Mutatis Mutandis: Reverse Mimesis and Literary Modernism

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dc.contributor.advisorRoof, Judithen_US
dc.creatorMartini Paula, Rodrigoen_US
dc.date.accessioned2019-12-04T15:10:56Zen_US
dc.date.available2020-12-01T06:01:11Zen_US
dc.date.created2019-12en_US
dc.date.issued2019-12-03en_US
dc.date.submittedDecember 2019en_US
dc.date.updated2019-12-04T15:10:57Zen_US
dc.description.abstractMutatis Mutandis: Reversed Mimesis in Modernist Literature traces the emergence of an aesthetic practice of “reverse mimesis” in both Anglo-American and Continental European traditions of modernist literature and visual arts. Analyzing works by H. G. Wells, Sophie Treadwell, and Alfred Hitchcok, as well as Avant-Garde pieces by Alfred Jarry, Raoul Hausmann, Fernand Léger, and Roger Caillois, this dissertation is concerned with the forms of ironic reversals that fuse and/or confuse the categories of humans, animals, and machines. The playful reversal of mimesis happens concomitantly with the increasing influence of mimetic machines in the social fabric of modernity. Within the avant-garde scene, these media machines became a way to reflect on the character of language and the process of linguistic production. These works inscribe within their diegesis representations of photographic and filmic cameras, typewriters, phonographs and other apparatuses designed to capture, store, and reproduce data. However, instead of using these machines for the sole purpose of producing meaning or of representing some purported reality, these texts actually engage in representing the apparatus itself. Reverse mimesis explores the work of representation and questions the role these media machines had in the construction of the categories of animals, machines, and the human. In the playful reversal of looking inward, these works evoke the figure of mimesis to question the notion that language, the ultimate medium, offers an unimpeded access to some deeper reality. They explore the abyss of what lies in between reality and representation, and of the small, seemingly unimportant changes that constitute the mutatis mutandis. Finally, by understanding the role of media apparatuses in the construction of humanity, these works take one last step and rebuild the world to their liking. The instances of reverse mimesis creatively reinvent ways of looking at the world; these moments ingeniously reconfigure how humans interpret the so-called “natural world” and, expanding the realm of possibilities, offer new ways of interpreting, organizing, and rendering this world.en_US
dc.embargo.terms2020-12-01en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationMartini Paula, Rodrigo. "Mutatis Mutandis: Reverse Mimesis and Literary Modernism." (2019) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/107755">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/107755</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/107755en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectModernismen_US
dc.subjectMedia Studiesen_US
dc.subjectAnimal Studiesen_US
dc.subjectMimesisen_US
dc.subjectReverse Mimesisen_US
dc.subjectPataphysicsen_US
dc.titleMutatis Mutandis: Reverse Mimesis and Literary Modernismen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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