Honors Thesis Blog

Senior year is already in full swing, which means tons of papers, presentations, articles to read, and things to do. It's a bit overwhelming right now, but I know it will all calm down soon. I just have to get through September, and then things should be a bit less hectic.

The biggest project I have for this year is my honors thesis, titled "Body Language: The Presence and Absence of Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine, 1975-1987." I am co-authoring the thesis with my friend Joan Bowlen, a fellow senior Art History major. The project focuses on the ways in which Levine and Sherman, both artists that we feel fit into the postmodern movement, take issue with the perceived implicit culturally reproduced and esteemed male gaze. We're researching their art (mainly photography) from a specific period (1975-1987) by using a postmodern and feminist methodology in hopes to investigate some big topics such as authenticity, authorship, identity, and gendered power differentials.

Joan and I have started a blog where anyone can follow along with the course of our research. We'll be posting multiple times per week with critical essays, reactions to articles, pictures, potential interviews, and other random tidbits that will all help us to formulate our thesis this coming spring. You can find the blog here: http://peterandjoan.wmblogs.net/

We welcome all of your comments or advice on how to strengthen our project. We are both really excited about it, and can't wait to have something concrete (in its 200+ pages of glory) to show you in the late spring!