Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Comparative Literature, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

In his innovative publication of 1543, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, the anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) transformed the traditional definition, theories, and representations of human anatomy, dissection, and anatomical theater. This particular project explores the transformation through an analysis of the Fabrica's frontispiece, osteological, and myological woodcuts, which are found in Book I and Book II. This paper argues that Vesalius conceives of his book, beginning with the frontispiece, as a theatrum, a constructed space for presenting knowledge visually to its reader-viewers. Within that space there is a tension in the Fabrica between its new empirical claims and its modes of representation, which emphasize instead the artificial, theatrical, and rhetorical. By incorporating elements of performance and spectacle and by decontextualizing the anatomical theater and its figures through the use of recognizable artistic conventions--including allegorical Dances of Death and ancient statuary--Vesalius manages to capture the viewer's unflinching visual attention while also disguising some of the more gruesome realities and destructive methods of human dissection. / Art History

My thesis film for the Master of Fine Arts degree is a 10-minute documentary entitled Loose Bodies. It traces my mom's recovery from knee replacement surgery, meanwhile exploring her relationship to her knees through interviews and archival footage and my own relationship to my body's ability to move. The film contains three animated sequences, using the Renaissance anatomical drawings of Andreas Vesalius. This report is an account of the filmmaking process from initial idea to finished film. / text