Asian/American women occupy a highly circumscribed subject position in popular Western culture that entails a unique reading of our bodies. My discussion of this group will gain greater depth and scope by using Black body theory as a theoretical framework to better understand how Asian/American bodies become a site to enact a multitude of fantasies, fears, and anxieties. I will examine three case studies: the construction of the interracial “romance” featuring Asian/American women produced in classical Hollywood cinema, interracial pornography featuring Asian/American female performers, and the independent works of Asian/American feminist filmmakers. Topics interrogated include the over-determination of non-White bodies and possibilities for destabilizing bodies and crafting their new legibility.

My painted self-portraiture explores identity as changing social performance or masquerade and examines bodily flesh as the vital interface for reciprocal encounter on life’s stage. The larger-than-life sized images demand viewer attention and compel intersubjective engagement. The works also affirm artistic agency and subjective presence through gestural brushwork and the vivifying power of oil paint. Hybridity and ambiguity in the images suggest the dynamic and reflexive nature of identity. A theatrical colour palette further reinforces the notion of identity as social performance or masquerade. Conceptually the works are rooted in both post-modern feminism and phenomenology. Artistically they draw inspiration from contemporary figurative painters and portraitists who use this medium and genre to navigate the boundaries of self and society.

My painted self-portraiture explores identity as changing social performance or masquerade and examines bodily flesh as the vital interface for reciprocal encounter on life’s stage. The larger-than-life sized images demand viewer attention and compel intersubjective engagement. The works also affirm artistic agency and subjective presence through gestural brushwork and the vivifying power of oil paint. Hybridity and ambiguity in the images suggest the dynamic and reflexive nature of identity. A theatrical colour palette further reinforces the notion of identity as social performance or masquerade. Conceptually the works are rooted in both post-modern feminism and phenomenology. Artistically they draw inspiration from contemporary figurative painters and portraitists who use this medium and genre to navigate the boundaries of self and society.

The increasingly popular Adult Swim series, The Venture Bros. (2003-present), created by Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick, is an animated series that interrogates established paradigms of masculinity. Combining narrative elements that are easily attributed to American action films with those of adventure cartoons, the creators of The Venture Bros. create a world where comic book and fantasy adventures coexist. The scope of this thesis narrows and focuses on the ways in which representations of masculinity are constructed and function within the series. What are the various types of masculinity represented in the series? Are the representations of masculinity reproductions of hegemonic masculinity? How is an awareness of dominant representations of masculinity and maleness expressed in The Venture Bros.? This thesis explores how previous scholarship on discourses of dominant representations of male masculinity sheds light on ways to analyze the various masculinities in The Venture Bros. / text

Narrative, Gender, and Masquerade tracks the way the American novel of manners structures itself on representations of a pair of purportedly opposite and opposing women, the fair, innocent girl and the dark, tempting seductress. This opposition increasingly merges into sameness even as the novel in which it appears labors to keep the two characters separate in order to stabilize its textual architecture of thematic and formal binaries. Presenting itself as a text closely related to a social reality, the American novel of manners is structured as a masquerade: purporting to reveal as it conceals, conjuring readerly doubt as to the nature of both mask and reality. There are two main theoretical traditions in the study of masquerade. The first, the anthropologically-inflected cultural and literary historical approach to masks and masquerade, typically is applied to literary texts to explain religious and political historical exigencies as reflected in a given work of literature. The second, the psychoanalically-based theory of femininity as a masquerade, is most often deployed to use the text as a means of explaining the male gaze, desire, and gender performance. My reading of the American novel as gendered rests on dissolving the disciplinary borders between the two, thereby focusing reading on the form of the novel as well as its relation to its cultural, historical, and literary context. The novels I analyze situate women into stereotypical binary roles of the virgin and the seductress. These narratives register a duality between reality and representation that is analogous to the gender masking the novels take as their theme.

We live in a world constructed by predeterminations, divided by gender. It’s a masquerade that we’re all taking part in, men by their gaze and women by embodying it. I’ve investigated spaces where feminine attributes are interconnected to a female body, and aspects that shape the misleading mask. In my research I discovered that there are three areas where a woman and female attributes are merged: In media where the stereotype image of a woman is confirmed in glossy magazines and in reality shows. In the bathroom, a room that represents the starting point of the masquerade. And last in typical feminine rooms, beauty salons, where make-up and nail polish is applied to female bodies. By researching spaces I discovered that bodies are shaped by the exclusion of the other sex and by gender specific norms. Out from my own bodily perception I have investigated the feminine surface in the borderland between corpus and jewellery. In my process I shifted the perspective by creating wearable pieces that illustrate the undressing of femininity and by dressing traditionally masculine corpus in feminine materials. All together the objects make up a burlesque staging of a feminine scenography. It’s first when an object loses its initial function that we can create new reference points. It’s when lipstick is casted in the shape of soap and when a high heel is separated from the shoe that they become disconnected from the female body. / <p>The full thesis contains copyrighted material which has been removed in the published version.</p>

During the spring of 2014, I have investigated the visual culture of Lolita as practiced in Sweden and Japan. My focus has been on the performative aspect of Lolita. By looking and participating in this colorful subculture, I have met people who are living the Lolita lifestyle on a daily basis as well as former Lolita practitioners. My main concern has been how does one use Lolita. I’ve tried to investigate if it is possible to look at Lolita as being more than just a clothing style. Can it be seen as an everyday performance? Can it be seen as a kind of subversive counterpart to the images of femininity that we are being fed everyday from media and via tradition? In my text I argue for the opportunity to consider the Lolita movement as a post-structuralist version of the female masquerade. By enhancing many of the attributes that are traditionally linked to femininity in the West, the Lolita style highlights the conflicting aspects of the female gender role. With her doll-like silhouette the Lolita crosses, breaks down and defies everyday boundaries.   I have organized Lolita workshops in Stockholm and Tokyo. At these gatherings I and other participants have discussed the topic of Lolita while dressed in Lolita clothes. The participants have answered a survey, and the whole arrangement has been concluded with a tea party performance. I have recorded these sessions on film and with photography and written down my impressions afterwards. I have also met with people who are former Lolita practitioners in Sweden and Tokyo and interviewed them.   The visual portrayal of my work is a short film where I present the making and use of Lolita as a dreamlike vision; PERFORMING LOLITA, which was exhibited at the Konstfacks Spring exhibition 2014. In the movie I change the settings from Tokyo to Stockholm and back by using slow motion clips connected by transitions. The original soundtrack is made by Linus Hansson.

Le blog est un catalyseur idéal des transformations sociales et technologiques définitoires pour les sociétés occidentales. Il traduit une double prise de distance des individus: la première anti-hégémonique, par le refus du monopole de la production de modèles de genre et de l’information, et la deuxième expressiviste et identitaire liée à la prise de parole non-médiée des femmes dans l’espace public digital. Cette recherche prolonge les questionnements sur la possibilité de manifestation dans le numérique d’un expressivisme de genre. En ce sens, le blog personnel de mode est questionné comme une voie d’intervention dans la culture, un nouveau média de mode et un genre discursif émergent, un espace d’affirmation des contre-publics et une nouvelle technologie de genre qui permet la redéfinition de la féminité contemporaine. Son objectif majeur a été de comprendre comment les femmes se présentent, parlent et agissent dans le numérique en rapport avec le contexte, leur condition de femmes et surtout leurs intentions. Il s’agit de la mise en question de leur investissement numérique en tant qu’actrices qui assument les épreuves de la nouvelle socialité féminine.L’analyse exploratoire, qui a été à la base de la construction du corpus d’analyse, dévoile l’ampleur de la fragmentation de la blogosphère de mode. Il s’agit d’un travail de pionnier qui a le grand avantage de ne pas rester à la surface du phénomène investigué. La fragmentation de la blogosphère annonce moins la disparition du phénomène, mais son évolution dans des tendances qui anticipent des changements futurs et qui sont en synergie avec le développement d’Internet. Les blogs sont une source riche de données qualitatives qui nous a permis une triangulation méthodologique efficace: une observation ethnographique en ligne, une analyse de discours cadrée par l’éthos et une analyse visuelle. Ainsi, nous avons analysé un répertoire diversifié de l’éthos féminin (corporel, contestataire, professionnel et familial), dont l’intérêt a été de prouver qu’il y a une forme de détachement du modèle dominant de la féminité. A partir d’un corpus international de blogs personnels écrits par des femmes, nous avons identifié et analysé le modèle dominant de la blogueuse de mode, défini par la vision consensuelle sur la féminité et un positionnement de partenariat avec l’industrie de la mode, et toute une série de positionnements contre-hégémoniques. Cette recherche indique le passage de la féminité comme identité imaginée à une féminité conçue en relation avec le statut de l’acteur social. Dans ce basculement réside l’intérêt d’une pratique qui recèle un pouvoir représentationnel.Cette recherche propose la redéfinition des blogs personnels de mode en tant que nouvelles technologies de genre et contribue à l’analyse générique du blog de mode par l’identification des différentes scénographies dans la sous-catégorie visée. Celle-ci a produit la première typologie des blogs personnels de mode qui implique les catégories suivantes: male gaze, pratiques hédonistes, posture critique, activisme social. Suite à la neutralisation du social, à la réactivation persistante de la mascarade féminine et l’enfermement dans l’identité unique de femme, le blog personnel de mode devient un instrument d’aliénation participative. Par contre, suite au défigement de la mascarade féminine, la construction des communautés diasporiques en ligne, la mobilisation des identités féminine plurielles et des degrés variables d’ancrage social, le blog personnel de mode devient un instrument de soft power qui atteste de la prise en charge des femmes des représentations de leur propre genre. L’approche interdisciplinaire nous a permis d’analyser cet objet d’étude syncrétique qui est le résultat du développement technologique, de la transformation des conditions et des formes de communication et, finalement, des mutations sociales en cours. / Nowadays, the blog actively mobilizes social and technological transformations that are characteristic for the Western society. As such, it encompasses two directions: a counter- hegemonic one, dismissing the monopoly of gender models and of information production, and an identity-related one, aspiring to the promise of unaltered self-expressionin the public sphere. This study aims to contribute to the body of research about the online manifestation of gender expressivism. Personal fashion blogs are analyzed as a form of cultural intervention, an emergent discourse, and a space of affirmation for contra-audiences, as well as a new gender technology, that facilitates the redefinition of contemporary femininity. The purpose is to explore how women represent themselves, how they relate to their social context, their gendered status, and how they communicate their intentions. To this end, I depart from the premise that their interventions in the digital space are enacted as agents seeking to validate new forms of feminine sociality. The corpus is built on an exploratory analysis revealing the fragmentation characterizing personal fashion blogs. Although this is a pioneering work, it does not treat superficially the investigated phenomena. Beyond the analysis, it emphasizes the future shifts of personal fashion blogs, in synergy with Internet developments. The blogosphere has constituted a rich source of qualitative data, which has allowed a methodological triangulation: an online ethnographical observation, a discourse analysis centering on the notion of ethos and a visual analysis. I selected and analyzed a varied repertoire of the contemporary feminine ethos (physical, disruptive, professional and familial), which demonstrates that in this media there is a trend to detach oneself from dominant model of femininity. By employing a cross-national corpus of fashion blogs, owned by women, I have identified the traits of the dominant fashion blog – presenting what it appears to be a consensual view on femininity, in partnership with the fashion industry - but also a series of counterhegemonic positionings. This research signals the transition from an imaginary femininity towards a feminine identity which materializes in close relationship with social status. In this shift of perspective resides our interest in a practice which grants access to self-representation.The study suggests defining personal fashion blogs as new gender technologies. It starts with a generic analysis of fashion blogs by circumscribing various scenographies based on which a series of visual sub-categories can be distinguished. Thus, I introduce an original typology of personal fashion blogs: male gaze, hedonistic practices, critical stance and social activism. On the one hand, personal fashion blogs neutralize the social context through the continuous activation of the feminine masquerade and by claiming a monolithic feminine identity, the blog becomes an instrument of participative alienation. On the other hand, through the deconstruction of the feminine masquerade, by building online diasporic communities, and shifting between identities, personal fashion blogs become an instrument of soft power, a place of resistance that establishes women’s representations as something achieved by them, not imposed upon them. An inter-disciplinary approach has made possible the analysis of this syncretic object of study, which is the result of digital technologies, but also of existing social transformations / of evolving gender relations.

This dissertation presents an investigation into two so-called live art works – Ugly girl at the rugby (1998) and Chandelier (2001-2002) – by the contemporary South African artist Steven Cohen (1962-). These works are explored with reference to the manner in which Cohen (as self-declared queer Jewish freak) uses performance art as a form of activism in order to expose practices of marginalisation and suppression (oppression) of non-normative or so-called deviant subject positions in terms of gender, race and ethnicity. The analysis of artworks is guided by the discourse of the carnavalesque and performative conceptualisations of gender with particular emphasis on Cohen’s use of drag as contemporary form of masquerade in order to propose an alternative subject position. The argument is as follows: that Cohen, by setting up an extreme alternative to normative identity constructs, manages to destabilise existing hierarchies that are structured according to binaries as these exist in spaces (such as a rugby stadium and a squatter camp) in the South African context. This destabilising of binary hierarchies gives rise to the argument that the symbolically encoded nature of spaces known for associations of suppression, exclusion and marginalisation are wrought open so that alternative meanings can come into being by activating these spaces as multifaceted and chronotopic constructs. The conclusion is that Cohen contributes profoundly towards the destabilisation of identities and in this way also helps to propose invigorating and fresh views of gender, race and ethnicity in a contemporary South African situation. / Thesis (MA (History of Art))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

This dissertation presents an investigation into two so-called live art works – Ugly girl at the rugby (1998) and Chandelier (2001-2002) – by the contemporary South African artist Steven Cohen (1962-). These works are explored with reference to the manner in which Cohen (as self-declared queer Jewish freak) uses performance art as a form of activism in order to expose practices of marginalisation and suppression (oppression) of non-normative or so-called deviant subject positions in terms of gender, race and ethnicity. The analysis of artworks is guided by the discourse of the carnavalesque and performative conceptualisations of gender with particular emphasis on Cohen’s use of drag as contemporary form of masquerade in order to propose an alternative subject position. The argument is as follows: that Cohen, by setting up an extreme alternative to normative identity constructs, manages to destabilise existing hierarchies that are structured according to binaries as these exist in spaces (such as a rugby stadium and a squatter camp) in the South African context. This destabilising of binary hierarchies gives rise to the argument that the symbolically encoded nature of spaces known for associations of suppression, exclusion and marginalisation are wrought open so that alternative meanings can come into being by activating these spaces as multifaceted and chronotopic constructs. The conclusion is that Cohen contributes profoundly towards the destabilisation of identities and in this way also helps to propose invigorating and fresh views of gender, race and ethnicity in a contemporary South African situation. / Thesis (MA (History of Art))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.