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Assembling identity

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TitleInfo
Title
Assembling identity
SubTitle
the object-portrait in American art, 1917-1927
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Sels
NamePart (type = given)
Kim Marika
NamePart (type = date)
1982-
DisplayForm
Kim Sels
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
author
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Marter
NamePart (type = given)
Joan
DisplayForm
Joan Marter
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
chair
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Sidlauskas
NamePart (type = given)
Susan
DisplayForm
Susan Sidlauskas
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Zervigon
NamePart (type = given)
Andres
DisplayForm
Andres Zervigon
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Goodyear
NamePart (type = given)
Anne Collins
DisplayForm
Anne Collins Goodyear
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
outside member
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - New Brunswick
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
school
TypeOfResource
Text
Genre (authority = marcgt)
theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2012
DateOther (qualifier = exact); (type = degree)
2012-10
CopyrightDate (qualifier = exact)
2012
Place
PlaceTerm (type = code)
xx
Language
LanguageTerm (authority = ISO639-2b); (type = code)
eng
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Art History
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_4311
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
xi, 222 p. : ill.
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = vita)
Includes vita
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Kim Marika Sels
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Portraits, American
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Art, Modern--20th century--Themes, motives
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Art, American--20th century
Identifier (type = hdl)
http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000066969
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
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NjNbRU
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T35B017N
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
Abstract
I examine the social and historical context for the creation of object-portraits in American art in the decade following the First World War. Object-portraits are portraits in which the artist has replaced an image of the subject’s face or body with an object or a collection of objects. This phenomenon occurs specifically in the postwar moment when several actual and intellectual assault on selfhood – from the mechanization of the Great War, the effects of the Machine Age, developments in the field of psychology that challenged traditional notions of the self, and the burgeoning consumer culture and national advertising industry – caused artists to reassess the very nature of portraiture. What they were faced with was nothing less than the question of what it meant to be human in the modern age. Their answer to this problem, in the form of the object-portraits, redefined the boundaries between subject and object, human and thing.
There are three main avenues of interdisciplinary inquiry this study has taken in order to determine how the social history of the self is written upon the object-portrait. First, I examine how contemporary shifts in the growing field of psychology impacted the understanding of identity in such a way as to de-center the self away from both the body and from the concept of a unified stable core. Object-portraits responded to this de-tabilizing of identity by searching for other means of visualizing the subject. Second, I analyze the history of technology and specifically of the body-machine metaphor to consider the various ways the object-portraits evince both a fascination with, and anxiety about, the machine in its myriad forms. And finally, I examine the contemporary advertising industry and consumer culture ideology, fueled by the application of psychology to commerce, and its manipulation of the subject/object relationship. I argue that the object-portraits, particularly the ones that appropriate an advertising aesthetic, participated in and commented on this marketed discourse. Therefore, the object-portraits examined here appear at the intersection of several histories. They anchor a variety of threads, from psychology to technology to advertising, and elucidate the construction of the self in the interwar period.
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Rights

RightsDeclaration (ID = rulibRdec0006)
The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Sels
GivenName
Kim
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2012-09-27 18:40:02
AssociatedEntity
Name
Kim Sels
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
RightsEvent
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2012-10-31
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = end)
2014-10-31
Type
Embargo
Detail
Access to this PDF has been restricted at the author's request. It will be publicly available after October 31st, 2014.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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