Date of Award
2004
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program
Theory and Criticism
Supervisor
Professor Clive Thomson
Abstract
Deliberate self-injury, or ‘delicate-cutting,’ has received increasing attention in clinical and critical literature in recent years. Feminist scholars have shown particular interest as this widespread phenomenon is found almost exclusively in women. Approaching self-injury as a communicative act unites an otherwise divergent body of literature. This theme is explored through clinical and feminist accounts of the practice, Wilden’s communications theory, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of language, and the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Kristeva. Two central aims structure this project: first, to demonstrate that a discussion of girls’ and women’s experience needs to be granted a legitimate space within the discourse of self-injury; second, to discuss self injury’s ‘communicative function’ in such a way as to shed light on both the practice itself, and the often intense negative response that it engenders in others.
Recommended Citation
Knighton, Lila, "Expressive Marks Women’s Self-Injury and Communication" (2004). Digitized Theses. 5089.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/5089