Thesis
Seeking for story - Mattalgard (an unfinished translation)
- Abstract:
- My DPhil project proposes a performative practice of relating words and bodies to articulate a diaspora aesthetics in-between queer and Iranian. How to story the subject? Through an exegesis of The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions (1977) by Larry Mitchell and an encounter with the Nurafkan Archive (1943-1950) by Ali Mirdrekvandi, my thesis develops practice-based methods for embodying research in the aftermath of sexual and cultural identity. In the act of reading, I seek to playfully translate "his story" into "my story." What possibilities does the history-mystery continuum offer practice? Through wordplay, fantasy, and storytelling, I bring together coherent contradictions between Self and Other, East and West, Persian and English to give shape to a research-body: an ecstatic configuration of names, gestures, and materials that signify the subject of diasporic knowledge. The project consists of a 22-minute film, Seeking for Story, showing how an encounter with an imperial archive from World War II Iran touches and is touched by a subject; documentation of a collaborative, somatically informed, performance-making process; and a collection of short stories that move between the English word 'faggot' and the Persian word 'Luti' to narrate associations of history, identity, language, and desire.
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- Files:
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(Preview, Supplementary materials, pdf, 39.3KB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Dissemination version, pdf, 169.3MB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Supplementary materials, pdf, 18.6KB, Terms of use)
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Authors
Contributors
+ Gardner, A
- Institution:
- University of Oxford
- Division:
- HUMS
- Department:
- Ruskin School of Art
- Role:
- Supervisor
- ORCID:
- 0009-0000-9292-0581
+ Ashery, O
- Institution:
- University of Oxford
- Division:
- HUMS
- Department:
- Ruskin School of Art
- Role:
- Supervisor
- ORCID:
- 0000-0002-5056-5400
+ University of Oxford
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/052gg0110
- Grant:
- Humanities Cultural Programme Project Funding
- Programme:
- The Cultural Programme
+ University of Oxford
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/052gg0110
- Grant:
- The Clarendon Fund
- Programme:
- The Clarendon Fund & St. John's College Clarendon Award
+ Arts and Humanities Research Council
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0505m1554
- Grant:
- OOC AHRC DTP2 - St. John's College Scholarship
- Programme:
- Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Programme
- DOI:
- Type of award:
- DPhil
- Level of award:
- Doctoral
- Awarding institution:
- University of Oxford
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Subjects:
- Deposit date:
-
2025-10-10
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Ashkan Sepahvand
- Copyright date:
- 2024
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