This dissertation examines the way in which contemporary fiction is highly concerned with sovereign power and the state of exception, as described by Giorgio Agamben in State of Exception. While in the last decade Agamben’s work has provided a new locus for the study of state power, I argue that disquiet over the reach of state power into everyday life has existed in fiction since at least the 1980s. Reading James Joyce, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Don DeLillo and William Gibson alongside Agamben’s theories of state power and the state of exception sheds light on fictional representations of modern developments in power, the state and the corporate world. Through close analysis of philosophical and fictional texts, I draw out the complex politics of contemporary novelists and underscore the importance of both fictional and theoretical representations of contemporary political power. The dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter One examines what I contend is new about Agamben’s work on power which is that, unlike Foucault, he accounts for the kind of power that may produce a concentration camp, and examines the place of this power at the heart of contemporary politics. Through analyses of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale¬ I examine the ways in which Agamben’s theories move us towards a clearer understanding of representations of state power in contemporary fiction. In Chapter Two I discuss sovereign power in Rushdie’s postcolonial India and England, and I describe how the national identities of citizens of, or migrants to, those countries take shape in a society whose very fabric is affected by power that is frequently unrestricted by the law or by democracy. In Chapter Three I consider the “aftermath” of sovereign power in the work of Kazuo Ishiguro. In particular, I argue that he represents the extent to which sovereign power conditions culture and society, and how contemporary art and intellectual thought have failed as effective countermeasures to the power that may produce the state of exception. In the final Chapter, I consider the ways in which violence constitutes a form of resistance to sovereign power in the novels of William Gibson and Don DeLillo’s White Noise; further, I assess Gibson’s new narratives of space as potential counters to the state of exception. While Agamben’s work provides an opportunity to highlight the extent to which sovereign power and the state of exception are at work in contemporary novels, I contend that fiction represents these phenomena and their significance more completely than Agamben is able to. The use of figurative and experimental language and narrative techniques is highly effective in conveying the nuances and the experiential realities of state power, thereby moving the reader’s understanding beyond the abstract and the conceptual.

This thesis examines contemporary art projects that are installed in unconventional sites in urban neighbourhoods. Using the conceptual framework of the neighbourhood imaginary, I propose that these local art practices utilize neighbourhood spaces to engage with nation, identity and citizenship practices within the contemporary discourse of globalization. The three art projects I investigate address different aspects of neighbourhood. Cuban artist René Francisco Rodriguez’s (René Francisco) project, El Patio de Nin, foregrounds the citizen in an urban neighbourhood. His project merges creativity and pedagogy with social service, and blurs the boundaries between art and life in order to comment on social conditions and citizenship practices. The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach (2006), by Toronto artist Iris Häussler, uses a home in an urban neighbourhood as a physical space in which to create an imaginary life to explore aspects of community, human behaviour and social values. The Swamp Ward Window, a Kingston-based curatorial project, takes advantage of the intimacy of the private home and the immediacy of the street to present artworks that explore the interface between public and private and everyday life in the community. Cornelius Castoriadis argues that the social imaginary emerges when the subconscious, the symbolic and action interact, not merely to reflect the outside world, but to create new meanings from which social change is possible. In my analysis, the neighbourhood imaginary resonates with the social imaginary, functioning as a conceptual laboratory for artists to experiment with the different meanings associated with neighbourhood, community and citizenship. I propose that a reengagement with the local, as part of a iii global discourse, provides an opportunity to examine art projects that manifest in neighbourhoods. And, while taking place in different socio-political circumstances, the shared condition of locality, I argue, provides a window through which the three projects envision linkages between aesthetic practices and public life. Finally, in order to critically consider local artistic practices in relation to globalization and the commodification of culture, this thesis engages those discourses of globalization that see culture as integral in new global economies. / Thesis (Master, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2008-02-29 13:04:52.207

This dissertation examines the way in which contemporary fiction is highly concerned with sovereign power and the state of exception, as described by Giorgio Agamben in State of Exception. While in the last decade Agamben’s work has provided a new locus for the study of state power, I argue that disquiet over the reach of state power into everyday life has existed in fiction since at least the 1980s. Reading James Joyce, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Don DeLillo and William Gibson alongside Agamben’s theories of state power and the state of exception sheds light on fictional representations of modern developments in power, the state and the corporate world. Through close analysis of philosophical and fictional texts, I draw out the complex politics of contemporary novelists and underscore the importance of both fictional and theoretical representations of contemporary political power. The dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter One examines what I contend is new about Agamben’s work on power which is that, unlike Foucault, he accounts for the kind of power that may produce a concentration camp, and examines the place of this power at the heart of contemporary politics. Through analyses of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale¬ I examine the ways in which Agamben’s theories move us towards a clearer understanding of representations of state power in contemporary fiction. In Chapter Two I discuss sovereign power in Rushdie’s postcolonial India and England, and I describe how the national identities of citizens of, or migrants to, those countries take shape in a society whose very fabric is affected by power that is frequently unrestricted by the law or by democracy. In Chapter Three I consider the “aftermath” of sovereign power in the work of Kazuo Ishiguro. In particular, I argue that he represents the extent to which sovereign power conditions culture and society, and how contemporary art and intellectual thought have failed as effective countermeasures to the power that may produce the state of exception. In the final Chapter, I consider the ways in which violence constitutes a form of resistance to sovereign power in the novels of William Gibson and Don DeLillo’s White Noise; further, I assess Gibson’s new narratives of space as potential counters to the state of exception. While Agamben’s work provides an opportunity to highlight the extent to which sovereign power and the state of exception are at work in contemporary novels, I contend that fiction represents these phenomena and their significance more completely than Agamben is able to. The use of figurative and experimental language and narrative techniques is highly effective in conveying the nuances and the experiential realities of state power, thereby moving the reader’s understanding beyond the abstract and the conceptual.

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On the base of cultural norms, it seems that it is commonly accepted that one animal is considered 'friend', while the other 'food'. Even though people's opinion may differ in regards to the world's largest animal rights organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal) (Kulkarni, 2009), the organization asks a relevant question: “ If your cat tasted like chicken would you eat her?” As I work within the contemporary art jewellery field, it is through the body, jewellery, and the conscious act of wearing it, that I would like to encourage consumers to reflect on their personal meat consumption and to connect the packaged meat to the animal it comes from: what is it that we are eating? Where does it come from? Through this essay and my work/practice, I aim to critically reflect on the different existing values between animals in our society and to inspire more conscious and well informed decisions concerning meat. This essay is a research project prior to my practical exam work at the Jewellery + Corpus Master program at Konstfack and will serve as a basis for my artistic exam work. Against this background, I look at relevant literature and case studies representative of the field of contemporary art jewellery, in order to research/address the following question in this essay: -          Is it possible to discuss complex questions within society though the media of contemporary art jewellery?  Within the field, opinions differ between art historians as well as makers; it seems that the framework of contemporary art jewellery provides the medium, on one side, with great potential to speak of issues within society, although, on the other side, the same frame work commonly hinders the medium’s ability to reach out to the general public, in order to generate a wider discussion.

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This thesis explores the figure of Margaret Thatcher and how, as a cultural icon, she has been central to a range of political and media representations from the mid-1970s to the 1990s. Underpinning this thesis is the argument that gender is one of the persistent signs through which political power is conceived, authorised and popularly understood. This thesis interrogates how Thatcher, the first female Conservative Party leader and then British Prime Minister, disrupted the dominant discourses of mainstream politics and the conventionally understood masculine status of high political office. I argue that Thatcher's political persona gained its political force and broader cultural resonance from the disruption of conventional gender roles and from an ambiguous play on conventionally understood masculine and feminine attributes. This disruption of gender and paradoxically the endorsement of certain forms of masculine authority and feminine common sense were integral parts of Thatcherism's central political imagery of social insurrection and potential chaos. Through the analysis of political commentary, biography, press articles and political speeches I propose that Thatcher's significance can only be understood fully through the fantasies of authority, violence, war, independence, freedom and gender difference which sustained her powerful symbolic status in the Conservative political imagination. The biographical construction of Thatcher's path to power and the significance of her father are interrogated through Joan Riviere's psychoanalytical concept of the 'masquerade'. A textual analysis of unconscious anxiety about feminine vulnerability and the seizure of masculine power that accompanied Thatcher's masquerade is developed to consider the relevance of her precarious middle-class Methodist background in 1930s Britain. The interrelated facets of class, gender and religion are drawn upon to argue for the centrality of propriety and self-policing respectability to Thatcher's persona and to her political discourse. This analysis of political and personal history then broadens to a consideration of key concepts in Thatcherite discourse and significant moments in Thatcher's premiership. I chart the links between Thatcherite and New Right endorsement of social authoritarianism, morality and the 'traditional' nuclear family. Focusing specifically on the child as a repository of adult hopes and fears, I argue that Thatcher envisaged a 'privatisation' of the child that symbolised a broader extraction of Thatcherite subjects from the dependency of the Welfare State and into consumer self-sufficiency. Finally, this thesis explores the 1983 general election campaign and the Conservative Party's support of nuclear armament as a prerequisite of national survival and aggressive symbol of national strength. I unpack how Thatcher, as 'war leader', was set up as the barrier to impending chaos and social disarray and as supporter of legitimate force and state control. Oppositions between freedom and thraldom, liberation and restraint were central to Thatcherite discourse. I investigate the placing of her persona and by implication Thatcherite Britain, on the cusp of these oppositions and how this dialectic was played out in political speeches and reportage. An analysis of the varied political and media accounts of social chaos emanating from or turned against Thatcher in 1983 lead to an interrogation of Thatcher as 'super-ego'. I argue that the psychoanalytical concept of the super-ego provides a key way of understanding how Thatcher's imaginary power was consolidated through an ambivalent engagement with imagery of illegitimate violence and also a counter-investment in the extreme authority of the state and the law in the modern British nation.

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