Postmodern puddles: A method for understanding the presence and meaning of bodily fluids in contemporary culture, and in artistic works of women, African-American, Latino and gay artists of the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties.

摘要

This dissertation is of interest to individuals concerned with contemporary cultural theory, interdisciplinarity, postmodern methodology, art history, literature, women's studies, multicultural and gender theory, censorship issues, and popular culture. Artists whose work are discussed are Andres Serrano, Kiki Smith, Cindy Sherman, Orlan, Toni Morrison, Laura Esquivel, Jewelle Gomez, Gilbert and George, David Wojnarowicz, and selected others from the groups referenced in the titles. In addition to artistic analysis, there are substantial sections on mainstream and countercultural phenomena such as film, television, medical science, politics, trends, fashions and movements.; The primary objectives of the dissertation are to document and explain the surfeit and significance of bodily fluids in contemporary culture and the arts in the last two decades. Since bodily fluids are not new in western culture, just newly conceived and significant, a postmodern method involves an examination of multiple frames of meaning that have been recognized through historical production and current postmodern adoption. Part of the dissertation is dedicated to recognizing and discussing the most obvious of those frames: Religion, Science, Politics, and Horror. The exploration of the persistence, combination, fracturing, and transformation of such frames from traditional, to modern, to postmodern usage is an important part of the analysis.; By examining and extending the usefulness of Julia Kristeva's principle of abjection, in reference to other groups besides women, and to other frames besides the psychological and feminine, the dissertation methodology seeks commonalities and differences of bodily fluid usage among marginalized groups on new terms. There is also an exploration of the evidence and implications of cultural abjection as a network of fluid release that coincides with, yet marks out marginalized groups as sites of expulsion. The tense dynamic of oppression and liberation that configures the politics of bodily fluids is conceived as posthuman, inaugurating a implosion of western binaries and a radically different mode of conceiving of humanity and politics.