does is in fact governed by the technical demands of self-portraiture and thus determined, in all its aspects, by the resources of his medium?" (919). What DeMan says here about "the technical demands of self-portraiture" parallels exactly what Barthes is saying about how the technical demands of photographic portraiture- the resources of its medium -- determine the subject who is represented.
4.
The same process seems at work toward essentially the same end in Sandra Bern- hard's performance film Without You I'm Nothing ( 1990). Bernhard's imperson- ations of female performers from Barbra Striesand to Patti Smith are wound around a loosely autobiographical narrative about her own identity as a performer. The impersonations, an uncanny blend of parody and homage, serve to dramatize the extent to which her own identity is inseparable from the cultural roles that determine her performances.
References
Barthes Roland. Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photograpby. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.
Burke Kenneth. "Literature as Equipment for Living." The Philosopby of Literary Form. Berkeley: U of California P, 1973. 293-304.
DeMan Paul. "Autobiography as De-facement." MLN94 ( 1979): 919-30.
Duras Marguerite. The Lover. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
Lacan Jacques. The Language of the Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis. Trans. Anthony Wilden. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1968.
Momaday N. Scott. The Names: A Memoir. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1976.
Philips Lisa. "Cindy Sherman's Cindy Shermans." Cindy Sherman. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1987. 13-16.
Sherman Cindy. Cindy Sherman. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1987.
Schjedahl Peter. "The Oracle of Images." Cindy Sherman. New York: Whitney Mu- seum of American Art, 1987.
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Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Book Title: Autobiography & Postmodernism. Contributors: Kathleen Ashley - editor, Leigh Gilmore - editor, Gerald Peters - editor. Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press. Place of Publication: Amherst, MA. Publication Year: 1994. Page Number: 211.
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