Matching Items (2)
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- All Subjects: Epistemology
- All Subjects: Latin America
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: Tompkins, Cynthia
- Resource Type: Text
Description
The comparative study of the poetics of landscape of the Argentinian poet Diana Bellessi in Sur (1998) and the U.S. poet Mary Oliver in What Do We Know (2002) reveal how each writer acknowledges discourse and perception as means to bridge the nature/culture dichotomy and to unsettle the American landscape from cultural and epistemological assumptions that perpetuate the disconnection with matter. While Bellessi re–signifies the historical and cultural landscape drawn by European colonization in order to establish a dialogue with the voices of the past related to a present–day quest to reconnect with nature, Oliver articulates an ontological and phenomenological expression to reformulate prevailing notions of cognizing materiality aiming to overcome the culture
ature divide. I therefore examine the interrelationship between perception, language and nature in Bellessi’s and Oliver’s poetic works by deploying Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological theory of perception into material feminist theoretical works by Karen Barad and Susan Hekman. In so doing, I demonstrate how both poets act on language to forge a non–dualistic expression that, in allowing matter as an agentic force that relates with humans in dynamics of mutual impact and intra–activity, entails a phenomenological and onto–epistemological approach to ground language in materiality and produce ethical discursive practices to relate with nature. I argue that Bellessi’s and Oliver’s approach toward nature proves as necessary in the articulation of efforts leading to overcome the nature/culture dichotomy and thus, to address ecological and environmental concerns.
ature divide. I therefore examine the interrelationship between perception, language and nature in Bellessi’s and Oliver’s poetic works by deploying Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological theory of perception into material feminist theoretical works by Karen Barad and Susan Hekman. In so doing, I demonstrate how both poets act on language to forge a non–dualistic expression that, in allowing matter as an agentic force that relates with humans in dynamics of mutual impact and intra–activity, entails a phenomenological and onto–epistemological approach to ground language in materiality and produce ethical discursive practices to relate with nature. I argue that Bellessi’s and Oliver’s approach toward nature proves as necessary in the articulation of efforts leading to overcome the nature/culture dichotomy and thus, to address ecological and environmental concerns.
ContributorsSan Martín Vásquez, Angela (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Hernández-G, Manuel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
“Anchored Absences: Selected Works by Doris Salcedo and Enrique Ramírez” addresses how the works of these artists link the past to the present and make memories manifest by wielding evocative associations through particular materials and places. In my study of the works Sumando ausencias (Adding Absences, 2016), Fragmentos (Fragments, 2018), and Quebrantos (Shattered, 2019) by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, I delve into the political context of these works, discuss the different groups with which Salcedo collaborated in their production, and analyze the materials she employed and their associations. Drawing from discussions on the relationship between art and politics, as well as debates about the activity of creating public memorials, I examine how, through these public artworks, Salcedo contributes new images and representations of the cost of Colombia’s civil war (1960s-present) to collective visual culture. In the second part of this study, I analyze the strategies the Chilean artist Enrique Ramírez uses to produce the films Brisas (Breezes, 2008) and Los durmientes (The sleepers, 2014), which assemble layers of antithetical visual and auditory elements and deter a linear construction of history. I engage with writings that deal with the fragmentary and plural nature of memory, the use and repression of images, and the role of architecture and geography in holding and activating memory to discuss how Ramírez unsettles the narratives held by Chile’s dictatorship (1973–1990) in contested spaces. I conclude that by making innovative images of political events, the works by these artists create new frameworks to conceptualize violence. Therein lies the power of image production.
Contributorsvan Zoelen Cortés, Aurora (Author) / Afanador-Pujol, Angélica J. (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Hoy, Meredith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022