"Lost in a Forgetfulness of My Real Self": The Performative Bodies of Charlotte Charke and Cindy Sherman

Defense Date

6-25-2007

Graduation Date

Summer 1-1-2007

Availability

Campus Only

Submission Type

thesis

Degree Name

MA

Department

English

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Laura Engel

Committee Member

Linda A. Kinnahan

Keywords

abject, feminism, gaze, mimesis, postmodernism, self-portraiture

Abstract

This thesis explores autobiographical representations of selfhood from an interdisciplinary perspective. To illustrate the theoretical intersections between visual and literary self-representation, I focus on eighteenth-century British actress Charlotte Charke's "scandalous" memoir and contemporary American artist Cindy Sherman's self-reflexive photographs. Despite their many differences, each woman creates various "texts" that similarly complicate the place of the self within autobiographical representation.

After Chapter One establishes the theoretical and contextual background, Chapter Two explores textual constructions of self, identity and performance. Expanding on these issues of self-representation, Chapter Three considers a women's body as a text, and looks at ways in which performative elements of gender are inscribed. Finally, Chapter Four concludes by interrogating Charke and Sherman's "performances" as subversive forms of masquerade. Reaching across disciplines, nations and centuries, Charke and Sherman's works blur distinctions between self, authenticity, and gender through performative representations, subsequently destabilizing essentialist notions of identity

Format

PDF

Language

English

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