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Inaug. Diss.--Cologne. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 388-404.

In the Caribbean, the eighteenth century symbolized a period of shifting powers in the region. Spain abandoned control of many of the smaller islands in the Caribbean, which were quickly taken over and subsequently controlled by the three major European competitors: England, France, and the Netherlands. These islands would be traded as prizes during various European conflicts that would always spread into the region. Unfortunately, most of the archaeological work that has occurred within the Caribbean has tended to largely focus on the micro-scale analysis. While development of a macro-scale analysis to assist an understanding of the past in the Caribbean is called for, not much has been done yet. This study examines the Caribbean in the eighteenth century to develop a model for inter-site comparison. I shall argue that consumptive patterns are knowable and testable through the archaeological record and may be seen through the development of a model for inter-site comparison. Finally, the connections developed from the importation of various goods, such as ceramics, provide opportunities to test ideas about contested peripheries which can be seen by means of historical data and statistical inference to understand the past relationship between global events and local acts of consumption within the Caribbean.

<p> Joaqu&iacute;n Sorolla (1863-1923) painted numerous works of children bathing and playing on Spain's Mediterranean shores. This life-affirming subject allowed Sorolla to participate in the broad cultural discourse in Spain concerning cultural regeneration. Sorolla's work with the subject of the child bather intensified in the decade following the Crisis of 1898. <i>Sad Inheritance! </i>, his first monumental work on a child bather subject, directly engages the Theory of Degeneration, and the degeneration of Spain itself. While creating this work, Sorolla also developed paintings of child bathers that moved decisively toward a vision of regeneration. It was this regenerative vision that the artist would pursue in a number of complex and shifting ways, until creating a series of large child bather paintings in 1909. This thesis takes an episodic approach, studying key works from a decade of Sorolla' s output. </p>

During her early career as a sculptor, the French artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) experimented with various methods of representing the female body in a state of dismemberment or fragmentation. Despite the transgression latent within such sculptures, critics and scholars alike interpreted Bourgeois’s oeuvre from a psycho-biographical angle. In doing so, they suggested that her art was rooted in a personal—as opposed to political—consciousness. This thesis analyzes some of the reasons behind this common method of interpretation, looking specifically at the personal myth that Bourgeois promoted in order to gain acceptance in the art world. In addition, this work questions the ways in which the artist masked the gendered transgression in two sculptural self-portraits through unique adaptations to Modernist traditions.

This thesis is an art historical study focussing on contemporary Japan, and in particular the artists Murakami TakashL Mori Mariko, Aida Makoto, and Nara Yoshitomo. These artists represent a generation of artists born in the 1960s who use popular culture to their own ends. From the seminal exhibition 'Tokyo Pop' at Hiratsuka Museum of Art in 1996 which included all four artists, to Murakami's group exhibition 'Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture' which opened in April 2005, central to my research is an exploration of contemporary art's engagement with the pervasiveness of cuteness in Japanese culture. Including key secondary material, which recognises cuteness as not merely something trivial but involving power play and gender role issues, this thesis undertakes an interdisciplinary analysis of cuteness in contemporary Japanese popular culture, and examines howcontemporary Japanese artists have responded, providing original research through interviews with Aida Makoto, Mori Mariko and Murakami Takashi. Themes examined include the deconstruction of the high and low in contemporary art; sh6jo (girl) culture and cuteness; the relation of cuteness and the erotic; the transformation of cuteness into the grotesque; cuteness and nostalgia; and virtual cuteness in Japanese science fiction animation, and computer games.