The poetics of organic damage : discursive and aesthetic functions of monstrosity and monstrous bodies in early Soviet 'mad science' literature
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation examines the use of a particular type of imagery as a literary device and discursive metaphor in a series of literary works about the scientific transformation of the body from the Soviet 1920s and 1930s. The imagery in question, what I call broadly the imagery of monstrous or altered bodies, includes human bodies warped or transformed by disassembly, reassembly, atrophy, augmentation, and/or amputation. I argue that such imagery serves as a potent metaphor to writers in this time not only because of certain historical conditions, but also because of early Soviet transformation discourse and the role that the body and the biological sciences played in it. These writers, I argue, use the mechanisms of scientific transformation both as discursive markers to interrogate the Soviet transformation project and as metaphorical inspiration for their own literary practice. This dissertation seeks to articulate and elaborate a series of linguistic and aesthetic strategies that allow writers to investigate the aesthetic and ethical potentials of transformation in early Soviet rhetoric and constitute what I call a poetics of organic damage.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Costello, Jillian Burgie |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Greenleaf, Monika, 1952- |
| Thesis advisor | Greenleaf, Monika, 1952- |
| Thesis advisor | Ilchuk, Yuliya |
| Thesis advisor | Safran, Gabriella, 1967- |
| Degree committee member | Ilchuk, Yuliya |
| Degree committee member | Safran, Gabriella, 1967- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Jillian Burgie Costello. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/cw046zx7093 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Jillian Burgie Costello
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