This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/21978
Description
Title
A Part of it All. (Original writing);
Author(s)
Kohn, Nathaniel Herman
Issue Date
1995
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Denzin, Norman K.
Department of Study
Communications
Discipline
Communications
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Sociology, Theory and Methods
Literature, American
Mass Communications
Cinema
Language
eng
Abstract
This work is a collection of stories about my encounters with celebrity, fame, and the culture industry. It is intensely autobiographical. Through writing about various critical moments in my life as a writer/producer of theatrical movies, I interpret my obsession with becoming a part of the motion picture and television industries. Using myself as exemplar, I examine the associated social phenomena from various points of view, including looking at the pursuit of celebrity as addiction and at celebrity itself as a third space, invoking Homi Bhabha's spatial metaphor. The collection of stories is heavily informed by critical theory and the post-colonial discourse, although not always overtly so. After Raymond Carver, the style of writing is minimalist, and much is said in the silent spaces between words--I employ silence as an evocative tool in the manner of such feminist and post-colonial writers as Trinh Minh-ha and Gayatri Spivak. And, while working within the form of the short story, I fight against that form, hoping to find not symmetry and closure, but polyphonic voices and astounding juxtapositions. Mingling spare dialogic interactions with thick description and coincidental popular culture texts, I promote a verisimilitude that encourages readers to enter the world I am creating while it presents them with new critical tools for exploring their own worlds in ways that matter. And, after Norman Denzin, I enter the texts through epiphanic moments of realization or sudden inspiration and use the process of writing about those moments to explore how I go about coming to terms with my various, ever-changing incarnations. Unanchored and free floating in a postmodern world, I reach no conclusions.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
