Claude Cahun’s objects of resistance

Download files
Access & Terms of Use
open access
Embargoed until 2020-05-01
Copyright: O'Sullivan, Allison
Altmetric
Abstract
This thesis positions Claude Cahun’s plastic objects as a ‘theoretical object” (Bal 1999: 117) that provides a key to reading Cahun’s life and work, including her literary, photographic, and book illustrations. Cahun’s theorisation, production, and use of objects constructs them as agents of social and political action. Reading Cahun’s work through this lens provides the impetus to re-evaluate her oeuvre and her relation to the Surrealists and the broader avant-garde. In particular, this focus provides an opportunity to consider Cahun’s political activism as an important, integrated component of her artistic endeavours. Building on existing literature that has examined Cahun’s photography and performance of her personal identity as blurring established gender categories, this thesis argues the disruption of categories of subject and object provides a useful framework for understanding her wider body of work. Cahun’s work with plastic objects is thus also an extension of her previous literary and photographic works, which explore the notion of Cahun as object. Cahun’s object manufacture spans a crucial period immediately prior to and during the Second World War, in which Cahun participates fully by engaging in resistance activities through the production and distribution of objects of resistance. Ultimately, Cahun herself becomes one of her own objects of resistance, one that speaks a language only other objects will understand.
Persistent link to this record
Link to Publisher Version
Link to Open Access Version
Additional Link
Author(s)
O'Sullivan, Allison
Supervisor(s)
East, Scotte
Garbutt, Michael
Creator(s)
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Curator(s)
Designer(s)
Arranger(s)
Composer(s)
Recordist(s)
Conference Proceedings Editor(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Corporate/Industry Contributor(s)
Publication Year
2016
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
PhD Doctorate
Files
download public version.pdf 1.4 MB Adobe Portable Document Format
Related dataset(s)