The impersonation artist: A novel with critical afterword: Displacement and dissent in fiction and art.

Author

Flora K. Schildknecht, University of LouisvilleFollow

Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2024

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Humanities

Degree Program

Humanities, PhD

Committee Chair

Stansel, Ian

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Omer-Sherman, Ranen

Committee Member

Reitz, Christopher

Committee Member

Vallorani, Nicoletta

Author's Keywords

Migration narratives; narrative fragmentation; global literatures; relational aesthetics; studies in the novel; contemporary art history

Abstract

This dissertation consists of a creative project, The Impersonation Artist: A Novel, and a critical afterword, “Displacement and Dissent in Fiction and Art.” On a narrative level, The Impersonation Artist engages the question of how, and if, participatory art can reveal and intervene in oppressive conditions. The novel employs a stylistic methodology in which the use of multiple narrators and narrative fragmentation formally gestures toward the complex dilemma of how artists might intervene in contemporary problems in the face of conflicting ideologies and ever increasing precarity. The novel follows three characters: an environmental activist; a young man veering towards white nationalist ideology; and Sarah, a white artist formerly based in Chicago, disgraced after mishaps related to Project Hijab, a performance in which she casts herself and participants as Muslim immigrants with the aim of revealing discrimination and creating empathy for ostensible others. Bringing together the fields of comparative humanities, art history, and narrative analysis, the critical afterword, “Displacement and Dissent in Fiction and Art,” examines art and fiction that inform novel. The first chapter charts the aestheticization of displaced subjects 21^st century fiction and art, the second chapter investigates transnational and resistive participatory art practices in light of the history of relational aesthetics and contemporary precarity, and the third chapter investigates the use of multivocality and narrative fragmentation in novels to humanely convey conflicting worldviews. While each critical chapter is more or less autonomous, together, they trace the overarching trajectory of the research undertaken in support of the novel.

Recommended Citation

Schildknecht, Flora K., "The impersonation artist: A novel with critical afterword: Displacement and dissent in fiction and art." (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4330.
https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/4330