Date of Award

2014

First Advisor

Joan DelPlato

Second Advisor

Francisca Oyogoa

Abstract

Through the thesis project I aim to analyze the intersection between theories of text and theories of the image in literature and visual arts. I want to explore how one interprets the written word in the West in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in relation to the image, and how the image has been alternatively incorporated into literary processes. In doing so, I will also explore the multitude of paradoxes and contradictions that are intrinsic to image, text, and imagetexts. Thus it is necessary to examine how these contradictions are in perpetual communication with each other and shape images and words as a whole. I am fascinated by the image's prevalence in everyday life, as well as the way it permeates both audible and visible words. Visuals have woven their way into literature as an art form to the extent that images convert it, sometimes just temporarily, into a visual art form. This is just one example of how our relationship with images and words is constantly being redefined. This is why I want to address the work of various visual artists and authors who have a strong connection with both images and textual evidence, as well as the increasingly popular reading device, the e-reader. These artists include Gertrude Stein, William S. Burroughs, Glenn Ligon, and Idris Kahn. These case studies will aid in explaining how technologies of reading and visual forms of presentation of information affect the twenty-first century author.

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