Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is concerned with the ways in which whiteness and authenticity are manifested within contemporary visual culture in South Africa. The project begins as an artistic inquiry grounded in autobiography, which becomes an elaborate self-portrait narrated from the distance of the third person. My practice aims to address the trajectories that I am unable to articulate through my theoretical analysis. Through a process of solvent release printing, I explore the dualities of my own identity as African and white in an attempt to counteract the view that one negates the other. Part I attempts to provide an archive-able record of this practice. Part II shows that a long history of dichotomous art-historical practice has resulted in differentiated artistic pressures for black and white South African artists. I discuss the development of platforms that have contributed to the shifting of such classificatory trends without dissolving them completely, namely the first and second Johannesburg Biennales, Africus (1995) and Trade Routes (1997). In doing so, I trace how these events have troubled such stereotypes. Whiteness is identified as the overriding factor which allows the dominant discourse of Western- and Euro-centric ideals to remain prioritised. Brett Murray and Minnette Vári are discussed as examples of white South African artists who problematise whiteness by addressing racial fluidity, belonging, authenticity and identity. The theme of autobiography is reintroduced in the conclusion, where I argue that my own practice could be seen to mirror the strategies that each artist has employed to subvert their whiteness, and to build a case for accessing a multiple identity that is African in its ability to be diverse. I conclude that it is ultimately the artists’ performative use of their own bodies which allows them to discuss issues of representation without falling into the ideological position of the coloniser.

No description available.

This study considers the relief decoration of private tombs in Lower Egypt in the period 664-332 BC. The basis for analysis is a chronologically arranged descriptive catalogue, which includes both isolated blocks in museum collections and tombs whose location is known. The present condition of the relief and its content are described in detail there. Texts are considered where they provide infotmation on provenance and dating, and hand-copies are provided. Each piece is illustrated in the plate volume. Enough of the material can be dated by textual evidence to provide a solid framework for stylistic ordering of the remainder. The resulting chronology has important implications, dividing the period into two major phases, covering the seventh and sixth centuries, and the fourth century, separated by a hiatus in production of tomb reliefs. The chronology proposed eliminates the possibility that either Greeks or Persians exercised any significant influence on Egyptian art before the very end of the period. Instead, native tradition emerges as the primary inspiration for Late Period artists. Two sources stand out. The first is the Old-Middle Kingdom tomb repertory (archaism), the second is the New Kingdom tradition carried on in the minor arts, a source largely-ignored hitherto. These were not slavishly copied, but adapted and "modernized" to suit the taste of the time. The independence and creativity of Late Period artists is emphasized. A discussion of stylistic development in light of the dating system is given, and several themes are analyzed in detail as illustrations of the larger issues raised.

La philosophie de Nietzsche constitue un ensemble cohérent de matrices conceptuelles destinées à articuler discursivement les rapports qu'entretiennent le passé, le présent et l'avenir. Éternel retour, surhumain et généalogie en sont les figures réputées, qui ne doivent pas dissimuler la richesse et l'intrication autrement plus complexes des philosophèmes qui rendent l'histoire pensable sous des modalités alternatives à celles de l'historiographie et des philosophies de l'histoire ouvragées par les XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Nous appelons « historicités » ces formules matricielles, dont la terminologie fluctue pour des motifs précis : de la "philologie de l'avenir" à la « généalogie» en passant par la "philosophie historique", chaque historicité implique une représentation de l'histoire (Geschichte) et une pratique de celle-ci (Historie) qui reconfigurent chaque fois son sens, sa fonction et sa valeur. Rendre raison de ces historicités selon une perspective génético-généalogique signifie au moins trois choses: d'abord, faire le départ entre ces historicités selon une scansion qui épouse les grands moments de leur élaboration, depuis la poétique de l'histoire du jeune Nietzsche jusqu'à la généalogie proprement dite; en même temps, cela exige de faire état du mouvement unitaire qui préside à cette succession, une fois celle-ci ressaisie comme la production discursive d'une volonté de puissance en devenir, à la recherche de son intensification; pour cette raison même, cela appelle enfin une évaluation généalogique de l'historicité réflexive par laquelle Nietzsche interprète ses propres historicités à tous les moments de leur parturition. / Nietzsche's philosophy forms a consistent set of conceptual schemes, that aim at elaborating, within a speculative form, the relations between past, present and future. Eternal return, overhuman and genealogy are the well­known representatives of such schemes, that should not hide the more complex and intricated richness of the philosophemes that allow to think history within other forms than those taken by historiography and philosophy of history worked out by the XVIlth and XIXth century. We call "historicties" those schemes-formulas, which terms change for specific reasons: from de "philology of the future" to lhe "genealogy" passing by the "hlstorical philosophy", each historicity implies a representation of history (Geschichte) and a practice of history (Historie) that configures at every turn his meaning, his function and his value. Accounting for those historicities from a genetic and genealogical perspective means at least three things: first, to distinguish those historicities from one another using a scansion that follows the great moments of their elaboration, from the poetics of history of the young Nietzsche to the proper genealogy; at the same time, it demands the acknowledgment of the unity of the movement that produce this succession, once we understand it as the theoretical production of the becoming of a will-to-power seeking his own intensification; for this very reason, il demands, at last, a genealogical evaluation of the reflexive historicity by which Nietzsche interprets his own historicities at every moment of their elaboration.

De 1993 a 2004, Walter Kempowski publicou uma série em dez volumes intitulada Das Echolot. Ein Kollektives Tagebuch. (A ecossonda. Um diário coletivo) Nessa obra, Kempowski procurou retratar alguns dos episódios principais da Segunda Guerra Mundial através da apresentação de documentos redigidos, em sua grande maioria, na época dos acontecimentos: diários, cartas, memórias, discursos ou programas de rádio. Esses documentos foram ordenados de acordo com o dia no qual foram escritos, compondo um grande diário coletivo que retrata os acontecimentos de uma perspectiva abrangente e multiforme. Nesta tese, o volume Barbarossa 41, que narra a invasão da URSS em 1941, foi tomado como exemplo para questionar o papel do autor nessa montagem monumental de citações que, à primeira vista, parece reduzir-se à organização formal dos documentos. Para analisar a forma como se estabelece o significado dos elementos organizados no livro observou-se 1) a própria estruturação do livro, 2) as citações de algumas das principais personagens, que podem ser consideradas como exemplares e 3) a sequência interna de dois dias completos do diário. As citações das personagens exemplares foram comparadas com os documentos originais de onde foram extraídas, buscando-se identificar as intenções que guiaram o autor na seleção e no recorte dos textos. O resultado dessa pesquisa indica que o papel do autor na constituição do sentido da narrativa nascida da conexão dos fragmentos é decisivo. Com uma outra seleção e um outro recorte, as personagens deixariam uma impressão diferente no leitor. Também foi confirmado que a organização específica do material criou um panorama da Segunda Guerra que se deve às intenções do autor, ainda que esse fato permaneça, em grande parte, despercebido pelo leitor. / From 1993 to 2004, Walter Kempowski published a sequence of ten books named Das Echolot. Ein Kollektives Tagebuch. (The Echo Sounder. A collective diary.) In these books, Kempowski aims to depict main episodes of the Second World War by presenting documents written mostly while the events took place: diaries, letters, memories, speeches or radio programs. Those documents were sorted according to the day they were written, and so they composed a great collective diary which depicts the events in a comprehensive and multifaceted perspective. In this thesis, the volume Barbarossa 41, which narrates the invasion of the USSR in 1941, was taken as an example to question the role of the author in this monumental montage of quotations that, at the first sight, seems to be just a formal organization of documents. In order to determinate how the meaning of the elements organized in the book gets established, the following items were observed: 1) the own structure of the book, 2) the quotations of some of the main figures that can be considered as exemplary and 3) the internal sequence in two whole days of the diary. The quotations of the exemplary characters were compared with the original documents, in order to identify the intentions that guided the author in the selection of the texts and the excerpts that would be published. The result of this research indicates that the role of the author in the constitution of the sense of the narrative which comes from the connection of the fragments is crucial. With another selection of texts and excerpts, the characters would leave a different impression on the reader; it was also confirmed that the specific organization of the material has created a panorama of the Second World War that is due to the intentions of the author, even if this fact remains mostly unnoticed by the reader.

De 1993 a 2004, Walter Kempowski publicou uma série em dez volumes intitulada Das Echolot. Ein Kollektives Tagebuch. (A ecossonda. Um diário coletivo) Nessa obra, Kempowski procurou retratar alguns dos episódios principais da Segunda Guerra Mundial através da apresentação de documentos redigidos, em sua grande maioria, na época dos acontecimentos: diários, cartas, memórias, discursos ou programas de rádio. Esses documentos foram ordenados de acordo com o dia no qual foram escritos, compondo um grande diário coletivo que retrata os acontecimentos de uma perspectiva abrangente e multiforme. Nesta tese, o volume Barbarossa 41, que narra a invasão da URSS em 1941, foi tomado como exemplo para questionar o papel do autor nessa montagem monumental de citações que, à primeira vista, parece reduzir-se à organização formal dos documentos. Para analisar a forma como se estabelece o significado dos elementos organizados no livro observou-se 1) a própria estruturação do livro, 2) as citações de algumas das principais personagens, que podem ser consideradas como exemplares e 3) a sequência interna de dois dias completos do diário. As citações das personagens exemplares foram comparadas com os documentos originais de onde foram extraídas, buscando-se identificar as intenções que guiaram o autor na seleção e no recorte dos textos. O resultado dessa pesquisa indica que o papel do autor na constituição do sentido da narrativa nascida da conexão dos fragmentos é decisivo. Com uma outra seleção e um outro recorte, as personagens deixariam uma impressão diferente no leitor. Também foi confirmado que a organização específica do material criou um panorama da Segunda Guerra que se deve às intenções do autor, ainda que esse fato permaneça, em grande parte, despercebido pelo leitor. / From 1993 to 2004, Walter Kempowski published a sequence of ten books named Das Echolot. Ein Kollektives Tagebuch. (The Echo Sounder. A collective diary.) In these books, Kempowski aims to depict main episodes of the Second World War by presenting documents written mostly while the events took place: diaries, letters, memories, speeches or radio programs. Those documents were sorted according to the day they were written, and so they composed a great collective diary which depicts the events in a comprehensive and multifaceted perspective. In this thesis, the volume Barbarossa 41, which narrates the invasion of the USSR in 1941, was taken as an example to question the role of the author in this monumental montage of quotations that, at the first sight, seems to be just a formal organization of documents. In order to determinate how the meaning of the elements organized in the book gets established, the following items were observed: 1) the own structure of the book, 2) the quotations of some of the main figures that can be considered as exemplary and 3) the internal sequence in two whole days of the diary. The quotations of the exemplary characters were compared with the original documents, in order to identify the intentions that guided the author in the selection of the texts and the excerpts that would be published. The result of this research indicates that the role of the author in the constitution of the sense of the narrative which comes from the connection of the fragments is crucial. With another selection of texts and excerpts, the characters would leave a different impression on the reader; it was also confirmed that the specific organization of the material has created a panorama of the Second World War that is due to the intentions of the author, even if this fact remains mostly unnoticed by the reader.

No description available.

Erik Satie (1866-1925) lived, worked, walked, and died in Paris. The key locations of his career – all within a single urban region – are well known and well researched. Yet he has often been presented as an eccentric individualist far removed from any social or geographical context. This thesis seeks to address – and redress – the decontextualisation of Satie’s career by re-imagining his music and biography in terms of the places and mobilities of turn-of-the-century Paris. To that end, it draws on a range of documentary and fictional material, including journalistic and scholarly reception texts, illustrated musical scores, chanson collections, contemporary visual culture, and cinematic representations of the people, place(s), and period(s) in question. These diverse primary and secondary sources are discussed and interpreted via a set of on-going debates at the intersection of historical musicology, cultural history, and urban geography. Some of these debates can be traced through existing research on the geography of music. Others are more local to this project and derive their value from suggesting alternative approaches to familiar problems in the study of French musical modernism. The main aim throughout is to develop a better understanding of the relations existing between Satie’s musical life, his compositional strategies, and the changing urban environment in which he plied his trade. Chapters One and Two focus on the working-class suburb of Arcueil and the ‘bohemian’ enclave of Montmartre. Chapters Three and Four are organised thematically around issues of musical humour and everyday life. By using the particular example of Satie’s Paris, the thesis proposes that more general avenues of enquiry are opened up into music and the city, thus demonstrating the potential benefits of incorporating the urban-geographic imagination into historical musicology more broadly, and bringing musicological thinking to bear on inter-disciplinary discussions about space, place, and mobility.

This thesis examines the novels of George Sand (1804-1876) and analyses representative examples from her entire œuvre. Its overall aim is to re-evaluate Sand’s standing as a writer of intellectual interest and importance by demonstrating that she is engaging with a cultural and intellectual phenomenon of particular relevance to the nineteenth century: the link between different ways of seeing and knowledge or understanding, which I term ‘insight’. The visual dimension of Sand’s novels has so far been overlooked or reduced to a rose-tinted view of the world, and my study is the first to examine vision in her work. I argue that Sand demonstrates a continuous commitment to ways of engaging with the world in visual terms, incorporating conceptual seeing, prophetic vision, as well as physical eyesight. Contesting the prevailing critical view of Sand’s œuvre as one which declines into blandness and irrelevance after the 1850s, this thesis uncovers a model of expansion in her writing, as she moves from her focus on the personal in her early novels, privileging internal vision, to wider social concerns in her middle period in which she aims to reconfigure reality, to her final period in which she advocates the physical observation of the natural world. Rejecting the perception of Sand as a writer of sentiment at the expense of thought, this study argues that her writing constitutes a continuous quest for understanding, both of the physical world and the more abstract, eternal ‘vérité’. I show that Sand transcends binary divisions between science and art, the detail and the whole, the material and the abstract, and that she ultimately promotes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the world. This also enables me to reassess Sand’s poetics by arguing that her rejection of the mimetic model is founded on her conception of the world as multiple and constantly evolving.