Contemplation in fire : immolation, photography, and Vietnam 1963
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- A single photograph from the morning of June 11, 1963, began the research for this dissertation (fig. i.1). The picture shows Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc on fire. His self-immolation on the streets of Saigon on an early Tuesday morning was captured by Associated Press correspondent Malcolm Browne, a US journalist and the only Western cameraman present at the scene. Browne's reel of photographs forever memorialized the Buddhist monk ablaze, and Duc's image, and other images based on it, began appearing in newspapers around the world. The pictures, continually reproduced, acted as a universal igniting force, and Duc's immolation began to linger. As his life ended, the existence of Browne's photography commenced; fixed indelibly in time and space, the monk's destruction of his own body initiated my own art historical exploration. Browne's pictures are elegiac and today remain some of the most immediately recognizable images of the era. The photographs are also, too, icons of trauma and images of suffering. They show a deep melancholy seared into collective consciousness. Thich Quang Duc's immolation was the first of over two dozen monks to self-immolate in Vietnam throughout the ensuing decade. In an attempt to recognize this gravitas, my project situates Thich Quang Duc's self-sacrifice as one of the great acts of civil disobedience—active non-violent resistance (Satyagraha), and peaceful protest—during the early 1960s and nascent stages of the American-Vietnam War. His public self-immolation on the morning of June 11 was a call for peace, a prayer in the name of religious freedom, and a plea for Buddhist equality. In quietude, the elderly Vietnamese monk announced his final stand in flames and meditated through death. My project, in essence, investigates the entirety of Duc's life, unfolds the stakes of his death and uncovers a vast world of socio-cultural happenings latently present in his death photography. In a final analysis, the dissertation suggest that Browne's 1963 pictures reveal a singular moment, actually a rupture, in worldwide consciousness. In effect, Duc's self-immolation activated a revolution.
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 | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Lauesen, Conor Michael |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Nemerov, Alexander |
| Thesis advisor | Nemerov, Alexander |
| Thesis advisor | Eshel, Amir |
| Thesis advisor | Levi, Pavle |
| Thesis advisor | Ma, Jean, 1972- |
| Degree committee member | Eshel, Amir |
| Degree committee member | Levi, Pavle |
| Degree committee member | Ma, Jean, 1972- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Art and Art History |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Conor Lauesen. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Art and Art History. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Conor Michael Lauesen
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
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