Art, Androgyny, and the Femme Fatale in Decadent Fictions of the Nineteenth Century

This thesis offers a reappraisal of the recurring figure of the femme fatale within Decadent art and literature of the nineteenth century. Despite the ubiquity of studies concerning the femme fatale, most notably within genres such as Film Noir and Romanticism, the Decadent femme fatale has often been relegated to a single chapter or footnote within these studies. It is here the purpose of this thesis to rectify this critical disregard. Combining multiple disciplines (literature, aesthetics, history, mythology and psychology) each of the four chapters of this thesis will locate the femme fatale within nineteenth-century European Decadent texts as represented as a specific objet d’art: the haunted portrait, the corpse-doll, the fragmented sculpture, and the mutilated and/or sculpted body of the androgyne. Invoking Harold Bloom’s theory of the anxiety of influence, the influence and trajectory of each chapter’s respective femme fatale will be traced from the midnineteenth century through to the fin de siècle. By tracing the lineage of the aesthetic impression made by French Decadent writers of the mid-nineteenth century (such as Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire) upon subsequent French and British writers and artists of the latenineteenth century (such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, Rachilde, and Vernon Lee), this thesis interrogates how the re/construction and usage of the Decadent femme fatale was utilized as a means of exploring ulterior philosophies of classical beauty and a fluid range of forbidden sexualities, including androgyny and homoeroticism. Offering interdisciplinary readings of the nineteenth-century Decadent femme fatale, this thesis shows the different ways in which nineteenth-century Decadent writers and artists move beyond the femme fatale’s malevolence, though without losing sight of it, to explore the mysterious relationships between life and death, art and artifice, pleasure and pain, and the seen and unseen

Iain Sinclair and the psychogeography of the split city

Iain Sinclair’s London is a labyrinthine city split by multiple forces deliriously replicated in the complexity and contradiction of his own hybrid texts. Sinclair played an integral role in the ‘psychogeographical turn’ of the 1990s, imaginatively mapping the secret histories and occulted alignments of urban space in a series of works that drift between the subject of topography and the topic of subjectivity. In the wake of Sinclair’s continued association with the spatial and textual practices from which such speculative theses derive, the trajectory of this variant psychogeography appears to swerve away from the revolutionary impulses of its initial formation within the radical milieu of the Lettrist International and Situationist International in 1950s Paris towards a more literary phenomenon. From this perspective, the return of psychogeography has been equated with a loss of political ambition within fin de millennium literature. However, the tangled contexts from which Sinclair’s variant psychogeography emerges have received only cursory scholarly attention. This study will unravel these contexts in order to clarify the literary and political ramifications of the seemingly incompatible strands that Sinclair interweaves around the term. Are Sinclair’s counter-narratives to the neoliberal consensus of the early twenty-first century comparable to the critique of capitalism and urbanism advanced by the Situationists? Or is his appropriation of psychogeography emblematic of a broader contemporary recuperation of the oppositional tactics and strategies associated with counter-cultural currents from a more politically adversarial era? Is Sinclair’s transition from the margins of experimental poetry to the literary mainstream correlative with urban gentrification? By examining these questions through the orientating device of a series of psychogeographical plaques tournantes with which Sinclair is preoccupied, this study facilitates a more nuanced evaluation of Sinclair’s compulsively associative use of psychogeography to navigate the split city of London

“Goth Barbies”: A Postmodern Multiperspective Analysis of Mattel’s Monster High Media

This research examines the historical, cultural, and social context in relation to the monster characters of Mattel’s Monster High, a franchise about animated dolls that are the offspring of famous horror monsters. The animated dolls are an intersection of complex gender and racial identities that are constructed in a postmodern reality. The goal of this research is to formulate a more complex understanding of the social and cultural contexts, relationships, interactions and meanings within production, circulation, and distribution of Monster High media. The preferred reading of the Monster Highseries is postmodernism. Monster Highdisplays a multitude of postmodern elements, such as de-centering the subject, intertextuality, pastiche, transmedia storytelling, hyperreality, fragmentation, self-reflectivity, irony, and postmodern identity. Magical elements, fictional places, and colorful and talking creatures allow for young children to separate realism and make-believe. A negotiated reading of the series allows for a closer examination into the gendered and racialized identities of the monsters as well as gender roles and racial tensions within the series. Monster Highpresents the characters from a heteronormative perspective allowing the actions and storylines of the ghoulfriends to perpetuate stereotypes about binary gender roles.Incorporating monstrous versions of celebrities adds to not only the parodied function of the series, but the series functioning as a hyper-reality that references and reinforces certain aspects of popular culture that relate to young viewers. Monster High’s media content includes stereotypical elements of gender, race, and other intersecting identities, neglects contemporary depictions of Eastern cultures, veers away from societal issues, and sanitizes adult content for childhood consumption. From a postmodern perspective, young viewers can dismiss the physical attributes of the characters as exaggerated, fictional, and fanciful. However, it is harder to ignore elements of discrimination, prejudice, and gender performance within the storylines. While young audiences may not identify with the physical and nonsensical appearance of the monsters, they can relate to the behaviors, interactions, emotions, and values of the animated characters

Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire : a literary arabesque

This thesis reads Vladimir Nabokov’s (1899-1977) postmodern novel Pale Fire (1962) as a literary arabesque. The arabesque is an Islamic art form which integrates different shapes and elements to produce a symmetrical ornament containing a single continuous line. The arabesque is also an artistic representation of foliage. During the 19th century, the literary arabesque was a style adopted by the Romantic writers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) and Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852). Influenced by Gogol, Nabokov adopted the writing style of the arabesque. Hence, this thesis compares Pale Fire to Gogol’s literary arabesque, Arabesques (1835). Just as writer’s rendered cubism, for example, in modernism, Nabokov incorporated the arabesque’s motifs in his postmodern novel. Furthermore, the presence of ‘patterns’ in Pale Fire have been identified by Nabokov’s readers. However, these patterns are very generalised. This thesis specifically identifies the pattern as an arabesque. I therefore define Nabokov’s literary arabesque as the figurative incorporation of the arabesque’s decorative motifs. These motifs include symmetry, reflection and infinite circulation. For example, “Pale Fire” is a symmetrically structured poem that repetitively circulates back to the beginning

An investigation into man's identity crisis within the context of social pressure by the visual mass media as a theme in contemporary fine arts

ThesisIt was of vital importance to firstly discuss various theories concerning the visual mass media and how it has caused social pressure on the individual, resulting in man's identity crisis. These theories were selectively chosen as the most prominent (n the field and would supply a sufficient understanding of the visual mass media and how it affected man's identity crisisJ he theories will specify which elements of the visual mass media affect the individual and also which type of individual is affected by the media. Another important aspect was the !_ll_anipulation of the audience and how man was influenced to self idolize or to be manipulated so as to cause an identity crisis. Before various contemporary theories of mas! media and its effects on man were to be examined, it was of considerable importance to review earlier theories concerning the visual mass media and how it affected the individual.\ These earlier theories are significant as they -....) were the forerunners or influential elements in the construction of the more contemporary ideas. A brief review of these theories will be sufficient in furthering understanding of their basic principles. Some media research had taken place before the television became widespread in the 1950's, but the advent of this new highly distributed medium then prompted researchers to look more deeply into the media's effects

Digesting creepypasta: social media horror narratives as gothic fourth-generation digital fiction

This thesis examines, recontextualises, and provides a new methodology for analysing a collection of Internet phenomena known as ‘Creepypasta’. Critically engaging with its form and participation in the Gothic and horror literary traditions, I argue that creepypasta should be considered as an emergent genre that manifests through the form of digital fiction and derives a renewed horror and Gothic affect through that form. Existing as unnerving tales written for and spread across social media and Web2.0 websites, creepypasta is an acknowledged, but under-studied genre of fiction. The majority of scholarly attention has analysed creepypasta through the lens of folklore studies which, while aware of the affordances of its digital form, considers creepypasta as folklore first rather than being attentive to media specificity or situating its form and unnerving affective qualities at the centre of its definition. I attest that creepypasta is emblematic of fourth-generation digital fiction and a continuation of horror and Gothic literary traits. In particular, I forward that creepypasta leverages its form to reinvent and renew ways of engaging with the Gothic traits of threats and ontological ambiguity. This, I argue, is primarily achieved through what I define as “ontological flattening”, whereby real users and their responses, and the fictional story they are reading and responding to exist in the same textual space without borders, implied hierarchy, or explicit indicators of fictionality in the story text. Throughout my analyses of Candle Cove (2009), The Slender Man (2009), and The Interface Series (2016), I demonstrate how ontological flattening is central to how creepypasta renews Gothic characteristics. In chapter 4, I forward a development on Isabelle Klaiber’s “double plot model” of collaborative interactive fiction to take into account collaboration in ontologically flattened spaces. In chapter 5, I also introduce the concept of the techno-Weird as a new form of contemporary Gothic fiction that uses ontologically flattened spaces as a way to emphasise characteristics of weird fiction. I conclude by presenting my model of the relationship between readers, creepypasta, and ontologically flattened spaces, and indicating where future applications may lie

Tree-ring analyses of European oak: implementation and relevance in (pre-)historical research in Flanders.

Throughout human history, forests and woodlands in Western Europe experienced a high anthropogenic influence. In densely populated areas forests were cleared and converted to arable land or were exploited for the supply of firewood and construction timber. In Flanders, it is estimated that the forest cover by the end of the 13th century was even lower than in the 19th century. To date, several assortments of timber, available on the local wood market during the Roman era and the Middle Ages, have become part of our cultural heritage. Archaeological remains, historical buildings, panel paintings and religious sculptures are only a few examples of constructions and objects that were created by processing wood. Especially European oak (Quercus robur L. and Q. petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) was highly esteemed by craftsmen. Tree-ring series of oak have the characteristic that they tend to crossdate. In other words, ring-width series display a certain element of synchronicity between remote sites. This feature allows to use dendrochronology, i.e. the scientific study of tree-ring patterns, as a dating tool. However, in Flanders tree-ring dating has seldom been applied and has often led to inconclusive results. Especially archaeological oak timbers or wood from historical buildings is often characterized by short (less than 50 years) and variable growth patterns. Therefore, it was assessed and demonstrated that such series have a potential for dating purposes and chronology building. It is believed that the high anthropogenic pressure on the original forest cover has stimulated the implementation of short rotation systems. Past forest management interventions and forest stand structure development are recorded in the growth patterns and the wood anatomical structure of archaeological and subfossil wood. By comparing them with growth patterns of contemporary trees from stands with well-known stand structure and management history it was noticed that the same patterns are encountered. Consequently, it is now possible to distinguish wood specimens that originate from, for instance, a coppice stand or a high forest by scrutinizing their growth patterns. Moreover, close observation of the wood anatomy, for instance, the size and distribution of earlywood vessels, provides an image of the variability in past hydrological conditions. Tree-ring series from wooden sculptures and panel paintings from 15th-16th century display a completely different nature. Since local timber sources mostly provided small sized and fast grown timber, craftsmen started to look for high-quality oak. Such assortments became available due to the establishment of an important timber trade. Especially oak timber from the Baltic region was imported. By studying the growth patterns on historical art objects it becomes clear that medieval woodworkers were well aware of the intrinsic variability and technological properties of the imported oak timber. Moreover, analysis of extensive datasets of tree-ring series from historical art objects provides more insights and information on the original timber source, wood processing activities and the creative process. It is obvious that dendrochronology has become more than a dating tool in (pre-) historical studies. This work demonstrates that it is highly valid to approach Flanders’ precious cultural heritage, created out of wood, from a multidisciplinary point-of-view, where archaeology, art-history, wood technology and biology should play an important and valuable role

Welcome back listeners: locating nostalgia, domesticity and shared listening practices in contemporary horror podcasting

[No abstract given

PABLO PICASSO AND PRIMITIVISM: AN EXPLORATION OF “NON-WESTERN” AND MEDIEVALINFLUENCESINLESDEMOISELLESD’AVIGNON(1907)

Pablo Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d ’Avignon (1907) achieved prominence as a hallmark of primitivism in twentieth-century art. While countless scholars have explored this work, no one has yet published a comprehensive survey of the mosaic of cultural contexts that underpinned Picasso’s conception of primitivism. This thesis will explore the complex nature of the primitivist ideologies that saturated Picasso’s cultural experience, both in his early years as a developing artist in the Spanish province of Catalonia, and in Paris in the years leading up to his creation of Les Demoiselles. These environments had each been shaped by drastic cultural and artistic changes in the nineteenth century, after industrialization, urbanization, and socio­ political upheavals caused both Spanish and French citizens to become disenchanted with what they perceived as an over-mechanized and fragmented milieu. By the time Picasso created Les Demoiselles, he had been exposed to artists and scholars who thirsted for artforms that were “primitive” and authentic, free from the perceived constraints and social artifices of their current civilization. These thinkers believed that such artforms could be found by looking backward to the medieval era and outward to the “non-West.” Although the subject of “non-Western” primitivism has typically illuminated Picasso’s conception of Les Demoiselles, this thesis will highlight the need to study this work within the context of Picasso’s formative years in both Catalonia and Paris, which saw a pronounced revival of interest in the Middle Ages

‘The Erasures, the Silences Where There Should Have Been Evidence’: Dismantling Archived History and Dwelling Experience Within the Works of Hilary Mantel

The thesis critically examines Hilary Mantel’s work and its interpretation of the past through literary depictions of dwellings and archives. This thesis explores the concept of the dwelling-as-archive which has the overlapping roles and functions of a domestic dwelling and a historical archive. This thesis investigates this concept as it appears throughout Hilary Mantel’s works. These dwelling-as-archives are also in-between places where memory and historical meaning slip or are hidden. This thesis claims that Mantel’s historical fiction writing is an affective response that questions the ways characters struggle to preserve historical documents in both dwellings and archives. The thesis’ historico-materialist focus on Mantel’s works and dwellings-as-archives argues for a re-historicisation of phenomenology which the thesis defines as a phenomenological approach grounded in historical awareness. Characters attempt to reconstruct an affective experience of the past through domestic objects and archives. The dwelling-as-archives are conceptualised as containers of memory. However, their status as in-between places mean archived objects are frequently hidden, slip, or are waiting to be discovered to re-experience the past. The thesis explores Mantel’s poetic dissembling of the borders between absence/presence, belonging/rootlessness, and private/public that helps expose possible lost historical meaning. The various sites of dwelling examined in this thesis are haunted by memory and the dead, with the inhabitants of such dwellings causing the decay of architectural structures and family homelife. This thesis then examines instances of inscription, intertextuality, and historiographic metafiction in a select number of Mantel’s novels to reveal the archive as an unstable product of familial, national, and institutional historical consciousness. The dwelling-as-archive is a hinterland through which Mantel’s imagination can reconstruct the missing gaps she finds in the historical record. This thesis contributes to a growing critical field of studies on Mantel’s works which includes Eileen Pollard and Ginette Carpenter’s Hilary Mantel: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (2018) and Lucy Arnold’s reading of spectrality and intertextuality in Reading Mantel: Haunted Decades (2019). Recent commercial and critical responses to the Wolf Hall Trilogy often do not recognise a literary career spanning twenty-five years from 1985. This thesis then investigates Mantel's specific challenges when (re)interpreting the past through her imagination and research, with the dwelling-as-archive often a background character in her character’s experience of dwelling and history