Thesis Advisor: Hypatia Vourloumis

Thesis: It’s a Duck! From Cracks to Discrepant Archives.

August 2022

Abstract

This research is concerned with issues of power and ideology which determine recorded aural textual and cultural representation as well as performative practices which use processing of disidentifications to resist/escape hegemonic systems of subjugation. Specifically, through the historical analysis of a song produced in postwar Italy—an analysis conducted by a critical study of the performative effects of sound and language—the thesis attempts to trace a personal genealogy so as to glean insights on the silencing strategies of female and queer identities voices enacted throughout Italy by the governance of moving flesh.

The investigation brings to light the ongoing attempt of the Western tradition to control those ferments that indicate the expressive desire of the “reverse canon” through the limits of representation and practices of colonization. Therefore, the attempt is to identify emancipatory strategies that, through a discrepant engagement produce a resonant dissonance able to bring faith back in counter-narratives. In the current capitalist era characterized by chaos and a strong sense of physical or psychological suffocation, those practices can provide tools for a new breathing, freeing intimate expression from the imperative of rational thought by feeding the holes of the tongue because communication happens in the polyvocality of the vessel.

Author: Chiara Pagano