This study presents an attempt to understand the political and aesthetic relationship between two of Modernism’s most enigmatic authors, Wyndham Lewis and Ford Madox Ford by examining their novelistic practice in light of their writings on politics and social criticism. A close look at the use of ironic distance, a hallmark feature in our understanding of modernist fiction, in Tarr (1918) and The Good Soldier (1915) reveals both authors conscious effort to distance themselves from their novel’s subjects, Fredric Tarr and John Dowell respectively. In light of both novels’ satirical element, a scathing attack on bourgeois narcissism caused by the wealthier class’ persistent attempts to identify with hollow and self serving social roles through the sham-aristocratic prestige created by England’s pre-war commodity culture, and the fact that both Fredric Tarr and John Dowell are artist figures that somehow resemble their creators, this project reinterprets Ford and Lewis’ ironic distance as an instance of self-distanciation. From this we can infer that both Ford and Lewis were invested in the modernist idea of impersonality, not just as a artistic or literary technique, but as the artist’s only means of escaping the narcissistic and slothful trap of modern subjectivity, and that, along with the production of modernist art, they saw a continual self-effacement as the price of authenticity, therefore inspiring in them the conviction to live as “uncelebrated stylists.”

Au début des années soixante ont lieu les premiers essais pour créer une alliance des expériences de rénovation cinématographique menées dans divers pays d'Amérique latine. La tentative de révolutionner les formes autonomes du cinéma fut conçue comme une contribution à la révolution sociale et politique revendiquées par les mouvements de libération latino-américains de cette époque. Notre étude est consacrée à l'analyse de ce projet de développement cinématographique, qui sera connu comme Nouveau cinéma latino-américain dès la fin des années soixante. Nous examinerons les films et les réflexions théoriques de quelques-uns des cinéastes qui adhérèrent au projet, dont l'œuvre se caractérise par un positionnement subversif au sein du champ cinématographique, face à la position hégémonique du modèle hollywoodien. À travers l'analyse des apports théoriques de ces réalisateurs et l'étude des rencontres et échanges entre eux, nous chercherons à établir les caractéristiques du concept de Nouveau cinéma latino-américain, ainsi que ses contradictions et limites.

The subject of my thesis is Russian artist Alexandra Exter’s work in the performing arts, with a focus on her theatrical set and costume designs in the Kamerny Theater, her creations for Iakov Protazanov’s 1924 science fiction film, Aelita, and finally her exquisitely fabricated set of approximately forty marionettes. Within these colorful wooden figures are reconciled conflicting notions of stasis and dynamism, sculpture and performer, human and object. Drawing upon Victor Shklovskiĭ’s formalist definition of “enstrangement,” I examine her introduction of the object in place of the human performer as a means of exposing the creative process, forcing the viewer to actively engage with the production. Thus, her manipulation and eventual replacement of the human performer not only exemplifies the interconnectivity and mutability of Russian avant-garde art, but impels the viewer to reconsider the familiar in terms of the strange, ultimately calling attention to the humanity of the dehumanized performer.

Cette thèse de doctorat pose les linéaments d'une histoire de la littérature française contemporaine. Prenant pour objet d'étude une sphère très précise du champ poétique en étudiant les oeuvres d'Olivier Cadiot et de Nathalie Quintane, cette réflexion a pour point de départ le constat de la fin de la domination du modèle avant-gardiste dans le champ culturel à la charnière des années 1970 et 1980. Il s'agit de questionner la possibilité puis les modalités d'un renouvellement des formes après l'avant-garde. Cette problématique s'accompagne de deux autres interrogations sur la résistance au pouvoir et la traduction de l'expérience. S'articule ainsi une réflexion sur le devenir du travail de l'écrivain dans un contexte où les forces d'ordonnancement des corps, de la mémoire et du langage imposent des consensus qui réduisent la probabilité d'un surgissement de nouveauté, entendue ici comme puissance subversive capable de malmener nos représentations du monde. Cette réflexion débute en revisitant, dans une première partie intitulée « Des positions fugitives », plusieurs notions théoriques avec pour objectif avoué de voir en quoi elles peuvent être opératoires dans le contexte contemporain. En analysant les acceptions d'avant-garde (Poggioli, Bürger), de poésie (Gleize, Pinson), de champ (Bourdieu, Lahire) et de politique (Rancière), il s'agit de constituer le cadre intellectuel duquel émerge le corpus étudié. Cette première partie ne fait pas que l'état de la question critique et théorique, elle propose aussi l'étude de quelques textes d'Olivier Cadiot, de Nathalie Quintane et de Christophe Tarkos pour appuyer les démonstrations. « Jouer Gambit », deuxième partie, se consacre exclusivement à l'oeuvre d'Olivier Cadiot. Structurées autour de trois thématiques (la poésie, le pouvoir et la gravité), ces analyses montrent la complexité du travail de l'écrivain, notamment en expliquant, dans « Romaniser la poésie », que la migration que Cadiot opère vers le roman, loin d'être un acte de « haine de la poésie », est une manière pour lui de lui donner une nouvelle intensité. La mise en contexte de la création de L'art poétic' est suivie d'une présentation de la Revue de littérature générale. L'examen des « mises en abyme » de la poésie dans les romans de Cadiot dans Futur, ancien, fugitif; Retour définitif et durable de l'être aimé et Fairy queen explique les tenants et les aboutissants de ce déplacement générique. Dans « Singer le pouvoir », ce sont les nombreuses figures de la domination qui font l'objet d'un développement. L'usage de la métaphore militaire est aussi étudié, Cadiot parvenant par ce biais à déployer la question du politique en littérature. « L'archipel du goujat » se penche sur la question de l'expérience de la gravité, et explique que les différents Robinson de Cadiot opposent deux régimes d'atteinte: l'idiotie et la folie, deux rapports à la désorganisation qui sont aussi deux rapports aux formes et, plus largement, au politique. La deuxième partie se clôt sur une analyse de l'entreprise intertextuelle de Cadiot, qui compare son Robinson à ceux de Daniel Defoe et de Michel Tournier. La troisième partie, « Damer le pion », se consacre à l'oeuvre de Nathalie Quintane. Deux thématiques structurent nos analyses: le rapport à la poésie et le rapport à l'histoire. Le huitième chapitre, « Le mauvais genre », s'attaque à la question générique. Dans l'analyse de Remarques et de Chaussure, l'imperceptibilité de l'oeuvre, identifiée aussi bien, à ses débuts, à la sacralité du quotidien qu'à la littéralité, est mise de l'avant. La posture de l'écrivaine au sujet de la poésie est explicitée: elle résiste à l'idée de la densité comme étalon de valeur de la poéticité en lui opposant la surface, perçue notamment dans la distanciation des remarques qui mettent tout de même de l'avant un « je » qui expérimente avec le corps et la pensée, dans le but avoué d'en finir avec la grandiloquence. Quintane témoigne d'un nouveau parti pris des choses qui confirme l'énorme distance qui la sépare de toutes les pratiques « du soi » tout comme des lieux communs entourant la littérature de « femmes ». La posture faussement ingénue de Quintane se loge dans une pensée esthétique concernée par un travail sur le douteux, l'évènementiel, la surprise. Travaillant avec ce qui importune, ce qui est incongru, l'écrivaine réfléchit aux questions du sérieux, de l'idiotie, de l'absurde, de la fantaisie. « Repasser l'Histoire », neuvième chapitre, montre comment Quintane déplace la matière historique, la repasse, c'est-à-dire opère une mise à plat tout en la revisitant pour la faire voir autrement. L'écrivaine rencontre d'abord Jeanne d'Arc puis la station balnéaire de Saint-Tropez. Dans Cavale et Grand ensemble, elle affronte des sujets délicats -la Commune, la collaboration ou la guerre d'Algérie -à travers la reconstitution de « souvenirs live » qui érige un travail de rétrospection qui engage Quintane du côté de la confusion, perçue comme le moindre mal d'une époque où l'ordre déforme la mémoire. L'écrivaine invite à damer le pion des discours de légitimation tout en dressant une continuité entre un passé douteux et un présent qui de jour en jour nous prouve l'être tout autant. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Avant-Garde, Littérature contemporaine, Expérimentation, Poésie, Société, Politique, Sociocritique, Olivier Cadiot, Nathalie Quintane.

This dissertation examines the political regime during the single party rule in Turkey between the years of 1923-1950 in relation to the concept of tutelage. The main argument supported in this work is that tutelary tendencies, contrary to the assumptions of Kemalist historicization, do not serve as segue to democracy, but rather make consolidation of democracy difficult, even impossible. In support, this dissertation provides a close examination of the Kemalist nation building process beginning from the Ottoman modernization process extending to the demographic engineering projects of the Republic. The examination reveals that tutelary tendencies are a reflection of the savior mission undertaken by the elite during the Ottoman-Republican modernization process. The political elite, in their mission to save and build the nation, not only ignored the political and social fabric of the time, but they insisted on radical interventions to the demographic fabric of the society in order to transform it to the nation they envisioned. During the execution of the nation-building project increasingly more authoritarian measures were legitimized by declared target of democracy. The social resistance to the radical interventions was suppressed by more authoritarian measures that were perceived as the cost of achieving democracy. The elite perceived themselves uniquely fit for deciding what is in the best interest of the people. Whether the aim of democratization was reached or not was also decided by the tutelary elite. Not wanting to let go of the power, they continuously invented new prerequisites to democracy. This cycle resulted in the persistence of the authoritarian regime. In the final analysis, this dissertation reveals that the tutelary tendencies of the avant-garde elite are the biggest obstacle on the path to democracy.

This study presents an attempt to understand the political and aesthetic relationship between two of Modernism’s most enigmatic authors, Wyndham Lewis and Ford Madox Ford by examining their novelistic practice in light of their writings on politics and social criticism. A close look at the use of ironic distance, a hallmark feature in our understanding of modernist fiction, in Tarr (1918) and The Good Soldier (1915) reveals both authors conscious effort to distance themselves from their novel’s subjects, Fredric Tarr and John Dowell respectively. In light of both novels’ satirical element, a scathing attack on bourgeois narcissism caused by the wealthier class’ persistent attempts to identify with hollow and self serving social roles through the sham-aristocratic prestige created by England’s pre-war commodity culture, and the fact that both Fredric Tarr and John Dowell are artist figures that somehow resemble their creators, this project reinterprets Ford and Lewis’ ironic distance as an instance of self-distanciation. From this we can infer that both Ford and Lewis were invested in the modernist idea of impersonality, not just as a artistic or literary technique, but as the artist’s only means of escaping the narcissistic and slothful trap of modern subjectivity, and that, along with the production of modernist art, they saw a continual self-effacement as the price of authenticity, therefore inspiring in them the conviction to live as “uncelebrated stylists.”

This dissertation identifies the diluting effects that network society has had on the avant-garde subcultures, by first building a framework through which to understand the social structure and spatial production of the historical avant-garde, and then comparing this with contemporary avant-garde movements. The avant-garde is a cultural tradition that originated in modern 18th century Europe and North America, that critically responds to hegemonic power structures and mainstream cultural assumptions. I use the term “avant-garde subcultures” because my research focuses on the entire social group of the avant-garde. Most scholarship on the avant-garde has overlooked the importance that social relations, in particular supportive actors, and collaborative spaces have served in the creativity of the avant-garde. During the past twenty years, as society has shifted into a dependence on networked interactive technologies, the boundaries which protect these avant-garde spaces and social relations were diluted. As a result, avant-garde subcultures have entered a phase of recursively repeating themselves and culturally stagnating. I begin by reviewing the historical avant-garde and subcultures, building an overarching theory that explains that avant-garde is a type of subculture. Using past scholarship that maps the conceptual lineage from early bohemians to 1970s punk rock, I synthesize a set of traits which all avant-garde subcultures exhibit, and which can be used to build their genealogy. I then extend this genealogy to contemporary art practitioners, to prove that the avant-garde tradition continues to this day. Next, I develop a philosophical understanding of the importance of space for hegemonic power structures, based largely on the work of Henri Lefebvre. I explain how avant-garde subcultures produce spaces of representation in the cafes, bars and night clubs they inhabit, which challenge hegemony by being different from normal values and aesthetics. I reference first-hand accounts of these spaces of representation, to show how they enable the collaboration and creative thinking that is most often associated with the avant-garde. The avant-garde protect these spaces through a set of cultural boundaries: fashion, slang, esoteric knowledge, accumulation, and physical space. Manuel Castell's concept of network society depicts how hegemonic power structures have become pervasive, and thus can overcome the boundaries of avant-garde subcultures. As a result, avant-garde subcultures have increasingly become retrogressive and fluid. Some avant-garde practitioners, such as tactical media, have evolved methods for addressing these problems. While these are effective in continuing the avant-garde tradition of introducing difference, there are no adequate methods for producing new spaces of representation. I examine Eyebeam, an arts and technology center, which has since 1997 provided a space for many contemporary practitioners. While unique in its circumstances, Eyebeam has adopted several processes which have enabled it to overcome the diluting effects of network society, thereby providing a potential model for building future spaces of representation.

This dissertation seeks to abolish the inherited cliché that the Modernist writers and artists rejected earlier art and literature, particularly that of the classical tradition. In fact, both literature and art of the early 20th century made widespread use of the inherited Greco-Roman tradition in a myriad of ways. Moreover, beginning after the First World War and maturing in the 1920s, a demonstrative Neoclassical “movement” appeared across different types of art and different nations. A neoclassical or classicizing style or form is inherently malleable, an empty signifier that can, through an artist or writer’s emphasis, point towards any number of meanings. This allowed a classical style to become widespread along with its seeming resiliency as the ordered, traditional bedrock of the West. In the 1930s, however, the fascist parties of Germany, France, and Italy began to appropriate the neoclassical as a state- or party-style because of the ease with which politics could be incorporated into a relatively vacant form. Their systematic use of the classical tradition in large part “tainted” classical subjects and styles, which allowed for the post-World War II institutionalization of the avant garde. I argue that texts which used the classical tradition could do so in four distinct manners—four types of classicism. Symbolic Classicism controls its classical material by using it only at the level of hollow icon which pregnantly gestures towards antiquity. Traditional Classicism, like an adaptation of a classical narrative particularly in drama, becomes completely dependent on its borrowings. Formal Classicism borrows an inherited, vacant form which can then be injected with Modernity. Finally, Synthetic Classicism necessitates a careful balancing of the classical material, not reducing it to symbolic meaning, but producing a novel narrative or mirroring-effect, that controls its various elements designed into a modern theme or objective. / text

This dissertation investigates how the project of abstraction, initiated in interwar Europe, was reconstructed, continued, and transformed in mid-twentieth-century South America. Through an examination of the work and thought of three key artists (Tomás Maldonado of Argentina, Alejandro Otero of Venezuela, and Lygia Clark of Brazil), it posits historical continuity and universality as both central problems of mid-century South American projects of abstraction and potential avenues toward a new understanding of their historical specificity. I identify three key features of interwar abstraction that were consciously continued in the work of Maldonado, Otero, and Clark: the adoption of abstraction not as a style, but as a progressive teleology with a linear history and singular goal; the ambition to reach the end of painting as an autonomous activity and integrate abstraction into the built environment; and the belief in the power of abstraction to forge new subjects and collectivities. In all three cases, the encounter of a universalistic project with particular socio-historical realities had resonances unanticipated by their European predecessors. Whereas abstraction in interwar Europe was intimately tied to struggles against bourgeois subjectivity and for a new form of egalitarian collectivity, artists in mid-century South America were rather faced with accelerated, state-driven developmentalism and the emergence of populist politics. Against this background, I demonstrate how each artist envisioned abstraction as a tool to contribute to or disrupt newly emerging forms of collectivity, contrasting Maldonado's insistence on an international, class-based collective, Otero's efforts to forge a modern national community, and Clark's advocating for a contingent intersubjectivity as a way of resisting top-down projects of collectivity. Finally, I investigate how the engagement with ideas of continuity and universality, as exemplified by these three artists, intersected with broader conceptions of historical progress and development circulating in Latin America between the Second World War and the Cuban Revolution. The rise and fall of abstraction in South America during this period, I conclude, was closely linked to the dream of catching up with "universal history" and its eventual abandonment. / History of Art and Architecture

This dissertation analyzes the prose works of the “Nova Novorum,” a fiction series created and published by José Ortega y Gasset between 1926 and 1929. This collection included six works by four authors, five of which will be discussed in this dissertation. Pedro Salinas’ Víspera del gozo (1926) inaugurated the series. Benjamín Jarnés published two works: El profesor inútil (1926) and Paula y Paulita (1929). Antonio Espina is also responsible for two works: Pájaro pinto (1927) and Luna de copas (1929). The dissertation is divided into five sections. The first chapter introduces the topic of avant-garde prose during the 1920s in Spain, and the concept of ekphrasis as a methodological approach. Prose authors of the avant-garde were prolific during the first third of the twentieth century in Spain. They produced a new aesthetic sensibility with their experimental narrations. All of the works analyzed are examined through the lens of ekphrasis, which is the verbal representation of visual representation. Chapter Two discusses three relational aspects of ekphrasis: word and image, time and space, and the hermeneutics of ekphrasis. The first section examines the difference between narration and description. The second explores the relationship between time and space and the implications of the fact that a visual object is normally associated with space, while a verbal representation is associated with time. This section examines how authors incorporate spatial techniques into their narrations in ways that are commonly employed by painters. The third section of Chapter Two examines iconology and the hermeneutics of ekphrasis and how the authors use the trope of mimesis not to imitate nature but rather to distort reality. Chapters Three, Four and Five closely examine the images described by each author. This study draws on understanding of ekphrasis from literary studies and art history as well as theories of the literary avant-garde that stems both from Europe and from Spain in particular. Ortega y Gasset’s ideas about the novel and the avant-garde informed the basic assumptions of the authors of the “Nova Novorum,” who often used ekphrasis as a means of avoiding narrative progress. In many cases of ekphrasis found in the “Nova Novorum” collection, the representations of art are deployed in the same way in which the authors utilize metaphor, as a means of digressing from the narrative. These ekphrastic moments allow each author to withdraw from or slow down the narration, providing the author with the opportunity to focus on the use of language itself.