Browsing by Subject "Surrealism"
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Item A dream of surreality of surrealism of architecture of dreams of surrealistic of a fettish of desire of architecture of surrealism of a surrealistic architecture(Texas Tech University, 1993-05) Vukasovich, BobNot availableItem André Breton in Mexico : surrealist visions of an “independent revolutionary” landscape(2012-05) Zingg, Nathaniel Hooper; Cauvin, Jean Pierre; Salgado, César AugustoThis report analyzes André Breton’s particular brand of travel-writing that emerges from his four-month-long trip to Mexico in 1938 (“Memory of Mexico” from the Minotaure journal, a “Portrait of Frida Kahlo,” and the speech “Visit with Leon Trotsky”). I show how these writings, to a great extent, poeticize the Mexican landscape, rendering it as a “primitive,” innate expression of the surrealist spirit. I also question how surrealist ethnographic practices, as defined in James Clifford’s The Predicament of Culture, might feed into Breton’s poetic elaboration of his travels. In the last section, I examine Breton’s collaboration with Leon Trotsky, “Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art.” Breton and Trotsky declare art to be entirely free from all social constraints imposed from above—it is an aggressive anti-Stalinist document. I discuss how Breton’s more poetic writings of the period—these travelogues I have mentioned—also constitute an attempt to put into practice this manifesto’s creed. As depicted in Breton’s writings, the Mexican landscape itself realizes a type of alternative Marxism—one not beholden to strict historical-materialist doctrine.Item Henry Treece and the new apocalypse: a study of English neo-romanticism(Texas Tech University, 1973-05) Baggerly, Jo AnnNot availableItem The nature of the marvelous in René Depestre’s Hadriana dans tous mes rêves(2011-05) Belleroche, Jean Élie, 1968-; Wettlaufer, Alexandra; Cauvin, Jean Pierre; Tissi?res, H?l?neMy goal is to study the nature of the Marvelous in René Depestre's Hadriana dans tous mes rêves. I want to demonstrate that René Depestre, in his novel, combines a number of surrealist or neo-surrealist premises that have influenced him as a Haitian writer. This goes beyond differences that can be discerned between the "Surrealist marvelous" endorsed by André Breton and the surrealists, and Alejo Capentier's "marvelous real"later proposed by Jacques Stephen Alexis as "marvelous realism" Depestre adapts Haitian natives' perceptions deep-rooted in their historical and social, cultural and religious past and ever-existing political and economical struggle. Taking into account both the surrealist perspective and the Haitian context, I shall address the complexity of the concept of the Marvelous and discuss Depestre's use of "zombification"as a form of metamorphosis, which preserves the mystical nature of Vodou as a religion that syncretizes the Roman Catholic ritual of exorcism of the Christian West and the animist and magical practices inherited from Africa. Scholars have explored the Marvelous and marvelous realism in Depestre's works as a whole, but not in Hadriana dans tous mes rêves specifically. The exclusive nature of this study will show that Depestre draws from Haiti's complex cultural ethos as well as from surrealism'es key principles, to create a hybrid Marvelous typical of Haiti and Depestre'es aesthetic as a writer.Item Nerve languages : the critical response to the physiological psychology of Wilhelm Wundt by Dada and Surrealism(2010-05) Mowris, Peter Michael; Henderson, Linda Dalrymple, 1948-; Shiff, Richard; Clarke, John; Charlesworth, Michael; Arens, KatherineScholarship on Dada and Surrealism has established that psychology was a major intellectual source for artists in both groups. However, a burgeoning amount of recent work in both the history of art and of science indicates that types of psychology other than psychoanalysis permeated the historical context of the avant-garde. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, physiological psychology, for example, was the dominant science of the body and mind, which grounded psychic phenomena in structures of conduction in the nervous system. Modern artists saw within this discourse a fascinating and new theory of experience. In my selective history of the avant-garde’s reception and response to physiological psychology, I will argue that artists worked within and partially according to the basic tenets of this discourse, but that they reshaped its superstructural projections away from formations and taxonomies of normalcy in consciousness and action.Item Picturing the cosmos : Surrealism, astronomy, astrology, and the Tarot, 1920s-1940s(2013-12) Busby, Ashley Lynn; Henderson, Linda Dalrymple, 1948-This dissertation explores the presence and meaning of astronomical elements in the creative work of Surrealist artists and writers who were involved with the movement from the 1920s to the 1940s. Set against a backdrop of widespread popular interest in astronomy in France during these decades and those directly preceding them, Surrealists such as André Breton, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Wolfgang Paalen, Oscar Domínguez, Matta, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and Kurt Seligmann all addressed cosmic themes in their artistic production. This dissertation identifies and analyzes their varied engagement with such themes, including their presence in the related areas of astrology and the Tarot. The heavens offered the Surrealists a rich terrain for invention—one that could be seen as scientific or occult, fanciful or factual, as well as ancient or up-to-date. In their quest to access previously unknown realms of reality, the Surrealists found in the little-explored and often strange territory of outer space a new realm for creative invention. As such, these artists and writers projected their surreal visions onto the universe in their continued search for the marvelous.Item The Artaudian audience/performance relationship: Theatre of cruelty and modern possibilities(2012-05) Delano, Rhiannon; Gelber, Bill; Bush, James B.In 1938, Antonin Artaud established his undeminishable place in theatre history with the publication of his manifesto The Theatre and Its Double. His writing concerning Theatre of Cruelty has challenged theatre practitioners to reexamine popularly accepted theatre practices and possibilities. The fundamental problem with Artaud’s theories, one that has persisted for the past 70 years, lies in the interpretation of his writing. The precarious nature of those theories has taken widely varying shape in the works of theatre artists in the 20th and 21st centuries. Chapter I examines the possible interpretations and (mis)interpretations of Artaudian theory as applied to group theory and concepts of drama therapy. While many scholars and directors have interpreted Artaud’s writing as a means of therapy that is conducive to the emotional stimulation experienced by the audience, others argue that Artaud’s theories are most accurately applied to audiences as a mass entity for the purposes of political manipulation. Chapter II follows The Living Theatre, whose performance history has beginnings in conjunction with the birth of Artaud’s theories. As the oldest surviving experimental theatre, The Living Theatre claims to directly embrace Artaud’s writing and ideology in the production of their own works. When considering a repertoire that began in 1947, how has this company applied (or misapplied) theory to performance practice? In chapter III, the performance biography of Peter Brook takes primary focus. While the ideas behind Theatre of Cruelty comprise a fundamental part of Brook’s own directorial approach, how have those theories undergone a very distinctive evolution in 60 years of application?Item Yours truly : Fireworks and its psychosexual passage(2016-05) Edwards, Thomas Pearson; Reynolds, Ann Morris; Flaherty, GeorgeIn his 1947 film, Fireworks, young Kenneth Anger – both director and star actor – enacts a sexual rite of passage, using film techniques, theoretical methods, and visual tropes that descend from the avant-garde—favoring especially Surrealism and its penchant for psychoanalysis. Through the popularization of psychoanalysis in the United States and the influx of European avant-garde culture in Los Angeles in the 1940s, this thesis explores how Anger used these channels of influence to characterize his own fantastic sexual coming of age. The thesis reads select shots from the film to propose moments where form, Anger’s acting, and composition create meaning specific to an avant-garde, Surrealist context. In doing so, the paper identifies Anger’s filmic and ideological influences, allowing a historically and socially positioned viewing of Fireworks. Finally, the thesis addresses the implications of the growing trend in the 1940s for filmmakers and actors to exhibit their intimate, often sexual dreams and fantasies in the form of avant-garde, psychoanalytic work. The project’s supporting research includes mainly primary source material from little magazines, relevant avant-garde works preceding Anger’s film, film theory and criticism by Parker Tyler, and psychoanalytic texts by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.