This thesis follows the trajectory of my artistic practice over the past two years, which has led to the installation of my thesis exhibition titled, Double Zero. I hope to position the work among its art and cultural terms by exploring how I have expanded my research concerning Situationist and Marxist theory as well as developed a broader photographic studio practice driven by material experimentation, play, and an investigation into how we live and interact with commodities through media.

“Voiceprints of an Astronaut” is a multi-faceted collection of poems that explores the fluid borders between memory and the imagined, the personal and the sociohistorical. The “voiceprints” of the title poem are the words, both imagined and real, of the only twelve men who ever walked on the moon. My own device, of an imagined ‘interview’ with figures from history, is deployed in the title poem. It is also used, for example, in the form of voiceprints from R.L. Stevenson, (“Tusitala”), Mary Queen of Scots’ maidservant, (“Beheaded”,“A Prayer fir James VI”), an acrobat-magician from the Qin Dynasty, (Bi xi Terracotta) and a time-travelling 14th century monk transposed to the Scottish Poetry Library (“In the Library”). In poems such as “Earthrise”, “Starlight from Saturn”, “In the Library”, and “Lines for Edwin Morgan” the tone is lyrical, taking the form of the sonnet, or sometimes simply reflecting the ghost of a sonnet framework. Recent events such as the Haiti earthquake are reflected, at times, by a purely personal response, such as in “Beads”, while poems about the Aids epidemic in the 80’s, (“Lunch-times with Rick”, “The Quilts”) spring from a period as Medical Correspondent for the Guardian, covering Aids conferences in London, Stockholm, Montreal and San Francisco. Others, such as “Roosevelt’s Bats”, “Fire-and-Forget” and “At Sea” are responses to modern war and conflict. In all of these, my aim has been to explore the political through the personal. The poems in this collection reflect an adult life split, almost equally, between two cities: Edinburgh and London. Regular visits too, to North America are another influence. An important part of the journey involved in writing these poems was a discovery of a Scots voice I thought I’d misplaced, only to find again, in poems such as “Beheaded” or “Haud tae me”. Some of these poems are autobiographical, dealing with parenthood, childhood, and growing up. Others, such as “Dana Point” or “Boy with Frog” celebrate a moment, a time and a place. In the case of the series of poems beginning with “Jim” and ending with “Black and White” the places and times take the form of memories, both in Scotland and Canada, of a much older sister. The critical essay that forms the second part of this thesis is entitled “Politics and the Personal in the Sonnet and Sonnet Sequence: Edwin Morgan's “Glasgow Sonnets”, Tony Harrison's “from The School of Eloquence” and selected sonnets by Paul Muldoon”. The first chapter examines the use of the sonnet form in Edwin Morgan’s “Glasgow Sonnets”; the second chapter concerns the sonnets written by Tony Harrison in from The School of Eloquence and Other Poems, published in 1978, while the third chapter looks at selected sonnets by Paul Muldoon.

Raúl, the protagonist of Pablo Larraín’s 2008 film Tony Manero, is a serial killer obsessed with “Saturday Night Fever.” Living in 1970s Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship, Raúl symbolizes the abuse of Chilean culture committed by dual hegemonic forces: the political oppression of the Pinochet regime, and the ideological force of the North American culture industry. His efforts to participate in Chilean cultural production by staging a dance performance based on Saturday Night Fever becomes a ridiculous parody of Bhabhain mimicry: almost, but not quite. In this paper, I read against the postcolonial narrative of the mimicking subject in Tony Manero. Using fan theory from Michel de Certeau and Henry Jenkins, I seek voices of resistance or reappropriation within the film. I argue that because Raúl’s final dance performance is unplugged from the culture industry, it becomes a site for the performance of deviant identities and for the construction of a local community. I find that the film, however, denies the implications of this resistance, reasserting the omnipotence of the government and of mass media in constructing cultural identity. / text

Tony Craggs Skulpturen changieren zwischen Gegenständlichkeit und Ungegenständlichkeit. Obwohl der Körper des Künstlers in seinen gegenwärtigen Skulpturen physisch nicht mehr anwesend ist, bildet die Beziehung zwischen dem Mensch und den Dingen noch immer den wesentlichen Hintergrund von Craggs Skulpturen. Die Darstellung von Bewegung in den beiden Werkgruppen Early Forms und Rational Beings unternimmt nicht den Versuch, physische Bewegungsabläufe des menschlichen Körpers figurativ abzubilden. Vielmehr interessiert es den Künstler, verschiedene Eigenschaften von Bewegung in Form zu fassen.

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Zugl.: Köln, Univ., Diss., 2007 u.d.T.: Oppermann, K.: Eine theoretische Grundlegung des Zwei-Ebenen-Ansatzes

Zugl.: Bonn, Univ., Diss., 2008

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Document formatted into pages; contains 282 p. Includes bibliographical references. Abstract available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2007 Aug. 16.

Thesis (M. Ed.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1998. / Bibliography: leaves 83-89.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of Iowa, 1964. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 433-455).