Discourse: Reconfiguring Gender Conceptions - Softcover

Larsen, Pia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3836451026 ISBN 13: 9783836451024

Publisher: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008

Synopsis

This book is an investigation of the discourse of gender in relation to the work of Michel Foucault, Susan Bordo, Judith Butler and the artists Louise Bourgeois, Fiona Hall, Jo Spence and Neil Emmerson. I have applied Foucault's notion of the formation, necessity and operations of discourses as the basis from which ideas can be articulated, and context within which notions of gender are formulated and challenged. I examine the processes in discourses, such as the imposition of disciplines to control the subject, which in turn are inscribed in the body of the subject by the subject, as they begin to perceive and define themselves in terms of the disciplines. I use this theory on the relationship between discourse-power-knowledge to analyse my work and that of the artists mentioned. The work of each artist is discussed in terms of the discourse of gender and the basis from which they critique its power, its effects on bodies and forms of representation through a marginal discourse. For the purposes of my work, the conclusion reached is that to disrupt the discourse of gender entails a continual questioning and awareness of its 'truths,' processes and effects.

About this title

About the Author

Pia Larsen lives in Sydney, Australia and lectures in Printmedia at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. She is represented by the Damien Minton Gallery. The themes in her work are focussed around how bodies are defined and constrained within cultural discourses with a particular focus on the language of biology and gender.

Edition details

• Publisher: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3836451026
• ISBN 13: 9783836451024
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 72