Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-250). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-250). Also available on the Internet.

This thesis is a critical analysis of the processes, concepts and imagery of my artwork. In my art, I intended to explore death anxieties, individuality and the uncanny. I am interested in what we leave behind after we are gone as proof of existing post mortem. My themes include procreation, forensic science, and religion among others. My imagery includes fragmented bodies, reliquaries, and forensic evidence. I use traditional and non-traditional sculpture materials and processes that are intended to conceptually inform the viewer further.

This thesis is about knowing in biology in higher education and research. The gene concept is used as an example of knowledge content that is common to both biological research and education. The purpose is to study how knowing about the gene is expressed in different forms of knowledge contexts at the university. This is important to study in order to understand documented learning problems regarding the gene concept but also to better understand the relation between knowledge in research and teaching. Knowledge has to be transformed to become an educational content, a process that is of special interest within the field of Didaktik. The thesis is based on three qualitative case studies. Study I is an analysis of a textbook in biology. The purpose is to examine the content as presented to the students to see how its structure may contribute to the problems students have. How does the gene concept function as a scientific representation and at the same time as an object for learning in a biology college textbook? A phenomenographic approach is used to study implicit variation in gene concept use when the textbook treats different sub disciplines. The results show conceptual differences between them. The different categories of the gene found–as a trait, an information structure, an actor in the cell, a regulator in embryonic development or as a marker for evolutionary change–mean that we deal with different phenomena. The gene as an object is ascribed different functions and furthermore these functions are intermingled in the textbook. Since, in the textbook, these conceptual differences are not articulated, they likely are a source of confusion when learning about genes. Study II examines the gene concept use in a scientific context, as exemplified by five research articles from a scientific journal. Using an adaptation of Hirst’s criteria for forms of knowledge, the study characterizes how the scientific contexts for the gene concept use vary. What kinds of different gene concept use in these contexts can be discerned? When comparing the articles, it becomes evident that the gene concept is used to answer different kinds of questions. The meanings of the gene concept are connected to various knowledge projects, their purposes and the methods used. Shifts of methodologies and questions entail a concept that escapes single definitions and “slides around” in meanings. These contextual transformations and associated content leaps are here referred to as epistemic drift. Study III follows an integrative research project in biology.  What are the characteristic content conditions for knowledge development? What different ways in using the gene concept can be distinguished? By using the analytic methodology developed in study II, the scientific contexts are categorized according to their knowledge project, methods used and conceptual contexts. The results show that the gene concept meanings and the content vary in focus, are more or less explicitly formulated, or possible to formulate, and consist of different skills. One didactic conclusion is that by being more overt about the conditions for problem solving within a specific subdisciplin (i.e. fruitful questions to ask, knowledge needed to answer them, and methods available), students may be given opportunities to get a broader perspective on what it means to know biology. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p><p> </p>

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A arte conheceu durante o século XX algumas mudanças cruciais que tocaram os limites do que até então era considerado como artístico. Partindo da mímesis tradicional, buscou sua negação e voltou a ela através de uma busca cada vez mais radical da própria realidade, no limite de uma ruptura com as categorias tradicionais de mímesis/representação. Examinando o trabalho de Duane Hanson, Damien Hirst, Gunther von Hagens e Rudolf Schwarzkogler, o presente trabalho procura investigar este apelo ao real, por meio da apresentação cada vez mais evidente do corpo e do uso da violência a este corpo como operação para alcançar o real. Paralela a este encontro com o real através da violência ao corpo, mostra-se através da obra de Iberê Camargo, uma segunda alternativa, que aqui é interpretada como trágica. A tragédia surge nesta dissertação como contraponto à busca de um real que, em seu excesso violento e traumático, perde as características representativas e enunciativas (em seu modo particular de enunciação, ou seja, a criação de metáforas através da representação artística) que até então haviam caracterizado a arte. Como conceito eminentemente artístico, e dentro dos limites da representação, a tragédia apresenta-se como metáfora da última fase do trabalho de Iberê Camargo, produzida a partir da década de 1980 e tendo como singularidade o retorno à representação figurativa. / Art has known during the 20th century some crucial changes that touched the boundaries of what until then was considered as artistic. Starting from the traditional mimesis, it sought for its denial and came back to it through a search more and more radical of the Real at the limit of a rupture with the traditional categories of mimesis/representation. The Real is defined according to Lacan, through its reading by Hal Foster in the art field. Assessing the works of Duane Hanson, Damien Hirst, Gunther von Hagens and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, the present work attempts to investigate this appeal to the real by means of the presentation more and more evident of the body as well as the use of violence against this body. As a opposite to those works which put in scene the real by means of the violence against the body, through the works of Iberê Camargo, a second alternative is provided, construed here as a tragic one. Tragedy arises in this dissertation as a counterpoint to the search of a reality, which through its violent, traumatic excess, is deprived of both its enunciative and representative features (in this particular mode of enunciation, i.e., the creation of metaphors through the artistic representation), which until then has been characterizing the art. As an eminently artistic concept, and within the boundaries of representation, the tragedy presents itself as a metaphor of the former phase of Iberê Camargo’s works, produced from the 80’s on, and having as singularity, the return to the figurative representation.

A arte conheceu durante o século XX algumas mudanças cruciais que tocaram os limites do que até então era considerado como artístico. Partindo da mímesis tradicional, buscou sua negação e voltou a ela através de uma busca cada vez mais radical da própria realidade, no limite de uma ruptura com as categorias tradicionais de mímesis/representação. Examinando o trabalho de Duane Hanson, Damien Hirst, Gunther von Hagens e Rudolf Schwarzkogler, o presente trabalho procura investigar este apelo ao real, por meio da apresentação cada vez mais evidente do corpo e do uso da violência a este corpo como operação para alcançar o real. Paralela a este encontro com o real através da violência ao corpo, mostra-se através da obra de Iberê Camargo, uma segunda alternativa, que aqui é interpretada como trágica. A tragédia surge nesta dissertação como contraponto à busca de um real que, em seu excesso violento e traumático, perde as características representativas e enunciativas (em seu modo particular de enunciação, ou seja, a criação de metáforas através da representação artística) que até então haviam caracterizado a arte. Como conceito eminentemente artístico, e dentro dos limites da representação, a tragédia apresenta-se como metáfora da última fase do trabalho de Iberê Camargo, produzida a partir da década de 1980 e tendo como singularidade o retorno à representação figurativa. / Art has known during the 20th century some crucial changes that touched the boundaries of what until then was considered as artistic. Starting from the traditional mimesis, it sought for its denial and came back to it through a search more and more radical of the Real at the limit of a rupture with the traditional categories of mimesis/representation. The Real is defined according to Lacan, through its reading by Hal Foster in the art field. Assessing the works of Duane Hanson, Damien Hirst, Gunther von Hagens and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, the present work attempts to investigate this appeal to the real by means of the presentation more and more evident of the body as well as the use of violence against this body. As a opposite to those works which put in scene the real by means of the violence against the body, through the works of Iberê Camargo, a second alternative is provided, construed here as a tragic one. Tragedy arises in this dissertation as a counterpoint to the search of a reality, which through its violent, traumatic excess, is deprived of both its enunciative and representative features (in this particular mode of enunciation, i.e., the creation of metaphors through the artistic representation), which until then has been characterizing the art. As an eminently artistic concept, and within the boundaries of representation, the tragedy presents itself as a metaphor of the former phase of Iberê Camargo’s works, produced from the 80’s on, and having as singularity, the return to the figurative representation.

A arte conheceu durante o século XX algumas mudanças cruciais que tocaram os limites do que até então era considerado como artístico. Partindo da mímesis tradicional, buscou sua negação e voltou a ela através de uma busca cada vez mais radical da própria realidade, no limite de uma ruptura com as categorias tradicionais de mímesis/representação. Examinando o trabalho de Duane Hanson, Damien Hirst, Gunther von Hagens e Rudolf Schwarzkogler, o presente trabalho procura investigar este apelo ao real, por meio da apresentação cada vez mais evidente do corpo e do uso da violência a este corpo como operação para alcançar o real. Paralela a este encontro com o real através da violência ao corpo, mostra-se através da obra de Iberê Camargo, uma segunda alternativa, que aqui é interpretada como trágica. A tragédia surge nesta dissertação como contraponto à busca de um real que, em seu excesso violento e traumático, perde as características representativas e enunciativas (em seu modo particular de enunciação, ou seja, a criação de metáforas através da representação artística) que até então haviam caracterizado a arte. Como conceito eminentemente artístico, e dentro dos limites da representação, a tragédia apresenta-se como metáfora da última fase do trabalho de Iberê Camargo, produzida a partir da década de 1980 e tendo como singularidade o retorno à representação figurativa. / Art has known during the 20th century some crucial changes that touched the boundaries of what until then was considered as artistic. Starting from the traditional mimesis, it sought for its denial and came back to it through a search more and more radical of the Real at the limit of a rupture with the traditional categories of mimesis/representation. The Real is defined according to Lacan, through its reading by Hal Foster in the art field. Assessing the works of Duane Hanson, Damien Hirst, Gunther von Hagens and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, the present work attempts to investigate this appeal to the real by means of the presentation more and more evident of the body as well as the use of violence against this body. As a opposite to those works which put in scene the real by means of the violence against the body, through the works of Iberê Camargo, a second alternative is provided, construed here as a tragic one. Tragedy arises in this dissertation as a counterpoint to the search of a reality, which through its violent, traumatic excess, is deprived of both its enunciative and representative features (in this particular mode of enunciation, i.e., the creation of metaphors through the artistic representation), which until then has been characterizing the art. As an eminently artistic concept, and within the boundaries of representation, the tragedy presents itself as a metaphor of the former phase of Iberê Camargo’s works, produced from the 80’s on, and having as singularity, the return to the figurative representation.

Within the field of theological aesthetics, this project assesses the divide between theological accounts of art and the re-emergence of religious imagery in modern and contemporary art. More specifically, American Protestant theologians and their accounts of visual art will be taken up as a representative set of contemporary theological inquiry in the arts. Under this category, evaluation will be made of three diverse traditions in American Protestant thought: Paul Tillich and Liberal Protestantism, Francis Schaeffer and the Neo-Calvinists, and the open evangelical accounts of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Dyrness. With respect to modern and contemporary visual art, this evaluation judges the degree to which theologians have understood the primary concepts and dominant narratives of various modernisms and postmodernisms of art since the end of the nineteenth century, recognised the watershed moments in the lineage of the twentieth century avant-garde, and acknowledged the influence of critical theory not only upon the contemporary discourse in aesthetics and art production but also in the social reception of art. In tracing the re-emergence of religious imagery in modern and contemporary art, this project takes up three diverse traditions: the Crucifixions of Francis Bacon and the memento mori art of Damien Hirst, the ‘re-enchantment’ of art in the work of Joseph Beuys, and the art of ‘False Blasphemy’ associated with lapsed Catholics like Rober Gober and Andres Serrano. By assessing what theologians have written concerning visual art and the surprising return of certain religious imagery in modern and contemporary art, this study will intimate a new way forward in a mutually beneficial dialogue for art and religious belief.

From the viewpoint of classical reception studies, I am asking what contemporary British art (by, for example, Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst, and Mark Wallinger) has to do with the classical tradition – both the art and literature of Greco-Roman antiquity. I have conducted face-to-face interviews with some of the leading artists working in Britain today, including Lucas, Hirst, Wallinger, Marc Quinn, and Gilbert & George. In addition to contemporary art, the thesis focuses on Greco-Roman art and on myths and modes of looking that have come to shape the western art historical tradition – seeking to offer a different perspective on them from that of the Renaissance and neoclassicism. The thesis concentrates on the generation of artists known as the YBAs, or Young British Artists, who came to prominence in the 1990s. These artists are not renowned for their deference to the classical tradition, and are widely regarded as having turned their backs on classical art and its legacies. The introduction asks whether their work, which has received little scholarly attention, might be productively reassessed from the perspective of classical reception studies. It argues that while their work no longer subscribes to a traditional understanding of classical ‘influence’, it continues to depend – for its power and provocativeness – on classical concepts of figuration, realism, and the basic nature of art. Without claiming that the work of the YBAs is classical or classicizing, the thesis sets out to challenge the assumption that their work has nothing to do with ancient art, or that it fails to conform to ancient understandings of what art is. In order to do this, the thesis analyses contemporary works of art through three classical ‘lenses’. Each lens allows contemporary art to be examined in the context of a longer history. The first lens is the concept of realism, as seen in artistic and literary explorations of the relationship between art and life. This chapter uses the myth of Pygmalion’s statue as a way of thinking about contemporary art’s continued engagement with ideas of mimesis and the ‘real’ which were theorised and debated in antiquity. The second lens is corporeal fragmentation, as evidenced by the broken condition of ancient statues, the popular theme of dismemberment in western art, and the fragmentary body in contemporary art. The final chapter focuses on the figurative plaster cast, arguing that contemporary art continues to invoke and reinvent the long tradition of plaster reproductions of ancient statues and bodies. Through each of these ‘lenses’, I argue that contemporary art remains linked, both in form and meaning, to the classical past – often in ways which go beyond the stated intentions of an artist. Contemporary art continues to be informed by ideas and processes that were theorised and practised in the classical world; indeed, it is these ideas and processes that make it deserving of the art label.