published_or_final_version / abstract / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-44).

Recognising art’s crucial function for reproducing economic and sexual differences, feminist political interventions - alongside a range of ‘new’ critical perspectives including Marxism, psychoanalysis and poststructuralism - have wrought historic changes upon the production, circulation and consumption of art. This is widely acknowledged in art historical scholarship. However, understanding that ‘art history’ (as a historically conditioned discipline) is concurrently reproductive of these ideological and material inequalities, feminist scholars have significantly and continually sought to intervene at the point of production – the writing of art’s history – to expose its social role and remake the fundamental terms of the discipline. This is a truth less widely acknowledged or, at least, less well-understood within contemporary scholarship. This thesis, therefore, seeks to examine the discipline of art history in Anglo- American contexts to assess the impact that feminist models of scholarship have had upon its knowledges and practices. This is attained through extensive literature overviews, archival research and, to a lesser extent, email interviews with key contributors to the discourse. Ultimately, this examination endeavours to address the production and regulation of feminist knowledge across a number of expanded (and interconnected) institutional sites. Case studies track the impact of feminist strategies upon the authoring of art history in the classroom, within scholarly professional organisations, academic publishing, the museum sector, and upon art-making itself. The research evaluates the mutable power structures of the discipline, how feminist interventions have had success in rethinking the limits of institutional knowledge, and how it may be possible to articulate critique under twenty-first-century conditions of institutional complicity and the hegemonic recuperation (or indeed ‘disciplining’) of radical practices. To date – and despite its prominence within much feminist writing - the importance of art historiography for the feminist political project has not been properly examined; the aim of this thesis is therefore to redress this omission and provide a timely and comprehensive critical reading of feminist knowledge production since around 1970.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Also available online.

This project investigates the apparent contradiction of a female artist who prioritises embodied presence in her art works, but produces Minimalist installations. It does this by describing in detail and analysing, and thus re-evaluating the significance of, the full range of actions and processes that are performed to produce the work. It further proposes that, in the actions of crafting the individual elements and in designing, planning and installing the work in Modernist gallery spaces, conditions are set up for viewers of the finished work to experience a physical awareness that echoes that of the artist in those actions and processes.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 3, leaves 115-120).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-136). Also available via the World Wide Web.

The present master's thesis discusses the traditional textile technique of embroidery in the context of contemporary art and analyses the way in which this craft technique has evolved from its invention to this day. The historical development points at the inevitable link between this artistic technique and women's history in Western societies, where embroidery strove to maintain stereotypes on femininity. In the twentieth century, embroidery as well as other textile techniques take on a new, subversive quality which enables the beginning of a social dialogue through art. It becomes a part of the public space in the form of banners in demonstrations or craftivist interventions in city streets. It tries to free itself from stereotypes and become an accessible technique for which the artistic process is as important as the finished piece. The work of contemporary artists reveals the shifting position of textile art, which cannot be considered as a simple offshoot of artistic craftsmanship for it has turned into in an autonomous and widely used medium of expression in current artistic production.