In my dissertation I address a gap in scholarship on contemporary Iranian women by using a selection of artworks as the lens through which to explore the gendered experience of exile and diaspora. More specifically, I examine the embodiment of personal and political space since the 1979 revolution as depicted by a selection of contemporary Iranian women artists some of whom live and work in the United States, others in Iran. Narratives embedded in their work examined in this project, provide a lens through which to view women's particular experiences inside and outside post revolutionary Iran. Some artist's works can be interpreted as descriptive of aspects of women's legal status in Iran; while others demonstrate the feelings of post revolution estrangement (ghorbat) and internalized exile through their portrayals of the related issues of veiling and women's cultural memory, as well as their private presence and public absence. Although engaging in a close reading of the art itself, I also draw from Iranian women's literature including memoirs, poetry, and scholarly works. The primary artists whose works I discuss include Haleh Niazmand, Taraneh Hemami, Kendal Kennedy and Shirin Neshat (U.S.) and Minoo Asaadi, Samila Amir-Ebrihimi, and Shirin Etehadieh (Iran). Additional artists included in this dissertation are Kendal Kennedy, Sonia Balassanian and Shirin Neshat (U.S.). The poet whose work frames the issues in each chapter is Persis Karim.

This thesis examines expressions of self-identity used by creative men and women in early modern Italy (ca. 1450-1650). Self-fashioning strategies were based upon contested notions of melancholy, genius, virtue and decorum which were profoundly influenced by ancient and medieval intellectual traditions ... . / Graduate / 0377 / 0453

This dissertation explores the conflicts, contradictions and paradoxes inherent in the lives of those women who, as artists and academics, seek to connect their personal and professional lives in their work. It explores how creativity and the pursuit of self-knowledge relate to the lives of female artists and academics. The dissertation arises from a study of my own experience as woman, writer and academic. / Inquiries into creativity and feminist, critical and cultural theory provide the framework for examining how the identity of the female artist is shaped within the patriarchal institution of academia, an institution originally created by, and for, men and still strongly influenced by this history. These inquiries allow a deeper understanding of the impact of this institution on the life and work of the female artist both within and beyond the academy. As a self-study, the distinctive voice of this dissertation is developed through autobiographical narratives, journals, letters and a development of personal metaphors, as well as through a dialogue with others. This is therefore a performative text in which narratives map a process of transformation that traces the artist's path from silence to voice. / This work has important implications for women in higher education as self-study is revealed to be an essential methodological instrument for the articulation of alternative, authentic perspectives of marginalized and under-represented women. Moreover, the acknowledgement of the academic/artist paradigm in teacher education opens the path for a re-viewing of the metaphors of self-denial, impersonation and masks that are part of the landscape of teacher knowledge.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-250). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-250). Also available on the Internet.

No description available.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Fine Arts / Master / Master of Philosophy

Diane Victor has been a prominent figure in the South African artworld since she won the Atelier Award in the 1980s. Since then she has self-inflicted violence into her work; stretched it and stripped it whilst she wrestles with the beast within others and how she portrays that in her work. This research report is concerned with answering the question Who is the ‘Beast’ in the work of Diane Victor? It begins by defining the term ‘Beast’ and situating Victor’s artistic practice in an identified trajectory in Western art history. The report traces the presence of the Beasts in Victor’s work, and follows the metamorphosis of the human form as its internal corruption is explored and revealed through the use of non-human animal parts. Furthermore it investigates the artist’s use of her practice to position herself in relation to the values and conventions inherited from the culture in which she lives. Finally, it provides invaluable insight into who the Beast may have been all along and moreover what it means to be human.

This dissertation redefines Los Angeles “light and space” art, tracing the multiple strains of abstract light art that developed in California during the postwar technology boom. These artists used new technical materials and industrial processes to expand modernist definitions of medium and create perceptual experiences based on their shared understanding of light as artistic material. The diversity and experimental nature of early Light and Space practice has been suppressed within the discourse of “minimal abstraction,” a term I use to signal the expansion of my analysis beyond the boundaries of work that is traditionally associated with “minimalism” as a movement. My project focuses on three women: Mary Corse, Helen Pashgian and Maria Nordman, each of whom represents a different trajectory of postwar light-based practice in California. While all of these artists express ambivalence about attempts to align their practice with the Light and Space movement, their work provides fundamental insight into the development of light art and minimal abstract practice in California during this era. In chapter one, I map the evolution of Mary Corse’s experimental “light painting” between 1964 and 1971, in which the artist experimented with new technology—including fluorescent bulbs and the reflective glass microspheres used in freeway lane dividers—to expand the perceptual boundaries of monochrome painting by manifesting an experience of pure white light. In chapter two, I plot the development of Helen Pashgian’s plastic resin sculpture from her early pieces cast in handmade molds to her disc sculptures that mobilized the expertise of the faculty and aeronautical engineering technology available to her during an artist residency at the California Institute of Technology between 1969 and 1971. In chapter three, I chart the origins of Maria Nordman’s ephemeral post-studio practice using natural light from her early works that modified the architecture of her Los Angeles studio, to installations in which she excised sections of the walls or ceilings of commercial spaces and galleries, and finally to her project at the University Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley for the 1979 Space as Support series, in which she turned the museum building into a container for the light of the summer solstice. The reception history I construct outlines how gender bias suppressed the contributions of women within the critical and historical discourse surrounding light-based work and minimal abstraction, while also exploring how women mobilized Light and Space’s interest in embodied perceptual experience as part of my wider analysis of the tactics deployed by women making abstract work before the discursive spaces of feminism and institutional critique were fully formed.