Abstract

My dissertation, "Negotiations Towards a Self, 1770-1830," examines the work of three artists, Henry Fuseli , Jean-Jacques Lequeu , and Theodore Gericault , around broad notions of self-consciousness. This study juxtaposes the work of these artists with contemporary theorists, in particular, Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot, and Jacques Lacan, drawing out the ways in which the self is at stake both in early nineteenth-century art and contemporary theory. The test is divided into five sections. The first, "Negotiations Towards a Past," presents a summary of my argument, providing background on the theoretical and historical framework that I am using. The second section, "Negotiations Towards a Public Self," looks at Fuseli's work in relation to public perceptions of the self. Fuseli's work reveals a struggle for artistic identity the involves a struggle with the past, as well as the present, a struggle involving a public perception of the artist and the artist's role in forming public perception. Fuseli, in his writings and art, uses irony to critique the artifice of English society and art. The third section, "Negotiations Towards a Gendered Self," examines how Lequeu turns architecture into auto-biography and auto-biography into architecture. Lequeu uses parody to critique the academic and architectural institutions of his age, imitating Diderot, Condillac, Rousseau, Laugier, Ledoux, and Boullee. Lequeu, a cross-dresser, also analyzes the construction of gender through self-portraits of "himself" as a woman, as well as studies of male and female sexual organs. The fourth section, "Negotiations Towards a Mortal Self," focuses on Gericaults studies of severed body parts. These studies provide an occasion for a mediation on the role of death in defining a self, a mediation that pervades Gericault's work, from military images to images of people being executed, from images to suicide to images of his own decaying hand. The last section, "Negotiations Towards a Future," tries to situate this study within contemporary debates pertinent to academic and popular culture