This dissertation presents an investigation into three works by the South African artist Pauline Gutter (b. 1980) that were originally shown in her exhibition Opslag (2008) [this title is almost impossible to translate; it can refer to the sound of a gun, or it can mean to butcher something; it has an association of suddenness]. The works that were selected for scrutiny in this dissertation are Uit die blou van onse hemel [translated as From our blue skies; or Ringing out of our blue heaven – the first words of the erstwhile South African anthem] (2004), Into the landscape I (2007), and Landskap naby Zastron [Landscape close by Zastron] (2006). The choice of works was based on the particular mode of and imaginative re-presentation of the landscape that can be discerned in each of these works – different, yet conceptually quite similar. I argue that Gutter‟s landscape works in the exhibition Opslag (as representative of the thematic concerns of the show as a whole) are indicative of an imaginative re-presentation of a liminal experience (which is informed to a large degree by the artist‟s acute awareness of the threat posed by cruel and rampant attacks on the farming community). This liminal experience, as embodied in the artworks, is in its turn a reflection of the liminal existence as lived and interpreted by the artist‟s perception of her environment and community – speficially, the Boer farming community of South Africa, and even more specificially, in the Free State Province. Those aspects of a liminal experience that can be gleaned from a reading of the selected works Uit die blou van onse hemel, Into the landscape, and Landskap naby Zastron, are powerlessness, instability, the transitory shift of status, disorientation, isolation, marginalisation, and uncertainty. I argue, furthermore, that the imaginative re-presentation of the liminal experience is achieved by means of certain strategies and approaches towards landscape painting that are associated with the sublime. Where the sublime, in the context of the re-presentation of the landscape is often associated with a sense of being overwhelmed, even with awe, I demonstrate that Gutter achieves what Coetzee (1988:49) refers to as a singularly distinct understanding of the sublime with reference to the unique character of the South African landscape. In this sense, specific themes associated with the sublime (portraying things like problems, the sudden and the unexpected, darkness [that connotes uncertainty], danger, fearsomeness, and emptiness [that relates to isolation]) can be related with elements of the liminal. By identifying the themes of sublime representation, the reading of the works demonstrate firstly Gutter‟s unique and distinct application of sublime landscape painting. Secondly, it emerges that the portrayal of the liminal is achieved by means of these strategies towards landscape painting, and thirdly, that the imaginative re-presentation of the liminal is suggestive of a particular dimension of the existence of the contemporary Boer/farming community. Gutter‟s reflection of and on the landscape demonstrate a particularly poignant projection of a theme onto the landscape, and seems to suggest that while the liminal experience is potentially a place of growth and renewal, it can also induce a sense of paralysis as a result of the overwhelming uncertainty experienced by the particular community. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

During the premodern era, images corresponded to the doctrines of ”The Word”, but in contemporary society this relationship is open and does not correspond to the divine Word. Because of our perceived, postmodern inability to respond to ancient Christian symbols, there is a need to revision these symbols and Christian spirituality. The result of such a revisioning would include an ”opening up” of ”The Word” and of traditional, worn symbols which have lost vitality in this milieu. Art produced with this in mind needs to make ”The Word” more currently accessible and relevant. Further, this revisioning would add significance and enhance the possibility of resurrecting language dealing with ”The Word”. In the process of revitalising old Christian imagery and language, I aim to show that the primary role of contemporary Christian art is to function metaphorically. Finally, I argue that Christian images can take on significance as contemporary images. / Art History Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

Notre thèse aborde la question de la beauté dans les arts plastiques d'aujourd'hui. Celle-ci en effet ne va pas de soi, si l'on en croit notamment les multiples publications manifestant un rejet de l'art contemporain. Peut-on parler, actuellement, d'une esthétique de l'œuvre renvoyant à une science du beauté à une satisfaction d'ordre essentiellement intellectuel? Soit de beauté intrinsèque qui, comme dans l'art de la Renaissance, relève tant de l'harmonie et de la justesse de ses formes que de la légitimité de son contenu, grâce à la mise en évidence du bien-fondé de la mimêsis, de la perspective ou des motifs religieux ? Ou bien faut-il plutôt, pour pouvoir juger de la valeur esthétique de l'art contemporain, accorder une place de choix à la singularité de ses causes et effets, en opérant notamment un inévitable glissement vers une science du sensible ? Or notre parallélisme entre "esthétique de l'œuvre" et "continuité" dans l'histoire de l'art d'une part, puis "esthétique des effets" et éventuelle "rupture" d'autre part, nous a conduits à interroger d'abord ces éléments de rupture tels que le refus de la profondeur ou de la représentation figurative, mais aussi celui de la réalisation ouvragée et de la matière noble. Mais il nous a aussi amenés, malgré des conditions politiques ou techniques spécifiques de réalisation, à nous pencher sur une véritable poiêsis contemporaine. Car avec les œuvres plastiques de notre époque, il s'agit bien, toujours et incontestablement, d'art et même "d'épiphanie", dès lors que l'on s'en réfère à la vision ontologique et apologétique du philosophe François Dagognet / Our thesisconcerns the question of beauty in the contemporaries plastic arts. But this one does not without saying, if we consider the simple fact of the numerous publications concerning the rejection of contemporary art. May we speak, today, of a "work's esthetic" which refers to a "science of beauty" and to an essentially intellectual satisfaction? We mean an intrinsic beauty, like the one of the Renaissance's art, concerning as much the harmony as the exactness of the forms or the legitimacy of its contents. We mean an art which puts in a prominent position the mimêsis, the perspective's method or the religious motifs. Or would not it be better, in the intention to become able to judge of the esthetic value of contemporary art, to give a first place to the singularity of his causes and effects, at the same time we slide towards a "science of the sensibility" ? In fact, our parallelism between "work's esthetic" and "continuity", then between "effect's esthetic" and a possible "breaking" makes us think about reasons of this breaking, such as the refusal of profundity or as the figurative representation, as well asthe rejection of construction works or noble material. However, we have succeded to consider contemporary art as a real and new poiêsis, in spite of his specific political and technical ways of realisation. And we may assert that, today, undeniably, it is the matter of real art, and even of "epiphany", as soon as we refer to the ontological and laudatory point of view of the philosophe François Dagognet

The present investigation discusses the phenomenological concept of the phenomenon through an interpretation of the meaning of the negativity of the phenomenon in the philosophical works of Martin Heidegger, Jan Patočka and Eugen Fink. This negativity is thematised in terms of a loss and a privation that leads to a description of the appearing of the phenomenon as a sublime event, which exposes existence to an absence of meaning. A formulation of the absence in question as a dynamic movement of existence opens a new perspective on what it means to do phenomenology: phenomenological thinking does not begin with the immediate givenness of appearance, but through the trembling of meaning in the experience of a loss of the phenomenon. / Denna avhandling belyser fenomenologins fenomenbegrepp genom en tolkning av dess i förhållande till framträdelsen negativa innebörd i Martin Heideggers, Jan Patočkas och Eugen Finks filosofiska författarskap. Fenomenets negativitet tematiseras i termer av ett berövande och en förlust av fenomenet. Förståelsen av detta fördjupas stegvis, och leder fram till en beskrivning av fenomenets framträdande som en sublim tilldragelse. Denna tilldragelse exponerar existensen inför en frånvaro av mening. En formulering av frånvaron ifråga som en dynamisk rörelse av existensen öppnar för ett nytt perspektiv på vad det innebär att bedriva fenomenologi: fenomenologiskt tänkande börjar inte med framträdelsens omedelbara givenhet, utan genom erfarenheten av en förlust av fenomenet som skakar om den givna meningen.

Dissertation declaring that The United States of America is a Fourth World Nation. It has earned this distinction as direct a result of the manner in which it was established, how it developed, and the fact that it has demonstratively failed to confront its ever-increasing disparity and unevenness. Fourth World Theory provides a foundation and framework for a critical investigation of society and culture though an analytical lens, and an examination of the inequities that are increasingly prevalent throughout a post-industrial, post-agrarian, post-developing space of inevitable decline.

This study brings the insights of Slavoj Žižek’s Lacan-inspired approach to bear upon a series of influential 20th century plays and their engagement with what Lacan calls the Real. The plays to be explored share a focus on experiences, events or encounters which transcend, exceed, disrupt, and in some cases shatter characters’ normal, familiar realities. Examined through the lens of Žižek, these confrontations with the sublime and the fantastic reveal a crucial relation to the plays’ contemporary contexts, prompting us to “look awry” upon the dynamics of our own symbolically-regulated reality and the ever-changing and precarious nature of our relation to it. Similarly crucial is the relation of the Lacanian Real to our theatrical forms and modes of perception in the theatre. In staging “encounters with the Real,” these plays prompt us simultaneously to explore the ways in which the Real operates —and “appears” — in our own theatrical experience, ensnaring our gaze and the force of our desire. The study offers a Žižekian approach to works including Peter Shaffer’s Equus, John Mighton’s Possible Worlds, S. An-sky’s The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker, Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Enigma Variations.

Persistent Pasts: Historical Palimpsests in Nineteenth-Century Prose traces Victorian historical discourse with specific attention to the works of Thomas Carlyle and George Eliot and their relation to historicism in earlier works by Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg. I argue that the Victorian response to the tense relation between the materialist Enlightenment and the idealist rhetoric of Romanticism marks a decidedly ethical turn in Victorian historical discourse. The writers introduce the dialectic of enlightened empiricism and romantic idealism to invoke the historical imagination as an ethical response to the call of the past. I read the dialectic and its invitation to ethics through the figure of the palimpsest. Drawing upon theoretical work on the palimpsest from Carlyle and de Quincey through Gérard Genette and Sarah Dillon, I analyze ways in which the materialist and idealist discourses interrupt each other and persist in one another. Central to my argument are concepts drawn from Walter Benjamin, Emmanuel Levinas, Richard Rorty, and Frank Ankersmit that challenge and / or affirm historical materiality.

This study brings the insights of Slavoj Žižek’s Lacan-inspired approach to bear upon a series of influential 20th century plays and their engagement with what Lacan calls the Real. The plays to be explored share a focus on experiences, events or encounters which transcend, exceed, disrupt, and in some cases shatter characters’ normal, familiar realities. Examined through the lens of Žižek, these confrontations with the sublime and the fantastic reveal a crucial relation to the plays’ contemporary contexts, prompting us to “look awry” upon the dynamics of our own symbolically-regulated reality and the ever-changing and precarious nature of our relation to it. Similarly crucial is the relation of the Lacanian Real to our theatrical forms and modes of perception in the theatre. In staging “encounters with the Real,” these plays prompt us simultaneously to explore the ways in which the Real operates —and “appears” — in our own theatrical experience, ensnaring our gaze and the force of our desire. The study offers a Žižekian approach to works including Peter Shaffer’s Equus, John Mighton’s Possible Worlds, S. An-sky’s The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker, Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Enigma Variations.

Le point de départ des travaux entrepris est la définition lefortienne de la démocratie par opposition au totalitarisme. Le totalitarisme est l'institution d'une société organique, une et homogène, dans laquelle aucune division sociale, aucun désaccord avec l'idéologie véhiculée par le parti ne sont possibles. La spécificité de la démocratie, a contrario, est de s'enrichir de la désintrication du pouvoir, du droit, et du savoir. Les citoyens, dotés de droits fondamentaux, sont juges de la légitimité du pouvoir établi. Leurs désaccords ainsi que l'antagonisme entre les classes sociales nourrissent l'exercice d'un commun litigieux. De là, une question fondamentale : une telle définition de la démocratie est-elle historiquement datée, ou continue-t-elle d'être pertinente aujourd'hui ? Doit-on encore concevoir la démocratie, pour la rendre authentique, par le conflit civil érigé en principe politique, ou faut-il l'envisager de manière consensualiste au lendemain de son opposition avec le totalitarisme ? Claude Lefort s'inspirait de Machiavel pour dépasser les limites du marxisme et repenser la démocratie par la valorisation du conflit civil, indissociable de la figure de l'imaginaire social. La thèse ici soutenue adopte différemment une perspective néo-machiavélienne. Elle revient à proposer un espace public dissensuel à partir du modèle machiavélien de l'entente dans le conflit, par confrontation avec l'espace public habermassien et d'autres conceptions du tort et du conflit dans les démocraties contemporaines. Comment concevoir aujourd'hui les figures du conflit civil et de l'imaginaire social, en s'inspirant paradoxalement de Machiavel pour interroger la démocratie ?

The dissertation situates the Goethean sublime in an obscured countermovement of resistance to the aestheticization the concept underwent in the 18th century. Before the encounter with the English aesthetic concept of the sublime, the German notion of das Erhabene (the sublime) named not a category of aesthetic experience, but a social affect. In contrast to the Sublime of Edmund Burke's theory, which explicitly excludes melancholy from the sources of the Sublime, das Erhabene is an affect related to the self-overcoming of melancholic subjectivity. As the aestheticized notion of the sublime displaced das Erhabene, Goethe became one of the most radical innovators of the aesthetics of the sublime. But as is demonstrated in chapters on The Sorrows of Young Werther, Elective Affinities, Faust and Wilhelm Meister, he did so with the aim of recovering the displaced meaning of das Erhabene as social affect. Goethe's sublime aims to show at every turn that the so-called "aesthetic experience" of the sublime is really displaced social affect. His treatment of the sublime therefore constitutes a radical critique of the establishment of aesthetics as an independent sphere of inquiry. There is for Goethe no way to understand aesthetic experience independently of its social context. By reconnecting the sublime it to the original social meaning of das Erhabene, Goethe recovers the aesthetics of the sublime as a means of mediating and facilitating the movement of subjectivity from frustrated stasis to divine creativity; i.e., from exclusion to participation in the material creation of reality.