inte att ladda ned eller att skriva ut pga upphovsrättslliga skäl. Går endast att läsa på skärmen.</p>

My thesis examines visual and written culture of the interwar Soviet Union dealing with the body as an object of public observation, appreciation, and critique. It explores how the need to construct new Soviet subjectivities was realised through the figure of the body. I explore the representation of ‘physical culture’ (fizkul’tura), with reference to newspapers, specialist fizkul’tura and medical journals, and Party debates. This textual discourse is considered alongside visual primary sources – documentary and non-fiction film and photography, painting and sculpture, and feature films. In my analysis of these visual primary sources I identify three ‘categories of looking’ – surveillance, aesthetics, and spectatorship – that I claim structure representations of the embodied Soviet subject. My introduction incorporates a brief history of early Soviet social psychological conceptualisations of the body, outlining the coercive renovative project of Soviet subjectification and introducing the notion of surveillance. My first and second chapters explore bodily aesthetics. The first focuses on non-fiction media from the mid- to late-1920s that capture the sporting body in action; this chapter introduces the notion of spectatorship and begins to unpack the ideological function of how bodies are observed. The second further explores questions of bodily aesthetics, now in relation to fizkul’tura painting and Abram Room’s 1936 film, Strogii iunosha. My third chapter looks at fizkul’tura feature films from the mid- 1930s to explore how bodies were related to social questions of gender and sexuality, including marriage and pregnancy. My final chapter focuses on cinematic representations of football from the late 1930s and the relationship between bodies on display and onlooking crowds. These two chapters together indicate how the dynamic between the body and its spectator (whether individual or in a group) was reimagined in the late interwar years; the body’s aesthetic appeal is now of little importance compared to its ability to constitute a public subjectivity through the manipulation of emotion, trauma, and pathos.

xi, 158 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This study, set in the context of the feminist sex wars, explores the performances of Holly Hughes, Carmelita Tropicana, and Split Britches throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. The purpose of this study is to better understand the implications of a specific style of lesbian comedic performance, found at the WOW Café and defined here as lesbian camp, throughout a contentious era in feminist politics. The motivating questions for this study are: How can a performance inspire an activated spectatorship? How have lesbian comedic performance practices provoked feminist theory and practice? Chapter II defines lesbian camp and attempts to trace a dialogue among lesbian performance critics and academics ruminating over lesbian camp and its existence. It also explores lesbian camp's relationship to drag and butch-femme as well as how lesbian camp functions within specific performances of Holly Hughes, Split Britches, and Carmelita Tropicana. Chapter III argues that it is the very element of lesbian camp that brings forth the potential for an activated spectatorship. It is a chaotic, unstable environment that exposes and disassembles deep-seated fears, ideals, and practices seemingly inherent, although pragmatically constructed, to our communities and cultures throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. It presents a climate of resistance through the disruption of identificatory practices. This, in turn, provokes an activated spectatorship. Chapter IV examines the effects these artists had on the larger stage of the feminist sex wars and culture wars. Holly Hughes, for example, became a national figure, defunded from the National Endowment for the Arts due to her subject of the queer body, then deemed obscene and pornographic. Split Britches were popularized by feminists in the academy not only for their creative techniques but also for their (de)construction of butch-femme coupling. Carmelita Tropicana brought drag to a whole new level with incorporation of male and female drag into her hybrid performances. / Committee in charge: John Schmor, Chairperson, Theater Arts; Sara Freeman, Member, Theater Arts; Theresa May, Member, Theater Arts; Ellen Scott, Outside Member, Sociology

L’analyse critique des personnages féminins de Marguerite Gauthier et Macabéa dans les films – Camille/ Le roman de Marguerite Gauthier, 1936 et A hora da estrela/L'heure de l'étoile, 1986 – cherche à comprendre les mécanismes par lesquels le mythe de l'éternel féminin assure sa continuité comme image-modèle des femmes contemporaines. La compréhension de ce processus ne s’achève que par l’analyse historique d’une mythologie plus ample – celle de la centralité et universalité du regard occidental –, à la base du système de représentation dominant. La première partie est consacrée à analyser les formes trouvés par ce « regard » pour représenter le corps colonisé et le corps féminin comme « l’Autre » du discours colonial patriarcal. La deuxième partie se tourne vers le corps féminin à partir de l’analyse historique du mythe de l’éternel féminin, sa subjectivation par des femmes contemporaines et le rôle de l’imaginaire médiatique dans la re-signification et permanence de ces images stéréotypés. Le personnage emblématique de Marguerite Gauthier, incarné par le mythe Greta Garbo, est au centre de cette analyse critique. La troisième partie s’attache à la réception du mythe et de ses répercussions comme espace de glissements d’identités/altérités. Dans ce parcours, la mise en évidence des personnages de ces deux femmes explicite l’acte narratif comme un acte identitaire, qui permet d’emphatiser la notion de l’« expérience » comme espace d’articulation d’autres subjectivités et d’autres regards, et proposer la mise en question du lien entre cinéma, féminin et récit. / The critical analysis of the personages Marguerite Gauthier and Macabéa in the films -Camille / Le roman de Marguerite Gauthier, 1936 and A hora da estrela /The hour of the star,1986 - seeks to understand the mechanisms by which the myth of the eternal feminine ensures its permanence in contemporary women’s imaginary as an image-reference. The first section of the thesis focus the power of looking by an analytical approach between the stereotypes of the colonized body and the feminine body, identified as the “other” in the colonial discourse. The second section is a historical and critical analysis of the eternal feminine represented by the emblematic personage of Marguerite Gauthier, performed by Greta Garbo, and the resignifications of this myth by the contemporary media. The third section is a critical reflection about the feminine outsider, represented by the personage of Macabéa, by questioning the reception of the myth and its influence on the women’s creative process. This work focuses on the concept of 'experience' as a central element for the articulation of "others' perspectives, while questioning the relationship between film, feminine and narrative.

Singularité et bien d’expérience, le film est source de grands plaisirs et de nombreuses déceptions qui participent à la construction de la carrière cinématographique des spectateurs. Alors que l’industrie cinématographique cherche à satisfaire le goût du public, les recherches sociologiques et économiques sur le cinéma se sont peu intéressées à la construction de la satisfaction et insatisfaction dans le temps.Cette thèse se propose de montrer que le degré de satisfaction est le résultat d'un processus qui commence avant la projection et s'achève bien après celle-ci. C’est un parcours personnel et social qui conduit le spectateur à rencontrer trois oeuvres : le film attendu, le film interprété et le film-souvenir. Elle constitue une approche de la manière dont ces trois représentations mettent en jeu les schémas personnels du spectateur et les influences externes auxquelles il est soumis. Elle s’appuie sur une analyse théorique pluridisciplinaire ainsi que sur des cas pratiques construits à partir de données :- qualitatives (tirées de 22 séries de quatre entretiens rapportant l’opinion de spectateurs sur le film Solaris - de Steven Soderbergh – avant et après la projection),- quantitatives (à partir d’une base de données portant sur 577 films répartis sur 11 genres différents) / A movie is at once a work of experience and a singularity. It can be a source of pleasure or disappointment and such emotions are part and parcel of the spectator’s cinematographic journey. While the movie industry seeks to please the public, sociological and economic research have focused very little on the development of spectator satisfaction over time.This thesis aims at demonstrating that the degree of satisfaction is the result of a process that starts before the screening and ends well after it. This personal and social process leads the spectator to meet three representations: the expected movie, the interpreted movie and the souvenir-movie. We will thus carry out a theoretical multi-disciplinary analysis of the way in which these representations of film reflect on the spectator’s inner schemata and external influences, as well as a practical case study based on the following types of data:- qualitative (from 22 series of four interviews about the spectators’ opinions of Steven Soderbergh’s movie Solaris, before and after the screening),- quantitative (from a data base of 577 movies of 11 different genres)

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Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes offers a critical and creative intervention into cultural representations of gendered body dissidence in contemporary film. The study argues for the possibility of finding spaces of “disidentification”, so-called “exit scapes” within the films. Exit scapes disrupt the dominant cinematic regime set up for the trans character, which ties them into stories of discrimination, humiliation and violence. In Trans Cinema, for instance films such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Transamerica (2005), Romeos (2011) and Laurence Anyways (2012), scenes of singing, dancing and dreaming allow a different form of engagement with the films. As argued here, they allow a critical re-reading and an affirmative re-imagining of trans embodiment. The aim of this study is to investigate the utopian and hopeful potential within Trans Cinema from a critical transfeminist perspective. While focusing in particular on trans entrants as “spectators” or readers, this study draws on the work of a wide range of feminist and cultural scholars, such as Sara Ahmed, Susan Stryker, José Esteban Muñoz, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. The thesis etches out cinematic spatiotemporalities that unfold possibilities of utopian worlding and trans becoming through a set of conceptual innovations. By utilising a critical approach to audio-visuality and feminist film theory, the thesis re-conceptualises haptic spectatorship theory and its critique in western modernist ocularcentricism through a set of conceptual innovations. The methodological tools developed in this thesis, such as the “entrant”, the “exit scape” and “sensible cinematic intra-activity”, feature here as a multisensorial methodology for transdisciplinary transgender studies and feminist film theory as well as visual culture at large. / Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes är en kritisk och kreativ intervention med fokus på kulturella representationer av kroppar som bryter mot en könsbinär ordning i samtida film. Studien argumenterar för möjligheten att hitta utrymmen för “disidentification”, så kallade “exit scapes” inom filmerna. Exit scapes stör den dominanta filmiska ordning som skapats för transkaraktären, en ordning som är förbunden med berättelser om diskriminering, förödmjukelse och våld. Inom Trans Cinema, i filmer som exempelvis Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Transamerica (2005), Romeos (2011) and Laurence Anyways (2012), öppnar scener med sång, dans och drömmar upp för andra former av engagemang med filmerna. Som det argumenteras för i avhandlingen tillåter dessa ett kritiskt omformulerande av, och ett nytt affirmativt sätt att föreställa sig, transkroppslighet. Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka den utopiska och hoppfulla potential som finns inom transfilm utifrån ett kritiskt transfeministiskt perspektiv. Även om studien främst riktar sig till trans entrants som “åskådare” eller läsare, så har den en bred teoretisk bas hämtad från verk av en lång rad feministiska forskare inom kulturfältet, såsom Sara Ahmed, Susan Stryker, José Esteban Muñoz, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Karen Barad och Donna Haraway. Denna avhandling skissar filmiska spatiotemporaliteter, vilka öppnar för möjligheter av utopiska värdsliga och transsubjektiva tillblivelser genom utvecklandet av olika teoretiska begrepp. Genom ett kritiskt förhållningssätt till audiovisualitet och feministisk filmteori, revideras och omformuleras haptisk åskådarskapsteori och dess kritik i en västerländsk okularcentrism genom olika teoretiska innovationer. De metodologiska verktygen som utvecklas i avhandlingen, såsom “the entrant”, “the exit scape” samt “sensible cinematic intra-activity” utgör här funktionen som multisensorisk metodologi för transdisciplinära transstudier, feministisk filmteori samt för visuell kultur i stort.

Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes offers a critical and creative intervention into cultural representations of gendered body dissidence in contemporary film. The study argues for the possibility of finding spaces of “disidentification”, so-called “exit scapes” within the films. Exit scapes disrupt the dominant cinematic regime set up for the trans character, which ties them into stories of discrimination, humiliation and violence. In Trans Cinema, for instance films such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Transamerica (2005), Romeos (2011) and Laurence Anyways (2012), scenes of singing, dancing and dreaming allow a different form of engagement with the films. As argued here, they allow a critical re-reading and an affirmative re-imagining of trans embodiment. The aim of this study is to investigate the utopian and hopeful potential within Trans Cinema from a critical transfeminist perspective. While focusing in particular on trans entrants as “spectators” or readers, this study draws on the work of a wide range of feminist and cultural scholars, such as Sara Ahmed, Susan Stryker, José Esteban Muñoz, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. The thesis etches out cinematic spatiotemporalities that unfold possibilities of utopian worlding and trans becoming through a set of conceptual innovations. By utilising a critical approach to audio-visuality and feminist film theory, the thesis re-conceptualises haptic spectatorship theory and its critique in western modernist ocularcentricism through a set of conceptual innovations. The methodological tools developed in this thesis, such as the “entrant”, the “exit scape” and “sensible cinematic intra-activity”, feature here as a multisensorial methodology for transdisciplinary transgender studies and feminist film theory as well as visual culture at large. / Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes är en kritisk och kreativ intervention med fokus på kulturella representationer av kroppar som bryter mot en könsbinär ordning i samtida film. Studien argumenterar för möjligheten att hitta utrymmen för “disidentification”, så kallade “exit scapes” inom filmerna. Exit scapes stör den dominanta filmiska ordning som skapats för transkaraktären, en ordning som är förbunden med berättelser om diskriminering, förödmjukelse och våld. Inom Trans Cinema, i filmer som exempelvis Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Transamerica (2005), Romeos (2011) and Laurence Anyways (2012), öppnar scener med sång, dans och drömmar upp för andra former av engagemang med filmerna. Som det argumenteras för i avhandlingen tillåter dessa ett kritiskt omformulerande av, och ett nytt affirmativt sätt att föreställa sig, transkroppslighet. Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka den utopiska och hoppfulla potential som finns inom transfilm utifrån ett kritiskt transfeministiskt perspektiv. Även om studien främst riktar sig till trans entrants som “åskådare” eller läsare, så har den en bred teoretisk bas hämtad från verk av en lång rad feministiska forskare inom kulturfältet, såsom Sara Ahmed, Susan Stryker, José Esteban Muñoz, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Karen Barad och Donna Haraway. Denna avhandling skissar filmiska spatiotemporaliteter, vilka öppnar för möjligheter av utopiska värdsliga och transsubjektiva tillblivelser genom utvecklandet av olika teoretiska begrepp. Genom ett kritiskt förhållningssätt till audiovisualitet och feministisk filmteori, revideras och omformuleras haptisk åskådarskapsteori och dess kritik i en västerländsk okularcentrism genom olika teoretiska innovationer. De metodologiska verktygen som utvecklas i avhandlingen, såsom “the entrant”, “the exit scape” samt “sensible cinematic intra-activity” utgör här funktionen som multisensorisk metodologi för transdisciplinära transstudier, feministisk filmteori samt för visuell kultur i stort.