Format:
237 S.
Content:
This dissertation uses a strain of postmodernist thought, informed by discourse theory and inflected by feminism, to explore the articulation of identity in selected plays of Judith Thompson and Margaret Hollingsworth and selected films of Patricia Gruben. In these works, identity is configured as a process, an accumulation of temporary points of coherence. This dissertation demonstrates how identity is contingent on fluctuating relations of power. The notion of mastery in the relations of power is critiqued through the serialization of identity, through images of the body, and through the interruption and destabilization of narrative structure. As a result of the conflictual representation of identity, the spectator experiences a destabilized subject position; identification is both engaged and thwarted as several different possibilities for seeing seeing the action are activated. […] In conclusion, the identity as a site of ambiguity involves a relinquishment of a subject/object positioning and of binaries such as right/wrong, self/'other'. Given the destabilized subject position which is afforded the spectator, a different kind of viewing pleasure must be imagined. Temporary moments of intelligibility and mastery are activated, accompanied by an interrogation of the singularity and imperialism of these positions.
Note:
Toronto, Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, Diss.
Language:
English
Keywords:
Hochschulschrift
