Acephalous

I can't believe I wrote all that last year.

Because I've been grading all damn day and am as tired as a Swearengen of hearing other about the finished semesters of pretty much every other academic blogger, I thought that it might be best to avoid jealously lashing out and scribble a "Best of Acephalous 2009" post.  However, when I started looking through my archives, it occurred to me that my output this year defines me much more sharply than in years past.  What do I mean? 

The posts I consider foundational to my current professional identity all seem to have been composed in 2009.  Granted, the likelihood that I'm suffering from the identitarian equivalent of presentism is awfully high, but I honestly thought I'd written some of the posts from early 2009 in 2006 or so.  (It may also be that I remember the scene of their writing, which would have been in the old apartment, i.e. the place I barely remember ever having lived in anymore.)  If you have absolutely nothing better to do on a Friday night, feel free to scan through my 2009 archives and tell me what you think should be included in the "Best of" post. 

If you do have something better to do, though, by all means do it. 

Even More of the Best of Acephalous 2007

(Because the alternative is a disquisition on role of the amphioxus in late 19th Century evolutionary theory.  Previous installments here and here.)

September

• My suicide attempt.
• Violations of listserv etiquette.
• Egregious violations of listserv etiquette.

... ... ... ... WE INTERRUPT THIS POST TO BRING YOU A SPECIAL LIVE BULLETIN.  TURNS OUT SCOTT ALREADY WROTE A BEST OF ACEPHALOUS THAT INCLUDED SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER.  HE IS STUPID AND FORGETFUL BUT WISHES TO REMIND READERS THAT HE KNOWS WHY SCIENTISTS IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY BELIEVED THE AMPHIOXUS BRIDGED THE GULF BETWEEN VERTEBRATES AND INVERTEBRATES AND WHY THAT IS IMPORTANT TO EDITH WHARTON AND THAT HE DOES NOT BELIEVE YOU DO.  WE NOW RETURN YOU TO THE BEST OF ACEPHALOUS ALREADY IN PROGRESS ... ... ... ...

November

• Who here is gay?
• I am become dangerous.
• The mother of all trolls.
• Rachel.
• The Munch Paradox.  (Damn did it ever turn out lame.)

December

• Almost just like it's maybe done.
• Why you don't deserve the job you land.  (Even when you do.)
• Why I won't either.  (Not that I will.)
• Vortices of misfortune.
• Unbelievabilitiness: The Absolutely True Tale of the Last Three Years of [My] Life
• How to hide cancer from loved ones.
• Two words next to each other.
• I'm seriously.
• Would that it had been true.

The Year in (as?) Acephalous, Part I

Shorter: June wins!

January

• Writing about talking about blogging.
• Imitating Montaigne.
• Helping out.
• Irritation.

February

• Teeth.
• In a book.
• Something from that probably.
• Unexamined "the."
• Cerebus, Cerebus, conservatives, Cerebus.

March

• Uncomfortably redacted (in verse).
• PROFANITY.
• Cerebus, conservatives.
• n+anger.
• Have system, will profit.

April

• Michel, Michel, from whence craig.
• Help!  Stop!  Policing!
• Purpose.

May

• Picketing.
• Lawyers win.
• Talking pictures.

June

• Iceberg?
• Uh-oh.  Like, seriously.   Is he insane?  (Yes.)  (This one too.)  (And him.)  (This one?  A good egg.)
• Boobs from nothing.
• WHARTON!
• More lawyers winning.
• Him?  No way.
• Reader-generated content.
• Headless Lenin speaks, dances.

"Classic" Acephalous: The New New Historicism: A Primer

Today seems to be the day I hit publish on all those lists I've been compiling.  So for all of you future historicists out there, I present to you a list of works which will introduce you to exciting world of literary historicism.  I'll begin with what a less careful chap would call "prehistoricism."  These works posit a naive relation of historical moment to literary production; that said, they exhibit a thoroughness which many works of new historicism would (often proudly and willfully) lack:

• The New History: Essays Illustrating the Modern Historical Outlook, James Harvey Robinson
• America's Coming of Age, Van Wyck Brooks
• "On Creating a Usable Past," Van Wyck Brooks
• On Native Grounds, Alfred Kazin
• Love and Death in the American Novel, Leslie Fiedler

They are all men, yes, and American exceptionalists at that.  I could list many more such men—including important ones like Charles Beard and F.O. Matthiessen—but the point I wish to make with this list is that dry, empty formalism was not the only available mode of literary scholarship in the years before and of New Critical dominance.  Now let's move to some of the theoretical influences of the New Historicists:

• "Linguistics and Literary Theory," Leo Spitzer, trans. Michel Foucault
• "Philology and Weltliteratur," Erich Auerbach, trans. Marie and Edward Said
• "The Thinking of Thoughts," Gilbert Ryle
• "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," Clifford Geertz
• Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault

Note the emphasis on late Foucault.  New Historicists think less about the repressiveness of power and more about the organization and channeling of it.  Note, however, the conspicuous absence of the Annales school. As constructed from these particular sources, New Historicism embraced a radical perspective on the events and narratives they purported to explain.  Despite the attempt to distance themselves from the "stuffy" historians of the first half of the century, in the end they had far more in common with the Progressive School of historiography than they're wont to admit. 

The historicism I espouse fails all sorts of political tests.  It does not attempt to the advance the cause of the working class.  It bombs every test of direct social effect one could throw at it.  It is more interested in an account of what happened and why and how than in tracking the flow of power at a particular moment in order to liberate contemporary readers from said moment's social or political bequest. But if one is to be an historicist today one must be familiar with that form of historicism and should therefore read:

• The New Historicism, H. Aram Vesser

Seminal, that is.  It addresses most of the aforementioned works . . . only in a way that makes one wonder whether there isn't some unstated principle of selection at work.  The collection's triumphalist tone remains clarion-loud throughtout with one exception.  I implore you to read the entirety of the book from which that exception is excerpted:

• The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics, Brook Thomas

Yes, Thomas is on my dissertation committee ... but it's not as if I'm responsible for the inclusion of his confrontational essay in an anthology published when I was in the 6th grade.  Once the necessary theoretical legwork has been tackled, I recommend reading a couple of truly phenomenal works of what could be called the "New New Historicism" or "Post-New Historicism" or somesuch.  Because literary historicism today is many things to many scholars but lacks the movementy feeling of other literary revolutions.  A couple of obviously biased suggestions:

• The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism, Walter Benn Michaels
• New Deal Modernism, Michael Szalay
• Gumshoe America, Sean McCann
• White Diaspora, Catherine Jurca
• The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language, and Twentieth-Century Literature, Michael North
• Terrible Honesty, Ann Douglas

I could—and by request will—continue.  But I believe that sketch of the field complete enough for the time being.  Obviously it bears an Americanist bias, but the names of the English Early Modernists who work the field are already so common.  You don't need me to tell you to read some Stephen Greenblatt or Catherine Gallagher or Stanley Fish. Maybe I should've mentioned Jonathan Arac ... but I can do all of that in the comments. 

Today seems to be the day I hit publish on all those lists I've been compiling.  So for all of you future historicists out there, I present to you a list of works which will introduce you to exciting world of literary historicism.  I'll begin with what a less careful chap would call "prehistoricism."  These works posit a naive relation of historical moment to literary production; that said, they exhibit a thoroughness which many works of new historicism would (often proudly and willfully) lack:

• The New History: Essays Illustrating the Modern Historical Outlook, James Harvey Robinson
• America's Coming of Age, Van Wyck Brooks
• "On Creating a Usable Past," Van Wyck Brooks
• On Native Grounds, Alfred Kazin
• Love and Death in the American Novel, Leslie Fiedler

They are all men, yes, and American exceptionalists at that.  I could list many more such men—including important ones like Charles Beard and F.O. Matthiessen—but the point I wish to make with this list is that dry, empty formalism was not the only available mode of literary scholarship in the years before and of New Critical dominance.  Now let's move to some of the theoretical influences of the New Historicists:

• "Linguistics and Literary Theory," Leo Spitzer, trans. Michel Foucault
• "Philology and Weltliteratur," Erich Auerbach, trans. Marie and Edward Said
• "The Thinking of Thoughts," Gilbert Ryle
• "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," Clifford Geertz
• Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault

Note the emphasis on late Foucault.  New Historicists think less about the repressiveness of power and more about the organization and channeling of it.  Note, however, the conspicuous absence of the Annales school. As constructed from these particular sources, New Historicism embraced a radical perspective on the events and narratives they purported to explain.  Despite the attempt to distance themselves from the "stuffy" historians of the first half of the century, in the end they had far more in common with the Progressive School of historiography than they're wont to admit. 

The historicism I espouse fails all sorts of political tests.  It does not attempt to the advance the cause of the working class.  It bombs every test of direct social effect one could throw at it.  It is more interested in an account of what happened and why and how than in tracking the flow of power at a particular moment in order to liberate contemporary readers from said moment's social or political bequest. But if one is to be an historicist today one must be familiar with that form of historicism and should therefore read:

• The New Historicism, H. Aram Vesser

Seminal, that is.  It addresses most of the aforementioned works . . . only in a way that makes one wonder whether there isn't some unstated principle of selection at work.  The collection's triumphalist tone remains clarion-loud throughtout with one exception.  I implore you to read the entirety of the book from which that exception is excerpted:

• The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics, Brook Thomas

Yes, Thomas is on my dissertation committee ... but it's not as if I'm responsible for the inclusion of his confrontational essay in an anthology published when I was in the 6th grade.  Once the necessary theoretical legwork has been tackled, I recommend reading a couple of truly phenomenal works of what could be called the "New New Historicism" or "Post-New Historicism" or somesuch.  Because literary historicism today is many things to many scholars but lacks the movementy feeling of other literary revolutions.  A couple of obviously biased suggestions:

• The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism, Walter Benn Michaels
• New Deal Modernism, Michael Szalay
• Gumshoe America, Sean McCann
• White Diaspora, Catherine Jurca
• The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language, and Twentieth-Century Literature, Michael North
• Terrible Honesty, Ann Douglas

I could—and by request will—continue.  But I believe that sketch of the field complete enough for the time being.  Obviously it bears an Americanist bias, but the names of the English Early Modernists who work the field are already so common.  You don't need me to tell you to read some Stephen Greenblatt or Catherine Gallagher or Stanley Fish. Maybe I should've mentioned Jonathan Arac ... but I can do all of that in the comments. 

"Classic" Acephalous: Grad School Primer

A is for Anxiety. Who are you, Derrida?

B is for the Bore you are, to all but Ma and Pa.

C is for the Coin you drop on Copies you deface,

D for the Despair you feel, producing at this pace.

E is for the Energy you wasted all these years,

F for Fraud, for Failure, Fake, whatever, these are tears.

G is for the Game you play, imagining you'll finish,

H for Harry Potter. You fancy games of Quiddich.

I's for Isolation, you're alone in this you know?

J for all the Joy you'll feel in this Hell when it snows.

K is for the grade you'd give, to see that student sob,

L for Lucky, like you'll be, to ever Land a job.

M is for the Money you'd be rolling in by now,

N for all the Notes you lost, although you're not sure how.

O is for the wailing of your apoplectic fit,

P for all the Pressure, which you handle [BLEEP] [BLEEP] [BLEEP].

Q is for the Questions, all the dumb ones that you ask,

R for the Revisions, Resubmissions in your past.*

T is for the Time spent, reading this instead of that,

U for Unproductive, like the time spent with your cat.

V is for the Virtues you can always cultivate,

When you have a real life.  At some undetermined date.

X is for the ones you love, but avoid for your cause,

Y for you, you you you you, and working without pause.

Z is for the Žižek, he's really rad, I hear,

And now you know Grad ABCs, who here wants more beer?

*S is for the Shit you inevitably leave out.
(And also for how stupid, you feel foot firm in mouth.)

A is for Anxiety. Who are you, Derrida?

B is for the Bore you are, to all but Ma and Pa.

C is for the Coin you drop on Copies you deface,

D for the Despair you feel, producing at this pace.

E is for the Energy you wasted all these years,

F for Fraud, for Failure, Fake, whatever, these are tears.

G is for the Game you play, imagining you'll finish,

H for Harry Potter. You fancy games of Quiddich.

I's for Isolation, you're alone in this you know?

J for all the Joy you'll feel in this Hell when it snows.

K is for the grade you'd give, to see that student sob,

L for Lucky, like you'll be, to ever Land a job.

M is for the Money you'd be rolling in by now,

N for all the Notes you lost, although you're not sure how.

O is for the wailing of your apoplectic fit,

P for all the Pressure, which you handle [BLEEP] [BLEEP] [BLEEP].

Q is for the Questions, all the dumb ones that you ask,

R for the Revisions, Resubmissions in your past.*

T is for the Time spent, reading this instead of that,

U for Unproductive, like the time spent with your cat.

V is for the Virtues you can always cultivate,

When you have a real life.  At some undetermined date.

X is for the ones you love, but avoid for your cause,

Y for you, you you you you, and working without pause.

Z is for the Žižek, he's really rad, I hear,

And now you know Grad ABCs, who here wants more beer?

*S is for the Shit you inevitably leave out.
(And also for how stupid, you feel foot firm in mouth.)

"Classic" Acephalous: You Make Me Uncomfortable with Your Words and What You Say

A slightly redacted version of my favorite student complaint ever:

My Teacher,

I appreciate you taking your inconvenience to instruct us but I really had some problems in your class and I would like to explain them to you now.  Every day I wanted to discuss with you about the way you grade my papers and the way you teach the class, but I could not because the things you say in class and your words disturb me so much I can not. You make me completely uncomfortable with the little things you say in the class like how you talk about television or how you talk about when you are grading our papers and trying to be fair.  You do not seem to care about our grades only that they are up to your too high standards and I can not talk to you because you make me completely uncomfortable.  For example, you say you will talk to us about our grades but you really will not because of how uncomfortable you make me feel with your words and what you say.

I will plan to contest the grade you have given me in this class when I get it because I know it will be much higher with any other teacher.  I am a very religious man and you are not a bad person but you do not choose your words with enough care like a teacher should. You try to be objective and the very attempt becomes your flaw because you try so hard to grade fairly and comment wisely that you become biased to your own ideas.  You criticize our writings because we are college students and young but do not realize that you offend most of us when you do this.  I am always offended when I go to your class and have been on many occasions but I never tell you of my offense because you make me completely uncomfortable so I never say a word.

You like to lead discussions and that is bad because it is the entire means by which we learn but we do not know what you want from us on our papers.   I have honestly no idea what I learned from you in this class because so much time was spent discussing the tiny details in the passages in the book and so if I learned anything it is how to read things in too much detail.  I could have read books in too much detail on my own but that is not what I came to college to do because I already know how to read and I would have told you this but you make me completely uncomfortable with your words so I never said a word.

By doing this you give us no guidance on our papers.  I thought it was lame that you decided to show a movie and a cop out because you chose not to give us any instruction.  I know that it was a movie based on the story in the play we read but it was not teaching to show it to us when you could have been teaching us to write what you wanted us to write on our papers instead.  The movie was completely racist and very offensive because it contained cultural stereotypes that are often used in disrespectful jokes about people who have their feelings hurt all the time.  I was offended by this racism and in the movie and had my feelings hurt by it.  If that was supposed to teach me something about the class I completely do not understand.

After this quarter I am hurt and tired and feel like talking to you now will do me no good.  I wanted to go to your office hours but I could not find the time or make myself because of your words.  I feel like my paper was written to the best of my ability in reference to your teaching skills in the discussions.  You grade my papers poorly but do not realize that you do so because they reflect your teaching skills.  Other people may have done well with your skills but I did not and would have talked to you but what you said about grading fairly made me uncomfortable.  I take my responsibilities as a man and I have never complained about my grades but this one I will because I did not need you to teach me how to read or to write.  I have made very high grades in all my other writing classes and even though I had many disputes with those instructors we always settled them to my happiness.  Now for the first time I can not talk to you to settle my grades because I am uncomfortable to talk or even write to you.  I should have stayed strong and like a man no matter how much your words and what you said offended me.  I do not blame you because when there is error there are two to blame, the perceiver and the target.  I do not know what this email does but I have to get my feelings off of my chest.  Thank you for reading this and I am sorry if what I feel has shown you disrespect but these are my feelings and I feel by your words you did not respect them.  I love everyone and believe you to possibly be a great person but with your words you have treated me completely unfairly.

I am a very religious man and I love every one but I will forward this letter to the head of your department so he can see that I am a serious student who does not deserve the grade you will give him because I write so very well.

(Note: Complaints concerning the violation of student-teacher trust have been discussed in detail both on the original thread and a subsequent one.)

Google Requests, I Deliver, Part I: "Comic Book Rape; or, What Would You Like Me to Title It?"

(Being the first in a series of reposts being reposted solely because Googlers likes them.  After "My Morning," this is the second most popular post on Acephalous.  Because Googlers want nothing more than to see some "comic book rape," "rogue rape," and, most distressingly, "comic rape."  Because when you get right down to it, is anything inherently funnier than rape?)

This post isn't a direct response to "Comic Book Guys Are Stupid," but it is a response of some kind.  Let me walk you through this one:

The year is 1988.  I'm a recent transplant to Louisiana and am thus a tad on the introverted side.  I spend endless hours reading comic books.  I may have liked some girls at this point, but I see no evidence of it in my fourth grade yearbook.  (My fifth grade yearbook is an entirely different, hearts-encircling-pictures story.) Point being, I distinctly remember not thinking about nor even knowing what rape was.  But I mow my lawn every day—my father having decided to instill the value of hard work by allowing me to earn $4 whenever I want by re-re-re-mowing what my work ethic transformed into a mangy lawn—and so have plenty of money to blow on X-books.  So I'm spending my afternoons blissfully unaware of anything which doesn't involve the X-Men or X-Factor or The New Mutants or, if I was desperate enough, Alpha Flight.

One late October afternoon I'm holding in my hands X-Men #236.  On the cover Wolverine and Rogue are hung by their on a scaffold, flanked on both sides by grinning fools in military garb.  (This picture disturbs me more now than it did then.)  What happened?  The X-Men sacrificed themselves to save the world, only in the end they were granted a reprieve: they would be dead to the world but would live undetected and undetectable in the Australian outback.  They were invisible to all forms of electronic recording devices.  They were able to move throughout the world invisible to all by the naked eye. (You want to privilege presence?  I'll privilege you some presence.)  Then a fascist state called "Genosha" clashes with the X-Men.  Shit hits fans.  Wolverine and Rogue are captured. 

For those unfamiliar with the comics or the films, Rogue has the power to absorb the memories and/or mutant powers of whomever she touches.  So naturally, she doesn't touch anyone for fear of knocking them unconscious and draining them of their "life energy."  (Stop sniggering.  I was in fourth grade.)  Her entire life Rogue has wanted nothing more than to touch someone without hurting them.  To be loved.  But she's come to accept the fact that this will never happen.  This self-sacrifice moves the fourth-grade mind.  I sympathized with her despite having no clue as to what she sacrificed or why.  I only know that it pained her and, being the good sympathetic identifier, felt her pain by proxy.  So without really knowing why I want Rogue to able to touch people. 

After she's captured by the Genoshans, she's stripped of her mutant powers.  Now she can touch people without having to worry about killing them.  For a moment I'm happy for her.  If only she can get out of this jam she'll be able to touch someone!  That's all she ever wanted!  Then I hit this panel:

And I'm confused.  That's Rogue huddled there in the corner.  She's traumatized.  Over the next few issues she'll disappear.  Another personality—and I mean that literally—will emerge.  Rogue will be so hurt by whatever "liberties [were] taken when she was being processed" that she'll cede control of her psyche to Carol Danvers. (Read the link.  It's too complicated to explain briefly.)  Needless to say, despite not knowing quite what those "liberties" were, countless data points began to constellate for me.  I saw "touching" and "forced" and "fascism" and "liberties" circle the pained figure in the panel above and I was confused.  Angry.  Upset.  I didn't know why, but I was.  My sympathies had identified with something they couldn't comprehend. 

When I was hit by that car and the pain plus the medication turned my mind to cottage cheese and the most "intellectual" material I could stomach were comics—i.e. last week until today—I stumbled into a realization: my feminist sympathies were first marshaled while reading a comic back in the Autumn of '88. 

The medium is far from perfect—as noted in the comments to the post linked above—but it is not wholly without value.  I'm not defending myself here so much as describing a stage in my development.  So please don't read this and think "Scott think spandex is progressive?"  I don't. 

Only once upon a time, perhaps, it inadvertently was.

The year is 1988.  I'm a recent transplant to Louisiana and am thus a tad on the introverted side.  I spend endless hours reading comic books.  I may have liked some girls at this point, but I see no evidence of it in my fourth grade yearbook.  (My fifth grade yearbook is an entirely different, hearts-encircling-pictures story.) Point being, I distinctly remember not thinking about nor even knowing what rape was.  But I mow my lawn every day—my father having decided to instill the value of hard work by allowing me to earn $4 whenever I want by re-re-re-mowing what my work ethic transformed into a mangy lawn—and so have plenty of money to blow on X-books.  So I'm spending my afternoons blissfully unaware of anything which doesn't involve the X-Men or X-Factor or The New Mutants or, if I was desperate enough, Alpha Flight.

One late October afternoon I'm holding in my hands X-Men #236.  On the cover Wolverine and Rogue are hung by their on a scaffold, flanked on both sides by grinning fools in military garb.  (This picture disturbs me more now than it did then.)  What happened?  The X-Men sacrificed themselves to save the world, only in the end they were granted a reprieve: they would be dead to the world but would live undetected and undetectable in the Australian outback.  They were invisible to all forms of electronic recording devices.  They were able to move throughout the world invisible to all by the naked eye. (You want to privilege presence?  I'll privilege you some presence.)  Then a fascist state called "Genosha" clashes with the X-Men.  Shit hits fans.  Wolverine and Rogue are captured. 

For those unfamiliar with the comics or the films, Rogue has the power to absorb the memories and/or mutant powers of whomever she touches.  So naturally, she doesn't touch anyone for fear of knocking them unconscious and draining them of their "life energy."  (Stop sniggering.  I was in fourth grade.)  Her entire life Rogue has wanted nothing more than to touch someone without hurting them.  To be loved.  But she's come to accept the fact that this will never happen.  This self-sacrifice moves the fourth-grade mind.  I sympathized with her despite having no clue as to what she sacrificed or why.  I only know that it pained her and, being the good sympathetic identifier, felt her pain by proxy.  So without really knowing why I want Rogue to able to touch people. 

After she's captured by the Genoshans, she's stripped of her mutant powers.  Now she can touch people without having to worry about killing them.  For a moment I'm happy for her.  If only she can get out of this jam she'll be able to touch someone!  That's all she ever wanted!  Then I hit this panel:

And I'm confused.  That's Rogue huddled there in the corner.  She's traumatized.  Over the next few issues she'll disappear.  Another personality—and I mean that literally—will emerge.  Rogue will be so hurt by whatever "liberties [were] taken when she was being processed" that she'll cede control of her psyche to Carol Danvers. (Read the link.  It's too complicated to explain briefly.)  Needless to say, despite not knowing quite what those "liberties" were, countless data points began to constellate for me.  I saw "touching" and "forced" and "fascism" and "liberties" circle the pained figure in the panel above and I was confused.  Angry.  Upset.  I didn't know why, but I was.  My sympathies had identified with something they couldn't comprehend. 

When I was hit by that car and the pain plus the medication turned my mind to cottage cheese and the most "intellectual" material I could stomach were comics—i.e. last week until today—I stumbled into a realization: my feminist sympathies were first marshaled while reading a comic back in the Autumn of '88. 

The medium is far from perfect—as noted in the comments to the post linked above—but it is not wholly without value.  I'm not defending myself here so much as describing a stage in my development.  So please don't read this and think "Scott think spandex is progressive?"  I don't. 

Only once upon a time, perhaps, it inadvertently was.