This thesis traces operations of destruction in visual cultures, describing these operations as they manifest in films and visual art practices. Beginning with Georges Bataille’s general economy of energy, as it appears in The Accursed Share, this thesis deploys the concept of the simulacrum to argue that the operations of destructions in visual cultures produce particular forms of sovereign experience. It argues that while the object of expenditure can only be unique to each site of sovereign experience, appearance of an operation of destruction that produces the possibility of that sovereign experience remains consistent. Bataille’s sovereignty cannot be specified in relation to either the individual or the universal, because, as Bataille demonstrates, sites of sovereign expenditure are temporally, materially and culturally specific, unable to be repeated without differentiation, and unable to be expressed fully after the fact. In order to argue this position, I deploy Bataille’s economics of destruction which operates within the specific realm of visual cultural theory. Orientations derived from Bataille’s work are positioned alongside the work of other theorists, and in particular, Pierre Klossowski and Gilles Deleuze, to produce a unique theoretical basis for the operation of art in culture. The thesis offers a theoretical development in the problem of representation in Bataille’s work in the form of the simulacrum after Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense. Each chapter is paired with another in a conceptual inversion that locates destructions in film, screen media and visual art practices. The thesis engages with operations of destruction in architecture, human extinction, identity and communication (through the performance of the artist and community in film), the physicality of destruction in the body and in sexuality, and finally, the order of destruction in the apparent dematerialisation of the image in digital culture.

Yeung Ka-chung, Lorraine. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves viii-xii (3rd gp.)) and index. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter One: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Aristotelian Tragedy or Greek Tragedy? --- p.6 / Chapter 1. --- Modern Criticism on Aristotle's Poetics --- p.6 / Chapter 2. --- Aristotle's Theory of Greek Tragedy --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1 --- Mimesis and Action --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2 --- Plot-Structure --- p.12 / Chapter 2.3 --- The Principle of Probability and Necessity --- p.13 / Chapter 2.4 --- Tragedy and History --- p.13 / Chapter 2.5 --- "Pity, Fear and Katharsis" --- p.14 / Chapter 2.6 --- Recognition and Reversal --- p.15 / Chapter 2.7 --- The Proper Kind of Agent --- p.16 / Chapter 2.8 --- The Proper Kind of Circumstances --- p.17 / Chapter 3. --- The Exclusion --- p.18 / Chapter 3.1 --- Does Aristotle exclude the Divinity? --- p.19 / Chapter 3.2 --- Aristotle on Oedipus Tyrannus --- p.21 / Chapter 4. --- The Role of Divinity in Greek Tragedy --- p.22 / Chapter 5. --- The Problem of Tragic Action in Greek Tragedy --- p.24 / Chapter 5.1 --- Aristotle on Tragic Action --- p.24 / Chapter 5.2 --- The Duality of Tragic Action in Greek Tragedy --- p.26 / Chapter 5.3 --- The Tragic Sense of Responsibility --- p.28 / Chapter 6. --- The Different Conception on Happiness --- p.30 / Chapter 7. --- The Problem of Pathos in Greek Tragedy --- p.31 / Chapter 7.1 --- Pathos and Truth --- p.31 / Chapter 7.2 --- The Religious Significance --- p.33 / Chapter 7.3 --- Pathos and Pity among Mortals --- p.34 / Chapter 8. --- The Problem of Conflicts in Greek Tragedy --- p.37 / Chapter 8.1 --- Aristotle and Greek Tragedy on Conflict --- p.38 / Chapter 8.2 --- Agamemnon ´ؤ Killing Among Family --- p.40 / Chapter 8.3 --- The Nature of Tragic Conflicts --- p.42 / Chapter 9. --- Conclusion: Aristotle's Silence --- p.43 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Aristotle on Tuche --- p.45 / Chapter 1. --- Aristotle and the Moral Luck Problem --- p.45 / Chapter 2. --- Tuche in Aristotle's Physics --- p.48 / Chapter 2.1 --- "Tuche and ""What Happens for the Most Part""" --- p.50 / Chapter 2.2 --- "Tuche and ""For the Sake of Something""" --- p.51 / Chapter 2.3 --- The Implications --- p.52 / Chapter 2.4 --- Remarks --- p.56 / Chapter 3. --- Tuche in Aristotle's Two Ethics --- p.57 / Chapter 3.1 --- Tuche in Eudemian Ethics -- Natural Impulse in the Soul --- p.58 / Chapter 3.2 --- Tuche in Nicomachean Ethics: External Goods and Tuche; Happiness and Blessedness --- p.65 / Chapter 4. --- Tuche in Aristotle's Poetics --- p.78 / Chapter 4.1 --- Hamartia - A Cause in Human Terms --- p.80 / Chapter 4.2 --- Errors and Misfortune --- p.82 / Chapter 5. --- Conclusion: Aristotle's Silence on Tuche in Greek Tragedy --- p.85 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- Tuche in Greek Tragedy --- p.88 / Chapter 1. --- A Deeper Sense of Exposition --- p.88 / Chapter 2. --- Tuche as a Goddess --- p.90 / Chapter 3. --- Tuche and Moira in Greek Tragedy -- The Religious Significance --- p.92 / Chapter 3.1 --- Tuche and Moira in Oedipus Tyrannus --- p.94 / Chapter 3.2 --- The Problem of Necessary Chance --- p.97 / Chapter 4. --- Tuche in Oedipus Tyrannus --- p.99 / Chapter 4.1 --- Tuche and Sophoclean Irony --- p.99 / Chapter 4.2 --- Tuche abd Oedipus --- p.103 / Chapter 5. --- Tuche in Euripides' Tragedies --- p.105 / Chapter 5.1 --- Tuche in Heracles --- p.106 / Chapter 5.2 --- Ironic Unconcern - The Tragic Response to Tuche --- p.109 / Chapter 6. --- The Tragic Views --- p.113 / Chapter 6.1 --- The Tragic Views on Man - The Mortal Limitation --- p.114 / Chapter 6.2 --- The Role of the Messenger --- p.115 / Chapter 6.3 --- The Symbolic Meaning of Nature (Physis) --- p.119 / Chapter 7. --- Conclusion: Tuche and Nature --- p.123 / Chapter Chapter Five: --- Tragedy and Philosophy --- p.125 / Chapter 1. --- From Particular to Universal -- The Significance of the Chorus --- p.125 / Chapter 2. --- The Different Way of Formulation Question --- p.129 / Chapter 3. --- The Different Conception Truth - Plato's Simile of the Cave and Oedipus Tyrannus --- p.130 / Chapter 4. --- Conclusion: Greek Tragedy as Philosophy --- p.132 / Chapter Chapter Six: --- Conclusion --- p.133 / Appendix: Related Pictures / Chapter 1. --- The Image of Goddess Tuche (of Antioch) on a Coin --- p.i / Chapter 2. --- The Image of Goddess Tuche (of Ephseus) on a Coin --- p.i / Chapter 3. --- Athena Between Two Warriors --- p.ii / Chapter 4. --- Oedipus and Sphinx --- p.ii / Chapter 5. --- The Images of Achilles and Priam in a Vase Painting --- p.iii / Chapter 6. --- The Images of Achilles and Priam in a Vase Painting --- p.iv / Chapter 7. --- The Images of Ajax and Odysseus in a Vase Painting: Side A: argument between Odysseus and Aja over the possession of the arms of Achilles --- p.x v / Chapter 8. --- Side B: the casting of votes to award the arms --- p.vi / Chapter 9. --- Tondo: Tecmessa covers body of Ajax --- p.vii / Bibliography --- p.viii / Index --- p.xii / Acknowledgement --- p.xv

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This thesis is grounded in philosophy and in literature. It is concerned with the recognized human need for self-affirmation and with the consequences of its denial caused by exile. For the victim this means the loss of social interaction and public moral agency within his natural community through which self-affirmation can be actualized. / In certain types of exilic literature constructive reactions were found to counteract this loss of freedom of choice of action and place, which entails potential annihilation of the exile's personal integrity. / In the exilic text of Dante as my chosen case study, I investigate the use of philosophical and literary means admitting of various kinds of self-referential expressions and of similacra of moral agency as substitutes for self-affirmation by public acts. Stimulated by these means, an intellectual and moral 'self-portrait' of the poet eventually emerges in the reader's consciousness. This 'portrait' is no static image of a pre-existent character, but a dynamic presence of an evolving human person of intellectual and moral integrity, as a reflection of the poet's self-perception. / By sample analyses and comparisons, my exposition substantiates the claim that Dante's text exemplifies the distinct and identifiable literary mode to which I refer as 'Exilic Discourse'.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 313-325).

Thesis (MA (English))-University of Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1988. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 407-414).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1942. / "Reprinted from Hesperia: studies in Germanic languages, Nr. 21." Bibliography: p. 297-298.

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