Assembling Identities [1 ed.] 9781443870429, 9781443865296

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Assembling Identities

Assembling Identities

Edited by

Sam Wiseman

Assembling Identities, Edited by Sam Wiseman This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Sam Wiseman and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-6529-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-6529-6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ...................................................................................................... viii Regenia Gagnier Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Sam Wiseman PART ONE: PERFORMATIVE IDENTITIES Chapter One ............................................................................................... 10 Degeneration/Regeneration: The Remaking of Nation in Wartime West End Revue David Linton Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 22 Identity and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Istanbulite Theatre Defne Cizakca Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 35 Paupers, Poets and Prostitutes: The Evolving Identity of the Fadista James Félix Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 45 Opera Identity: The Singer, the Character or the Immortal Performer? Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland PART TWO: BRITISH IDENTITIES Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 58 “All the Bagpipes in the World are here, and they Fill Heaven and Earth”: The Bagpipe in the Romantic Construction of Scottish Identity Vivien Williams

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Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 71 Barry Islands in the Stream: Class, Regionalism and Hiraeth in Television Comedy Representations of Contemporary Wales Daryl Perrins Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 85 British Multiculturalism: An Emerging Field for Historians Jed Fazakarley Chapter Eight ............................................................................................. 99 Logics of Exclusion: Culture, Economy and Community in British Anti-Immigration Discourses Nikolay Mintchev PART THREE: ETHNIC, BODILY AND SEXUAL IDENTITIES Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 116 From Fools to Villains: Changes in the Characterization of an Ethnic Stereotype Anna-Leena Korpijärvi Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 131 Dis(re)membering Bodies: Disability and Self-Constitution in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Octavia Butler’s Kindred Aretha Phiri and Maja Milatovic Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 144 Gertrude Stein’s Queer America Ery Shin Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 158 Christian and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender: Reconciling Identities through Comparison Andrew Grey PART FOUR: VISUALITY, TECHNOLOGY AND IDENTITY Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 172 Hyper-Bodies of the Objet A-vatar: the Assemblage of the Digital Self Garfield Benjamin

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Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 185 Cloning and the Visual Formation of Identity in Doctor Who and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Liza Futerman Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 196 Bodily and Celestial Cosmologies: Tattooing and Asterisms Among the Japanese and MƗori Megan B. Ratliff Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 208 Aviation and Alienation in John Dos Passos’ Airways, Inc. and The Big Money Rinni Haji Amran Bibliography ............................................................................................ 220 Contributors ............................................................................................. 245

PREFACE REGENIA GAGNIER

Most of the authors contributing to Assembling Identities would have come of age in the time of multiculturalism and consciousness of globalization. They would be familiar with diverse identity politics, transnational trade federations and common markets, biosocial activisms on the internet. Yet from racial, ethnic, and sexual communities in multicultural Britain and America to clones in science fiction; from Portuguese fado to German and Italian opera to the Scottish pipes; the salient aspects of modern identities that they find are, as Sam Wiseman writes in his Introduction, ambiguity and instability. Ambiguity because, even in circumstances of domination, identities have complex performances, subtle expressions, and unpredictable effects. Instability because micro and local processes of identity formation are often crossed by macro and global processes outside their control. In his lectures on aesthetics, Hegel said that humans were distinguished by their thinking consciousness, in that we draw out of ourselves and make explicit for ourselves that which we are. Unlike other species, we perceive ourselves, have ideas of ourselves. In relationship with external nature and technology, we actively, practically, self-realize. Today, studies of dynamic, developmental systems have taken the dialectics of identity further and more precisely. Recent developments in molecular biology imply that classic distinctions between nature and nurture or biology and culture are not applicable to the human ecological niche. Research in epigenetics shows that the effects of culture on nature go all the way down to the gene and up to the stratosphere, and the effects of biology on culture are similarly inextricable. Living systems almost invariably involve the interaction of many kinds of organisms with a diversity of technologies. The anthropocene—the age of human cultures and technologies interacting with natural environments—changes rapidly, and to understand and manage its functioning requires perspectives from each domain. We call this confluence of perspectives from the natural or biological, cultural, and technological domains Symbiology, the postorganismic study of relation. The kinds of relations we study include

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mutualism, parasitism, domination, recognition, separation, solubility, symmetric mutuality (relations among equals in power or status), asymmetric mutuality (relations among unequals such as parents/offspring, teacher/pupil, human/nonhuman animals), reciprocity, alienation, isolation, autonomy, and so forth, and these relations are discernible throughout nature and all cultures. Assembling Identities addresses the relationships within which identity develops in diverse niches of culture and technology. There is no essence of humankind other than our exceptional ability to interact selfconsciously with our environments. While many species transform their environments—beavers build dams, bees make hives, microbes change the colours of the seas—humans have an exceptional ability to transform nature through our use of technology, which in turn transforms us. The Frankfurt School called this the dialectic of enlightenment, the ways that human evolution and development are in a ceaseless loop in which we create technology that in turn returns to recreate us. The salient factor in human development is not what is in your genes, but what (niche or environment) your genes are in. And the ability of humans to reflect on this natural history of change and difference tells us that things can and will change; so that hope, so central to modern identities, is the natural consequence of human under-determination. In the fifteenth century Giovanni Pico della Mirandola defended a conception of the human as the animal whose nature was not to have a nature, the Proteus who could sculpt itself into whatever shape it preferred. The philosophical anthropologists from Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx/Engels, and Nietzsche to Arnold Gehlen and Helmuth Plessner in the twentieth century also found that humans are exceptionally malleable. Schopenhauer had written that you know the species when you know one non-human animal, but humans have choice and in their choice consists their individuality and diversity, their unique identities. This exitless individuality or unfinishedness, our being presented at every moment with choices, being thrown into metaphysical unfoundedness, was the source of Sartre’s notorious “nausea”. More extreme and hubristic than the philosophical anthropologists, transhumanists today argue that precisely because humans have the freedom to alter themselves and their environments through their use of technologies, we must mobilize every enhancement and augmentation in our power to overcome what used to be considered the limits of human freedom: ageing, sickness, and death. Transhumanists consider it their task to confront ageing, sickness, and death with whatever enhancements (rational self-manipulations) and augmentations (mechanical enhancements) they can, from pharmaceuticals

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or biotechnical neuroplasty to mechanical or digital extensions. (Their neoliberal leader is characteristically named Max More, indicating the transhumanists’ maximal ambition.) Humans are developmentally plastic, with the capacity to be either creative or destructive, rational or irrational, active or passive in their diverse niches. If we consider literature or other cultural products in their specific niches, we can see certain geopolitical commodities linking the production and reproduction of life. I have often focused on forms of biodiversity around which lives and literatures are built—cotton, coffee, tea, rice, bananas, tobacco, sugar—and imaginative literatures about total environments of banana wilt, rice blast, waste management, sustainable transport, etcetera: novels called Rice, Yeast, Oil, Water, Men of Maize, Wolf Totem, Rickshaw Boy, and so forth. In this volume the authors focus more on the technologies of theatre, music, television, digitization, aviation, tattooing and body image. They locate the salient actants and relations within particular niches in which humans assemble their diverse identities. Humans make their own identities, but they do not make them as they please... but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. University of Exeter

INTRODUCTION SAM WISEMAN

This collection of essays, drawn from across the arts, humanities and social sciences, represents a cross-disciplinary attempt to explore some of the ways in which identities—whether of individuals, communities, or nations—are constructed, maintained and contested. While the title emphasises the formation of identity, the collection also explores ways in which identities can be lost, adapted, appropriated, combined and disputed. Given the broad range of topics and disciplines present here, there are few characteristics which can be said to apply to every contribution; but one conclusion that is collectively implied is the invariable ambiguity and instability of identity. It is never a static concept: identities are in a state of ceaseless change, as they respond (on both individual and collective levels) to pressures and influences from institutions, ideologies and material conditions. The sixteen chapters that comprise Assembling Identities are all versions or developments of papers given at the 2013 University of Glasgow postgraduate conference of the same name. The contributors are scholars working throughout the UK and beyond, in subjects including English Literature, Cultural Studies, Music, History, Theology, Media Studies, Social Anthropology, Digital Arts, Philosophy and Visual Culture. It is hoped that this disciplinary diversity will promote the discovery of new, unexpected perspectives and connections for readers in their thinking about identity; that unforeseen parallels will emerge between diverse places, periods and socio-cultural locations. Key loci of identity covered here include class, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion; some of the sites and behaviours of identity formation examined include performativity, technology and the body. These conceptual approaches provide different means of analyzing and understanding the ways in which sources of identity conflict, intersect, and/or problematize each other; the processes by which they are maintained, contested, and imposed upon individuals or communities. The collection is subdivided into four sections: Performative Identities; British Identities; Ethnic, Bodily and Sexual Identities; and Visuality,

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Introduction

Technology and Identity. These subdivisions are not intended to imply clearly demarcated boundaries between the sections, particularly in terms of disciplinary approach; indeed, the editorial intention has specifically been to ignore any temptation to group chapters according to subject, focusing instead upon broad thematic links. In this way, seemingly unlikely parallels and connections may become apparent across disciplines. In Part Four, for example, some affinities can be perceived between Garfield Benjamin’s examination of contemporary technological influences upon the reimagining of self (via digital avatars), and Rinni Haji Amran’s analysis of the role played by aeronautical technologies in John Dos Passos’ literary depictions of identity. Two profoundly different (but comparably significant) technologies are analyzed from markedly different disciplinary perspectives here, yet their impact upon our understanding of our identities in relation to the world bears comparison. This gives an example of the kinds of question emphasized by the collection’s subdivision of chapters. What role do new technologies play in shaping, maintaining and contesting our collective and individual identities? Similarly, we might ask what the functions and capacity of performativity are in this respect; what connections and shifts we can observe in the ways in which British identities have been produced and challenged, in different contexts and periods; and how the body can be employed, appropriated and/or reclaimed in the struggle to assert a specific identity. Different disciplines, methodologies and subject matter allow for different ways of exploring such questions, and it is hoped that the structure of this collection will encourage such enquiries. This is not to say, of course, that other thematic divisions could not be made, and readers will no doubt observe connections between essays in separate sections. Several chapters quite explicitly straddle the lines demarcated here: in tracing the role of the bagpipe in Romantic formations of Scottish identity, for example, Vivien Williams explores both Britishness and performativity; while Megan Ratliff’s discussion of tattooing and asterisms in Japanese and MƗori culture emphasizes both visuality (in terms of differing cultural perceptions of external phenomena) and the significance of bodily markings in the understanding and imagining of oneself and one’s community. Performative Identities begins with David Linton’s essay “Degeneration/Regeneration: The Remaking of Nation in Wartime London West End Revue”. During the First World War, Linton notes, revue shows evinced a “fragmented vocabulary of performance inscribed with a bewildering variety of national, racial and gender identity constructions.” This, he argues, “was pivotal in negotiating patriarchal

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power structures.” From these beginnings, however—which emphasize the potential for performativity to assist in the wresting of power from hegemonic control, through the construction of subversive identities— Linton goes on to discuss the conservative, reactionary trends that predominated in West End revue specifically. Here, he identifies “a regenerative nationalism that sought a remasculinization of British culture”, with the aim of “constructing a shared rhetoric of entertainment and patriotism.” Performativity, then, emerges as both a potentially emancipating activity for marginalized groups, and a powerful source of ideology and propaganda for authorities. This point is reiterated in Defne Cizakca’s chapter, “Identity and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Istanbulite Theatre”, which stresses the crucial Armenian role in the growth of Istanbul’s theatrical culture. This history, Cizacka argues, underpinned the Ottoman Porte’s favourable attitude towards the Armenian director Agop Vartovyan, who sought to “unite Turkish and Armenian Enlightenment in the same location: his theatre.” However, surveying twentieth-century responses to Vartovyan’s work, Cizakca notes a proliferation of ideologically-motivated attacks from both Armenian and Turkish nationalists. Thus, where Linton’s chapter reminds us that a theatrical movement can be a source of both reactionary and emancipatory impulses at a given moment, Cizakca’s demonstrates that even a single playwright can be coopted in both of these ways over time—depending upon the political context and the particular identities for which critics seek to appropriate the play. Performative sites, institutions and histories, then, are always battlegrounds upon which differing conceptions of identity are contested. Performers are not simply free to assemble their own identity, but must constantly negotiate cultural and social pressures. Moreover, the particular cultural meanings of performances (and other artworks) are not fixed, but change over time according to competing ideologies. These points are also evident in James Félix’s essay “Paupers, Poets and Prostitutes: the Evolving Identity of the Fadista”, which discusses the Portuguese musical subculture, fado. Over time, Félix explains, the identity of the fadista has evolved from one associated with criminality and poverty, to a more romanticized and tourist-friendly archetype. What, if anything, now constitutes authenticity in a fadista? The problem here is twofold: firstly, there is the question of the cultural appropriation of a marginal subculture; and secondly, the question of musical authenticity. The complexity of the latter point is highlighted by Félix’s discussion of Amália Rodrigues—a figure “seen as the embodiment of the fadista persona”, and yet one associated with “international fame, and an innovative, radical approach to

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Introduction

the musical material.” Performers, therefore, do not only draw upon the genres and traditions within which they operate; through their activities, they also modify the conventions and associations of those contexts. The influence of specific individuals can therefore alter what is perceived to be an “authentic” performative identity. This is also a central theme in Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland’s contribution, “Opera Identity: the Singer, the Character or the Immortal Performer?”, which notes that contemporary opera singers “tend to think of vocal style as part of the composer canon.” As Robertson-Kirkland argues, however, this is a relatively recent development: in Mozart’s period, for example, performers and composers had a reciprocal creative relationship, and operatic roles were adapted by singers. Despite the obvious differences between fado and operatic culture, then, these essays collectively emphasize the complex processes through which performers negotiate an identity, in the context of a genre’s history, conventions and contemporary assumptions. Part Two, British Identities, begins with Vivien Williams’ essay “‘All the Bagpipes in the World are here, and they Fill Heaven and Earth’: The Bagpipe in the Romantic Construction of Scottish Identity”. Here the focus shifts from the role of musical performers in constructing identities to the ways in which external actors and institutions can utilize, shape and appropriate performative traditions to suit particular ideological ends. Williams notes “a radical change in perspectives” towards Highlanders and the bagpipe during the Romantic era, as violent connotations give way to characteristically Romantic notions of simplicity, solitude, sublimity and the picturesque. Despite this shift, Williams argues that both constructions serve the interests of British hegemony in differing ways. Today, the “spectacle of the pipers of the British Army marching in tartan uniform speaks of feelings of loyalty and reliability, which are nevertheless always matched with a sense of ‘otherness’”: the instrument has become a powerful ideological tool for those who seek to emphasize Scottish loyalty to Britain, while remaining a signifier of difference. Williams’ chapter thus explores some of the historical tensions between Celtic self-identity and the identities imposed upon Celtic cultures by British and English institutions and ideologies. In Daryl Perrins’ contribution, “Barry Islands in the Stream: Class, Regionalism and Hiraeth in Television Comedy Representations of Contemporary Wales”, much of the focus is on the cultural battles fought for Welsh identity within Wales; and where Williams maps the construction of Scottish identities through paintings and folk songs, Perrins uses popular music and television comedy to investigate competing representations of contemporary Welsh identity. Producer-director Ed Thomas’ optimistic

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vision of a “bilingual, multicultural, pro-European” Wales is set against the fatalistic, self-effacing visions of nation presented in the situation comedies of the actor-director Boyd Clack; the evolution of a Celtic identity here emerges as an ongoing negotiation with English language and history. Jed Fazakarley’s chapter, “British Multiculturalism: An Emerging Field for Historians”, draws upon sources from the 1950s to the late 1980s in its discussion of the emergence and development of British multicultural policy and values; Fazakarley examines the phenomenon as “an institution through which distinctive ethnic communities taken to possess special ‘needs’ requiring specific responses have been posited and thereby brought into social reality.” His essay therefore stresses the extent to which institutional factors can influence the identities of minority communities—whether those identities are actually adopted by individuals, or merely imposed upon them by external groups and actors. The continuation of multiculturalism, Fazakarley argues, owes much to the sociological theory of “path dependency”, which notes that the high costs of reversing a major policy approach can make it, to a certain degree, selfperpetuating. This arguably sets limits to the “multiculturalism backlash” often posited in contemporary Britain. Nonetheless, much of the state policy and rhetoric towards minority communities that Fazakarley examines stands in stark contrast to the racist and exclusionary language used by politicians and the media towards recent immigrant groups in the UK. This is the subject of Nikolay Mintchev’s chapter, “Logics of Exclusion: Culture, Economy and Community in British Anti-Immigration Discourses”. Focusing upon Bulgarians and Romanians, Mintchev notes that Eastern Europeans “are subject to different cultural representations” than the communities which form the basis of Fazakarley’s survey. As a result, he argues, “the campaign against Bulgarians and Romanians is based upon new lines of racist argumentation”—namely stereotypes of criminality, differences in economic prosperity between Britain and Eastern Europe, and fears that immigrant groups will disrupt community cohesion. The evolution and adaption of exclusionary discourses within British culture over time is thus evident in these two chapters; and Part Three, Ethnic, Bodily and Sexual Identities, opens with another survey of racist ideology. Anna-Leena Korpijärvi’s focus in “From Fools to Villains: Changes in the Characterization of an Ethnic Stereotype” is on two successive Chinese stereotypes within American popular literature, John Chinaman and Fu-Manchu, and the social and political circumstances which underpin the “abrupt shift from a passive, almost childish and

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Introduction

effeminate deviant to a sophisticated and intelligent villain.” By reading these texts in the context of contemporary historical events (such as the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901), Korpijärvi demonstrates the intricate interconnections between material conditions, popular culture and ideology that lie behind hegemonic attempts to impose ethnic identities. Conversely, Aretha Phiri and Maja Milatovic’s “Dis(re)membering Bodies: Disability and Self-Constitution in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Octavia Butler’s Kindred” examines the potential for AfricanAmerican literary texts to challenge and resist such impositions. While “black national and cultural inclusivity has been consistently thwarted in a racialized and fundamentally racist America”, Morrison and Butler’s texts represent attempts at “re-envisioning and re-membering the placement of black (cultural) subjectivity within the (white) national narrative.” Literary texts can thus alternately serve to impose, appropriate, or reclaim ethnic and cultural identities. Part Three continues with another literary-critical essay examining the construction of marginal identities in US culture, “Gertrude Stein’s Queer America”, by Ery Shin. This explores the role played by literary difficulty in such constructions, with Shin noting that Stein’s novel The Making of Americans “elevates monotony and the mundane into high art and is perhaps the most difficult modernist masterpiece to read as a result.” Most significantly in the present context, Stein’s “queer singular [...] floats in an existential no-man’s land. It adopts a paradoxical stance towards middleclass America by being both of and against it.” As with Phiri and Milatovic’s intertwined exploration of ethnic and disabled identities, Shin’s chapter emphasizes intersectionality: in Stein’s work, the complex relations between class and queerness in early-twentieth century bourgeois America are investigated. Moreover, “The Making of Americans eerily anticipates class divisions within contemporary LGBT circles [...] by assuming that the ideal queer America is still a discerning white middleclass one.” Another intersection with contemporary LGBT identities, that of religious faith, is considered in Andrew Grey’s chapter “Christian and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender: Reconciling Identities Through Comparison”. Asking whether these identities are “inherently in competition with one another, and therefore mutually exclusive”, Grey explores some parallels with the position of early Jewish Christians. For both groups, he argues, a dual identity can be adopted that is not inherently contradictory, depending upon the particular foundations that both religious and sexual identities are based upon. The essay thus illustrates the more general point that intersecting identities may or may not be seen

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as being in tension with one another, depending upon the specific rationales and beliefs underpinning those identities. The collection’s final section, Visuality, Technology and Identity, begins with Garfield Benjamin’s “Hyper-Bodies of the Objet A-vatar: the Assemblage of the Digital Self”, an examination of the role of avatars as key tools in the mediation of digital environments. Benjamin explores some of the ways in which technology is changing our ability to claim and inhabit identities: as he argues, “a transfinite array of possible constructions” means that “the digital subject is constrained in their identity only by their access to technology and their own subjective presuppositions about the nature of their identity.” The avatar can thus be seen as a tool for the reimagining of self, a means by which we can “perceive our identities outside of ourselves and thus creatively challenge our negotiation of selfhood.” A similar role can arguably be played by clones in science fiction, and the following chapter—Liza Futerman’s “Cloning and the Visual Formation of Identity in Doctor Who and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”—considers this in the context of the BBC series and Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 film. As Futerman argues, the clone simultaneously “materializes the process of identity formation” and “dramatizes the incoherence of a unique and unambiguous identity.” Like avatars, clones may “parody the notion of a coherent individual identity by both incorporating and challenging it.” These different technologies and concepts, then, are both threatening—in their undermining of the idea of the coherent, unified and singular identity—and potentially emancipatory, in their implication that new and multiple identities may be adopted. Megan B. Ratliff’s contribution, “Bodily and Celestial Cosmologies: Tattooing and Asterisms Among the Japanese and MƗori”, considers how bodily identities are created not through the creation of new bodies (cloning) or the inhabiting of virtual ones (avatars), but rather through the making of marks upon one’s existing body. Ratliff also looks at the relationship between visuality and identity, considering the inscribing of “central values, beliefs, and understandings” upon, on the one hand, the body, and on the other, the night sky. As Ratliff argues, tattooing “applies an invented order to the body”, and thus “mirrors our relationship to [...] natural phenomena.” Her essay therefore emphasizes that disparate cultures and practices can manifest the same impulse: to grasp and express a sense of identity through visual projection and inscription. The role of aerial perspectives in the constitution of identity is a central theme of the collection’s final chapter, Haji Amran’s “Aviation and Alienation in John Dos Passos’ Airways, Inc. and The Big Money”. This argues that flight revealed to Dos Passos “the vast changes to one’s perception of everyday

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Introduction

life brought about by technological progress, which precipitated a necessary change in his literary technique in order to better portray the experience of twentieth-century America.” This chapter thus continues the exploration of technological influences upon self-constitution, while further emphasizing how such influences can drive shifts in the artistic methods through which identity is represented and expressed. Assembling Identities, and the conference which led to the collection, was only made possible by the practical and financial assistance of the University of Glasgow’s Graduate School of Arts and Humanities; particular thanks are owed to Dee Heddon and Marina Moskowitz. The conference benefited immensely from a talented, hardworking and imaginative organizing committee, including Sarah Bissell, Julia Bohlmann, Madeleine Campbell, Elizabeth Ford, Agnes Marszalek, Calum Rodger, Elizabeth Oglesby-Wellings, Michael Shaw, Graeme Spurr and Hannah Tweed. I would like to thank the keynote speakers, Regenia Gagnier and Pierre Joris, as well as Gordon Barr, Katie Bruce, Alec Finlay, Nick Higgins, Karl Magee, Peter Manson, Nicole Peyrafitte, Annie Rose, Habib Tengour and Ruth Washbrook, for their contributions to various discussions, readings and events. I am immensely grateful to Cambridge Scholars Publishing for their faith in this project. Finally—and most importantly—I want to thank the contributing authors, who have created a stimulating, thoughtful and imaginative set of essays, collectively enriching our understanding of identity.

PART ONE: PERFORMATIVE IDENTITIES

CHAPTER ONE DEGENERATION/REGENERATION: THE REMAKING OF NATION IN WARTIME WEST END REVUE DAVID LINTON

London West End revue performance constituted a particular response to mounting social, political and cultural insecurities over Britain’s status and position at the beginning of the twentieth century. Uncertainties regarding Britain’s colonial rule, as exemplified in Ireland and elsewhere, were compounded by growing demands for social reform across the country: the call for women’s emancipation, the growth of the labour and trade union movements, all created a climate of mounting disillusion. Revue correlated the immediacy of this uncertain world, through a fragmented vocabulary of performance inscribed with a bewildering variety of national, racial and gender identity constructions on stage. Experimenting with narrative and expressions of speech, movement, design and sound, they displayed ambivalent representations that reflected social and cultural negotiations of previously essentialized identities in the modern world. During the First World War, a renegotiation of gender roles occurred as women took up the tools of industry in war-related production. This provided opportunities for women to break free from the domestic sphere, and was pivotal in negotiating patriarchal power structures and contributing to the women’s suffrage movement. However in West End revue that negotiation took on a slightly different registration, as rather than a breaking-down of traditional gender roles and identities, as indeed there was in other spheres, wartime revue performance displayed a regenerative nationalism that sought a remasculinization of British culture. In often contradictory and complex representations, revues such as Not Likely (1914), The Red Heads (1914), Bric à Brac (1915), Push and Go (1915), 5064 Gerrard (1915), Flying Colours (1916), Vanity Fair (1916), The Bing Boys are Here! (1916), Zig-Zag (1917), Airs and Graces (1917),

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Box o’ Tricks (1918), and Hullo America (1918), among others, perpetuated images of British manliness and womanhood that reasserted patriarchal values and constructed a version of female virtue that sexually objectified women through the development of the chorus girl persona. This was pivotal in constructing a shared rhetoric of entertainment and patriotism. Focusing on the shows Business as Usual (1914), and By Jingo If We Do! (1914), I will highlight how revues of this period engaged in pertinent national identity and gender formations as the political establishment called for propaganda as well as distraction and escapism. The onset of war saw a fervent, validating call to arms begin to grip the country with different voices detailing the numerous national benefits of impending battle. With the outbreak of war came chaos [...] there seemed to be no way out except by patriotism. It took everyone like an infection. Strange ideas took the public fancy. Said one patriot, “War is a virtue”. Said another, “We are fighting a war for peace.” Strange figures emerged from the grey mist to float into the golden columns of the press in order to tell the public of the marvellous good the war was going to do.1

Popular entertainments had long been known as the “fount of patriotism,”2 but in the early days of the First World War, West End revue performance was at the forefront of promoting a justifying rhetoric for Britain’s involvement in the conflict. At its core it was driven by a patriotism of blood and soil nationalism that engaged in a remasculinization of British culture. In a world in which “Germany was challenging British commercial and naval supremacy at every turn”3, the war was presented in revue “as a necessity […] [which] might be the prerequisite of the establishment of a happier world order”.4 In Britain this line of reasoning was connected to pre-war cultural fears about national decline, and a growing sense of the erosion of British power, which emphasised a nation that had forgotten its true history and greatness; as Samuel Hynes recounts the narrative, “Englishmen had abandoned the high austere ideals of conduct that had made the Empire great, and had sunk into a toocomfortable, too-prosperous Edwardian decadence”.5 A key manifestation of this decaying world was argued to be the changing roles between men and women with the push for women’s emancipation, seen by some as a sign of a culture of regression and degeneration. The fragmentation of traditional class identities and the erosion of the “sexual borderline”6 between men and women were highlighted as manifestations of the crisis facing modern society. Friedrich Nietzsche attacked the idea that women would be emancipated once they had secured equal rights; rather, he

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Chapter One

argued, women would become as sick as “European ‘manliness’ is sick” and saw it as the erosion of “womanly instincts”.7 War, it was felt, was the end product of “the softness into which England had fallen”.8 It was a “softness” attributed to the men of England, in a world “transformed by industrialisation and embourgeoisement,”9 where nineteenth-century ideals of masculinity had been challenged by the “new woman” questioning the traditional institutions of marriage, work, and the family, and undermining patriarchy. A crisis of manliness was perceived to be happening as men, it was argued, “suffered from a weakened personality”10, due to the rise of women. Fears about the deterioration of the population and national blood stocks11 were compounded by the high percentage of rejections during recruitment for the Boer War due to physical causes, and led to the creation of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration (1904). The Royal Commission on Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded (1904-1908), along with the National Social Purity Crusade, was charged with raising the standard of social and personal cleanliness. A quest for national efficiency began informing the social reforms after 1906 which dealt with the working class, child health and welfare. These events fed into the belief of the demise of a British “race” of once-great physical prowess, now contaminated and vulnerable to attack, brought about through excess and decadence. It was now argued that Britain’s degeneration and a growing effeminacy before the war could be countered, with the war becoming an impetus for cleansing and remaking the British nation, as expounded by Selwyn Image in his November 1914 lecture Art, Morals, and the War: Ah! There is little doubt we need a cleansing purge, a sharp awakening, a recalling to sanity, to a readjustment of our estimates of things. Well, perhaps it was only war, a war such as that upon us, a war, as I have put it to you, for the sake of fundamental ideals that could give us for art and conduct generally the salutary shock.12

“Far from being the end of civilization, the war would be the end of civilization’s illnesses”,13 re-establishing patriarchal order, fortifying the old roles and positions of class and gender, and reclaiming British supremacy, as articulated by H.G. Wells: One talks and reads of the heroic age and how the world has degenerated. But indeed this is the heroic age, suddenly come again. No legendary feats of the past, no battle with dragons or monstrous beasts, no quest or feat that man has hitherto attempted can compare with this adventure, in terror, danger and splendour.14

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It is therefore of central concern to illustrate how the resurgent ideas of regeneration and remasculinization were utilized and disseminated through the spectacular revue aesthetic at the beginning of the First World War. Theatre is intrinsically connected to the nation. Not only does it enhance “‘national’ life by providing a space for shared civil discourse, entertainment, creativity”, it is also “deeply implicated in constructing the nation through the imaginative realm”.15 As Steve Blandford explains, theatre provides the scope for meaningful proportions of the population to be involved with and affected by its role in the construction of national identity. Wartime theatre and other “communicative” technologies engaged in creating forms of national consciousness that propelled the idea of a national identity and belonging. As Benedict Anderson has highlighted, narratives of belonging put into circulation a means by which a community can be imagined.16 This extends far beyond those that work in the theatre or actually attend performances. It includes the ways in which debates are conducted through forms of media, the ways in which culture is handled in political discourse and, of course, the ways in which theatre interacts with other cultural forms.17 Popular theatre helped forge ideas of nation through means of commonality and differentiation, as cultural traditions take on meaning through a system of differences, where people come to know themselves as a community and as different to “others” outside of the community. In doing so revue became a potent symbol of the popular imagination, providing new formulations of national identity and the potentiality to move from representation into areas of performativity. This was evident in distinctive dancing and musical forms which would define a generation, offering new expressions of self. West End revue productions like By Jingo If We Do! And Business as Usual were indicative of revues in the early years of the war engaging in a celebratory discourse of national identity that championed British manhood. Both shows took their titles from prominent war catchphrases (highlighting the commercial opportunism of the revue producers), which marked their association with the ensuing national war effort. By Jingo If We Do! was produced by Charles Cochran and opened at the Empire Theatre in October 1914, two months after the start of the First World War. The title was drawn from the chorus of G.W. Hunt’s famous “Macdermott’s War Song” (1877). Business as Usual, produced by Albert de Courville, derived its title from H.E. Morgan of W.H. Smith and Son, who in August of 1914 “in a letter to the Daily Chronicle suggested that the country would do well to follow a policy of ‘Business as Usual’”.18 The phrase was taken up by the government, who believed that in order to

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maintain a stable functioning country it was necessary to continue in the same manner as before the war. The implication was that any change in behaviour equated to a victory for the enemy, so ‘Business as Usual’ became shorthand for Britain’s resolve not to give in. Both productions were rousing patriotic recruitment shows that mixed jingoistic bravado with musical razzmatazz, to disseminate wartime propaganda. Revue was perfectly placed to straddle a mix of the serious and comedic because of its non-linear narratives that mixed sketches, songs and dance, and enabled it to fulfil a crucial wartime role as an entertaining distraction that also provided a vehicle for enemy-bashing propaganda. On the revue stage the representation of German soldiers moved between incompetent figures of comedy to devious evil aggressors. As Cate Haste argues, propaganda in its essence deals with “simplification […] [and] eternal repetition”,19 and in both of these shows this can be seen in simple sketches that “persuade men to fight […] keep up morale […] inspire patriotism and continually denigrate the enemy”.20 In By Jingo If We Do! this was achieved through a constant steady stream of “digs at the Kaiser,” and depictions of the German soldiers that marked them as villainous and cowardly aggressors through “references to German atrocities” and a “brutal scene”, depicting German officers performing acts of violence against defenceless women.21 The German bombardment of the Belgian town of Louvain in August 1914 had been regarded in Britain as cowardly, and instigated stories of unprovoked German barbarity on civilians. German atrocity stories of rape, murder and mutilation were to be found in the press,22 especially against women, and they were used as a catalyst to summon British men into action with accounts of “wanton, phallocentric, German barbarism”.23 Men like the writer Robert Graves were “outraged to read of the cynical violation of Belgian neutrality”, and promised “vengeance for Louvain.”24 A widespread “campaign of hate was waged against Germany,”25 which sought to justify the war by showing Germany’s barbarism, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle later expressed: If our workers could actually see the vile things, which have been perpetuated upon our people […] they would work with redoubled heart and vigour. Since they cannot see them, they should be brought home to them in every way, verbal or pictorial, that is possible.26

The opening scenes of Business as Usual exemplify Conan Doyle’s wish to reconstruct for the British public the savagery of German warfare, and illustrates the simple yet effective style of revue narrative story-telling. The harvest scene presents a small idyllic village in France or Belgium at harvest time, with people working in a “field of glorious golden corn.” It is

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a romanticized picture of country life, as the stage directions indicate: “the picture should be very tranquil, peaceful and animated by the youthful exuberance of the people at work.” To add to this utopian sense, the people sing “Harvest Time”, a celebratory song of “old Mother Earth […] gather[ing] the fruits that the world may be fed.”27 An English tourist enters and comments on the sense of patriotism among the villagers as they break into song again, this time singing “all the world is full of happy peacetime,”28 as the church bell rings to celebrate the harvest. However, the peace is broken suddenly and theatrically by the sound of cannon fire. Panic ensues as barbaric German soldiers drag their guns over the harvest and shatter the peace, and villagers are flung aside, creating a final haunting tableau of the “advancing German hordes.”29 A recruitment scene follows, depicting the crowded streets of Whitehall in London “immediately after the declaration of war,” on August 4, 1914. On stage, “Bands of young men, hatless and otherwise […] [are] parading the streets waving flags and cheering […] etc.”.30 Here identities are performative, as the social bonds of nation are acted out. The scene portrays patriots who rush to enlist, reflecting the moment “many [men] joined up in groups, with their pals,”31 as we see men move from an individual to a national identity. The scene is brought to a climax with the entrance of a female recruiting sergeant (played by Violet Lorraine); she organizes the newly-recruited men with the help of a group of chorus girls, who patriotically appeal for more men to sign up and fight: Come, take your heed of England’s need of every gallant son That liberty and right ne’er be trampled by the Hun So join the colours, boys and help to lay him low at last Let William feel old London’s heel upon him planted fast. Old London’s hard to leave ‘tis true, Old London’s dear to all But what are London’s pleasures when we hear our country’s call? So give the games a rest until the greater fight we win Enlist to-day, my boys, and play your next match in Berlin.32

The Whitehall scene reflected the performative role women often played in the recruitment of men for the armed forces. Suffragettes like Christabel Pankhurst moved “from waging war against male obstinacy and weakness to waging war against German wickedness and inciting all British men to go out and take part in that fight.”33 In The Times suggestions flooded in for patriotic women “anxious to work for their country but who find that their talents do not lie in the direction of needlework or the domestic economy.” Under the heading “How to be useful in war time, further work

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for women”34, suggestions varied from letter-writing, cooking and washing to cleaning boots; however, even at this early stage of the war there was a clear understanding of the role women could perform in “shaming” men into battle. As Mr Ernest H. Sollas from Shanklin wrote, “could not the women help by asking all the young men of their acquaintance, ‘why have you not volunteered?’”35 Some women took it as their duty to urge men to flock to the colours with a new-found zeal, as Ms A.M. Woodward’s letter to The Times highlights: There is a wider duty than the making of garments. Young men must be persuaded to think what this war really means and what the terrible consequences may be if we fail to appreciate its magnitude and its meaning. So I am commencing a little missionary work. To-morrow I mean to give a leaflet to every man who is apparently a possible recruit. I shall watch for them on the train, in the street, at the cricket and tennis grounds, at the theatre, at the restaurant, and I hope that the little single appeal “from the women of England” will at least rouse their thought and will possibly help them act.36

The employment of women in coercing men to enlist became a widespread tool in the recruitment drive at the start of the war, and revues used this to their advantage, with beauty choruses and lead women at the forefront of recruiting sketches. On the musical stage female representation had established a long tradition for mixing respectability and the erotic in “very careful ways”37, with plots that centred on female figures in shows like A Gaiety Girl (1893), The Shop Girl (1894) and Our Miss Gibbs (1909). Musical comedy staged femininity constructing a “customized notion of female beauty and glamour.”38 Wartime revue followed in that tradition, with women serving as one of the major means by which the war was imagined and represented. Women functioned in a complex mixture of roles, tacitly implicated as a sexual reward for “serving your country”, but also seen as symbols of the nation and home; the justifying factors for male action, as they needed protection. The promotion of women in West End revue mirrored Florenz Ziegfeld’s New York revues, mixing patriotism and sexuality, “increasing [the] iconicity of the female body”,39 and constructing the myth of the chorus girl. This myth perpetuated the idea of an overtly sexualized woman in the male imagination through a sanctioned display of voyeurism, reflecting “a culture that packaged women and sold sexuality.”40 The pervasiveness of women on the revue stage was not universally supported by theatre critics, who voiced concern at how “an unparalleled

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wave of sexuality became the predominating theatrical feature towards the end of 1916.”41 The art critic Huntly Carter complained of a “pornographic theatre period”, in which the West End was a space “full of erotic and aesthetic symbols capable of rousing sexual emotion”,42 through a “vision of chorus girls”;43 and where “gradually the individual is being quashed out, and the stage is loaded with crowds of child-aping women, called by courtesy, a beauty chorus […] they dazzle the eye and blast the ear.”44 For the theatre historian Frank Vernon, the war saw “the steady deterioration of public entertainments”;45 it was “the theatre of the ‘night out’ with a vengeance”,46 a theatre “butchered for the War-time flapper”,47 as soldiers sought distraction. It was the woman, Vernon argued, that created a “colonial holiday”, as “the men on leave came and went, but she remained, helping one soldier after another spend his money on the entertainments she chose.”48 Popular entertainments such as revue, it was argued, encouraged sexual immorality, and the source of this problem lay with women. “Khaki fever” became a term used to describe the sexual frisson and sexual attraction of women to men in uniform. During the war, “sexual morality was often treated as pertaining to women alone”,49 as Edwardian double standards placed severe constraints on women and accused them of leading young men astray. In a letter to Huntly Carter, George Bernard Shaw was particularly disturbed by revue’s growing sexualization and its effect on men: The dialogues and gestures are lewd and silly. The dress and decorations are sexual and suggestive. The whole thing is capable of driving men to the drinking bar at each interval, and to a brothel at the end of the play […]. Someone might say, what do we expect? Ought revues to drive men to prayer?50

The performance of distinct gender roles was now needed as a means of regulating the moral climate, and the “reassertion of separate spheres with its implied dichotomies of private and public, of different natures of women and men of home and the front,”51 was constantly communicated. In addition wartime revues sought to reaffirm the innate duty and honour of British soldiers, and highlighted the dangers of failing to “act and perform like men”; not only at the front but also within the home, as illustrated in the coffee stall scene in By Jingo If We Do!. This scene opens on a London night with Wally, the proprietor of the coffee stall, reading a paper and talking to a tramp about German atrocities:

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Chapter One Tramp: Any noos? Wally: Kaiser’s sent a telegram thanking ‘is troops for them women and children wot they killed.

The emphasis shifts as Nellie enters, “shabby and ill-clad but showing a tawdry effort at smartness”. Wally knows Nellie and asks why she is out so late, to which she snaps out a defiant “P’raps I am”. Nellie asks for a cup of tea and places a sovereign on the stall counter. Suddenly suspicions about her night-time activity are raised; Wally lets out a long whistle and looks long at her before uttering, “So that’s the game is it? Well it’s no business o’ mine”. Nellie is one of a growing section of women during the First World War who became what were known as “amateur prostitutes”, selling their bodies for sex. As the scene progresses it is explained that Nellie’s husband has “bin out o’ work since the war began,” and hasn’t been seen for three days. As a mother with two children to feed, Nellie has been forced to look out for herself and her children. Presented here is a snapshot of a taboo social reality during the war, as women in hardship turned to prostitution. However, the scene is not concerned with trying to excuse or defend such behaviour, but is engaged in highlighting the reason behind such actions: namely, that the absence of male power has led to sexual degeneration. The scene presents a stark picture of the effects of men failing to fulfil their role as head of the family. In this scene women are presented as weak and gullible, unable to look after themselves, and prone to lapse if men are not in control. The consequences of such a fall are starkly shown when Nellie’s husband Bill enters. Bill has not abandoned his family, but has been looking for work and has secured employment in Catford starting the next day. As he excitedly relates his good news, he too becomes suspicious of Nellie being out so late and notices her “rouged face”. The scene quickly escalates as Bill realizes that Nellie has been selling herself for money, and concludes in Nellie’s brutal murder: “Wot’s that stuff on your face? Wot’s this in your hand? (Sees the money.) Where d’jyer get it? (Realization.) You!” The stage directions then state that Bill seizes Nellie by the throat, pins her up against the coffee stall and stabs her, with the final blackout line of “You’ve done ‘er in!” coming from Wally.52 This scene would seem startlingly out of place within the traditional genres of musical comedy and operetta, as Len Platt notes.53 The revue form mixed comedy with realism, and Platt recognizes the experimental nature of By Jingo If We Do!. However, he misreads the scene by underestimating the precise historical conditions underlying the revue. In the context of a regenerating national rhetoric of remasculinization, the scene is not an oddity but a reaffirmation of British male power; a brutal

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depiction of the male psyche under the conditions of wartime, where death rather than dishonour is the favoured option. Here the dishonour that the woman has brought results in a violent crime, which is framed as a crime of passion but is really about the social control and regulation of women and the reassertion of male authority, as male violence is condoned and tacitly justified. The implication is that only through the “righting of gender roles at home can men hope to be effective in remedying a travesty against the family abroad.”54 The First World War saw revue performance establish itself at the heart of London’s flourishing popular entertainment zone, the West End, through its engagement with specific strands of a wartime identity discourse of national regeneration and renewal. Doubts about the propriety of entertainment in wartime gave way to the recognition of the full possibilities of its use in the war effort, both for uplifting the nation’s morale and for the dissemination of propaganda, as the West End became an “intersection between home and front”.55 In this respect the “tensions between ‘home’ and ‘front’ and between ‘city’ and ‘war’ were mediated by urban entertainments with their peculiar combination of modern, nostalgic and transgressive impulses”.56 In one sense wartime became “a passport to inclusion”57 and revue stressed a social and collective national identity. Paradoxically, in another sense revue representations deepened misogyny, widened the gap between male and female equality, and regulated and sought to enforce a narrow moral economy and code of behaviour for both men and women. Yet these contradictions were crucial to revue performance’s popularity and success at the beginning of the war, combining patriotic entertainment with the maintenance of national morale.

Notes 1

Huntly Carter, The New Spirit in the European Theatre 1914-1924 (London: Ernest Benn, 1925), 29. 2 Penny Summerfield, “Patriotism and Empire, Music-Hall Entertainment 18701914”, in John M. Mackenzie (ed.), Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 17. 3 Arthur Marwick, The Deluge: British Society and the First World War (London: The Bodley Head, 1965), 27. 4 Ibid., 27. 5 Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (London: The Bodley Head, 1990), 19. 6 Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle (London: Bloomsbury, 1991), 8.

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Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (London: Penguin, 1973), 167-168. Hynes, A War Imagined, 19. 9 Herbert Sussman, Victorian Masculinities: Manhood and Masculine Poetics in Early Victorian Literature and Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 2. 10 Frederick Copleston, Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosopher of Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1942), 35. 11 See Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800 (London: Longman, 1981), Chapters 7 and 9. 12 Selwyn Image, Art, Morals, and the War (London: Oxford University Press, 1914), 19. 13 Hynes, A War Imagined, 19. 14 H.G. Wells, “The Most Splendid Fighting in the World”, Daily Chronicle, September 9, 1914, 4. 15 Nadine Holdsworth, Theatre and Nation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 6. 16 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 17 See Steve Blandford (ed.), Theatre and Performances in Small Nations (Bristol: Intellect, 2013). 18 Marwick, The Deluge, 39. 19 Cate Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning: Propaganda in the First World War (London: Allen Lane, 1977), 3. 20 Ibid., 2. 21 Arthur Wimperis, By Jingo If We Do!, MSS LCP 1914/33, np. 22 See “Atrocities in Belgium. Accounts by Refugees. The Opening of the Great Battle”, The Times, August 28, 1914, 7; “German Barbarity in Belgium. The Sack of Aerschot. Fourth Official Report”, The Times, October 5, 1914, 6. 23 Nicoletta F. Gullace, The Blood of Our Sons: Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 46. 24 Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That (London: Jonathan Cape, 1929), 99-100. 25 Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning, 79. 26 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Times, January 16, 1918, 9. 27 Albert de Courville and F.W. Mark, Business as Usual, MSS LCP 1914/33, np. 28 Ibid., np. 29 Ibid., np. 30 Ibid., np. 31 Winter, Robert (eds.), Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914-1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 2. 32 De Courville and Mark, Business as Usual, np. 33 Arthur Marwick, Women at War 1914-1918 (London: Fontana, 1977), 30. 34 Anon, “How to be useful in war time, further work for women, many forms of activity”, The Times, August 28, 1914, 11. 35 Ibid.,11. 8

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21

Ibid., 11. Len Platt, Musical Comedy on the West End Stage, 1890-1939 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 105. 38 Platt, Musical Comedy on the West End Stage, 104. 39 Angela J. Latham, Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls, and Other Brazen Performers of the American 1920s (London: Wesleyan University Press, 2000), 10. 40 Platt, Musical Comedy on the West End Stage, 7. 41 Carter, The New Spirit in the European Theatre, 33. 42 Ibid.,40. 43 Ibid., 41. 44 Ibid., 48. 45 Frank Vernon, The Twentieth-Century Theatre (London: George G. Harrap & Company, 1924), 119. 46 Ibid., 118. 47 Ibid., 119. 48 Ibid., 119. 49 Marwick, Women at War, 115. 50 Carter, The New Spirit in the European Theatre, 46. 51 Jessica Meyer, Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 156. 52 Wimperis, By Jingo If We Do!, np. 53 See Platt, Musical Comedy on the West End Stage, 134. 54 Gullace, The Blood of Our Sons,45. 55 Jan Rüger, “Entertainments”, in Winter, Robert (eds.), Capital Cities at War, 106. 56 Ibid., 106. 57 Winter, Robert (eds.), Capital Cities at War, 2. 37

CHAPTER TWO IDENTITY AND POLITICS IN NINETEENTHCENTURY ISTANBULITE THEATRE DEFNE CIZAKCA

The first Turkish nationalist play in history, Vatan Yahut Silistre, was staged at the Gedikpasa Theatre in Istanbul, on the 1st of April 1873. Vatan Yahut Silistre was written by a Turkish playwright, Namik Kemal, but produced by an Armenian theatre director, Agop Vartovyan. My aim in this paper is threefold. Firstly, to offer a historical analysis of theatre in Istanbul and within the Armenian diaspora; secondly, to chart the political and cultural circumstances that enabled an Armenian director to stage the first Turkish nationalist play Istanbul had seen; and thirdly, to suggest the fluid nature of nineteenth-century Ottoman identities betwixt imperial and nationalist ideologies, through a discussion of Kemal’s political philosophy and Vartovyan’s theatrical directorship.

Ottoman multi-religious governance: the millet system Istanbul has been a socio-political, religious, and artistic centre of the Mediterranean since the fourth century. From the Byzantine to the Ottoman Empires the city has been home to various peoples, among them Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Romaniote, Ashkenazi, Sephardic Jews, and Levantines. These groups lived alongside one another without giving up their local traditions or religious beliefs, which were safeguarded through the Ottoman Empire’s millet system. This was a form of imperial indirect rule vis-à-vis confessional communities. Ottoman constituents were organized into autonomous, self-regulatory units, or millets, through their religious affiliations. Each millet was entitled to independent religious courts and schooling systems, and granted freedom of worship in return for loyalty to Ottoman rule and the payment of taxes. Hence the Ottomans ruled over heterogeneous communities within the

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empire without religious persecution, which led to the relatively peaceful co-existence of various ethnic communities from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. Despite these strengths, the millet system was not without its complications. From the eighteenth century onwards, political developments within and outside of the empire began to reflect negatively on the arrangement. Stamatopoulos suggests that the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire corresponded to a progressive collapse of the millet system and its replacement by the principle of the nation-state, which gained strength after the French Revolution.1 According to Stamatopoulos, the organization of Ottoman millets went through some substantial changes following the Greek War of Independence. One by one, different Balkan groups separated from the leadership of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchy in Istanbul, under which they had previously been subsumed as Orthodox subjects, and went on to establish their own national churches. Soon afterwards, these groups became nationalist movements seeking independence from Ottoman rule. The millet system, which was based upon religious affiliation, became dysfunctional in the face of ethnicitycentred identity formations. The Ottoman Empire’s loss of land in the Balkans had repercussions for the status of the Armenian community within the empire. Independence movements within the other Ottoman millets led the Ottomans to identify the Armenians as the loyal millet, or the millet-i sadika. The nineteenth century saw the flourishing of the Armenian community in several ways. Money changers (sarraf) became involved in tax sub-contracting in close collaboration with the Muslims, and the initiation and development of European theatre in Istanbul was thrust into Armenian hands.2

The first Turkish plays in Istanbul The Ottoman Empire was introduced to European theatre as early as the seventeenth century, through theatrical performances in embassies, but this new form of entertainment did not reach the general public until the nineteenth century.3 While embassy theatres appealed only to the educated higher classes (who spoke foreign languages and had a familiarity with high culture), palace theatres and the Ottoman Palace Orchestra (Muzika-yi Humayun, established in 1859) were geared towards the palace population, foreign guests and soldiers.4 Theatres catering to the general public were run by Greek and Armenian companies, and performed plays in their respective languages. In fact, Istanbul was the hub of Greek theatre from 1858 to 1922, yet it was the Armenian community that would popularize

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the form for Turkish-speaking Istanbulites.5 Sirapyan Hekimyan’s theatre company Arevalyan and Istepan Eksiyan’s Vaspuragan performed bilingually, in both Armenian and Turkish, from 1859 to 1867.6 However, the key development occurred in 1869, when Vartovyan received a tenyear concession from the Ottoman Porte, giving him sole rights to stage plays in the Turkish language, as well as in his native Armenian. It was through Vartovyan’s monopoly that modern European theatre reached the masses for the first time. No documents explain why this ten-year permission was given to an Armenian Ottoman citizen, rather than a Greek one. Perhaps the decision can be explained by the nationalist developments of the eighteenth century outlined above. The choice may also suggest that either Armenian theatres in Istanbul were more successful than Greek ones, or that they were more willing, or more able, to perform plays in the Turkish language. If success can be judged by numbers, the first proposition must be true: there were more Armenian theatre companies in Istanbul than Greek ones. While Armenian companies were known for their bilingual performances, there are no records indicating that Greek companies performed in Turkish. The reasons behind the decision are therefore unclear, but fall beyond the scope of this paper. Another point of interest is why the Ottoman Porte did not assign the role of popularizing theatre to a Turkish Ottoman. While the choice of an Armenian citizen over a Greek can be explained politically and financially, the preference for the former over a Turkish citizen suggests a deeper motive. It may be that the Ottoman Porte and Turkish intellectuals were pursuing a political agenda in popularizing European theatre for a Turkish audience, and wanted to use the expertise of the Armenian community to do so. Armenians had already successfully utilized theatre to convey their ideology both in Istanbul and abroad. To understand the politicization of the Armenian troupes we must go further back in history, to the Armenian Enlightenment project; a proper understanding of which requires some knowledge of Abbot Mechitar and his followers.

The Mechitarists and the Armenian Enlightenment Mechitar of Sebaste was born Manouk Petrosian to an Apostolic Gregorian family in Sivas on the 7th of February 1676, and converted to Catholicism when he was fifteen. After being ordained a priest at the age of nineteen, Mechitar studied at several monasteries in Anatolia, translated religious works from Greek into Armenian, and gained a loyal following. He moved to Istanbul in 1700 with sixteen of his followers, and

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established an Armenian school there in 1701.7 Two years later, Mechitar and his congregation left Istanbul due to sectarian conflicts between Apostolic and Catholic Armenians; they were granted exile in Italy and settled in Morea, which was under Venetian rule at the time. When Morea fell under Ottoman control in 1715 and became unsafe for the Mechitarists, they moved further north to Venice. This was not a strange city to Armenians, who had a strong historical and political presence in Italy dating back to the sixth century.8 Mechitar and his followers were gifted the island of San Lazarro by the Serene Republic. They took refuge there, and established a monastery which became a focal point of the Armenian Enlightenment, or the Armenian Renaissance.9 The Armenian Enlightenment sought religious, linguistic and cultural revival. Regarding the first, Mechitar began his theological work in Anatolia and resumed it in Istanbul and Venice, writing fourteen personal works and twenty-seven translations, as well as editions of religious works, hymns and spiritual praises. His first writings to be published in Venice were the Compendium of Theology of Blessed Albert the Great in 1715, The Spiritual Garden in 1719, and the Mechitar Book of Vices and Book of Virtues in 1721. Mechitar also wrote catechisms, which he first published in classic and then in contemporary Armenian in 1725. In 1733 an illustrated version of the catechisms was published for children. He also prepared a new Armenian edition of the Bible, which was published in 1735.10 Mechitar’s religious work went hand-in-hand with his role in linguistic revival. He had witnessed the low literacy levels of his fellow Armenians during his travels in Anatolia, and was keen to raise their level of education. To this end, he and his fellow monks worked on making the Armenian language more accessible to the uneducated masses, and this project became one of their key contributions to the Armenian Enlightenment. Mechitar’s efforts focused on both vernacular and classical Armenian; he understood the importance of the vernacular for the vast majority of Armenians, who did not have the means to learn the ornate classical language, which originated in the fifth century. Hence Mechitar published the first manual of vernacular Armenian, based on the dialects used in Asia Minor. The subsequent publication of books in this new dialect laid the foundations for nineteenth-century Armenian.11 However, as a theologian Mechitar was also convinced of the importance of classical Armenian. Many ancient Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Persian and Latin manuscripts survived only in their ancient Armenian translations, and most of these books were religious in nature. Mechitarists published the first book on classical Armenian grammar in 1730 to make these texts

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more comprehensible. Sarkiss summarizes the focus of Mechitarist endeavors as the development of the Armenian language, the interpretation and clarification of Armenian history, and the publication of historical documents: By publishing the works of ancient Armenian authors, they tried to make them accessible to all and to make everyone familiar with the antiquities and memories of the Armenian nation after subjecting them to the light of analysis and examination.12

Mechitarists wanted their work and ideals to reach the Armenians scattered around the world. To this end, they established schools in Venice, Paris, Elisabethpol, Varadin, Istanbul, Trabzon, Izmir, Mus, Harput, Mardin and Karasu Pazar.13 In terms of cultural revival, Mechitarists had a theatre in most of the schools they established, as well as in the monastery on San Lazarro. The first play on the island was performed in 1730, and the community staged plays at the Venetian carnival regularly.14 Both the Monastery in San Lazarro and the school of Rafael, which was established in Venice by the Mechitarists in 1836, played an important role in disseminating Enlightenment ideals. Many monks on the island and students at Rafael were from Istanbul, and they took their knowledge of theatre back to the capital.15 Texts of the plays staged in San Lazarro were sent to Armenian centres in the Ottoman Empire, Iran and India, where they were read, discussed and staged in Mechitarist schools.16 The first such performance took place in an Istanbul school in 1810, where The Life of King Arsavir (Arsavir Takavori Ganki) was staged.17 The plays in question varied in topic. Some were religious in nature, some were about important historical characters or events in Armenian history, and others were comedies set in Istanbul. Since many Mechitarists were from Ottoman centres, they knew Turkish, and their archives held twenty-five plays written in the language.18 However, while the language of these plays was Turkish, their medium was not the Arabic alphabet used by Ottomans. Mechitarists penned their theatrical pieces in ArmenoTurkish: Ottoman Turkish written in the Armenian script. Armeno-Turkish was mostly written by and for Armenians whose mother tongue was Turkish, and dates back as far as the Seljuk period, with manuscripts appearing in the fourteenth century.19 While the Mechitarists were not the first group to utilize Armeno-Turkish, they were the first ones to write plays in the script, as early as 1798.20

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Gedikpasa theatre and Vatan Yahut Silistre The Ottoman Porte must have been aware of this rich history when it granted Vartovyan his ten-year monopoly to stage plays in Turkish. As a result, Vartovyan’s Gedikpasa theatre staged fifty comedies, ten tragedies, forty-four dramas, and ten operettas and vaudevilles in just one year, between 1874-5.21 However, despite the prolific production of this period, a play staged in 1873 forms the focus of this paper: Vatan Yahut Silistre. This play was influential in three ways. First of all, it reflected the contemporary drive towards the simplification of Turkish; secondly, it reflected the patriotic sentiments of the masses in the face of the Ottoman Empire’s decline; and thirdly, Vatan Yahut Silistre was influential due to the political turmoil it caused upon the night of its opening. The first act of the play begins with a monologue by its heroine Zekiye. She talks about her love for Islam Bey—Islam is used here as a personal name—who happens to be standing before her house, unbeknownst to her. As she is talking, Islam Bey comes in through the window and declares his undying love for Zekiye, adding that he must nevertheless leave her. The country is at war, and Islam Bey’s romantic love is secondary to his love for the fatherland. He leaves Zekiye’s house and makes a passionate speech of patriotism to the followers awaiting him outside her window, inviting those who love him to follow him to war. Upon hearing this, Zekiye disguises herself as a man and joins the soldiers on their way to Silistre. The second act takes place in the castle of Silistre, which the Ottomans are defending against the Russians. Islam Bey is wounded, and Zekiye volunteers to care for him; upon waking, he recognizes her immediately. Meanwhile, the enemy has been attacking, and the only way to save the castle is to destroy their ammunition supplies. Three volunteers, among them Zekiye and Islam Bey, successfully undertake this task. Finally, in Act Three the soldiers celebrate their victory and Islam Bey reveals Zekiye’s true identity, upon which the commander Sitki Bey recognizes her as the daughter he had abandoned many years before. Islam Bey and Zekiye’s marriage is arranged, and the families reunite.22 The dramaturgic success of Vatan Yahut Silistre has been disputed since its first publication. Its overtly long passages, non-Islamic (hence unrealistic) conventions—such as entering the house of an unmarried woman through the window—and similarities to Victorien Sardou’s play Patrie! have all been criticized.23 Kemal himself noted that he wrote the play to incite nationalist fervour, and that he wrote it quickly.24 Yet despite its literary flaws, Vatan Yahut Silistre was translated into German,

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Russian, French, Arabic and Serbian. Why did a play that was widely considered to be mediocre became so successful? For a reason not many plays can lay claim to: its final sentence. Vatan Yahut Silistre ends with the words “Muradimizi isteriz!” Translated literally, the sentence means “we want our wish”. However, “Murat” is also a private name; that of the crown prince whom the Young Ottomans favoured, and hoped would replace the current Sultan Abdul Aziz. Following the play’s opening performance, an enthusiastic crowd asked to see its playwright on stage. When Kemal did not appear, the audience marched to the newspaper Ibret (where Kemal was a columnist) and placed a thank-you letter at its door. They shouted, “Long live Kemal! Long live the fatherland! This is our wish! God grant us our wish!” The wish in question referred to the rule of Crown Prince Murat.25 The thankyou note was printed in Ibret two days after the event. Three days later an article analyzing the success of the play and the failure of the government was published, and five days after Vatan Yahut Silistre was staged the Gedikpasa theatre was temporarily closed down, and the publication of Ibret suspended. Kemal and other writers connected to Vartovyan’s theatre were exiled: Ebuzziya Tevfik and Ahmet Mithat were sent to Rhodes, Nuri and Hakki to Acre, and Kemal himself to Cyprus. Vartovyan and the managing editor of Ibret were arrested, only to be released shortly thereafter.26

Kemal and the Young Ottomans: modernity, Islam and patriotism The political use of the stage to disseminate patriotic ideals came from the above-discussed Armenian heritage to which Istanbulite theatre laid claim. The content of Vatan Yahut Silistre is part of another intellectual heritage, and this time a Turkish one: the Young Ottoman movement. This was an underground dissident political group, formed during a picnic in Istanbul in the summer of 1865. They were opposed to the policies of the viziers Ali and Fuad Pasa, and angered by the loss of imperial power and Ottoman land. They thought this disintegration could be remedied by introducing constitutional representation to the empire. Their primary goal was to establish the first parliament of the Ottoman state and carry out reforms for further modernization. The group was not opposed to monarchical principles, and believed in the necessity of a sovereign sultan. They did not, however, think the current ruler Sultan Abdul Aziz was fit for this task. They also thought Ali and Fuad Pasa were insufficient reformers. The Young Ottomans were in contact with Sultan Abdul Aziz’s

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nephew, Crown Prince Murat, and hoped he would be the next heir to the throne. While the group aimed to follow the political lead of Europe in establishing a constitutional parliament, their intense patriotism made them think of reforms for Ottomans, by Ottomans, and along Islamic lines.27 Kemal, who was known as the most philosophical member of the Young Ottomans, had an Islamic upbringing, and belonged to a Bektashi family. The Bektashis were known for espousing the sufferings of common men, so Kemal’s care for the people had an original, religious source which later translated into an adoption of liberalism.28 Mardin argues that Kemal created a systematic political philosophy which united nineteenth-century European liberal thought with Islamic philosophy. For Kemal, good governance depends on Islamic law, and Islamic law is applicable only upon the formation of a government. He holds the view, as per other Islamic political theorists, that humans are naturally inclined to hurt one another, and hence establish associations of men for safety and protection. These assemblies then elect specialists among themselves to guarantee order. Once a government is formed in this manner, the best method for its application is Islamic law. Hence Kemal forwards a secular explanation of the origins of society which asserts the supremacy of Islamic rule.29 Following the formation of a government, there is another contract through which allegiance to the ruler is legalized. Kemal posits that this allegiance is functionalized through the biat system, which determines the legitimacy of the caliph, the chief Muslim ruler. This social contract is binding only insofar as the caliph enforces divine law. Upon the failure of this duty, the people can break the contract. Hence, while opting for religious rule based on Islamic institutions, Kemal leaves the door open for a democratic people’s uprising, and in doing so again combines modern and Islamic principles.30 The third important element in Kemal’s political thought is his patriotism. He defines the concept of the fatherland as “a most precious gift from God, because one’s first breath was taken in it.” His definitions of the fatherland focus on land and sentiment and are not exclusive to one ethnic or religious identity: The fatherland is not composed of the vague lines traced by the sword of a conqueror or the pen of a scribe. It is a sacred idea resulting from the conglomeration of various noble feelings such as the people, liberty, brotherhood, interest, sovereignty, respect for one’s ancestors, love of the family, and childhood memories.31

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The goal of establishing a constitutional parliament, which was the raison d’etre of the Young Ottomans, also bears testimony to the multicultural aims of the group. Kemal’s ideologies of modernity, Islamic principles and patriotism can clearly be seen in both the content of Vatan Yahut Silistre and in his use of the play to incite nationalist fervour. He hoped Vatan Yahut Silistre would lead to the popularization of the modernist Crown Prince Murat who, in his turn, would establish the first parliament of the Ottoman Empire, in which all nations would be equally represented.

Vartovyan and Kemal’s cultural reception Both Vartovyan and Kemal played an important role in the formation of modern theatre in Istanbul. Yet while many documents regarding Kemal’s life and reception abound in Turkish literature, sources on the impact of Vartovyan’s life and work are limited, and reactions to his legacy are complex. Firat Gullu notes that commentaries on Vartovyan’s life are helpful in charting various degrees and slants of Turkish and Armenian nationalism. He subsumes these reactions under two categories, racial nationalism and cultural nationalism, and posits Vasfi Riza Zobu as an exponent of the first group. Zobu published a series of six articles on Vartovyan in the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet in 1958. In these articles, he suggests that Vartovyan was a Christian Turk descended from Turcoman tribes who mixed with Greeks and Armenians, and converted to Christianity in the process. According to Zobu, Ottoman rulers forgot these Turkish Christians, since they organized society according to religion rather than ethnicity. However, Gullu argues that Zobu’s proof for Vartovyan’s Turkishness is weak. Zobu quotes a conversation recalled by Vartovyan’s son that took place when he was two years old. In this conversation, Vartovyan supposedly told his son that their family came from Kayseri, central Anatolia, a long time ago. Since Vartovyan died soon after, the memory is difficult to verify, and state records only indicate that Vartovyan was born in Istanbul in 1840. Despite the lack of sufficient proof for his theory, Zobu uses Vartovyan’s “Turkish” identity to encourage a celebration of his life. The argument that follows is simple: since Vartovyan is actually a Turk, there is no obstacle against putting his photograph on the walls of Turkish state theatres.32 This re-appropriation of Vartovyan’s identity includes and expands it within a wider Turkish one, albeit Christian. However, since Christianity would constitute an impurity in the idealized Turkish-Islamic synthesis, Zobu further effaces

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the problem of Vartovyan’s religion through emphasizing his welldocumented conversion to Islam. This line of argument bypasses the dilemma of acknowledging an Armenian predecessor for the contemporary Turkish stage. The cultural nationalists are milder but not weaker in their assimilation tactics: their arguments suggest it is of no importance to be a racial or ethnic Turk, as long as one is a cultural Turk. This view is adopted by Metin And in his response to Zobu’s articles. Since Vartovyan was a cultural Turk, as can be interpreted from his role in bringing theatre to the wider Turkish public, there is no shame in tying the beginnings of theatre to an ethnic Armenian, And believes.33 This argument comes despite And’s various works on Ottoman theatre, in which he openly cites its Armenian beginnings. And’s attitude exemplifies what Homi Bhabha refers to as the creation of cultural diversity with the simultaneous containment of cultural difference: Bhabha points out that a host society or the dominant culture may allow for cultural diversity, but only insofar as it can specify the interpretation of it.34 Armenian studies on Vartovyan bear unfortunate similarities to the Turkish ones. Thus, Sarasan focuses on Vartovyan’s supposedly demeaning, greedy personality and regards his sole motive in staging Turkish plays to be financial. Stephanyan takes this argument one step further, suggesting that Vartovyan has betrayed Armenian Enlightenment goals and the Armenian people by staging plays in the Turkish language.35 Kemal’s reception in Turkey has been homogenous compared to the mixed reactions to Vartovyan. While Kemal is univocally acclaimed as the father of Turkish nationalism and the modernizer of Turkish literature, his involvement and cooperation with Vartovyan has been all but forgotten. Kemal’s poetry is still a standard part of Turkish anthologies, and it is through his concept of the fatherland (vatan) that Turkish citizens first encounter patriotism.36 In school textbooks, Vatan Yahut Silistre and its nationalist ideology are studied, but Gedikpasa’s Armenian directorship and the Armenian heritage of Istanbulite theatre is not. Kemal, robbed of his cultural, intellectual and historical context, is presented as the initiator of a long line of Turkish nationalist literary figures that continues into contemporary times. In fact, as Selim Deringil has shown, Kemal’s influence has been so thorough that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of the Turkish republic) wholeheartedly embraced, and even copied, his political philosophy, writings and principles. In particular, Deringil suggests that republican nationalism shares the trend of expressing secular aims in religious terminology: a remnant of Kemal’s vast body of work.37

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Conclusion For both Turks and Armenians, the nineteenth century offered myriad political possibilities: the continuation of the Ottoman Empire, a parliament with equal representation, the union of the Armenian diaspora, and reformation in religion, language and education. Modernism, traditionalism, religious rule and secularism were all equally viable. It would not be too far-fetched to assume that Vartovyan thought it possible to unite Armenian and Turkish Enlightenment in the same location: his theatre. Political animosities between Turks and Armenians have led to emotional interpretations of Vartovyan’s life and work; nineteenth-century Istanbulite theatre proves difficult to interpret in the light of twentiethcentury violence. Both Kemal and Vartovyan can best be understood as exemplars of a fluid, transitional identity in the period; but while Vartovyan received an ambivalent reception, at best, from the modern Turkish Republic, Kemal was heralded as the father of Turkish nationalism, and became part of the literary canon. Contrary to what their posthumous receptions suggest, Kemal and Vartovyan had more similarities than differences. They both took part in patriotic Enlightenment projects, and used theatre to convey their ideologies. They collaborated on a joint artistic project: that of establishing a theatre which welcomed all communities living in Istanbul. What separated them was not their respective language or religion, but their ethnicity, the reverberations of which only increased in the following years. There is no doubt that Vartovyan would have been incorporated into mainstream Turkish historiography together with Kemal had history played itself out differently.

Notes 1

Dimitris Stamatopoulos, “From Millets to Minorities in the 19th-Century Ottoman Empire: An Ambiguous Modernization,” in Citizenships in Historical Perspective, ed. Steven G. Ellis, Gudmundur Halfdonarsan and Katherine Isaacs (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2006), 253. 2 Ibid., 255, 256. 3 Istanbul’s first theatre was built by the French ambassador, Marquis de Nointel, and catered mostly to the French speakers in the city. 4 Firat Gullu, Vartovyan Kumpanyasi ve Yeni Osmanlilar (Istanbul: Bgst Yayinlari, 2008), 22, 31.

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Chrysothemis Stamatopoulou-Vasilakou, “Greek Theatre in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean from 1810 to 1961,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 25.2 (2007), 268-70. 6 Gullu, Vartovyan Kumpanyasi, 23. 7 Gursoy Sahin, “Sivasli Mihitar (1676-1749), Mihitaristler ve Ermeni Milliyetciligine Katkilari,” Hosgoruden Yol Ayrimina Ermeniler Cilt-2 (Kayseri: Erciyes Universitesi Yayini, 2009), 244-6. 8 The Armenian Mekhitarist Congregation Online, “From 6th to 11th Century,” Armenians in Italy, http://mechitar.com/arminitaly/index.php?iM=83 (accessed 10 Dec. 2013). 9 Harry Jewel Sarkis, “The Armenian Renaissance, 1500-1863,” The Journal of Modern History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1937), 443-446. 10 The Armenian Mekhitarist Congregation Online, “Mekhitar’s Publishing Activities in Venice,” History of the Congregation, http://mechitar.com/aboutus/index.php?iM=74 (accessed 10 Dec. 2013). 11 Sarkis, “The Armenian Renaissance,” 443. 12 Ibid., 442. 13 Yervant Baret Manok, Dogu ile Bati Arasinda San Lazarro Sahnesi: Ermeni Mikhitarist Manastiri ve Ilk Turkce Tiyatro Oyunlari (Istanbul: Bgst Yayinlari, 2013), 50. 14 Manok, Dogu ile Bati Arasinda San Lazarro Sahnesi, 39-40. 15 Such as Migirdic Besiktasliyan, Sirabiyon Hekimyan, Sirabiyon Tigliyan, and Sabuh Laz-Manasyan. 16 Manok, Dogu ile Bati Arasinda San Lazarro Sahnesi, 49. 17 Gullu, Vartovyan Kumpanyasi, 33-34. 18 Manok, Dogu ile Bati Arasinda San Lazarro Sahnesi, 41, 53. 19 Mehmet Kutalmis, “On Turkish in Armenian Script,” Journal of Economic and Social Research 5.2 (2003), 51. 20 This date is from an Armeno-Turkish play that survived the 1883 fire of San Lazarro. Plays predating 1798 might have been lost in the fire. 21 Kerem Karaboga, Gelecege Perde Acan Gelenek: Gecmisten Gunumuze Istanbul Tiyatrolari 1 (Istanbul: Yapi Kredi Yayinlari, 2010), 24. 22 Namik Kemal, Vatan Yahut Silistre (Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1983), 1-88. 23 Gullu, Vartovyan Kumpanyasi, 104-5. 24 Ibid, 97. 25 Nermin Menemencioglu, “The Ottoman Theatre 1839-1923,” British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 10.1 (1983), 53. 26 Ibid. 27 Serif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 10-21. 28 Ibid., 288. 29 Ibid., 290-291. 30 Ibid., 293-295.

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Namik Kemal, “Vatan,” Ibret, March 12, 1873, quoted in Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought, 327. 32 Gullu, Vartovyan Kumpanyasi, 41-42. 33 Ibid., 42-43. 34 Rutherford, Jonathan, “The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha,” in Identity,Community, Culture, Difference, (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), 208. 35 Gullu, Vartovyan Kumpanyasi, 47-52. 36 Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought, 283. 37 Selim Deringil, “The Ottoman Origins of Kemalist Nationalism: Namik Kemal to Mustafa Kemal,” European History Quarterly (1993), 163-191.

CHAPTER THREE PAUPERS, POETS AND PROSTITUTES: THE EVOLVING IDENTITY OF THE FADISTA JAMES FÉLIX

The song of Portugal, the Portuguese blues, the soul of the Portuguese people: fado has been called many things in the past 150 years, as figures from musicologists to travel writers have tried to define what makes this form of music so special. It is my view that the answer to this lies not within the music or lyrics themselves—at least, not directly. To understand fado it is necessary to look behind these features towards the performers, the listeners, the producers and consumers. Peter Spencer makes the claim that “[t]he bond that a vernacular music has with its particular subculture is something that can be felt even by those outside of the subculture”.1 To understand the true nature and value of fado, therefore, it is necessary to look behind these musical features towards the performers, the listeners, the producers and consumers. This is not a new approach, but it is particularly problematic when one views the history of the genre, as unlike many rural folk musics, there has been a great deal of change in the fado demographics over the past century and a half. It is this variety which I intend to address in this article by highlighting the main changes in the makeup of the fado subculture, the causes of these changes, and the changes in perception thus precipitated. Throughout this article I refer to fadistas, but this term requires clarification at the outset. While some commentators use the term exclusively to identify the performers of fado, I use it in the wider sense, to refer to the entire fado-related subculture which is seen by many to include the singers, instrumentalists, composers, poets (the name given to those who write the lyrics used in fado) and the receptive audience. However, as I hope to make clear, the audience mentioned here does not necessarily include those who seek fado as a tourist attraction or who see the albums as an example of exotic “world music”.

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In order to illustrate the nature of the fadista subculture, I wish first to summarize the myth which introduced the figure of the fadista; a tale made up of uncertain proportions of fact and fable, and one which was to become the standard portrayal of fado singers for the first half-century of fado as we know it. The story is that of Maria Severa (1820–1846), also known as “the Bearded Lady”, a prostitute and the daughter of a tavern owner. It is said that, after moving to Lisbon’s Mouraria district, she took a lover who was subsequently sent to Africa for an unknown crime, and in pining for him she learnt to sing fado with the yearning melancholy known as saudade. Her rise to fame (or, rather, infamy) came after her tempestuous affair with the Count of Vimioso. His family objected so strongly to this relationship with someone so low in society that he was forced to leave her, sending her spiralling into depression before she died of apoplexy at the age of twenty-six.2 Such was the impact of this young woman’s short life that it was retold in the first Portuguese sound-film, A Severa (1931). This story is the earliest account of a named person involved with fado, and as such, it played a major part in establishing the identity of the fadista, one which endures as an ideal even today. While not a definitive account of the origins of fado as a musical form—the existence of any such account is debated—the story of Severa could be viewed in relation to Eric Hobsbawm’s assertion that invented traditions “normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past”.3 In this case, Severa is the origin point of the notion of a fadista tradition, and even to this day many fadistas claim that the black shawls traditionally worn by female fado singers are mourning garments in memory of this mythologized figure. While there are certain elements of this story which may have been romanticized over time, it nevertheless illustrates to whom fado originally belonged—it was not the song of the upper classes, but rather was performed by beggars, thieves, prostitutes and paupers. Furthermore, this association with the lower strata of society gave rise to an additional association within fado: it was seen as belonging in, and to, the three poorer neighbourhoods of Lisbon, namely Mouraria, Alfama and Bairro Alto.4 This connection served to perpetuate the view that fado was, in the words of José Maciel Ribeiro Fontes, “a song of rogues, a hymn to crime, an ode to vice, an encouragement to moral depravity […] an unhealthy emanation from the centres of corruption, from the infamous habitations of the scum of society”.5 Pimentel dismissed the music’s “deliquescent and immoral melodies […] to be understood and felt only by those who vegetate in the mire of crapulence”.6 This association grew primarily out of the fact that the songs were not performed by the educated classes, but

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rather—depending on the creation myth one chooses to believe—by labourers and sailors on the ships and in the docks, or by thieves, prostitutes and others who had turned to a life of crime. Indeed, the lyrical themes of these early fados usually focused on the lot of the singers, covering poverty, domestic discord, alcohol and crime. The music was used by the fadistas as a way of grieving over their position in society and their inability to change any of this. Indeed, the word fado is thought to come from the Latin word fatum, meaning fate; however, there is some evidence that fado was named because it was sung by fadistas (literally meaning fated), suggesting that the term “fadista” was in use prior to the genre, to describe unsavoury characters with whom fate had dealt harshly. Whatever the truth, both suggestions indicate the music’s strong connection with the notion of fate. Another common association, particularly in the early days of fado, was with blind beggars. Paul Vernon posits the governmental provision of money-boxes for the blind as the cause of this: Blind beggars, who could find no other work and who received nothing from the government save an official black wooden begging box, regularly sang and played guitarra on the streets for a few escudos—a practice which could still be found as late as the 1980s—and their role in the dissemination of the fado has been a key one.7

Certainly, there are numerous references to blind musicians involved with fado at the start of the twentieth century, and many books contain photographs or drawings of blind musicians with fado-related instruments.8 While there are a number of references to fado being sung by blind musicians, there is nothing to suggest that they were involved in the origins of the genre. Rather, they were partially responsible for its spread, both throughout Lisbon and in the surrounding towns and countryside. They were also often guided by family members or, more commonly, young orphans, who supplemented the income from performing by selling sheet music.9 That the music was performed by beggars served to perpetuate the association of fado with the lower classes. However, it should be noted that the repertoire of these beggars was not limited to fado; today one can still hear blind beggars on the streets of Lisbon and, more often than not, they sing music more akin to the rural folk songs of Portugal. By the opening decades of the twentieth century, fado had become more widespread in the aforementioned Lisbon neighbourhoods. So too, had the use of the term “fadista” to identify the subculture. Vernon summarizes this situation as follows:

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Chapter Three As fado settled into the mainstream of Lisbon’s workaday life, the popular perception of the fadista’s role subtly altered. Still regarded by many as rough and of loose morals, the term fadista nevertheless became more closely associated with the music itself. Whereas, fifty years earlier, the fadista had been viewed principally as a knife-wielding bandit who lived by criminal codes, by about 1900 the perception was more one of a colourful low-life bon viveur, closely associated with prostitution, drinking and, most especially, the fado.10

As with any pastime or diversion which becomes popular, a series of magazines and publications came into circulation which focused on aspects of fado, including new lyrics, biographies of early figures within the genre, guidance on where the more organized fado evenings were taking place, and advice on how to decorate fado houses. The production of these magazines, however, had little relevance to the people for whom fado was a way of life due to their high illiteracy rate, and served mostly to bring the music to the attention of the intellectual classes. For this new audience, it was solely a musical phenomenon; they would not claim to belong to the fadista subculture, due to the negative connotations the label carried. By 1923 there were two opposed camps, one claiming, as they always had done, that it was the music of the people and should therefore be sung in the taverns, and the other wishing to claim fado as what Vernon calls the “self-conscious art music of the upper classes”,11 in which case it should be reserved for the drawing room. This second group also gained support from the theatre, as it was by then quite common to put on plays, also called revistas (revues), which contained popular fado songs. In order to promote these performances, sheet music was sold which was scored for singer and piano—an instrument unheard of among the more traditional fado line-up of Portuguese guitarra, classical guitar (also called a viola) and occasionally the viola baixa, a form of acoustic bass guitar. However, 1926 saw the rise of Salazar, the fascist dictator who would rule Portugal with an iron fist for decades. His government’s strict policy of censorship put a stop to any such debates, as articles sowing any seeds of discord among the populace were forbidden. This left fado to its original creators, the lower and working classes—although the effects of censorship would soon change the nature of fado performances and, by extension, the type of people who participated in them. The policy of censorship extended to what could and could not be performed live, but this had less of an effect on the content of much fado. The censor’s office required all performers and performance venues to be licensed, and before any performance a full set list had to be submitted and approved, including song titles, names of composers and performers, and

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lyrics of all items to be sung or played. Failure to comply would result in a visit from the Policia Internacional e Defesa do Estado (PIDE), who acted as Salazar’s secret police. Perhaps surprisingly, songs covering poverty and prostitution were not censored. Vernon puts this down to the fact that these were aspects of everyday life for the average Lisboetta in these neighbourhoods; but he also claims that it “highlights the isolationist attitudes of the Portuguese government. It did not occur to them that anyone outside of the Lusophone world would bother listening to fado”.12 I propose, further, that these themes tied in with the government’s attempts to promote a pobre mas alegrete (“poor but happy”) ideology, rather than tackling what was seen as inevitable poverty. One could argue that the government’s attitudes and strict legislation caused something of a rebirth of fado in its original form, both as a musical genre and in terms of its links with the lifestyle of the fadista. Just as early fado was associated with criminality, and to be a fadista implied a certain unsavoury element to one’s character, so too did many fadistas of the twentieth century become criminals. Now, however, rather than prostitution and thievery, the nature of this criminality was political: by performing in a way or place other than those sanctioned by law, the fadista, by default, became a form of political rebel, disregarding governmental policies simply out of a feeling of injustice. By restricting fado performances, it was felt that the dictatorship was restricting fado itself, and by extension, self-expression. Often, this was taken further; out of sight of the censors, singers were free to protest against the political situation. More often, however, they used their music to speak out against the results of that situation: the poverty and sense of inevitability and predestination. Following on from this notion of predestination, however, a case can also be made that the term “fadista” actually speaks of the emotions of the individual, being specifically related to the concept of saudade. This is often regarded as a distinctively Portuguese feeling: Lila Ellen Gray claims that, from the perspective of the Portuguese people, “almost always, fado is from Lisbon, fado is sung with a Portuguese soul, fado is ours and is about the longing of saudade, expressing what is lost and might never be found, what never has been but might be”.13 She goes on to describe saudade as an “‘originary trope’ for feeling which enables expression as a fadista”.14 Saudade is not just a feeling but an emotional state: it is not just experienced by those who sing or listen to fado, but is rather considered to be related to Portuguese history, and is seen as a distinct part of national identity. It is thought to be the defining characteristic of fado, and its

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perceived presence or absence is often held to determine the authenticity of a performance. Indeed, there are many fado songs which expressly communicate the heartbreak of saudade, such as “Barco Negro”.15 The fadista Mariza has introduced a performance of this song as follows: Imagine a woman completely dressed in black in the middle of a beach. A little bit far to see, she sees the boat where her love is going away. Deeply, in her soul she wants to believe that one day she’s going to hold him, but at the back she hears the old woman saying to her “He won’t come back; he won’t come back”. She is tired; she starts crying; she starts feeling a big pain inside, and she starts singing, like this […].16

This song reflects one of the worst-case scenarios of grief and heartbreak, simply because it is tinged with uncertainty, a prominent term in numerous attempts to define saudade. The woman on the beach is trying to stay optimistic that her love will one day return to her, yet there is still an element of doubt, much like the vagueness of saudade. It is a sense of hope and longing, but one directed to an object surrounded with ambiguity, and this causes more distress than the original situation of having to say goodbye to her lover. It is often the apparent presence and communication of such an emotion which is used to determine the authenticity of a particular performance or performer, an ideal which is of great importance to many with a passion for fado. In order to understand the need for a sense of authenticity within fado, it is necessary to assess the present state of affairs with regards to this aspect of Portuguese culture. That which began as a song of the working classes, one in which a person, male or female, young or old, could give voice to their innermost feelings and emotions, has mutated and been appropriated. It is not, however, innovators such as Amália Rodrigues (known simply by her first name) who are responsible for such bastardization, but rather it is the commercial culture within Portugal. Once the song of the people for the people, fado is now a major tourist attraction for visitors seeking the so-called “real” Portuguese culture. What they actually experience, however, in the casas do fado which are accessible to Lisbon’s tourists—those advertised in hotels and by tour operators—is a folk culture which has been purified and cleaned-up for presentation as a symbol of all that is good about urban life in Portugal. Visitors sit in upmarket restaurants while well-dressed singers, retained by the house on a contract, sing songs of poverty and hardship. These tourist attractions, which often advertise their “authenticity”, reflect little of the true nature or social origins of fado beyond the songs themselves. They are an example of authenticity through apparent fidelity; yet the singers

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themselves sometimes acknowledge a distinction between these commercial performances, and simply singing to express oneself. Paulo Jorge Santos, a guitarrista working in Lisbon, highlighted this when I spoke to him in 2007, during a discussion on the Coimbra style of fado: The fado in Coimbra is mostly played by the students. They are not so much workers. Here it’s more people working for it. They have to sing and play to get money, but there in Coimbra more people play for pleasure. It’s more for serenades and to entertain people, but not in a professional way […]. Here even if we don’t have motivation we have to play because we are working. There [Coimbra] they are studying and play for pleasure, to enjoy themselves.17

That the very people involved in this commercial aspect of their own cultural heritage can draw a distinction between such performances, and the catharsis experienced through the “traditional” format in the local tascas, surely reveals that something has gone wrong. As Santos explains: “I think in a way fado is how we express our feelings and even the people that don’t sing and that don’t work in the fado, they sometimes need to come to hear and to cry and to express their feelings”.18 Later, when discussing the commercial aspect, he tells me: We have two kinds of fado place. This one [Adega Mesquita] is a restaurant with a show and so on and the other fado, the traditional fado where you can find anyone singing, from Mariza to a Japanese guy—it’s where fado happens! Here it’s more commercial.19

In the same interview, Santos talks of a local taverna near the restaurant where he goes after he has finished working in order to sing fado as he knows it, not as part of his job as a musician, but as an expression of his Portuguese heritage. He calls this “real fado” and claims that “it’s so different, more than you can imagine. It’s completely different. You have many foreigners there, but they are in a way that they are not here”.20 In commercial fado, one often finds that a performance contains all of the traditional elements one would expect: the instrumentation, the lyrics, even the way in which the singer dresses. What is often lacking, however, is saudade, that emotion which defines fado for the Portuguese people, and which they consider uniquely theirs. When attempting to sing a particular song, Gray is told “I could hit you, I could kill you, but you will never have a Portuguese soul”;21 this soul is believed to be bound to the history of Portugal, and therefore inextricably tied to the concept and experience of saudade.

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The music industry has created a further complication, particularly those aspects of it concerned with the production and dissemination of recordings and the marketing of music to tourists—part of the wider “world music” phenomenon. In fado this is a controversial issue, as it is in other forms of folk music. As a genre becomes more commodified, celebrities often arise. While it could be argued that such figures are beneficial for the genre, as they help to bring it to a wider audience, they also often take certain liberties with elements of the music considered “traditional”. Probably the most prominent fado performer to do this was Amália. While all lyricists in fado are known as poetas (poets), Amália was the first performer to use the work of the great Portuguese national poet Luís da Camões. She commissioned and premiered various works, and would also often write parts herself—moving away from the constraints of the traditional repertoire, while never completely discarding the songs she learned as a child. Furthermore, her repertoire extended to songs in the language of the country in which she was performing—whether Spanish, French or English—although she never claimed these to be fado. Nonetheless, her unique vocal style has since been adopted by most fado singers in some form or other. Richard Elliott notes the view of Katia Guerreiro, a modern-day star of the fado scene: “In early interviews, Guerreiro often spoke of the need to avoid excessive experimentation and to keep fado ‘authentic’, while at the same time acknowledging that fado’s most famous exponent, Amália Rodrigues, was never one to do so”.22 Elliott quotes Guerreiro: “Amália was the only person in this world that could do it. She was the queen. It’s [a] very strong expression but she was the owner of fado and she could do whatever she wanted with fado because it would always be fado.” Although these comments could be seen as biased, coming as they do from another fado celebrity, my interviews have shown that such sentiments are shared by a number of other people involved with the music, either professionally or otherwise: there is a widely-held feeling that Amália could do no wrong within the genre, because she was seen as the embodiment of the fadista persona in the second half of the twentieth century. The consequence of this reverence for a single prominent figure over all others is that a great amount of Amália’s interpretations and approaches have since been adopted into the genre, and they are now as much a part of the music as the guitarra or the viola. Most individuals involved in fado claim that Amália is the archetypal fadista: despite her professional success, international fame, and an innovative, radical approach to the musical

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material, her intentions are seen as pure and in line with the unwritten criteria which one must meet to be considered a true fadista. To the outsider, it may seem that the fadista figure has become an idealized or romanticized notion. Certainly, the demographic of fado performers has changed significantly in recent decades, but this does not necessarily mean that the kernel at the heart of the label has changed— particularly if one considers the position of performers in relation to social and economic norms. While there may well be lower levels of poverty and criminality among performers, my research suggests that fado singers often have some form of daytime employment, and choose to sing fado in the evenings. This arguably reflects the structure of contemporary society in the same way that the high rates of criminality and poverty among fado singers at the start of the twentieth century reflected that period. While there are higher numbers of performers in so-called “professional” occupations compared with a century ago, the proportion is below the Lisbon average. Furthermore, while recent years have seen a rise in the number of professional fadistas (i.e. those who make a living solely from performing), there is also a higher proportion of professional musicians in general than there was in the time of Severa. If the fado demographic changes as society evolves, perhaps our definition of the genre should change with it. While this has not happened with musical identities such as mods, rockers, or teddy boys, defining someone as a fadista implies much more than a preference for a particular musical genre, or a particular way of dressing. The term “fadista” comes with a large amount of cultural baggage (concerning attitudes, beliefs, habits and experiences): it is indicative of an entire mindset and way of life, and for many fado is simply a means of expressing the internal characteristics of the fadista. Furthermore, in an increasingly individualistic society, people will often identify with one or two elements of the fadista subculture, such as saudade or a sense of fatalism, without completely embracing the identity. Should such individuals be denied admission to this socio-cultural group? My research suggests that the fadista subculture no longer exists separately from the musical genre; yet there is more variation in musical interpretation, and more tolerance of musical and stylistic individuality—with greater emphasis placed upon the intention of the performer. As such, although group acceptance is valuable, especially for those who seek it for a sense of validation and belonging, only the individual can ultimately know their intentions and motives—and therefore, only the individual has the right to claim the identifying label of fadista.

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Notes 1

Cited in Timothy D. Taylor, Global Pop: World Music, World Markets (London: Routledge, 1997), 27. 2 Paul Vernon, A History of the Portuguese Fado (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1998), 8. 3 Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions”, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1. 4 Incidentally, these three neighbourhoods—once avoided by anyone who could possibly do so—are the areas of Lisbon which have changed the least in the past century, and seem to hold the most appeal for visitors as “historical”, “picturesque” and “authentic” areas. 5 Cited in Rodney Gallop, Portugal: A Book of Folkways (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936), 248. 6 Cited in ibid., 265. 7 Vernon, A History of the Portuguese Fado, 18. 8 See, for example, Descalços (Nery 2004: 124), Cegos Cantadores (Carvalho 1999: n.p.), and the anonymous, undated engraving in the photo section of Vernon’s A History of the Portuguese Fado (Vernon 1998, n.p.). 9 Vernon, A History of the Portuguese Fado, 18. 10 Ibid., 19. 11 Ibid., 20. 12 Ibid., 21. 13 Lila Ellen Gray, “Memories of Empire, Mythologies of the Soul: Fado Performance and the Shaping of Saudade”, Ethnomusicology 51.1 (2007), 107. 14 Ibid., 108. 15 “Black Boat” or “Dark Boat”. 16 Mariza: Live in London (DVD, 2004). 17 Interview with Paulo Jorge Santos, Lisbon, 25 July 2007. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Gray, “Memories of Empire, Mythologies of the Soul”, 111. 22 Richard Elliott, Fado and the Place of Longing: Loss, Memory and the City (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 155.

CHAPTER FOUR OPERA IDENTITY: THE SINGER, THE CHARACTER OR THE IMMORTAL PERFORMER? BRIANNA E. ROBERTSON-KIRKLAND

In recent years, several reviews covering revivals of Mozart operas have questioned modern adaptations and asked whether Mozart would have been in favour. For example, a Scotsman review of a 2004 revival of The Abduction from the Seraglio states: The modern interpretation of the classic work, funded by German taxpayers, has failed to impress Germany’s cultural elite, but the producers have remained defiant and say Mozart was obsessed with sex and would have been proud of the new adaptation, paid for with German arts council funding.1

The company who staged the production have clearly thought about Mozart’s personality and original intentions in terms of staging, but what is never questioned is how the production is actually sung. Since the singing is arguably the most important component of an operatic production, it is odd that the idea of altering or changing any of the arias from the original score is never considered even when staging a unique, contemporary production. Yet during Mozart’s era, the score of opera productions was seen as a fluctuating organic entity that changed depending upon the cast. In fact, an examination of how the score changed from the premiere production to the revivals that took place during Mozart’s life can tell us more about his singers than previously conceived by modern scholars. In this article, I will examine the vocal style of one of Mozart’s most successful prima donne, Nancy Storace, and consider how that style, along with her vocal tuition and personality, shaped one of the most popular opera characters: Susanna from Le Nozze di Figaro.

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Nancy Storace was one of the most successful opera singers of the late eighteenth century. She was born in London in 1765 and began publically performing at the age of eight. Her father, Stefano Storace (1725-1781), was born in Torre Annunziata in Italy, but emigrated to Dublin in 1748 and then to London a few years later. He was a well-known contrabassist who often played for the London opera houses and concert venues. A number of scholars have alluded to the idea that Storace’s father was her first music tutor and provided his daughter with the rudiments of training in music theory, instrumental playing and singing. Betty Matthews, in her article on the childhood of Nancy Storace, states: The child must have shown remarkable aptitude. Her brother, under his father’s tuition, was already playing “the most difficult violin music of Tartini and Giardini with correctness and steadiness”, and under the same skilful guidance Nancy was being prepared for an early public appearance.2

Michael Kelly (1762-1826), another famed opera singer of the period who often performed with Storace, states in his Reminiscences that “Nancy, the only daughter, could play and sing at sight as early as eight years old; she evinced an extraordinary genius for music.”3 It would appear that the early music education Storace received from her father shaped the future of her career, as she grew from child prodigy to prima donna. However, there is evidence that Storace also received tuition from another vocal teacher in her youth. Matthews notes that Storace in her will had left £100 to Arthur Thomas Corfe, the organist of Salisbury Cathedral, whose father Joseph Corfe (1740-1820) had been her singing teacher.4 The idea that Corfe was Storace’s vocal teacher appears in only one other secondary source, Storace’s biography in Grove Music Online, but apart from a brief mention that she performed in a benefit concert for him in 1787, there is no insight into when or how Corfe may have trained her.5 Storace clearly thought highly enough of the Corfe family to leave money. The first evidence that Storace and Corfe were linked to one another is her appearance in the Salisbury Festival of 1773, in which Corfe was employed as the principal performer.6 This link to a singing teacher other than her father is important to understanding Storace’s development as a singer in her youth. At this early stage, Storace was in the unique position of already having engaged in public performance with professional singers and musicians, and this, together with her early singing tuition, assisted in shaping her future musical identity both in her vocal technique and performance style.

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Corfe had written a vocal treatise which gives some indication as to what he believed were the most important factors in developing a young singer. The treatise was published in 1799, almost fifteen years after his tuition of Storace, but it provides some insight into the training he may have provided. Corfe notes that the “chief constituents of good taste in singing” are good intonation, expression, a proper regard for time and delivery of the words. He goes on to say that “the subsequent hints and observations on singing with taste and expression […] will tend to encourage the scholar in the practice of this most pleasing and fashionable study.” Corfe continues to note that the scholar should at first sing with “plainness and simplicity avoiding all ornaments and graces, till he is sufficiently qualified to use them.” However, Corfe focusses much of his discussion on ensemble singing and it is clear that this preceptor comes from a choral background rather than that of an operatic soloist. He discusses the correct way in which to hold a book and places much emphasis on the importance of singing what is written. For example, he states that “in all compositions for more than one voice the parts should be sung with an equal degree of forte and piano and strictly as they are written, avoiding all flourishes, which tend to interrupt the harmony of the piece.”7 Storace for much of her career would perform as a soloist in several oratorio performances, where it was also expected that she would sing as part of the choral ensemble and in smaller duets, trios and quartets. Many opera singers of the period did not have the opportunity to sing in high-profile oratorio concerts, but with Storace’s early choral training from Corfe, she would have the unique expertise of being able to perform as part of an ensemble as well as solo. However, it would appear that at some point in 1774 the nine-year-old Storace was attending lessons with a castrato vocal pedagogue who was engaged as the principal singer of the opera in London: Venanzio Rauzzini (1746-1810). He was an experienced performer, composer and teacher, having taught many of the leading prima donne who performed on the London stage, including Elizabeth Billington (1765-1818), Rosemond Mountain (1768-1841) and Maria Dickons (1770-1833). After Storace’s first London engagement at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1774 there is a two-year gap before she appears on the public platform again. Her next public appearance was in 1776, during the premiere production of Rauzzini’s L’Ali D’Amore, with the composer performing in the leading male role.8 It is clear that Rauzzini was using his influence as the composer and leading man of the opera to obtain performance opportunities for his young student. Storace was cast in the minor role of

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Cupido, and although this was a very small part, it allowed her to gain experience on the operatic stage and exposure as a vocal performer. The question here is what Rauzzini was attempting to achieve during the two-year gap in Storace’s public performances before exhibiting his student on the operatic stage. Some evidence can be found by examining Rauzzini’s vocal treatise Twenty-Four Solfeggi, or Exercises for the Voice to be Vocalized, first published posthumously in 1816.9 In a similar manner to Corfe, Rauzzini states: “Whatever you sing, let it be done with expression and precision; those are the principal objects to be attended to”;10 however, Rauzzini’s treatise goes on to deal with a very different focus from Corfe. Rauzzini makes it clear that to become a successful professional solo singer, his students must concentrate on developing their own vocal style: The singers who have acquired the greatest celebrity in the profession, are those who properly appreciated their own talent, who knew the extent of their own abilities and sought not to soar beyond them, adopting a method suited to the powers of their voice, and never attempting a passage which they could not execute with the greatest neatness and in the most correct and finished style. Endeavour to avoid error too prevalent amongst modern singers, I mean that of imitation. Listen to a Mara, Billington, Catalani, Grassini, Storace, Braham, Vaganoni, etc. but do not imitate them; copy nothing but their manner of conducting the voice; avoid every difficulty, which your powers will not allow you to execute, and content yourself with singing well, which you will acquire by forming a style of your own and attempting nothing but what you can do correctly, this is the surest step to perfection!11

Rauzzini goes on to provide twenty-four solfeggi to assist his students in developing vocal dexterity, flexibility, and precision in intonation, and in becoming acquainted with the difficult, florid passages that often appeared in vocal music during the period. The idea was that through the practice of these solfeggi a singer would become acquainted with the capabilities of their voice, which would greatly assist them in developing their own vocal style. In the contemporary era, singers tend to think of vocal style as part of the composer canon, adapting their vocal performance to the style of Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Handel and so on. The idea of developing one’s own style in the Western classical tradition of singing is not readily discussed in conventional vocal tuition. In fact, the fach system, which compartmentalizes singers’ voices by range and timbre and was largely developed to facilitate casting in opera companies, provides a list of operatic roles suited to a singer’s particular voice type, and is illustrative

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of how the twenty-first century opera singer thinks about style and the composer canon. For example, the majority of roles that appear in the dramatic coloratura soprano category are composed by Bellini and Verdi, with some roles by Mozart. On the other hand, the majority of the roles listed in the soubrette category (a lighter voice type, typically associated with young operatic voices) are composed by Mozart and Purcell, with a few by Donizetti and Rossini.12 One’s own vocal style does not come under consideration as it is expected that a singer will fit into a particular vocal category, and as their voice develops, that singer will move into another category, carefully choosing the roles listed for that voice type. Styles have become synonymous with composers, allowing this link to influence how a singer would train their voice. Of course, the major difference between the opera world of the twenty-first century and that of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is that it is rare for contemporary composers to write for a specific singer, as would have been very common in the earlier period. But what this also means is that to understand vocal style, the definition must be unpacked by eighteenthcentury standards, to reveal what Rauzzini may have understood by the concept. One way of doing this is by examining musical dictionaries of the period to understand how the idea of style has changed. It is clear from the current definition of style in the New Grove Dictionary of Music that the term is complex: Style, a style or styles (or all three) may be seen in any conceptual unit in the realm of music, from the largest to the smallest; music itself is a style of art, and a single note may have stylistic implications according to its instrumentation, pitch and duration. Style, a style or styles may be seen as present in a chord, phrase, section, movement, work, group of works, genre, life’s work, period (of any size) and culture. Style manifests itself in characteristic usages of form, texture, harmony, melody, rhythm and ethos; and it is presented by creative personalities, conditioned by historical, social and geographical factors, performing resources and conventions.13

This definition relates to all musical identities, not simply vocal ones; however, it refers mainly to compositional techniques. For example, the definition specifically mentions “chord phrase, section, movement, work etc.”. When examining historical music it is somewhat easier to identify compositional styles, as we have the physical notation to analyze. Performance style, however, is a little more complex, and yet this would appear to be a key feature in the training of a singer. In fact, definitions relate style to more than composition and performance. In the 1740 text A Musical Dictionary style is defined as:

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Chapter Four A manner of singing, playing or composing. The style is properly the manner each person has either of composing, playing, singing or teaching; which is very different both with respect to different genius of countries, nations, and of the different matters, places, times, subjects, passions, expressions etc.14

This definition indicates that style can relate to cultural background, but can also be the style of teaching, of playing and of singing. It further indicates that it is “the manner of the person” but does not specifically relate this to composers; rather, a person can opt to develop their own style in whatever field of music they have chosen to pursue. The 1770 text Dictionarium Musica repeats the 1740 definition verbatim.15 Rauzzini was trained in music between 1750 and 1770, and it would seem that his idea of style correlates with this definition. He clearly believed that he was developing his own style of tuition that allowed his students to explore the capabilities of their voice and develop a unique vocal style, but he also encouraged his students to develop an individual creative personality, one that would help to shape their future operatic career by making them notably distinctive. This is the case with Storace who, contrary to what was expected in the late eighteenth century, did not specialize in serious roles. A prima donna of opera seria was often better-paid and thought of as more technically able than prima donne of opera buffa (comic opera). It has been suggested by Dorothea Link that when Storace first arrived in Italy during the summer of 1778 at the age of fourteen, it was with the intention of emerging as a prima donna seria; however, Storace only sang in two opera seria productions, one in the autumn of 1779 and the other in 1780. Apart from these two productions Storace performed comic roles, but often sang one seria-style aria within these.16 This clearly indicates that she had the vocal capability to perform serious arias. For Storace’s farewell recital before her return to England in 1787, Mozart composed a complex, dramatic concert recitative and aria entitled Ch’io Mi Scordi Di Te? ... Non Temer, Amato Bene, which demonstrates the technical range and ability Storace possessed, giving a clear indication that she was schooled in the Italian style of vocal performance. While Storace possessed the vocal technique to perform serious roles, her performance ability indicates that she was particularly suited to comic roles. However, some critiques of the period also argued that her voice, while technically able, was not audibly suited to serious roles. Lord Mount Edgcumbe in his Reminiscences states: She was never heard in this country [England] till her reputation as the first buffa of her time was fully established. She had a harshness in her

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countenance, a clumsiness of figure, a coarseness in her voice, and a vulgarity of manner that totally unfitted her for the serious opera, which she never attempted […]. In her own particular line on the stage she was unrivalled, being an excellent actress, as well as a masterly singer.17

Storace’s personality and appearance were both unsuited to opera seria, but in opera buffa she flourished. Her most notable performance was in the role of Susanna in the premiere 1786 production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. It was customary that opera productions would not be written until the composer had met and heard the singers cast, and it is clear that Mozart upheld this custom from his earliest operatic compositions. In 1772, Mozart’s father wrote to his mother: Another misfortune has befallen the poor tenor, Cordoni, who is so ill that he can’t come. And so the theatre secretary has been sent to Turin by special post-chaise and a courier to Bologna to find another good tenor, who must not only be a good singer but, more especially, a good actor with a fine presence in order to play the part of Lucio Silla with distinction. Given the fact that the prima donna arrived only yesterday and the tenor still isn’t known, you’ll easily appreciate that the bulk of the opera and, indeed, the main part of it hasn’t been written yet.18

This makes it very clear that Mozart did not begin composing until he had heard the singers he was composing for, and this provides further evidence that the singer’s vocal style was a key defining element when composing operas during the period. Presumably, Mozart did not begin composing the character of Susanna until he was acquainted with Storace and her vocal abilities. However, it was not only those abilities that helped to shape the role of this character. Susanna, often seen as the protagonist and comic manipulator of the opera, uses her vivacious personality and wits to trick the Count so that he will not ruin her marriage to Figaro by exercising the droit du seigneur (a law that allows a lord to bed a servant girl on her wedding night before her husband). There are many comic situations involving Susanna throughout the opera, including dressing the boy Cherbino as a girl, her comic flirtation with the count, and a sarcastic exchange of polite insults with the old housekeeper Marcellina, in a duet entitled Via, Resti Servita, Madama Brillante (“After You, Brilliant Madam”). It is clear that Storace’s praised comedic acting would have suited this role well, and it is fair to deduce that she was integral in shaping the personality of the character. There is also further evidence that Mozart continued to work in collaboration with his singers, certainly during the time he composed Le Nozze di Figaro. During the revival production of Figaro, which was

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recast in 1789, Mozart changed the arias that had been composed for Storace to better suit the voice of his new Susanna, performed by Adriana Ferrarese del Bene (1759-1803). New Grove indicates that del Bene’s strength lay in her vocal abilities as opposed to her acting, and that “[a]daptations of existing music for revivals and new music written for her tend to enhance the serious style at the expense of the comic.”19 From this, it is clear that del Bene was a far better singer than actress, and Mozart acknowledged this when composing replacement arias for her. Though these replacement arias are better as stand-alone compositions more reflective of a serious style than a comic, they bring another dimension to Susanna’s character. For example, in the aria composed for Storace Deh Vieni Non Tardar (translated as Oh, Come, Don't Delay), the lyrics are flirtatious and highly suggestive. Typically this aria is staged to depict Susanna teasing her love Figaro, who is hiding behind a bush at this point. He believes Susanna to be singing to the Count, when in actual fact she is alone, and knows Figaro is eavesdropping. The lyrics are ambiguous as to who Susanna is singing about, but all is revealed in the closing stanza when she sings “come my dear among those hidden plants”: Deh Vieni Non Tardar

Oh Come, Don’t Delay

Giunse alfin il momento Che godro senz’affanno

The moment finally arrives When I’ll enjoy [experience joy] without haste In the arms of my beloved Fearful anxieties, get out of my heart! Do not come to disturb my delight. Oh, how it seems that to amorous fires The comfort of the place, Earth and heaven respond, [Oh, it seems that earth, heaven and this place answer my heart’s amorous fire.] As the night responds to my ruses.

In braccio all’idol mio Timide cure uscite dal mio petto! A turbar non venite il mio diletto. O come par che all’amoroso foco L’amenita del loco, La terra e il ciel risponda.

Come la notte i furti miei risponda Deh vieni, non tardar, o gioja bella Vieni ove amore per goder t’appella

Oh, come, don’t be late, my beautiful joy Come where love calls you to enjoyment

Opera Identity: The Singer, the Character or the Immortal Performer? Finche non splende in ciel notturna face Finche l’aria e ancor bruna, E il mondo tace. Qui mormora il ruscel, qui scherza l’aura Che col dolce susurro il cor ristaura Qui ridono i fioretti e l’erba e fresca Ai piaceri d’amor qui tutto adesca. Vieni, ben mio, tra queste piante ascose. Vieni, vieni! Ti vo’ la fronte incoronar di rose.

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Until night’s torches no longer shine in the sky As long as the air is still dark And the world quiet. Here the river murmurs and the light plays That restores the heart with sweet ripples Here, little flowers laugh and the grass is fresh Here, everything entices one to love’s pleasures Come, my dear, among these hidden plants. Come, come! I want to crown you with roses.20

The aria that replaced Deh Vieni Non Tardar, as sung by Storace, was Al Desio Di Chi T’adora. By contrast the lyrics to this aria are not subtle, flirtatious or suggestive. It is unclear if Susanna in this scene would be singing about the Count or about Figaro, but it is my belief that she would have been singing about her desire and passion for Figaro, since the lyrics seem too passionate and genuine to be about the Count. The main story of Susanna and the Count did not change in the 1789 production. Bearing this in mind, del Bene’s Susanna appears more declamatory regarding her love for Figaro, and perhaps even frustrated that she must wait to marry him so that she can ensure her honour remains intact. It is unclear at this point whether the staging would have been altered to create a standalone aria, allowing Susanna to victoriously declare her love for Figaro, or if the staging would have allowed her to be obviously singing about Figaro. Al Desìo Di Chi T’adora

Come, Hurry, My Beloved

Giunse alfìn il momento Che godrò senza affanno In braccio all’idol mio. Timide cure,

At last comes the moment When, without reserve, I can rejoice in my lover’s arms. Timid scruples, Hence from my heart, And do not come to trouble my delight! Oh, how the spirit of this place, The earth and the sky, seem To echo the fire of love,

Uscite dal mio petto, A turbar non venite il mio diletto! Oh, come par che all’amoroso foco L’amenità del loco, La terra e il ciel risponda,

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Come la notte i furti miei seconda! Al desìo di chi t’adora, Vieni, vola, o mia speranza! Morirò, se indarno ancora Tu mi lasci sospirar. Le promesse, i giuramenti, Deh! rammenta, o mio tesoro! E i momenti di ristoro Che mi fece Amor sperar! Ah! Ch’io mai più non resisto All’ardor che in sen m’accende! Chi d’amor gli affetti intende, Compatisca il mio penar.

How the night furthers my stealth! Come, hurry, my beloved, To the desires of the one who adores you! I shall die if you leave me Still to sigh in vain. The promises, and vows; [Of] those! Remember, my darling! And those moments of solace, Which love made me hope for! Ah, I can no longer resist The passion that is burning in my heart! Let those who understands the pains of love, Have sympathy with my suffering.21

What is clear is that each singer portrayed the character (both vocally and in terms of personality) in a very different way, and that they were able to adapt the character to better reflect their individual performing abilities. They show two different sides to Susanna: the flirtatious, witty side that is most commonly depicted in the modern era, and the declamatory, faithful side that has fallen into obscurity. What has come down through the ages is one interpretation, a fixed structure that was once more like an organic organism, influenced by the unique vocal styles and personalities of the singers. If demonstrating the singer’s individuality was part of the beauty of Mozart’s composition, then arguably we are missing some of the identity of this opera in the absence of the original singers. On the other hand, this brings up many questions when attempting a historically-informed performance of the opera. Which identity should the singer interpret: that of the composer, or the immortal performer? Or should they attempt to bring their own personality and skills to the role? One possibility is the composition of replacement arias to suit the vocal abilities of a contemporary cast, rejuvenating the opera and providing it with a further layer of identity. What must be kept in mind when discussing operas prior to the mid-nineteenth century is that the default approach of regurgitating the score only reveals a very small amount of information with regards to the identity of the opera. To truly understand the characters within the

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opera further analysis and research regarding the performance history must be carried out. Researchers and singers alike must understand that the identity of the immortal performer is just as integral as that of the composer.

Notes 1

“Sexed-up Opera Shocks German Mozart Purists”, The Scotsman, June 26, 2004. Betty Matthews, “The Childhood of Nancy Storace”, The Musical Times, 110 (1969), 733. 3 Michael Kelly and Theodore Edward Hook, Reminiscences of Michael Kelly (London: H. Colburn, 1826), 48-49. 4 Betty Matthews, “Nancy Storace and the Royal Society of Musicians”, The Musical Times 128 (1987), 325. 5 Patricia Louise Lewy Gidwitz and Betty Matthews, “Nancy Storace”, in Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online: Oxford University Press). 6 John Marsh, The John Marsh Journals: the Life and Times of a Gentleman Composer (1752-1828), vol. 1 (London: Pendragon, 2011), 112. 7 Joseph Corfe, A Treatise on Singing (1799), http://imslp.org/wiki/A_Treatise_on_Singing_(Corfe,_Joseph) (accessed February 14, 2014). 8 Carlo Francesco Badini and Venanzio Rauzzini, L’Ali D’Amore, Libretto (London: T. Cadell in the Strand, 1776), 71. 9 Venanzio Rauzzini, Twenty-Four Solfeggi, or Exercises for the Voice to Be Vocalized (London: Goulding / D’Almaine / Potter & Co., 1816). 10 Ibid., 205. 11 Ibid. 12 Pearl Yeadon McGinnis and Marith McGinnis Willis, The Opera Singer’s Career Guide: Understanding the European Fach System (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2010). 13 Robert Pascall, “Style”, in Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online: Oxford University Press). 14 James Grassineau, A Musical Dictionary (London: J. Wilcox, 1740), 54. 15 John Hoyle, Dictionarium Musica (London: S. Crowder, 1770), 81. 16 Dorothea Link, Stephen Storace, Giovanni Paisiello, Giuseppe Sarti and Anna Selina Storace, “Arias for Nancy Storace: Mozart’s First Susanna”, ed. by Dorothea Link (Middleton: A-R Editions, 2002). 17 Richard Edgcumbe, Musical Reminiscences of an Old Amateur, Chiefly Respecting the Italian Opera in England for Fifty Years, from 1773 to 1823 (London: W. Clarke, 1827). 18 Leopold Mozart, Letter 269: Leopold Mozart to His Wife in Salzburg (In Mozart’s Words: HRI Online, 1772). 19 Patricia Louise Lewy Gidwitz and John A. Rice, “Adriana Ferrarese”, in Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online: Oxford University Press). 20 Lorenzo da Ponte, Deh Vieni Non Tardar, in The Aria Database. 2

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Lorenzo da Ponte, Desìo Di Chi T’adora, in The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive (2008).

PART TWO: BRITISH IDENTITIES

CHAPTER FIVE “ALL THE BAGPIPES IN THE WORLD ARE HERE, AND THEY FILL HEAVEN AND EARTH”: THE BAGPIPE IN THE ROMANTIC CONSTRUCTION OF SCOTTISH IDENTITY VIVIEN WILLIAMS

The present essay is concerned with the bagpipe—famously Scotland’s national instrument—and the role the Romantic era played in endowing it with the connotations we are used to attributing to it today. I will trace the characteristics of the instrument’s presence in literature, art and satire during the long eighteenth century. Over this time it is in fact possible to discern a radical change in perspectives towards the bagpipe: during the first half of the century the connections with Jacobitism cast an adverse light on all things Scottish, from the nation’s inhabitants (particularly Highlanders) to tartan and bagpipes. Symptomatically in fact the bagpipe, as a powerful cultural signifier, was often portrayed very negatively even decades after the defeat at Culloden. Nevertheless, thanks to historical events such as the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolutionary War, Highlanders received greater international visibility and became an icon of bravery and heroism for Britain. This also coincided with the advent of Romanticism, the publication of Macpherson’s Ossianic fragments, and Sir Walter Scott’s descriptions of Highland landscapes, all of which took Europe by storm. As a consequence, I will argue, the negative traits hitherto attributed to the Scot and Highlander (and, by synecdoche, to the bagpipe) took up very different terms, the legacy of which lives on to present day. The word “bagpipe” refers to a family of instruments, which is not specific to Scotland. The distribution of the bagpipe in fact spreads from India to the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, and forms of the instrument have existed for at least 3000 years.1 In Britain, the word “bagpipe” appears probably for the first time in 1288 (bagepipa)2 in

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England, while the first certain evidence in Scotland does not appear until the 1400s, as is represented by the carvings in Rosslyn Chapel and Melrose Abbey. Therefore, the bagpipe’s arrival in Scotland happened relatively late—and yet more than any other nation it has turned the instrument into a national signifier. It goes perhaps without saying that any object of such antiquity and of such wide distribution has picked up a great variety of connotations. This is indeed the case for the bagpipe: it has been portrayed played by pigs and devils, courtly musicians and bawdy monks, debauched millers and valiant soldiers, drunken peasants and fashionable gentlemen. To come up with an idea of the imagery the bagpipe evokes today, to see how the bagpipe and its identity are represented and portrayed in the modern mind, all it takes is to type the word “bagpipe” in the “images” section of any search engine. Two features will immediately be apparent: first of all, the vast majority of the results show pictures of Highland bagpipes, rather than any of the hundreds of types of bagpipes from other countries—I counted two examples of a non-Highland instrument out of the first fifty hits. Secondly, the pictures are for the most part characterized by a highly distinctive appeal, which speaks of impressions of admiration, dignity, amusement, elegance, and roguishness. Lonely, inspired pipers in beautiful Highland attire playing on a majestic hill, and pot-bellied men wearing little more than a kilt and a beard fingering chanters over hairy chests; Highland bagpipes displayed over a blank screen with captions to identify each constitutive element, and military parades festooned with tartan banners: this is part of the visual appeal the bagpipe has today. Collective, selective memory—an active process which constantly reconfigures the relationship of individuals and groups with a performative past and repositions their approach towards the present3—seems to have favoured a certain apparatus of signifiers over others. How did the bagpipe come to acquire these connotations? What are the steps which led to this particular type of construction? Through the centuries authors and artists across Europe and beyond have shown radically different approaches towards the bagpipe. In Britain it is possible to notice a general trend in which, while the bagpipe and its sound were described in very negative terms during the first part of the eighteenth century, gradually by the end of the century the terms underwent a radical change. The reasons for this change are political, religious, and social. They follow the steps of Scotland’s history; in this case, from Jacobitism and its threat to the Establishment, right through to Romanticism and the Ossianic paradigm. The legacy of this change in perspectives lives on to the present day.

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Jacobitism played a pivotal role in how Scotland was viewed. As Murray Pittock points out, no distinction was made in English minds between types of Scot: hence the characterization of the 1745 as “Highland”, though thousands of Lowland troops were levied for Prince Charles, and the simultaneous characterization of all Scotland as potentially disloyal.4

In the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century in fact rather simplistic synecdochal connections circulated, whereby concepts such as Jacobitism, Catholicism, the Stuart dynasty, and disloyalty were brought together in a hybrid semantic chain, of which Scotland was the hyperonym. Peter Womack effectively describes this as the “Tory-Jacobite-Scot-Highlandman associative web”.5 This attitude is reflected in much government propaganda, as also in literature and satire. Grub Street satirists such as Edward “Ned” Ward and Thomas Brown, to name but a couple, made some striking remarks about Jacobitism and Popery. In Ward’s 1710 Dialogue XV “Between a Dissenting Alderman, and his High-Church Lady” for instance, the Anglican faith shares traits attributed to the Roman Catholic faith—and therefore to Jacobites also—as in a “Church that Jacobites and Papists use [...] Popish Bagpipes make a hideous Noise”.6 Sentiments of this kind were not uncommon, and were also depicted in satirical prints such as the anonymous 1774 “The Mitred Minuet”,7 in which four bishops cross hands over a copy of the Quebec Bill,8 while Lord Bute in Highland garb plays the bagpipe as Lord North and a minister witness the scene. Hovering over them is a devil: the conveyed message is that the tendency to malevolence is an integral part of the national behaviour. The devil is there to “legitimize”, allow the evil deeds. Lord Bute is virtually playing under the supervision of the devil. The bagpipe in the eyes of many symbolised the nation of the Stuarts: by then, Catholic monarchs whose fate triggered the Jacobite risings. The instrument in fact played a big role in the risings. As a considerable corpus of Anglophone and Gaelic material testifies, pipers accompanied the Jacobites in battle, and they would in a way perform the role of town pipers as their playing spelled out the times of the day, regulated tasks and celebrated ceremonies. Pipers would also play Jacobite airs to traditional tunes in order to spread the word while taking care to avoid sedition, as emerges in songs such as the famous “The Piper o’ Dundee”. Traditional songs were often adapted to Jacobite ballads, and playing them in public clearly was a nod towards Jacobitism, but given the traditional origin of the tune, prosecution was impossible.9

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Needless to say the Scottish perspective on the national instrument adopted very different terms compared with that of the Hanoverian government propaganda. Numerous poems and songs in English, as well as Gaelic authors such as Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, Sileas na Ceapaich and Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir, projected the bagpipe as an instrument fit for “chieftains and gentlemen, / the aristocracy of the clans”,10 or its martial connection with the tartan plaid as the “true dress of the soldier”.11 The martial aspect could take up very aggressive terms, particularly in Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair—vehemence and uncontrollable violence were traits stereotypically attributed to Scots, and when the Establishment campaigned against Jacobitism those were the traits which were stressed in pamphlets and satires. “Sawney” was frequently presented as a threat to the social order: a savage, with violent tendencies, who would ruin all the good of the civility and civilization brought about by the English.12 In this sense, the fate of the bagpipe can be seen as proceeding in parallel with that of tartan. As Jonathan Faiers points out, [i]n the years leading up to Culloden and those immediately following it, tartan was a convenient visual shorthand in the English vilification of the Scots, and the Highlander in particular.13

This was precisely what happened to the bagpipe: the advent of Jacobitism favoured a negative (as we have seen, even satanic!) view of the instrument, so strong was its representation as a national signifier. These feelings took a while—even decades—to decline. Gradually though, as the Jacobite threat was seen to wane and sink into the past, the features hitherto bitterly criticized and satirized acquired different connotations, and narrated a whole different story. In time, the Scot was no longer viewed necessarily as a Jacobite—rather, he was seen as perfect soldier material, as he was keen, faithful to his Chief, and hardy. The rehabilitation of the Scot saw a change in attitudes to a whole set of different values, so that what was once seen as violence became bravery; what was mindless devotion became faithfulness and reliability; what was backwardness became love and respect for tradition. This is how the savage became noble. Andrew Mackillop points out that [o]utwith the Highlands, the uprising of 1745 was seen as a final proof of the innate bellicosity of the population, and it is ironic that Jacobitism was, in effect, the advert for Highland society that stimulated its involvement with the empire in the specialized form of proprietary regiments.14

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By 1815 in fact the record of military service gave the Scots, Gaels and Highlanders a very positive aura of loyalty and exemplariness in defending their homeland—Britain. This rehabilitation has been highlighted as one of the reasons for the heavy Highland recruitment on the occasion of the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolutionary War. The need to raise a great number of men induced the government to adopt a strategy of Highland recruitment, of which the 1745 army was an appealing example. The Seven Years’ War and the American War gave prominence to the Scottish Highlanders as colourful, picturesque heroic icons of bravery and loyalty both at home and abroad, as is testified not only by much literature of the time, but also by the contextual production of statuettes and Highland-based pottery.15 The aura that this re-discovered icon evoked is eloquently exemplified by James Boswell’s famous quote from his journey with Samuel Johnson: The very Highland names, or the sound of a bagpipe, will stir my blood, and fill me with a mixture of melancholy and respect for courage; with pity for an unfortunate and superstitious regard for antiquity, and thoughtless inclination to war; in short, with a crowd of sensations with which sober rationality has nothing to do.16

From these words we can see how the old dispraise for the stereotypically violent “race” is replaced by an almost sublime feeling. The bagpipe, together with the Highland names—the “sounds of the nation”—triggers Romantic feelings of nostalgia, and it is a melancholy which Boswell can through ancestral perceptions understand and make his own; and this almost in spite of himself. Thanks to the epiphany created by the bagpipe’s music, an irrational syn-patheia sweeps him into that mythical (and mythicized) world. Clearly the wars were but one of the facets which contributed to “rehabilitate” the Highlander and place him in a different light. A significant input towards the re-shaping of Highland identity was also given by the Ossian phenomenon—or paradigm, as scholars such as Howard Gaskill and William Donaldson term it.17 The period which followed the Battle of Culloden coincided in fact with James Macpherson’s publication in 1760 of Fragments of Ancient Poetry. These were followed in 1762 by Fingal, in 1763 by Temora, and finally collected in The Works of Ossian in 1765. The Ossianic fragments became one of the key works of Romanticism. They were translated into all major European languages, and placed Scotland at the very centre of European literary debates. Macpherson’s

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Ossianic material brought Scotland to international visibility by “rediscovering” the nation’s ancient Gaelic past, imbued in myth. Madame Germaine de Stäel thought of Scotland as the nation from which literary Romanticism originated, and her preference for the literature of the north springs precisely from her readings of Macpherson: Ossian is the “premier type” of the “grandeur poétique” of northern literature.18 As Romanticism advanced, Madame de Stäel’s ideas of the Romantic north contributed to turning Scotland into the quintessential Romantic nation. Sir Walter Scott also enchanted his readers Europe-wide with charming descriptions of Highland landscapes and tales of lost heroic battles of “Sixty Years Since”. As a consequence, the nation as a whole was very much integrated into poets’ and authors’ collective imagination as a Primitivist place of contact with nature, return to origins, and connection with tradition, and a country which had been able to preserve its values and deep, autochthonous culture. Part of the appeal, as Pittock argues, lay in the fact that Macpherson presented the heroic deeds of the Fianna, suitably accommodated within the garb of classical epic and that of the contemporary cult of sentiment which raised agreeable sensations in his British and wider European audience. The demands of politeness ensure that deaths on the battlefield are dealt with by Macpherson with an obliquity unknown to Homer, and foreign too to the savage triumphalism of Iain Lom or Alasdair MacMhaighstir Alasdair [...] in rendering his epic alive only in the reminiscences of the aged Ossian, the Last of the Race, Macpherson conferred on his subject-matter the passivity of heritage [...].19

In this way, Macpherson had given prominence to the Celtic world by creating a “Scottish epic”, and stating its importance within the wider frame of British culture. At the same time, he had rendered it devoid of all threat. Ossian, as Fiona Stafford points out, was at once a Noble Savage, living close to nature and pouring out spontaneous songs, and a reflective consciousness, gazing nostalgically on the heroic age and saddened by knowing that he can never return.20

It is the awareness that the Ossianic material deals with an age that “can never return” that empties it of any potential threat. Once it has become a long-lost memory, the past and history can be romanticized. The bagpipe features in a number of works as an appropriate icon for an Ossianic context. The Ossian-bagpipe association is a recurring one, and this is in itself a fascinating detail. As I have explained above, the bagpipe made its appearance in Scotland relatively late, and it was

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certainly not present in the third century, when the events are set. And yet, when in 1772 Alexander Runciman painted a fresco in the “Hall of Ossian” in the stately Penicuik House,21 he portrayed the rivers Spey and Tay symbolized by two men, separated by a tondo with a bagpipe. An anachronism indeed!—and far from the only one. On his Highland tour in 1800, the young linguist and poet John Leyden records a visit to Staffa, and Fingal’s Cave—itself a product of Romanticism, since the cave was named after the legendary hero only after its “discovery”. First they “took up” their piper from Ulva, and then [a]fter collecting various specimens and viewing the island on every side, we seated ourselves on a rock, and the piper playing a martial pibroch, we soon saw ourselves surrounded with sheep, cows, and among the rest of animals we saw three deer which had been placed on the island, and which seemed perfectly tame. This formed no bad illustration of the story of Orpheus. In Fingal’s Cave the sound of the bagpipe, almost drowned by the roaring of the waves and the echo of the cave, exceeded in grandeur and wildness any union of sounds I ever heard.22

Leyden specifies that the deer have been placed on the island: this is a first form of construction we can find in this passage. As for the bagpipe, its function is to entertain the tourists, and give them a feeling of Scottishness —much like bagpipe CDs played in souvenir shops today. The piper is attracting the animals: the sound of the bagpipe has the power of speaking directly to nature. Furthermore, he is in Fingal’s Cave: the piper is a “tourist commodity”, who is giving the visitors the possibility of savouring what is supposed to be the complete feeling of Ossian’s times. John Wilson, the pseudonymous commentator and reviewer “Christopher North” of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, emphasizes the romantic feelings even further as he invites the reader to follow his wavelength in an emotional description of a Highland landscape: The boat in a moment is a bagpipe; and not only so, but all the mountains are bagpipes, and so are the clouds. All the bagpipes in the world are here, and they fill heaven and earth. ‘Tis no exaggeration—much less a fiction— but the soul and body of truth. There Hamish stands stately at the prow; and as the boat hangs by midships on the very point that commands all the echoes, he fills the whole night with the “Campbells are coming,” till the sky yells with the gathering as of all the Clans. His eyes are triumphantly fixed on ours to catch their emotions; his fingers cease their twinkling; and still that wild gathering keeps playing of itself among the mountains— fainter and fainter, as it is flung from cliff to cliff, till it dies away far—far

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off—as if in infinitude—sweet even and soft in its evanescence as some lover’s lute.23

Wilson wrote this passage to explain that Macpherson’s work is true poetry, because it encapsulates the deep feeling of Scotland. Again, to convey the Ossianic experience, the icon of the bagpipe is summoned. Mountains, clouds, the very boat he is in—everything is filled with the essence of Scotland’s past, which speaks through the instrument. The bagpipe is the “voice of the nation”. The complex identity of Scotland is reduced to an eccentric experience represented by the bagpipe. The only character we are presented with is Hamish, and he stands for the memory of Scotland’s past. In spite of his subtle connection with Jacobitism (as the “gathering of all the Clans” to the sound of “The Campbells are coming” suggests) he is empty of any historical background: he is the echo of a long-lost, charismatic past, which in itself is no longer history, but a concept. The history of the people, real people, simply does not exist. By Runciman, Leyden and Wilson’s time the bagpipe’s sound was so much more inspirational and iconic than that of the clàrsach, the Celtic harp, that any historical and cultural incongruence could be overlooked, reduced to a “simple commodity”. The bagpipe enhances the idea of contact with nature, in the face of spreading urbanization and industrialization. During their Highland tours, many visitors would in fact turn to Scotland to seek a healthy “return to innocence”, enhanced by their readings of Macpherson, which spoke of a long-lost primitive past. Simplicity of feeling is what is conveyed in Wordsworth’s famous poem “The Blind Highland Boy”: in this feeling in fact lies the very core of the charisma of the work. The Romantic return to contact with nature takes the extreme form of the quality of blindness. The “poor blind Highland boy” is described as clad in “crimson stockings” and “tartan plaid”.24 And, to complete his Highlandness, “the bagpipes he could blow”, and with them he made not a “hideous Noise” (as Ward had termed it), but a “sweet melody”,25 which pleased all who heard it. Quite a transition, compared with earlier literature. Blindness in a musician is a quality which has been narrated since antiquity—one can think of Homer, and of course Ossian. Blindness and its cognitive consequences greatly interested many intellectuals, and in popular culture (to which this poem appeals) physical impairments are often intimately connected with different sensorial talents. The blind Highland boy is perhaps more fortunate than many, because his blindness and his poverty give him the power to find the means for happiness in ways that are inaccessible to people with material possessions, and eyes that can see, but not comprehend.

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Similar nnotions of inttrospection an nd poverty aree found in a number n of artworks, annd the bagpipe features in many of them m. Such is thee case for Sir Edwin Landseer’s 1829 oil paiinting Highlaand Music (F Fig. 1).26 Landseer viisited the Highhlands a num mber of times from 1824 on nwards,27 and the imaage this highlly influential English painnter gives in his h many Highland-baased works is strongly romanticizedd. Landseer’s muchcriticized seelective visionn portrays thee Highlands aas a shrine off sublime natural wonnders, though the truth was that they w were in turmo oil, facing rural crisis and economic collapse. In n the words oof Christopheer Smout, “Landseer ccould depict poverty p and crruelty withoutt flinching, th hough the poverty shoown in his sccenes of High hland life hass no obvious cause in injustice”.28

Figure 1: Sir E Edwin Landseeer, Highland Mu usic

In this paarticular genree scene Landseer gives an eemotional interrpretation of Highlandd domestic life fe. The interio or is a cluttereed room. Alth hough the viewer can hypothesize the t presence of o a window somewhere out o of the field of visioon, the light seeems to spring g from withinn the scene in an a almost Caravaggesqque way; waarm shades off ochre give a cosy feelin ng to the otherwise diismal scene. The T backgroun nd is so dark it is almost im mpossible to discern thhe architecturee and the addiitional elemennts. A piper is sitting in

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solitude, with the sole company of a group of five dogs—who do not seem to approve of their owner’s pastime. Landseer was famous especially for his portraits of animals. As Richard Ormond points out, “[h]is Highlanders and their dogs stand for loyalty, sturdy self-reliance, physical hardiness, courage and a simple Christian faith”.29 Three of the dogs stare at him and growl, howl, or look frightened; the only dog gazing elsewhere appears restless, as if looking for somewhere to escape from the noise, while a dark dog, almost a shadow, hides behind it looking dejected. But the piper doesn’t seem to notice. He is wearing a kilt, and the only visible elements in the setting are a couple of bottles on a wooden chest, a few utensils scattered here and there, a blanket, and a tartan plaid hanging on the back of a chair on the left. The Highlandness the title of the painting suggests is immediately detectable, but the notion is left to very few elements: namely, the player’s kilt, the tartan plaid, and the Highland bagpipe. So representative are these elements that any setting is contextualized enough just by their presence. The desolation of the portrayed scene and the idea of poverty add to the sentimental perspective of the author’s intentions. Ormond argues that [t]he artist’s vision of a primitive people leading simple lives in close communion with the natural and animal world stirred the imagination of his audience. [...] [T]he artist contributed to that vision of Highland society as one untainted by the corrupting influence of modern industrialization and materialism, living the good and simple life in the wild. It reinforced the idea that Highland rather than Lowland traditions were the defining character of the Scots, at the very time that the glens were emptying and Highland society changing out of all recognition.30

Highland Music is in fact apart from any form of materialism, and in his apparent poverty the piper appears comfortable. The evidently rural context and the poverty correspond to an indefinite idea of Highland life, and precisely this Highlandness somehow deepens the idea of solitude, of melancholy and simplicity. In spite of the undoubted dejection of the setting, the general picture is heart-warming: the piper’s introspective calmness contrasts with the dogs’ restlessness. The homeliness pervading the situation encourages the viewer to look beyond the appearance of misery, and focus on the musician’s apparent emotional fulfilment. He seems mindless of the world surrounding him: he has company enough with his dogs, and his bagpipe. As Womack points out, the more elevated the Highland image becomes, and the more poignantly gratifying its evocations of human nobility, the more ruinously it pays for its moral splendour by its separation from practical life.31

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By “practical life” is meant everything that is outside of the Highlands: Landseer’s old piper is so far apart from any experience of factual life that he almost belongs to a fairy-tale land, to a remote bracket of society which is all the more edifying and appealing for its peripheral quality. The pathos conveyed in Landseer’s painting is timeless. There is no historical significance connected with the scene: it is pure feeling, emotion. This is indicative of the mythical value of the bagpipe within the equally mythical past and history of Scotland. The Highlander is, in himself, poetical.32 To conclude, I will return to our initial hits in the search engine. The piper in the twenty-first century is indeed a poetical icon. The kind of imagery the bagpipe triggers today is a strange blend of the cultural currents and historical changes which occurred during the long eighteenth century. The bagpipe bears the memory of an indefinite martial past, as we can find notions of warlike ardour in the military garb the piper is so often portrayed in. Through unspecified Highland settings, it then brings to mind the Romantic associations with the sublime and the picturesque. Lone pipers convey ideas of isolation and remoteness, and speak of a longlost past of primitive simplicity, connection with nature, and reflectiveness. The unique spectacle of the pipers of the British Army marching in tartan uniform speaks of feelings of loyalty and reliability, which are nevertheless always matched with a sense of “otherness” for the average viewer. The sophistication and elegance of this imagery contrasts starkly with the ideas of roughness and wildness which never abandon the instrument—after all, “wasna he a rougey, / The piper o’ Dundee?”33 Today, the charisma of the bagpipe worldwide is made up precisely of the “crowd of sensations with which sober rationality has nothing to do” which Boswell talked about.34 It is the result of a complex series of events exacerbated by the destabilizing effect of the Jacobite Risings, and the bloody defeat at Culloden. Its (hi)story was filtered through the prism of Romanticism: what we are left with is the legacy of the Romantic construction of Scotland’s past.

Notes 1 John A. Simpson, and Edmund S. C. Weiner, eds., The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), s.v. “bagpipe”. 2 Ronald Edward Latham, ed., Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1975), s.v. “bagepipa”. 3 Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney, Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 2.

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Murray Pittock, Celtic Identity and the British Image (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 26-27. 5 Peter Womack, Improvement and Romance (Houndmills and London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989), 17. 6 Edward Ward, Nuptial Dialogues and Debates, in two volumes (London: printed for C. Hitch et al., 1759), vol. 2, 199. 7 British Museum AN75238. 8 The Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed French law code, religion and status in the Canadian region. 9 Murray Pittock, Jacobitism (NewYork: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1998), 69. 10 “Cinn-chinnidh is daoin’-uaisle / Ard mhòralachd nam fineachan”. Duncan Ban Macintyre, The Songs of Duncan Ban Macintyre, ed. Angus MacLeod (Edinburgh: Published by Oliver & Boyd for the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1952), 270. 11 John Lorne Campbell, ed., Highland Songs of the Forty-Five (Edinburgh: The Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1984), 154-155. 12 Pittock, Celtic Identity, 25-27. 13 Jonathan Faiers, Tartan (New York: Berg, 2008), 45-46. 14 Andrew Mackillop, Military Recruiting in the Scottish Highlands 1739-1815, unpublished PhD thesis (Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 1995), 365. 15 An example of this is a Chinese porcelain plate destined for the European market which depicts a grave-looking Highlander resting a gun with its butt on the ground, and looking at a smiling piper holding a set of bagpipes and portrayed in a dancing position. National Museums of Scotland, 000-000-100-220-C. 16 Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, Johnson’s Journey, ed. Robert William Chapman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), 249. 17 Howard Gaskill, The Reception of Ossian in Europe (Trowbridge: The Cromwell Press, 2005), 57; William Donaldson, The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society 1750-1950 (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2000), Chapter One: “Ossian and the Macpherson Paradigm”. 18 Madame Germaine de Staël, Oeuvres Complètes de Madame la Baronne de Staël-Holstein, s.n., in two volumes (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères et Cie, Libraires, 1837), vol. 1, 252. 19 Pittock, Celtic Identity, 35-36. 20 Fiona Stafford, “Romantic Macpherson”, in The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Romanticism, ed. Murray Pittock (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 27-38 (28). 21 Now unfortunately lost after a fire in 1899. 22 John Leyden, Journal of a Tour in the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland in 1800, ed. James Sinton (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1903), 41-42. 23 John Wilson, Recreations of Christopher North, in three volumes (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1868), vol. 1, 385. 24 William Wordsworth, Poems, in Two Volumes, and Other Poems, 1800-1807, ed. Jared Curtis (New York, Cornell University Press, 1983), 221-222. 25 Wordsworth, Poems, 222.

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Original painting held at the Tate Britain, no. 0411. The engraving reproduced is part of the author’s own collection. 27 Thomas Christopher Smout, “Landseer’s Highlands”, in Richard Ormond (ed.), The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands (Edinburgh: Trustees of the NGS, 2005), 13. 28 Smout, “Landseer’s Highlands”, 13. 29 Ormond, The Monarch of the Glen, 60. 30 Ormond, The Monarch of the Glen, 59. 31 Womack, Improvement and Romance, 169. 32 Womack, Improvement and Romance, 128. 33 Hogg, Jacobite Relics, Second Series, 44. 34 Johnson and Boswell, Johnson’s Journey, 249.

CHAPTER SIX BARRY ISLANDS IN THE STREAM: CLASS, REGIONALISM AND HIRAETH IN TELEVISION COMEDY REPRESENTATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY WALES DARYL PERRINS

This article will consider the problem of television fiction in the representation of emerging national identities in the UK during the socalled postcolonial period. It singles out Wales as being indicative of the problems inherent in the construction of “imagined communities”1 in emerging nations during the period of devolution. In particular it will focus on the disjunction in Wales between the “postcolonial vanguard”2 that is S4C (a Welsh language public-service channel) and the more traditional sensibilities of the main English language provider, BBC Wales. I will then consider the role of comedy in general, and the comedies of south Walian writer-performers Boyd Clack and Ruth Jones in particular, as a genre and body of work that represents the culture of the working-class English-speaking monoglots who make up the vast majority of the Welsh population. These stubborn and often nostalgic representations, which I define as “Barry Islands in the stream” of postdevolution re-imagining, are to be seen in both the type of programme made (situation comedies), and in their settings (the post-industrial valleys of south Wales). This output is best identified through its adherence to class, regionalism and hiraeth in the face of reinvention (hiraeth is a Welsh word with no direct English translation, associated with homesickness, yearning and nostalgia for an identity lodged in a past “golden age”). I will begin by introducing the notion of Wales as a culturally divided nation by using Dennis Balsom’s “three Wales” model.3 This divides Wales into “Y Fro Gymraeg” (“the Welsh Heartland”, being the Welsh-

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speaking north and west), “British Wales” (the territories along the eastern border, the south-eastern coastal strip, and southern Pembrokeshire), and “Welsh Wales” (post-industrial south Wales, epitomized by the coalmining valleys that fan out northward from Swansea, Cardiff and Newport). The region of my study and the place where the comedies (except Gavin and Stacey) are set is “Welsh Wales”. This overwhelmingly English-speaking area has historically been the site of negotiation for the “soul” of Wales. Therefore, I will consider “Welsh Wales” as an area that has to some extent (unlike “Y Fro Gymraeg”) historically looked beyond the national border, and “tends to define itself as a radical area within Britain, overlapping in its culture with areas of similar heavy industry in Scotland and northern England”.4 This distinction between the two regions that most readily identify themselves as Welsh is furthered by the historians Gwyn Alf Williams and Dai Smith, who define “Y Fro Gymraeg” and “Welsh Wales” as the strongholds of two distinct cultures, the gwerin (folk) of Wales, and the industrialised Welsh working-class respectively. As Williams argues, these discursive constructions have been persuasive: “Public perception of a people in Wales for a century and a half has been expressed in [these] two archetypal myths; both were powerful abstractions derived from reality and both became increasingly unreal”.5 This divided nation was seen in the eyes of many to finally pull together around the very narrow “Yes” vote for limited devolution in 1997 (on a 50.1 per cent turnout, 50.3 per cent voted “Yes”).6 The deciding factor may have been New Labour’s promotion of the “Yes” vote, and a number of the Labour-voting unitary authorities sitting firmly in “Welsh Wales” voted “yes”. In “British Wales”, however, Newport and the capital Cardiff both categorically voted “No”. The victory, however narrow, brought about a “year zero” zeitgeist in the hearts and minds of the Welsh intelligentsia—summed up by the dramatist, director and producer Ed Thomas, who offered something of a manifesto to The Observer Magazine in September 1997: Old Wales is dead. The Wales of stereotype, leeks, daffodils, look-younow boyo rugby supporters singing Max Boyce songs in three-part harmony while phoning mam to tell her they’ll be home for tea and Welsh cakes has gone [...]. So where does it leave us? Free to make up, re-invent, redefine our own versions if necessary, because the Wales I know is bilingual, multicultural, pro-European, messed up, screwed up and ludicrously represented in the British press [...]. So old Wales is dead and new Wales is already a possibility, an eclectic self-defined Wales with attitude.7

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No doubt Thomas had the oft-quoted words of Gwyn Alf Williams (spoken in a 1979 radio lecture) in mind: “Wales is a process. Wales is an artefact which the Welsh produce; the Welsh make and remake Wales day by day and year after year.”8 The recurring motif of “remaking Wales” is a central trope in Welsh cultural discourse. In the same year as Gwyn Alf Williams’ lecture, for example, Raymond Williams wrote that “[t]he shape of Wales [...] is in constant movement [...] our experiences have been so dynamic and so shifting that if the shapes had not changed we should now be wholly adrift: adrift of ourselves”.9 This remaking process appeared to be in motion from 1997 onwards, with pop music at the vanguard in the form of “Cool Cymru” (the very notion would be impossible to imagine earlier than this). Well-educated bilingual bands like the Super Furry Animals (fronted by Gruff Rhys, son of the late poet Ioan Bowen Rees) and Catatonia (fronted by Cerys Mathews, a surgeon’s daughter), fitted well into Thomas’ mirror image of “the Wales I know”, being far removed from the “old Labour” cultural reference points of the past. The latter performed the song “International Velvet”, with its refrain of “everyday when I wake up I thank the Lord I’m Welsh”, at the investiture of the Senedd (Welsh National Assembly) in Cardiff Bay in 1998—an event which recalled Roger Owen’s observation that Wales was “a cultural act, one that requires invention rather than inhabitation or incantation”.10 This performance of identity and national invention continued at S4C. Since its inception in 1982, the channel had been criticized for its provincialism, reflecting “the generally traditional nature of its core audience”;11 furthermore, in a nation where only around nineteen per cent are Welsh speakers,12 it was seen not as a national channel engaged in “a struggle for the representation of the different views and experiences of audiences,” but rather as being concerned with “the preservation of a language”.13 After devolution, however, things began to change. The station was particularly keen to move away from realism, a form historically synonymous with the BBC, and also from its focus upon an older audience—both characteristics epitomized by the long-running soap opera Pobyl y Cwm. This shift was first evident in 2000 in Tim Lyn’s often surreal drama series Fondu, Rhyw a Deinosors, which was favourably compared to Twin Peaks. The reinvention continued in 2005 with the raunchy, soap-style series Caerdydd, which was compared to This Life (BBC) and Queer as Folk (Channel Four). Created by the production company Fiction Factory (for whom Ed Thomas is creative director), Caerdydd was billed as a “stylish new drama about modern, urban Welshspeakers living in a bilingual city”.14 Its depictions of drug use, and a sex

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scene in the baby-changing room at the Senedd, caused something of a furore among the conservative old guard; as Jamie Medhurst put it, “people think these kinds of things don’t happen in Welsh Wales”.15 More interesting than this, however, was the stir caused by the programme’s brave endeavour to realistically depict how young Welsh speakers unselfconsciously pepper their speech with English, and code-switch between the two languages in the “bilingual city” of Cardiff (where the percentage of Welsh speakers had risen slightly, to around eleven per cent).16 The controversy generated was such that the programme’s approach to language was debated at the National Eisteddfod in August 2006, with Thomas in attendance. Medhurst explains this reaction as stemming from “the idea that any English is eating away at the heart of what S4C should be doing”.17 By 2005, then, S4C seemed to be achieving its potential as a “unique postcolonial space”, which Steve Blandford notes was “ideal for the making of genuinely hybrid forms that use language in general and bilingualism in particular, as distinct and therefore powerful tools in the making of contemporary drama from Wales”.18 The 2007 policy statement called for programmers to create drama series aimed at a younger audience.19 One result of this was Y Pris (2007-08), billed as “the Sopranos by the seaside”, which followed a “West Walian mafia”; another was Zanzibar (2007-08), a coming-of-age drama set in a shared student house in Aberystwyth, and dubbed “Wales’ answer to Skins”. The reinvention continues with the Nordic noir-inspired crime series Y Gwyll/Hinterland (S4C 2013, BBC Wales 2014). This Ed Thomas/Fiction Factory production was shot in back-to-back Welsh and English versions (the latter more of a hybrid of both, to reflect the day-to-day codeswitching necessary in modern Wales). This move in particular underlines the distinctive possibilities for television in a country which, while far from being fully bilingual, has frequent occasion to communicate through two official languages. On the other hand, the English language providers BBC Wales and HTV Wales have historically suffered from their position as UK regional rather than national (Welsh) institutions: The disparity between television opportunities in Welsh and English language drama, with the balance firmly in favour of generally seriously underfunded Welsh language work, continues to retard English language writing—and crucially affect confidence and self-esteem in Wales.20

The English language providers have been seen to sit outside of the postcolonial project, and Blandford even argued in 2005 that “‘Welsh

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TV’, with the exception of S4C, is more colonized now than it has ever been”.21 However, the output of BBC Wales has historically been seen by many Welsh speakers as ideologically underpinned by “old Labour” sensibilities, promoting the cultural assumptions of “Welsh Wales”. The director Marc Evans summed up this feeling in 2000: “The BBC has its own agenda in Wales and there is no doubt as to where it thinks the ‘true’ Wales is, and that’s in the Rhondda valley.”22 Since Evans’ statement, the opening of Roath Lock studios (Cardiff Bay) in 2011 and the adoption of a full bilingual name (BBC Cymru Wales) have changed perceptions about localism to some extent. The studios were behind the rebooting of the Dr Who franchise, led by the Welsh writer Russell T. Davies; the spinoff Torchwood (like Caerdydd) re-imagines post-industrial Cardiff: not, in this case, as a playground for Welsh speakers on the up, but as the home of alien hunters who have made the futuristic environs of Cardiff Bay into the Welsh branch of the fictional Torchwood Institute. However, this rebranding is limited to Cardiff. Fictional images of “Welsh Wales”, on the other hand, have been overwhelmingly dominated by the codes of social realism, and arguably by the “inhabitation or incantation” of Welsh culture rather than the “invention” of it (as Owen put it). An example would be Belonging (19992009), BBC Wales’ only long-running series in this period. It focuses on the inhabitants of a fictional town in the valleys, Bryncoed, and their search for a new identity following the collapse of the mining industry. The storylines often express a sense of hiraeth; a longing, in this case, for the lost democratic community of “Welsh Wales”. This world is seen as having been destroyed with the miners’ defeat of 1984-1985, which leaves the Lewis family facing unemployment, re-skilling and alienation, against the backdrop of a crumbling civic society and the ever-present threat of out-migration away from the valleys and “belonging”. In the absence of contemporary English language drama at BBC (or HTV) Wales set in the here and now, we must look for alternatives. One is Stella (Sky One: 2012-), created by and starring Ruth Jones. Labelled a “comedy-drama” in the schedules, Stella occupies a space between the sitcom and the soap opera. The programme establishes its nostalgic credentials by introducing the eponymous Stella, a single mother of three, as a throwback to the washerwomen of the industrial period: she makes a living, of sorts, by washing and ironing for others. When her clapped-out car breaks down in episode three, she has to collect and deliver her laundry on an antique tricycle, which she is seen pushing through the iconic rows of terraced housing which straddle the contours of the steep hills that for most define the south Wales valleys.

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Topography is paramount, and what really marks the otherwise generic Stella out is that it disposes of the traditional studio set sitcom and the “three-headed monster” shooting style for an often highly symbolic location shooting. Set in the fictional town of Pontyberry, Stella is shot on location in Ferndale, in the aforementioned “true Wales” of the Rhondda valley. Location and space in series one are introduced via the privileging of shots which emphasize the meanings of place: overhead shots, slow tracking shots through the valley, or (unusually for a mainstream series) long, static takes between scenes, which are outside of and unnecessary to the narrative. These interstices create a visual eulogy that runs alongside the comedy-drama narrative: the effect is cinematic rather than televisual, and evokes the rendering of working-class landscape found in British new wave cinema.23 We are invited to see place for its own sake, via aerial and overhead shots of the south Wales valleys’ semiotically significant iconography. The overall effect is transformative, and the subtext of hiraeth emerges like the black slag hill of Tylorstown tip shown in the first series. Just in front stands a bench, upon which the central characters engage in reflective dialogue as they (or rather we) look over the valley (another reworking of a new wave staple).24 These scenes are framed as serious interruptions and often revolve around discussions of the mining past. They can only be read as the articulation of hiraeth; however, as well as connoting nostalgic yearning, this term is also often deterministic. As Stella states while trying to explain the valleys to Sean, a newcomer: “I’ve lived here all my life and I don’t want to live anywhere else, but I can’t imagine choosing to live here”. Comedy, unlike at S4C, has been a mainstay for makers of English language programming. This can be seen through BBC Wales’ reliance on the sitcoms of the writer and actor Boyd Clack: The Celluloid World of Desmond Rezillo (1995 and 1997), Satellite City (1996-1999), and High Hopes (2002-2009). The latter two were highly successful in Wales, with High Hopes regularly being placed in the top ten viewing figures for English language programmes.25 These BBC Wales productions sit alongside the UK-wide success of the sitcom Gavin and Stacey (BBC: 2007-2010), written by actor-writers Ruth Jones and James Corden, which received two BAFTAs in 2008. All of these series (like Stella) are set in post-industrial south Wales, a long way from both the Welsh-speaking heartland and metropolitan Cardiff. Largely traditional in form, they could be classed as provincial populist comedy. As Steve Neale and Frank Krutnick explain, comedy has been sympathetic to the values and sensibilities of the “commoner” since Aristotle, appealing to “those whose power was limited and local, and whose manners, behaviour and values

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were considered by their betters to be either trivial, vulgar or both.”26 The humour in these comedies is often “vulgar” in tone, and representative of a form of British comedy which Jim Leach identifies as “humour” and not “wit”. The latter is “aristocratic” and elitist because “a witty man is always in some way demonstrating his superiority”; “humour”, on the other hand, is working-class and inclusive, producing “survival laughter” and “the perpetual celebration of common factors”.27 For Ed Thomas (whose company Y Cwmni produced Satellite City), Clack’s brand of tragi-comedy was part of the re-imagining he saw as so important to a new Wales: How do you make a comedy out of a picture of Wales which is really bad. Unemployment, crime and drugs, but if you can turn it all on its head with enough passion and lightness of touch, it can be reinvented. It makes people laugh but it can be invigorating.28

However, one might argue that instead of the progressive remaking Thomas calls for, these sitcoms are defined (even more so than Stella) by social determinism: as Clack puts it, “in Wales you were brought up to believe you were nothing. You could do nothing. There was no purpose being ambitious because there was no chance of achieving anything”.29 This grassroots perspective, which Brett Mills notes can be seen as a “lack of cultural confidence” or a “Welsh inferiority complex”,30 has no place in the newly-sanctioned version of Wales. Clack’s work depicts characters who, while they might want to better their lives, assume there is little prospect of doing so. Thus the eponymous hero of The Celluloid World of Dezmond Rezillo, bored by his office job, retreats into a fantasy world influenced by Hollywood cinema, and the programme relies on the incongruity between such glamour and the economic deprivation of Wales for its humour.31 The fictional setting for High Hopes, a dilapidated council house, is a far cry from the cosy terrace associated with sitcom representations of British working-class life (as in Stella and Gavin and Stacey) and film versions of the Welsh valleys. Indeed, Cwm Pen-Ol (Backside Valley), the fictional location of the sitcom, was inspired not by the close-knit valley floor but rather by the isolated council estates on the bleak hilltops above.32 This de-romanticized perspective can be observed in the opening credit montage, which overlays images of run-down council housing and rusting mining equipment with the melody to Frank Sinatra’s “High Hopes”, played on the Welsh triple harp. Although Satellite City and High Hopes are often absurdist, the characters and overarching storylines are invariably informed by lived

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experience and local knowledge. The pilot episode of High Hopes begins with the body of an overdosed heroin addict being found in a skip by two homeless teenagers, Hoffman and Charlie. As Clack notes, this scene (and indeed the whole sitcom) was created in response to a similar event which had previously occurred close to one of the locations later chosen for external shooting: The idea for High Hopes came initially from an article in the South Wales Echo about some youngsters finding a body under a stairwell on a valleys estate. This then got muddled up in my mind with the plight of the homeless, especially young homeless people. We have a generation of young people cast adrift. They have no security, no love and no hope. This isn’t their fault—it’s ours.33

Far from being “Cool Cymru”, Wales is a trap, and the Clack sitcoms are places of frustration and stasis. To underline this point the patriarchal figure of High Hopes, Richard Hepplewhite (Robert Blythe) is an exconvict who takes in the aforementioned teenagers as his criminal apprentices, even asking them to call him “Fagin”. He and his mother (an ex-stripper, played by Margaret John) offer the boys a non-judgemental sanctuary and an alternative family unit, which rejects legitimate enterprise. Fagin cannot leave the house because he suffers from agoraphobia, or as his mother insists in typically bawdy fashion: “he can’t go outside because he thinks the sky will suck him off”. Thus the house becomes a version of what Stephen Baker calls when discussing the function of the pub “The Grapes” in the sit-com Early Doors, “a working class idyll”:34 a site of humanizing benevolence in the British sit-com which exists outside of the traditional family unit, in the face of a highly judgemental neoliberalism which demands that everyone should be striving to become middle-class, and labels those who do not as chavs. The Hepplewhite sanctuary likewise exists “as a retreat from society rather than an attempt to challenge it—more rearguard than avant-garde”.35 Clack himself put this sensibility well in 2006, questioning “the idea that achievement is all. The notion that we live in a meritocracy [...]. What about those people who do not have within them that drive and desire to function in this way?” This “retreat” also exists in Clack’s use of traditional formal sitcom devices, such as oppressive narrative circularity. Central characters, such as the factory worker Gwynne Price in Satellite City (played by Clack) who “could have been an artist or a politician if born outside his class”,36 are always returned to the usual impasse. Thus the form of Clack’s sitcom constructs a reflective social determinism via its character stasis; as Barry

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Langford argues, the genre is characterized by “obsessive circularity”, featuring “movement, not towards a new equilibrium but rather a forceful restatement of the existing equilibrium, the narrative status-quo-ante.”37 From this impasse a shared blackly comic consensus with the viewer develops, in keeping with the pragmatic “if you don’t laugh you’ll cry” attitude of a working-class audience. All of the comedies of Clack and Jones are built around the assumption of an unassailable national identity, shared with others of the tribe. This is a purely cultural identity, however, with its roots in the industrial revolution, and it is in many ways distinct from the ethnic-linguistic model offered by Welsh-speaking culture, which stresses the longevity of both the language and the people. In the Clack and Jones comedies the Welsh language is at best treated ambiguously, but importantly it is never ignored. The comedies make it clear that this is not Welsh-speaking Wales, and the language is often treated with suspicion or disdain. In Gavin and Stacey, Uncle Bryn (Rob Brydon) has to apologize to his English in-laws for Welsh not being “one’s mother tongue”, and the only Welsh-speaking character, Dic Powell, is a black marketer constructed as untrustworthy, “an outsider in his own country”.38 Clack takes this suspicion further, using the comedic frame to attack the dominance of higher echelons of Welsh life by the so-called “Taffia” (a term often used by non-Welsh speakers to connote a supposedly self-serving powerful minority, seen to set the national agenda by evangelizing the language and high culture of Wales). This can be signposted via gentle asides about the perceived pointlessness of bilingual forms and road signs, or the role of S4C as the only place one ever hears the language. However, it can also develop into acute political satire, as when Fagin (who has decided to run for the Welsh Assembly) makes a party political broadcast in which he attacks the approved version of Wales found in the Eisteddfod and The Royal Welsh Show by declaring that “proper Welsh people couldn’t give a bugger about poems and agricultural shows in big tents”. He goes on to dismiss the Welsh language as an instrument of the state, rather than the living language propagated by the liberal consensus: “there is a mafia in Wales: the Taffia, the Welsh-speaking mafia. They make you an offer you can’t understand”. In such scenes, comedy is essentially a disguise, a form which can challenge inhibitions but in a way that makes any attack “safe”. As Ian Green has argued, “the framed event is thus rendered harmless and a genuinely aggressive response is inappropriate”.39 Such comments, although widely-felt and expressed in private, would be unthinkable outside of the comedy frame in this period of nation-building. However, this attention to the language also flags up its importance to non-Welsh

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speakers and their sense of self. John Jewell—discussing Uncle Bryn’s embarrassment in Gavin and Stacey at not being able to speak Welsh on a visit to Essex—notes that Raymond Williams could have been writing for Bryn (or Fagin) in observing that Welsh “remains critical to cultural identity not only to those who have retained it or are re-acquiring it, but also to many of those to whom it is now lost or marginal”.40 Welsh identity in the comedies is linked to the national game, rugby. Scenes dedicated to watching and/or playing the sport appear in all of the Clack/Jones comedies, and in Stella the rugby club is a central meeting point for characters. This obsession often takes on a philosophical mantle: “I would rather Wales beat England than there be world peace and freedom from hunger around the world”, states Gwyn, in an episode of Satellite City titled “Love and Rugby”. Even the “national game”, however, has a regional association with south Wales. In the late nineteenth century, the sport emigrated out of the middle-class college culture of Cardiff and Swansea to the emerging townships of the valleys, where it was taken up by a masculine mining culture. (Today, the continuing dominance of teams from the south-east in the Welsh Premier Division shows that the regional associations of rugby have survived the death of heavy industry.) Karaoke nights form another source of identity in the sitcoms, replacing the male voice choirs of the popular imagination while still locating Wales as a singing nation. A Gavin and Stacey episode in which Bryn and Nessa (Ruth Jones) perform “Islands in the Stream” proved so popular that it was released as a single for Comic Relief in 2009; renamed “Barry Islands in the Stream”, and also featuring Sir Tom Jones, it reached number one. Also significant is cuisine, evident in regional specialities only found in the south, such as chicken curry “half and half” (half rice and half chips)—treated like a foreign delicacy by the English characters in Gavin and Stacey. The pub, too, is often central, and the people of south Wales have, according to Nessa, “more words for drunk than the Eskimos have for snow”. Perhaps a negative effect of the success of this popular version of national identity is that “the valleys in representational terms have become a synecdoche for Wales”41 for the rest of the UK. One example is the popular MTV reality series The Valleys (2012-), which presents the viewer with eleven young people seeking to escape the valleys’ poverty, lack of opportunity and general boredom by relocating to cosmopolitan Cardiff. Here they have a chance to become DJs, models and stylists via auditions with mentors from these industries. The programme evinces the problem of outsider constructions of non-metropolitan south Wales, which remove

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associations with collective working-class values and sensibilities (as seen in the humanist approach found in the Jones and Clack sit-coms), and replace them with pejorative narratives of personal escape, and spectacles of excess that pander to stereotypes. The Valleys portrays a group of young working-class people from one of the most densely populated areas of Wales as country bumpkins, blinded by the bright lights of a supposedly distant and glamorous city—in reality only a half-hour train journey away. The outrage caused in Wales by this highly selective and manipulative programme highlights the problem of the nation’s relative invisibility to UK audiences; Rachel Trezise has attacked “the London-centric ‘one size fits’ view of Wales that is peddled by mainstream TV”.42 The UK-wide currency of the valleys as a recognisable region and culture can be seen in the accents of Gavin and Stacey characters. The Welsh sections are set in Barry, in the Vale of Glamorgan, and all of the characters are locals. However, only Nessa and her boyfriend Dave have the harsh Barry port accent and speech patterns: this is evident in Nessa’s vowel pronunciation, in her ungrammatical use of the plural form (“I likes”), and in her catchphrase “what’s occurring?” (which is perhaps a spin on the “Kardif” slang greeting “what’s ‘appening brah?” that Jones has heard on the streets of the city). All other natives of the town have generic (indeed heightened) south Walian valleys accents. This disjoint was brought to my attention when an English viewer told me she couldn’t understand why Nessa “hasn’t got a Welsh accent”: evidently the cultural currency of Wales within the wider UK only exists in the accent (and by extension the culture) of the valleys. Jones was presumably aware of this when locating most of the accents in the show outside of the locale and in the wider transferable environment of “the nation”. In representational terms, however, this again underlines the invisibility of Wales and the nuances of its cultural existence within the UK; and while it highlights the currency of the “Welsh working class” in their dominant form of articulation on the one hand, on the other it represents a form of representational defeat. The unthinkable equivalent in England would be to give the people of Liverpool the accent of Lancashire. Moreover, the currency of the valleys also influences the choices made in terms of miseen-scène: a tight row of terraced houses on a hillside is favoured over the coastal environment and the newer council estates and suburbs of Barry, with their open public spaces. Gavin and Stacey, therefore, although geographically set just outside of “Welsh Wales” in the Vale of Glamorgan, is in representational terms essentially “valleys lite”. Gavin and Stacey celebrates a very traditional version of the Welsh working class, and all of the comedies discussed here share certain

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fundamental values. When Kathryn and Philip Dodd describe Richard Hoggart’s portrayal of the working class as “one of warm directness, together with a fierce sense of the local and concrete, sustained at the expense of intellectual and ‘bookish’ pursuits”,43 they could be talking about the culture described in the work of Jones and Clack. This is illustrated by Gavin and Stacey’s contrast of the Welsh family, the Wests, against the upwardly-mobile nouveau riche sensibilities of the bungalowdwelling Shipmans from Essex. In the neoliberal age, this is as much a reworking along an east-west axis of the north-south divide as it is one based on national characteristics. This working-class Wales is constructed visually through “terraced housing, neighbours taking to each other in the street and people entering Stacey’s mother’s house through unlocked doors and helping themselves to food”.44 Stacey’s mother Gwen, with her “make do and mend” domestic skills, appears not only as the archetypal Welsh mam, but also as the Hoggartian northern English figure of “our mam at home”. Gavin’s mother Pam (Alison Steadman), conversely, is presented as a “modern woman”, with power in her marital relationship and an obvious sexuality. In conclusion, one can say that the comedies discussed establish a persistent regionalism within Wales, one that partly reinforces Balsom’s three Wales model; a version of his “Welsh Wales” found in representations of the valleys has become synecdochic of Wales as a whole for the rest of the UK. More importantly, these English language comedies—created largely by local writers—have carved out a carnivalesque space that retreats from the often top-down national reinvention and reimagining of the postcolonial project (epitomized by the innovation at S4C and the vision of Ed Thomas). In its place these sitcoms create a sanctuary for working-class culture and seemingly archaic “old Labour” sensibilities, which often look back rather than forward, and they also allow limited discussion around problematic questions of language and identity. In doing all this, what these comedies bring to the surface is the validity of the conditional qualification that Gwyn Alf Williams gave to his famous statement, a qualification usually (like the popular forms discussed here) ignored by commentators: “the Welsh make and remake Wales day by day and year after year. If they want to”.45

Notes 1

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). For Anderson, the “imagined political community” exists only in the mind of the subject or citizen of the state.

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Steve Blandford, “Dramatic Fictions in a Postcolonial Wales”, in Postcolonial Wales, Jane Aaron and Chris Williams (eds.) (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005), 183. 3 See Denis Balsom, “The Three Wales Model” in John Osmond (ed.), The National Question Again: Welsh Political Identity in the 1980s (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1985). 4 John Osmond, The Divided Kingdom (London: Constable, 1988), 129. 5 Gwyn Alf Williams, When Was Wales? (London: Black Raven Press, 1985), 237. 6 Richard Dewdney, “Results of Devolution Referendums” (1979 and1997), Research Paper No 97/113, October 11, 1997, www.parliment.uk/briefing-papers (accessed February 21, 2014), 17-18. 7 Edward Thomas, “A Land Fit For Heroes (Max Boyce Excluded)”, The Observer Magazine (July 20, 1997), quoted in Steve Blandford, 2005, 177. 8 Gwyn Alf Williams, “When Was Wales?” transcript of BBC Wales Annual Radio Lecture, November 12, 1979, 23. 9 Raymond Williams, Who Speaks for Wales? Nation, Culture, Identity, Daniel Williams (ed.) (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), 12. 10 Roger Owen, “The Play of History: The Performance of Identity in Welsh Historiography and Theater”, North American Journal of Welsh Studies 1.2 (Summer 2001), 101. 11 Steve Blandford, Introduction, Wales on Screen, Steve Blandford (ed.), (Bridgend: Seren, 2000), 14. 12 Office for National Statistics, “2011 Census: Key Statistics for Wales, March 2011”, www.ons.gov.uk/census (accessed February 14, 2014). 13 Kevin Williams, “Whose Life is it Anyway? Representations and Welsh Television”, Planet: the Welsh Internationalist 108 (December/January 1994-5), 18. 14 Angharad Jones, quoted in Nathan Bevan, “Glossy drama follows hectic social lives of young professionals”, The Western Mail, April 22, 2008, www.walesonline.co.uk/ (accessed February 14, 2014). 15 Jamie Medhurst quoted in Paul Rowland, “Storm over S4C’s controversial new show”, The Western Mail, January 4, 2006, www.walesonline.co.uk/ (accessed February 12, 2014). 16 Office for National Statistics, Census 2001, “Report on the Welsh Language”, www.ons.gov.uk/census2001 (accessed February 3, 2014). 17 Medhurst, 2006. 18 Blandford, 2005, 189. 19 www.s4c.co.uk/abouts4c/authority/pdf/c_progpolicy_review2007 (accessed January 12, 2014). 20 Dave Berry, “Unearthing the Present: Television Drama in Wales”, Blandford (ed.), 2000, 128. 21 Blandford, 2005, 190. 22 Steve Blandford, “Making House of America: An Interview with Marc Evans and Ed Thomas”, Blandford (ed.), 2000, 86.

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See John Hill, Sex Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956-1963, BFI, 1986, 127-145. 24 John Higson, ‘Space, Place, Spectacle”, in John Higson (ed.), Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema (Continuation International Publishing, 1996), 153. 25 www.downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/wales/annualreview_figures (accessed December 12, 2013). 26 Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik, Popular Film and Television Comedy (London: Routledge, 1990), 31. 27 Jim Leach, British Film (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 144. 28 Ed Thomas, quoted in Pauline McLean, “Joining in with the Celtic Joke”, The Western Mail, October 4, 1996. 29 Boyd Clack, from On Show: the Boyd Clack Documentary, BBC2 Wales, transmitted October 2, 2006. 30 Brett Mills, quoting John Osmond and Raymond Williams respectively in “Welsh/From Wales: Representations of the Welsh in Contemporary British Sitcom”, Cyfrwng: Media Wales Journal 6 (April 2008), 58. 31 Mills, 2008, 58. 32 Unpublished notes from “Boyd Clack in Conversation” (with author) on April 24, 2005. The interview took place during the Cyfrwng Conference, 22-24 April 2005, the University of Glamorgan. 33 www.bbc.co.uk/wales/highhopes/concept.shtml (accessed February 15, 2006). 34 Stephen Baker, “Early Doors and the Working Class Idyll”, Journal of British Cinema and Television 10.1 (2013), 224. 35 Baker, 2013, 239. 36 Clack, BBC2 Wales, 2006. 37 Barry Langford, “‘Our Usual Impasse’: the Episodic Situation Comedy Revisited”, in Popular Television Drama Critical Perspectives, Jonathan Bignell and Stephen Lacey (eds.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 17. 38 John Jewell, “Character, Region and Welsh Identity in Series One”, Cyfrwng Wales Media Journal 6 (April 2008), 70. 39 Ian Green, “In the Comedy Frame”, in British Cinema History, James Curran and Vincent Porter (ed.) (London: Barnes and Noble, 1983), 299. 40 Jewel, 2008, 68. 41 Mills, 2008, 56. 42 Rachel Trezise, “Blue Books for the Twenty-First Century”, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist 209 (Spring 2013), 19. 43 Kathryn Dodd and Philip Dodd, “From the East End to Eastenders: Representations of the Working Class, 1890-1990”, in Come on Down? Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain, Dominic Strinati and Stephen Wagg (eds.) (London: Routledge, 1992), 121. 44 Jewell, 2008. 45 Gwyn Alf Williams, 1979, 23.

CHAPTER SEVEN BRITISH MULTICULTURALISM: AN EMERGING FIELD FOR HISTORIANS JED FAZAKARLEY

Although a topic of debate popularly and in other disciplines, British multiculturalism has not received much attention from academic History. This perhaps reflects a belief that such discussions belong to “current events”. While it is true that multiculturalism is a relatively recent paradigm, British multiculturalism is increasingly open for study by historians. Sources from the 1980s, the heyday of anti-racist and multicultural politics, are readily available. Oral history projects involving ethnic minority Britons are numerous, painting a rich picture. The disempowerment of local governments, often pioneers of multiculturalism, in the late 1980s led to considerable restructuring of multicultural governance. Demographically, contemporary “superdiversity”1 has invited different political responses from those aimed at the postcolonial diversity of the 1950s-1980s. This postcolonial multiculturalism is now an historical formation. At present, scholarship on multiculturalism in Britain is therefore dominated by the social sciences, political philosophy and cultural studies. Work from these disciplines provides invaluable empirical and theoretical insight to historians. But this work is often presentist or microcosmic. In political philosophy, multiculturalism is regarded as an ideology, while in political science it is often presented as a coherent policy approach.2 An historical study, by tracing multiculturalism’s development at local and national levels over a broad period, would demonstrate that these understandings of multiculturalism overstate its coherence, intentionality, and uniformity. Multiculturalism in Britain has been an institution—has constituted “the formal rules, compliance procedures and standard operating practices that structure the relationships between individuals”.3 Multiculturalism is therefore “larger” than a policy, and contested, but

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should not be understood merely as a discourse due to its expression through consistent styles of governmental and political practice.4 Multiculturalism has been an institution through which distinctive ethnic communities taken to possess special “needs” requiring specific responses have been posited and thereby brought into social reality. These communities have been situated within a nexus of specific political and governmental structures and “represented” therein by a layer of “community leaders” identified by mainstream elites. Beginning with the employment of a handful of special workers and the formation of community relations councils (CRCs) in the 1950s, the multiculturalism institution was by 1988 staffed by thousands of employees, including “race relations advisers”, teachers, welfare workers, housing officers, etcetera. Increasingly, employees were charged with a “community approach” through which they dealt holistically with specific ethnic minority communities. That a large institution aimed specifically at ethnic minority communities—that is, variously at precise ethnic groups and at “coloured” immigrants in general—could be developed in Britain during this period is perhaps surprising in view of elite rhetoric. British elites often expressed sharp opposition to any “separate development”. Segregated provision for any duration was frequently presented rhetorically as a “slippery slope” towards thoroughgoing separation—the southern United States and South Africa were often invoked—and as likely to invite a “white backlash”. For example, in its 1965 white paper extending immigration control and addressing the process of integration, the Labour government instructed CRCs—local committees intended to promote “community relations” and integration—that their primary task was “help[ing] immigrants to use the ordinary facilities of social service provided for the whole community”.5 Apparent commitment to integrated provision was such that relatively minor demands or practices could create great consternation. For example, Bradford’s Director of Education suggested in 1971 that the local CRC’s plans for dressmaking classes aimed exclusively at Asian girls were “some cause for anxiety” due to the separation involved.6 Such sentiments were enduring, especially at practitioner level. The 1985 Swann Report into education, considering demands among some Muslim parents that their daughters be excused from coeducational swimming classes, reported the attitude of one head teacher that “[i]t’s the thin end of the wedge […] [t]hese people have got to be shown that they can’t have everything to their convenience”.7 Such aversions often rested upon a conflation of equal and identical treatment. For example, in a 1968 speech introducing the Urban Programme of funding—introduced partly as a response to “coloured” immigration—Harold Wilson, while drawing attention to the

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“agonies of conscience and conflict” that afflicted America, averred that “[a]ll our people whatever their colour, whatever their creed, must be treated in exactly the same way”.8 Despite this rhetoric, policies, funding and provisions aimed exclusively at specific ethnic groups, or at “coloured immigrants” in general, were common in Britain by the 1960s. In education, for example, a number of authorities established “reception centres” for non-Englishspeaking (NES) schoolchildren in the 1960s—institutions in which children were taught the English language and “British customs” full-time until judged ready for mainstream schooling. Bradford, for instance, introduced its first centre in 1964 and had eight by 1970, serving almost 1,000 students.9 At least six other authorities had established centres by 1965, including the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), Batley, Huddersfield, Walsall, Bolton, and Slough.10 Other authorities, though rejecting centres, withdrew NES children part-time from mainstream classes for intensive language instruction. This approach was adopted in Bolton, Manchester and Ealing by 1963.11 The 1965 white paper commended these initiatives, arguing that separatism was acceptable if not full-time.12 Other authorities further reduced the degree of segregation they permitted by using peripatetic teachers who travelled between schools offering less regular instruction.13 Methods were often combined— Bradford, for example, combined centres with withdrawal classes for over 250 further children.14 Even when ethnic minority children entered mainstream classes on a permanent basis, fears were expressed that remaining language difficulties and their general “newness” might impede the educational development of all children. This fear, combined with concern that ethnic minority children educated in schools with large ethnic minority populations would be prevented from appropriating “British customs” through contact with white peers, led to dispersal arrangements in some authorities. Dispersal of non-white children into white areas to reduce ethnic minority populations in any one school was being discussed by the CIAC and in Ealing in the early 1960s. In a visit to the borough in 1963, Education Secretary Lord Boyle, responding primarily to white parents concerned about non-white populations in their children’s schools, expressed support for proposals to limit the ethnic minority population of schools to one-third.15 In 1964, Ealing and Bradford introduced bussing systems, transporting ethnic minority—in reality primarily Asian—children to schools with large white majorities. In Bradford, a cap of twenty-five per cent was placed on the ethnic minority population of schools, reduced to fifteen per cent where the population was significantly composed of NES children.16 These

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systems became large—seventeen buses were used by Bradford in 1972, while Ealing was bussing 3,700 children daily.17 In 1965, the Department of Education and Science issued a circular encouraging local authorities to limit the ethnic minority population of schools to one-third, warning of “serious strains” if this was not done.18 By 1971, eleven authorities had introduced dispersal, including Bradford, Ealing, Leicester, Luton, Bristol, Blackburn, Wolverhampton and Rochdale.19 However, a number also rejected dispersal as impractical and/or impolitic—these included authorities responsible for large immigrant populations, such as Birmingham and ILEA. In education, provisions designed to meet “special needs” of ethnic minority groups were therefore often initiated at local level, although they could be promoted and enabled by national government. This was mirrored in other fields. CRCs, for instance, were initially voluntary endeavours undertaken by local whites from social service agencies, the church, businesses, trades unions and councils, etcetera. They were established in the early 1950s in areas including Bristol, Birmingham and Nottingham.20 The new emphasis on “race relations” following the 1958 “race riots” resulted in local authority grants to CRCs.21 The 1965 white paper promoted the formation of CRCs, commented upon their proper functions, and created the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigration (NCCI) to oversee them. It was stressed that CRCs should be non-political and multi-ethnic, and should focus on fact-finding, welfare, social mixing and public education directed at “both” communities. The welfare work should entail “help[ing] immigrants to use the ordinary facilities of social service provided for the whole community”.22 CRCs therefore occupied an ambivalent position, being institutions created specifically to deal with “problems” created by “coloured” immigration, but doing so primarily through referral to mainstream agencies. This situation reflected general elite ambivalence about ethnically-specific provision. CRCs were also required to select ethnic minority “representatives”. In this role, the councils often struggled. At times, white members felt that ethnic minority representatives were hard to find.23 At others, the organizations and ethnic groups represented in the CRC had little relationship to local civic society. Even where “representatives” were chosen from ethnic communities with a substantial presence locally, and where these representatives were also members of organizations serving those communities, the class, educational and gender profile of ethnic minority CRC members was often divergent from that of “their” ethnic community as a whole.24

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Although CRCs were initially a voluntary initiative, local authorities did initiate other forms of ethnically-specific provision. In particular, beginning in the 1950s, a number of authorities employed social/welfare workers to work among “coloured” immigrants. Liverpool was seemingly the first to do so, in 1952.25 Similar appointments followed in Birmingham in 1954 and Hackney in 1955.26 Later appointments, encouraged by the 1958 violence, entailed more specific remits and suggest the “needs” associated with specific groups: a “chaplain” was appointed for West Indians in Sheffield; an “organizer for educational work” among ethnic minorities in Nottingham; and public health workers for Pakistani communities were engaged in Birmingham, Bradford and Smethwick.27 Such appointments reflected beliefs that ethnic minorities were especially hard to govern, created problems in such volume that a casework approach could not be applied, and/or should be dealt with by workers that had special knowledge of these communities. In 1964, for example, Wolverhampton suggested that health visitors in the town “find visiting Asian families frustrating and time consuming” due to linguistic difficulties and because “homes of Asians are generally dirty”.28 Staff appointed to work on specific issues with ethnic minority communities often became regarded as specialists on “race”/immigration issues generally. In 1969, Manchester’s Medical Officer of Health noted that his/her department’s health visitor for ethnic minority families was being referred many cases unrelated to health but involving ethnic minority families. The recommendation was that workers abandon casework and instead adopt a “community approach”, concerned “with the problems of race relations in general”.29 In Bradford too, the Pakistani immigrant liaison officers began to take on broad responsibilities in “their” communities.30 A number of localities therefore concentrated the government of, and “expertise” about, ethnic minority communities within specific structures that solely governed those communities. These processes of specialization and compartmentalization were legitimated and assisted by central initiatives, particularly Section 11 (S11) of the Local Government Act 1966. This made available to local authorities “required to make special provision” for “immigrants from the Commonwealth” salaries for workers primarily concerned with those “whose language and customs differ from those of the community”. Takeup of this funding was initially slow—amounting to just £2.5m in the first year of availability—and variable between authorities, often limited to educational staff. The ethnically-ambiguous Urban Programme (UP) followed in 1968. This provided a larger stream of funding—£22m over its first four years—but its relationship to ethnic “special needs” remained

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uncertain. By 1976, only ten per cent of UP-funded projects were aimed specifically at ethnic minorities.31 From these small beginnings, the institution of multiculturalism rapidly expanded in the 1970s and 1980s. S11 claims reached £90m by 1985.32 Brent alone had the equivalent of 182 full-time staff financed by S11.33 Moreover, increased scrutiny of S11 appointments ensured that S11funded workers did in fact concentrate on ethnic minority children.34 The scope of the funding was extended to cover advice and liaison work.35 Workers were attached to schools in many areas to take on a wider welfare role within ethnic minority communities, and to improve links between schools and ethnic minority homes and communities.36 “Race relations advisers” were increasingly appointed by authorities, often through S11, to consider changes to policy and practice in line with the “multicultural” or “anti-racist” statements introduced by many authorities. These advisers were sometimes collected into specific administrative units—the Greater London Council Ethnic Minority Unit, the richest such initiative, had an annual budget of £2.5m.37 Such innovations were not confined to the leftist “anti-racist” authorities of London—at least nineteen authorities, from Birmingham to Bedfordshire, employed race relations advisers by 1982.38 The UP was also expanded, reaching a peak value of £338m in the mid-1980s.39 Furthermore, at least some local authorities became more proactive in directing UP funding towards ethnic minority communities.40 These local initiatives reflected the growing political importance of ethnic minority communities in many areas; the rise of the “new left” in various municipalities; the effects of the 1981 riots; and the impetus given to “anti-racist” and multi-ethnic policymaking by various reports. Changes at local level in this period also reflect the demands of national legislation, particularly the new Race Relations Act of 1976. Building on much weaker acts, the new legislation outlawed “indirect discrimination”, created the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), and gave this body the power to investigate cases of suspected discrimination. Owing to the provisions against “indirect discrimination”, the CRE would need only to prove that “less favourable” treatment of groups defined by their “colour, race, or ethnic or national origins” had occurred, knowingly or unknowingly. Even without this legislative innovation, legal challenges by the CRE’s predecessor, the Race Relations Board, led to the abandonment of bussing by the mid-1970s.41 But the provisions against “indirect discrimination” opened a wider body of practices for scrutiny, including those of local authorities. Reception centres were abandoned following a CRE investigation in Calderdale in 1986.42 Other investigations led to non-discrimination notices being served to Hackney

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(1983), Walsall (1985), Tower Hamlets (1988), Liverpool (1989) and Oldham (1993)—all cases related to housing—and to voluntary reform of educational practices in Birmingham in 1985 and Reading in 1983.43 Central government also mandated, from 1983, that local authorities consult with ethnic minority representatives directly, rather than through the CRCs, in determining the use of S11. This provided one impetus for authorities to seek more direct consultation of ethnic minority communities. Their size and political significance also grew from the early 1970s, and the CRC was anxious to stress their “winnability” as a constituency.44 While no sanctions were attached to it, the exhortation of the 1976 Race Relations Act for local authorities to “eliminate unlawful racial discrimination and [...] promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups” may have provided encouragement to those supportive of “multi-ethnic” innovations, adding to factors promoting broader consultation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the 1981 “race” riots in Brixton, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham persuaded many authorities that failure to incorporate ethnic minorities in decision-making could cause public unrest. One activist in Bradford remembers that in 1981 the council “were shit-scared [...]. They were staring at the possibilities of widescale riots and they were looking for people to talk to. Anyone, anywhere.”45 Already in 1977, ILEA had introduced local Multi-Ethnic Education Consultative Committees to increase ethnic minority involvement in policy-making, and such initiatives expanded in the 1980s. A number of London boroughs introduced Race Committees, often co-opting ethnic minority members.46 Similar initiatives were also tested outside the capital: Manchester introduced a Race SubCommittee with a set number of directly-elected members from specific ethnic communities, while Birmingham established umbrella groups representing various ethnic communities.47 In this period, ethnic minority organizations became more likely to seek local state funding, not least due to the creation of committees, like the GLC’s Ethnic Minorities Committee, able to make extensive grants.48 Organizations were funded for an array of educational, cultural, advisory, welfare and training projects, on the basis that “their” communities had specific needs and required specific provisions. Specialist local authority employees, engaged for work with ethnic minorities, or, increasingly, with specific ethnic groups, were increasingly likely to be drawn from these ethnic groups themselves, and even from state-funded ethnic community organizations.49 These processes gradually incorporated various ethnic minority actors into the institution of multiculturalism, partially passing its operation into their hands. However, this process was heavily criticized by

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certain individuals and organizations within ethnic minority communities, particularly those representing young people and/or women. Such critics of multiculturalism have suggested that it has benefited middle-aged, male, conservative members of minority communities who have presented themselves to mainstream institutions as the unproblematic “representatives” of unified communities. These organizations, representing “minorities within minorities”, and academics sympathetic to them, have charged multiculturalism with a static, closed and essentialist view of minority cultures.50 However, rather than any metaphysical conception of ethnicity held by British elites, this relative insensitivity to the intersection of ethnicity with other forms of identity may reflect the means of multiculturalism’s institutionalization. For example, ethnic minority organizations applying to the GLC for funding to work with women in the 1980s did so primarily through the Ethnic Minorities Committee, not the Women’s Committee. In 1982, the South London Islamic Centre received £5,000 for work with Muslim mothers, arguing that “[d]ue to the cultural and language difficulties, our children and women do not take part in the activities run by other local organizations”.51 In the following year, the Muslim Women’s Centre won funding, arguing that “a lack of similar provision” necessitated the project.52 These organizations were led by men. This is not to suggest that the Ethnic Minorities Committee did not fund projects led by women. Also in 1982, the Redbridge Asian Women’s Association, led by women, received funding, arguing that “religious-based organizations tend to maintain the status quo and fail to recognize [the] changing needs of Asian women”.53 In 1983, the committee funded the North Kensington Moroccan Tarbia, a group that argued for its need on a national/ethnic basis, suggesting that Moroccans, “as the most recent arrivals, have been slow to attract the attention of statutory authorities”. The committee accepted the application, but noted “an undue emphasis […] on male dominated activities”, and that the officers were all male. Tarbia was therefore apprised of the GLC’s equal opportunities policies, informed about “[t]he particular situation of Moslem women, specifically Moroccan women” and undertook to “ensure that the premises and programme do take into account the special needs of women”.54 The committee’s main concern was to fund deserving organizations that couched their appeals in terms of ethnic special needs. It sought to ensure that organizations made social provisions for women, but was not so concerned about who delivered these or what their specific content was. This criticism of the multiculturalism institution as hived-off from other structures addressing non-ethnic sources of identity and

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discrimination was also repeated in an influential critique of “anti-racist” practices in Manchester schools, the Macdonald Report.55 The report was powerful due to its provenance—the authors were all erstwhile supporters of anti-racism—and its association of anti-racist practices with racial violence (including murder). Although the report was in some respects complimentary about policy in Manchester, as distinct from practices in specific schools, it was widely interpreted as a general rebuke of antiracism and therefore resonated with popular media attacks on “loony left” councils.56 In this period, governmental emphasis on parental choice and the powers of teachers and governors reduced the degree to which antiracist local authorities could influence the content of education. Abolition of the GLC (in 1986) and ILEA (in 1990) eliminated two major supporters of anti-racist/multicultural education and ethnic community organizations. In general, the Thatcher governments sought to reduce local authority involvement in policy and service delivery; “de-politicize” local governance; and reduce the resources available to local authorities.57 Aside from their declining power, many authorities were concerned about the popular perception of anti-racist activities; incidents such as the Honeyford and McGoldrick affairs, as well as the McDonald report and tabloid stories about “loony left” initiatives, fostered caution. Many Labour groups, such as that in Birmingham—which in 1987 combined its Race Relations and Equal Opportunities Committee with its Women’s Committee—came to see anti-racist policies as “vote-losers”.58 Accusations of racism against head teachers, and subsequent rancorous disciplinary procedures, undermined anti-racist work in Bradford and Brent, the latter of which sacked its Principal Race Relations Adviser and did not refill the post.59 In other areas, changing party politics led to the demise of antiracist initiatives. Ealing’s well-resourced Race Equality Unit was abolished in 1990 as the Conservatives returned to local power, fulfilling a longstanding promise of the party.60 Given these criticisms of multiculturalism, it may be surprising that it has endured for so long. This can be explained with reference to the sociological theory of “path dependency”. Path dependency states that “once a country or region has started down a track, the costs of reversal are very high. There will be other choice points, but the entrenchments of certain institutional arrangements obstruct an easy reversal of the initial choice”.61 At its outset, ethnic diversity required that authorities, social service agencies, schools, and so on, become acquainted with the needs of “Commonwealth immigrants”. Finding the casework associated with these immigrants voluminous, specialized and disproportionately timeconsuming, it aligned this knowledge, in the form of specific employees,

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into specific structures. S11 and the UP slowly expanded these structures until they accounted for hundreds of personnel and millions of pounds of annual expenditure. Ethnic minority organizations learned how to mobilize their ethnic specificity when making claims, thereby accessing resources and expanding their work. Many actors therefore owed their existence as “community leaders”, race relations advisers, and so on, to institutional multiculturalism. Paul Pierson’s observation that policies “encourage individuals to develop particular skills, make certain kinds of investments […] or devote time and money to certain kinds of organizations” can equally be applied to institutions.62 Britain at one stage had clear alternatives to multiculturalism: an approach based on casework and mainstreaming; complete “colour-blindness”; or a general “equal opportunities” approach simultaneously tackling racism, sexism, deprivation, etcetera. As resources became invested in multiculturalism, these alternatives became less viable. This depiction of British multiculturalism as an institution, often without coherence or coordination between actors, foregrounds contingency. However, stability has been provided by the perseverance of certain concepts, such as ethnicity, “community leaders”, and “special needs”. The perceived “special needs” of ethnic minority groups, and thus the suggested remedies for them, have changed over time. Broadly, the special provisions of the 1950s and 1960s—such as reception centres, CRCs and bussing—were instrumental, aimed at integration over the long term. In this scheme, ethnic minority groups shouldered the burden of a process of integration that was held to benefit all. Later, as ethnic minority groups became more powerful socio-political actors, and as the possibility of flat assimilation faded, special provisions—such as mother tongue teaching, curriculum development and more effective anti-discrimination legislation—were more often justified in terms of ethno-cultural rights. Central government has, over the course of these developments, played different roles in its relation to local agents, checking or even abolishing the most “radical” authorities, providing opportunities through funding (though largely without obligation or sanction), and circumscribing egregious discriminatory practices through legislation. Finally, the sustenance of multiculturalism through path dependency highlights the limits of the frequently-posited “multiculturalism backlash” of the twenty-first century. In Britain, for example, despite the appearance of the community cohesion agenda, local authorities have come to rely on ethnic community organizations to perform certain tasks of governance.63 Meanwhile, the supposedly ethnically-neutral cohesion agenda has been undermined by a simultaneous desire to single out Muslim communities

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for “special” forms of government through “soft” anti-terrorism strategies such as “Prevent”.

Notes 1

Steven Vertovec, “Super-Diversity and its Implications”, Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.6 (2007), 1024-54. 2 For example Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000). 3 Peter A. Hall, Governing the Economy: the Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 7. 4 Cf. Ben Pitcher, The Politics of Multiculturalism: Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 21. 5 Home Office, Immigration from the Commonwealth (London: HMSO, 1965), 167. 6 West Yorkshire Archives Service Bradford (WYASB), Bradford, UK, Town Clerk’s (TC) papers, BBD 1/7/T16150, Director of Education to Town Clerk, 2/3/71. 7 Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups, Education for All (London: HMSO, 1985), 342. 8 London School of Economics (LSE) Library, Peter Shore papers, SHORE/19/16, “The Prime Minister’s Birmingham Speech on Race Relations”, 5/68. 9 WYASB, TC papers, BBD 1/7/T15401, “Extract from the Minutes of the ESC: Education of Commonwealth Immigrants”, 20/10/70; BBD 1/7/16, “The Education of Children of Commonwealth Immigrants: Report on Position at June, 1973”. 10 London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), London, UK, ILEA Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC) presented papers, “Survey of Immigrants in Primary Schools”, 29/5/70; People’s History Museum (PHM), Manchester, UK, 331.6/Box 232, Young Fabians, “Strangers Within”, 10/65. 11 Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration (SCCRI), Education (London: HMSO, 1973), vol. 2, 316. 12 Home Office, Immigration from the Commonwealth, 11. 13 SCRRI, Education, vol. 2, 686. 14 WYASB, TC papers, 42D92/56, “The Education of Commonwealth Immigrants: Report on Present Position, June 1969”. 15 PHM, Labour Party Research Department (LPRD) memoranda, RE1041, “Labour Party: Race and Education”, 3/77. 16 WYASB, TC papers, BBD 1/7/T9644, “The Education of Commonwealth Immigrant Children”, 23/11/64. 17 Ibid., BBD 1/7/T16150, “The Education of Children of Commonwealth Immigrants”, 11/72; SCRRI, Education, vol. 2, 41. 18 Ibid.,YCCR papers, 49D79/1/2/4, DES, “The Education of Immigrants”, 14/6/65. 19 Department of Education and Science, The Education of Immigrants (London: HMSO), 18.

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Michael J. Hill and Ruth M. Isaacharoff, Community Action and Race Relations (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 2; John Solomos and Les Back, Race, Politics and Social Change (London: Routledge, 1995), 45. 21 Hill and Isaacharoff, ibid, 9. 22 Home Office, Immigration from the Commonwealth, 16-7. 23 Hill and Isaacharoff, Community Action, 148. 24 Ibid, 140-4. 25 Ibid, 3. 26 Ibid, 5; Solomos and Back, Race, Politics, 45-6. 27 LMA, London Council of Social Services (LCSS) papers, ACC1888/121, “Area Reports on Cities and Boroughs with Substantial Immigrant Settlements: Sheffield”, 7/65; Modern Records Centre (MRC), Coventry, UK, TUC papers, MSS.292B/805.94/1, County Councils Association, “CIAC: Questionnaire”, 7/11/62; WYASB, TC papers, BBD 1/7/T13687, Clerk to Blackburn Town Clerk, 25/7/67; ibid., BBD 1/7/T9644, Association of Municipal Corporations, “Memorandum of Evidence”, 1963. 28 MRC, TUC papers, MSS.292B/805.94/3, Wolverhampton City Council to CIAC, 30/1/64. 29 Manchester City Library (MCL), Manchester, UK, Manchester Medical Officer of Health, “Report […] for 1968”. 30 WYASB, TC papers, BBD 1/7/16, “Reports on the Problems of Coloured School Leavers and on Housing”, 1973. 31 PHM, LPRD memoranda, RE880, “RRSG: a Strategy for Racial Deprivation”, 12/76. 32 LMA, ILEA Equal Opportunities Unit (EOU) papers, ILEA/EOU/01/09, ILEA, “Section 11 Review: Survey of Posts in Schools”, 28/8/85. 33 Malcolm Cross, Harbhajan Brah and Mike McLeod, Racial Equality and the Local State: an Evaluation of Policy Implementation in the London Borough of Brent (Coventry: Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, 1991), 81, 98. 34 Ibid, 79. 35 Dilip Hiro, Black British, White British: a History of Race Relations in Britain (London: Grafton, 1991), 67. 36 WYASB, TC papers, BBD 1/7/16, “Reports on the Problems of Coloured School Leavers and on Housing”, 1973; LMA, ILEA PCC presented papers, ILEA/CL/PRE/24, P955, “Education in a Multi-ethnic Society: the Next Stage”, 1982. 37 Greater London Council, Ethnic Minorities and the Abolition of the GLC (London: GLC, 1983), 13. 38 LMA, ILEA EOU papers, ILEA/EOU/1/20, Manchester Committee for Community Relations, “MCC and Racial Equality: the Case for Ethnic Record Keeping”, 7/82. 39 Brian Jacobs, Black Politics and the Urban Crisis in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 156.

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Zig Layton-Henry, “Race and the Thatcher Government” in Race, Government & Politicsin Britain, eds. Layton-Henry and Paul B. Rich(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 89. 41 David L. Kirp, “The Vagaries of Discrimination: Bussing, Policy and Law in Britain”, The School Review 87: 3 (May 1979), 285-91. 42 Commission for Racial Equality, Teaching English as a Second Language: Report of a Formal Investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality into the Teaching of English as a Second Language in Calderdale Local Education Authority (London: CRE, 1986). 43 For housing, see Martin MacEwan, Housing, Race and Law: the British Experience (London: Routledge, 1991). For Birmingham, see Bob Carter and Jenny Williams, “Attacking Racism in Education” in Racial Equality in Education, ed. Barry Troyna (New York: Routledge, 2012). For Reading, see Charles Sutcliffe and John Board, “The Zoning Decision” in Educational Management & Leadership 41.4 (July, 2013). 44 Muhammad Anwar, The Myth of Return: Pakistanis in Britain (London: Heinemann, 1979), 149. 45 Kenan Malik, From Fatwa to Jihad: the Rushdie Affair and its Legacy (London: Atlantic, 2009), 73. 46 Usha Prashar and Shan Nicholas, Routes or Roadblocks? Consulting Minority Communities in London Boroughs (London: Runnymede Trust, 1986), 12-3. 47 MCL, MCC Race Unit, “Ethnic Minorities Directory”, 1991, 12-3; Graham Smith and Susan Stephenson, “The Theory and Practice of Group Representation: Reflections on the Government of Race Equality in Birmingham”, Public Administration 83.2 (2005), 323-43. 48 Greater London Council, The GLC’s Work to Assist Ethnic Minorities (London: GLC, 1983). 49 For example, see Spitalfields News, Spring 1983. 50 For example, Pragna Patel, “Rana or Rambo? The Rise of Hindu Fundamentalism” in From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters, ed. Rahila Gupta (London: Zed Books, 2003). 51 LMA, GLC Ethnic Minorities Unit presented papers, GLC/DG/MIN/49/1, SLIC, “Grants to Voluntary and Community Groups”, 6/82. 52 Ibid., GLC/DG/PRE/49/5, MPA, “Grants to Voluntary and Community Groups”, 1/83. 53 Ibid., GLC/DG/PRE/49/2, RAWA, “Grants to Voluntary and Community Groups”, 6/82. 54 Ibid., GLC/DG/PRE/49/7, GLC, “NKMT—Grant Application”, 22/4/83. 55 Ian Macdonald, Murder in the Playground: Report of the Macdonald Inquiry into Racism and Racial Violence in Manchester Schools (London: Longsight, 1989), 636. 56 Ibid, xx, 403. 57 Nirmala Rao and Ken Young, Local Government since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), chs. 8-9. 58 Solomos and Back, Race, Politics, 179.

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Guardian, 23/1/86; Cross, Brah and McLeod, Racial Equality, 41. David Mullins, “Housing and Urban Policy”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 17.1 (1989). 61 Margaret Levi, “A Model, A Method, and a Map: Rational Choice in Comparative and Historical Analysis” in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Choice and Structure, eds. M.I. Lichbach and A.S. Zuckerman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 26. 62 Paul Pierson, “When Effect Becomes Cause”, World Politics 54.4 (1993), 609. 63 Local Government Association, Guidance on Community Cohesion (London: LGA, 2002), 20. 60

CHAPTER EIGHT LOGICS OF EXCLUSION: CULTURE, ECONOMY AND COMMUNITY IN BRITISH ANTI-IMMIGRATION DISCOURSES NIKOLAY MINTCHEV

This essay is about the ongoing anti-immigration campaign against Romanians and Bulgarians in the United Kingdom. Its aim is to examine the campaign’s central discourses, arguments and internal logics, as well as their connection to and departure from earlier discourses of ethnic and racial exclusion in the UK. While anxiety about Bulgarians and Romanians is not fully separated from Britain’s experience with other ethnic minorities, it is also the case that East Europeans are subject to different cultural representations than people of South Asian, Middle Eastern, African or Caribbean origin. As a result, the campaign against Bulgarians and Romanians is based upon new lines of racist argumentation, which, due to their novelty, evade the censorship of commonly-accepted social regulations about what language can and cannot be legitimately used when discussing race, ethnicity and immigration. This has enabled neo-racist and xenophobic ideas about Bulgarians and Romanians to circulate freely in the media with little successful resistance or opposition. In this essay I argue that there are three lines of anti-immigration discourse. These are based on (1) cultural stereotypes of East European criminality, (2) the difference in the economic prosperity of Britain and Eastern Europe, and (3) a fear that immigrants, particularly those of Roma origin, will disrupt the cohesion of British community life. I address these anti-immigration discourses by offering an assessment of their consistencies and inconsistencies, as well the ways in which they propagate xenophobic ideas and racist stereotypes through apparently non-racist and ethnically neutral language.

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Introduction to the anti-immigration movement Bulgaria and Romania gained accession to the European Union in 2007, giving their citizens the right to travel and live anywhere within the union without a visa. The United Kingdom, however, along with a number of other European countries,1 imposed temporary restrictions on the working rights of Bulgarians and Romanians and maintained a policy of work permits. These restrictions, according to EU law, could only remain in place for a maximum of seven years, and so on January 1, 2014, they were lifted. The full opening of the British labour market to Bulgarians and Romanians has led to a media frenzy, a widespread concern about an influx of migrants, and a rather unfortunate rhetoric of exclusion targeting these two countries. Among those most alarmed are factions of the governing Conservative Party, and the Eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and its supporters. UKIP, to be sure, prides itself on being the only political party that genuinely intends to stop immigration, and it constantly accuses the Conservatives of not doing enough about the immigration problem. The anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric of UKIP is indeed phrased with more aggressive language and proposes harsher measures than that of the Conservatives, but I would argue that insofar as internal logic and proposed reasons for border control are concerned, the two parties are very similar if not identical on their stance towards immigration. For instance, in response to the 2014 lifting of working restrictions, David Cameron has suggested that “free movement within Europe needs to be less free,”2 while Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP and a member of the European Parliament, has called for an overall five-year ban on permit-free immigration for Bulgarians and Romanians.3 One right-wing tabloid supported by UKIP, The Daily Express, has even invited its readers to join “a crusade” to “stop new EU migrants flooding into Britain” by signing a petition against the lifting of working restrictions for Bulgarians and Romanians.4 This anti-immigration talk and its Eurosceptic underpinnings have provoked a sharp reaction from Brussels. In particular, Viviane Reding, the vice-president of the European Commission, has accused British politicians of populism and misleading the public: This supposed invasion of foreigners coming to the UK and stealing the jobs and stealing the social security and the health money. The fact and figures, and we all know this, show it is simply not true [...]. What is leadership if you just try with populistic movements and populistic speech to gain votes? You are destroying the future of your people.5

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Yet, the British public seems to be just as concerned as its political leaders about open borders and the arrival of new immigrants: recent polls have predicted that UKIP will outperform both Labour and the Conservative Party in the European election of May 2014,6 and one major think tank study on British social attitudes has reported that seventy-seven per cent of respondents want a reduction in immigration to the UK.7 The UK is thus facing significant Euroscepticism and anxiety about immigration, and this may well put its future membership of the EU at stake.

Unification, fragmentation and the multiculturalism backlash: the context of European racism The anti-Bulgarian and Romanian campaign is not an isolated incident of ethnic, racial or religious exclusion in Europe, but part of a much larger pattern in which European expansion coexists with fragmentation and nationalist sectarianism. As Rosi Braidotti observes: the expansion of European boundaries coincides with the resurgence of micronationalist borders at all levels in Europe today. Unification coexists with the closing down of borders; the common European citizenship and the common currency coexist with increasing internal fragmentation and regionalism; a new allegedly postnationalist identity coexists with the return of xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism.8

At the heart of the matter of xenophobia and nationalist resurgence lies the problem of how people represent themselves, others, and the differences between themselves and others as ethnic and national subjects. These representations are often multiple and contradictory, and they involve existential riddles and questions about who one is and how she or he ought to treat others. In Britain, as in many other countries, such questions are mediated by the fact that xenophobia and racism carry negative connotations, and few people would consciously identify with racism or want to live in a racist community. Furthermore, border control and exclusion of immigrants can be seen by people as a matter of sustainability and management of resources and populations, and not a matter of stereotyping, racializing, and exerting violence upon others. From an analytical perspective, the idea that the two sides can be separated from one another is questionable, but so is the idea that all anxieties over immigration can be reduced to racist motivations and practices. This makes nationalist exclusion in Britain complex and ambiguous: on the one hand, neither exclusionary political discourses and policies, nor people’s representations of themselves and others can be reduced to the simple

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categories of racist or non-racist, xenophobic or non-xenophobic; on the other hand, violent racism and xenophobia may indeed lurk underneath apparently non-racist discourses, and use the latter as just another tool for reproducing racial and ethnic hierarchies and marginalizing minorities. This ambiguity is a prominent feature of contemporary Western racism, and also of the so-called “multiculturalism backlash.”9 As a number of authors observe, the dominant discourse of racial and ethnic exclusion in Western Europe is no longer based on notions of “race” and “racial” hierarchy as it was in the 1960s and early 1970s, but rather on the idea of cultural attachment and insurmountable cultural incompatibilities.10 Difference between groups is imagined as difference in the cultural practices, traditions and beliefs that each group holds and is persistently attached to. The problem of difference, according to this discourse, is not that one group is inferior or superior to another, but rather that the cultures of minorities are at odds with that of the majority. Racial and ethnic exclusion is thus based on a fear that immigrants or minorities will not integrate, and will consequently fragment the national community. Etienne Balibar makes this point succinctly: Ideologically, current racism […] fits into a framework of “racism without races” […]. It is a racism whose dominant theme is not biological heredity but the insurmountability of cultural differences, a racism which, at first sight does not postulate the superiority of certain groups or people in relation to others but “only” the harmfulness of abolishing frontiers, the incompatibility of life-styles and traditions: in short it is […] a differentialist racism.11

This way of imagining racial or ethnic difference also underpins the recent scepticism towards multiculturalism in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. In Britain, especially since the London bombings of 7/7, there has been much anxiety about home-grown Islam, Islamic “faith schools,” and the supposed failure of Muslims to integrate into mainstream culture even when they were born and raised in the UK.12 Multiculturalism is thus often perceived as a failed policy, which has stimulated ethnic insularity and religious sectarianism that clashes with British liberal values. As Ralph Grillo has shown, however, what the British white majority fears is not cultural diversity in itself but an over-identification with cultural difference, which spills over into public life. Grillo cites a BBC/MORI poll according to which sixty-two per cent of those surveyed agreed that multiculturalism “makes the country a better place” (despite the increasing scepticism towards it), while fifty-eight per cent thought that “people who come to live in Britain should adopt the values of and

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traditions of British culture.”13 This data suggests that many Britons indeed value ethnic and cultural diversity but only insofar as it does not entail incompatibility between minorities and “British culture.” Critics of multiculturalism tend to hold the same view, but what is specific about many of them is the way they conceive of the term. Multiculturalism, as Grillo argues, is an ambiguous concept that can either have a “strong” or a “weak” variation: “strong multiculturalism” refers to “institutional recognition for difference in the public sphere, with special provisions in language, education, health care, welfare, etcetera, and the organization of representation on ethnic/cultural lines”;14 “weak multiculturalism,” in contrast, is about “cultural difference recognized […] in the private sphere, with acculturation in many areas of life and assimilation to the local population in employment, housing, education, health care and welfare.”15 The problem is that while in practice multiculturalism is usually “weak,” its critics often perceive it as “strong.”16 The backlash against multiculturalism thus follows the same logic as the “cultural racism” or “differentialist racism” that Balibar and others write about: it is based on the fear that migrants will fragment British cultural life in the public sphere and disrupt the cohesion of the British community as a result of their incompatible cultures, values and beliefs. This view is fundamentally different from that of classical racism, and as the data shows, it is not necessarily incompatible with genuine appreciation for cultural difference and “weak multiculturalism.” I would go as far as to argue that many people who hold the views of differentialist racism would themselves abhor classical racism and its logic of biological hierarchy. The danger here, however, is that this abhorrence—as genuine as it may be—might act as an anti-racist disguise that conceals new racist forms of exclusion. This obfuscation, furthermore, is not only a matter of how people relate to others, but also a matter of how they relate to themselves and whether they recognize their own racism.

From cultural difference to economic disparity: delinquency and poverty in Eastern Europe What, then, are the discourses of the current campaign against Bulgarians and Romanians and where do they fit within this dominant ideological framework? The fear of community fragmentation which is central to “differentialist racism” forms only one aspect of a complex and multilayered set of stereotypes and representations about culture, economy and community. In fact, as I show in the next section, Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, seems to use it as a kind of fail-safe—as an argument that is

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invoked when the favoured argument about the economy is no longer persuasive. In the 2000s the common stereotypes of Romania and Bulgaria were based on a culture of corruption and scams (including a counterfeit UK visa scam in 2004 that led to the resignation of the British immigration minister), as well as a substantially large, disenchanted and impoverished Roma community that often resorts to begging and petty theft as a means of subsistence. As one study from 2009 puts it: It would seem that public perceptions about Bulgarians and Romanians […] revolve around criminality and corruption, but also the large Roma populations of Romania and Bulgaria. As in the rest of Europe, Roma are the subject of much prejudice in the UK […]. The visa scandals [of 2004] also confirmed in many people’s minds that there would be large numbers of immigrants “trying to beat the system”. Some of the perceptions were apparently confirmed in a leaked Home Office document of July 2006 that warned of “45, 000 undesirable” criminal migrants expected to arrive in the UK from Romania and Bulgaria after accession.17

The fear of East European criminality has no doubt persisted in the immigration debate to this day. Hence, Nigel Farage has recently spoken of “a Romanian crime epidemic” in London;18 Gerard Batten, a UKIP member of the European Parliament, has complained that the EU has given Britain “criminals, drug addicts, alcoholics, beggars, vagrants and benefit seekers”;19 David Cameron has pre-emptively declared that “if people […] are begging or sleeping rough—they will be removed”;20 and The Daily Mail has even (allegedly) exposed a Bulgarian consultancy that counterfeits documents for Bulgarians to claim benefits in the UK.21 My contention, however, is that despite its continued presence this language has largely given way to a new discourse, which focuses less on crime and scams per se, and more on the economic causes and consequences of immigration. In this way, the focus is no longer on the cultural stereotyping of Bulgarians and Romanians as vagrants, fraudsters and criminals—although the persistent salience of these stereotypes underpins the whole discourse and should not be underestimated—but rather on the more ethnically and culturally neutral language of economic circumstances and income disparity. Today, it is emphasized over and over that Bulgaria and Romania are the poorest member states of the EU, with the implication that migration to Britain is an economically rational thing to do for anyone from a less wealthy country. David Cameron has stated, correctly in my opinion, that “vast population movements [are] caused by huge disparities in income,”22

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while Nigel Farage has spoken, in somewhat more harsh and populist terms, about “total, uncontrolled immigration from twenty-nine million poor people in Romania and Bulgaria,”23 and declared in a Channel Four documentary that “if I was a Bulgarian, I’d be packing my bags now, wanting to come to Britain.”24 From there, it is assumed that if the driving factors behind immigration are primarily economic, then so are the consequences that the UK will suffer once the newcomers arrive, and so are the reasons for which immigration must be stopped. Three specific concerns can be pinpointed as particularly pronounced within the discourse on the economy. The first is simply that the current institutions and infrastructure are not fit to absorb further population growth. In Nigel Farage’s words, [a]s a small country we simply cannot accommodate the hundreds of thousands who may look to Britain as an opportunity for a more comfortable life. The result will be so much pressure on public services, employment, housing and education that the quality of living in the UK drops for all.25

Or yet again: We have rising youth unemployment, overcrowding in schools and hospitals. We simply cannot afford to have thousands more people coming to live in the UK in January [2014] while we are still trying to patch up our fragile economy.26

The second concern is the much-discussed “benefit tourism” in which migrants allegedly arrive in the UK for the sole purpose of claiming social security benefits at the expense of the British taxpayer. There is a widespread anxiety that according to EU law Bulgarians and Romanians can come to the UK without any intention of working or contributing to the economy, and have entitlement to the same housing and unemployment benefits as British citizens. This issue has been widely discussed in British politics and media, and it has even prompted the Prime Minister to explicitly denounce “benefit tourism” and implement policy changes that make it more difficult for immigrants to claim benefits.27 This discourse on “benefit tourism” has a double logic that needs to be emphasized here. On the one hand, the concept is underpinned by the above-mentioned stereotype of East European fraudulent and unethical behaviour. On the other hand, it is also treated as an economically rational practice that would naturally draw migrants to the UK. Farage makes this last point implicitly in his Channel Four

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documentary when he interviews a wife and husband living in Sofia’s Roma ghetto. When the woman complains that she has no job, rummages through rubbish bins to survive, and faces abuse on a regular basis, Farage answers as follows: “but from next year, if you wanted to, you could move to London where the British government will give you somewhere to live that’s heated, and a chance of work, and you’d be […] financially a lot better off. Do you think that would be attractive to people living here [in the Roma ghetto]?”28 This is no doubt a rhetorical question intended to highlight the inevitability of immigration as a result of poverty in Bulgaria, and the consequences of British open border policy. Thus, when the Roma man tries to retain some dignity in the face of Farage’s patronizing question and answers in the negative, the scene conveys a second point, namely that Bulgarians’ claims about not wanting to immigrate to the UK defy common sense and are most likely false. The third economic concern about immigration is that Bulgarians and Romanians will take jobs that would otherwise go to young British people. This is a problem related to the economy and economic well-being, but also to the social cohesion of communities (see below). As one 2013 news article on UKIP’s website presents the problem: UKIP remains very concerned about the rise in youth unemployment. Youth unemployment has increased by another 15,000 to 973,000. With the prospect of Romania and Bulgaria having the free movement of people next year, UKIP believes that the only way to truly tackle youth unemployment and get our young people back to work is by limiting the number of migrant workers coming in from Eastern Europe.29

Here, once again, David Cameron is aligned with UKIP when he says that “[y]ou cannot blame people for wanting to come here and work hard; but the real answer lies in training our own people to fill these jobs.”30 The point, as I understand it, is that while Bulgarian and Romanian migrants may have good intentions about working hard and being good citizens, they still pose a problem because they marginalize British workers from the labour market and contribute to their unemployment. What is striking about the “benefit tourism” and youth unemployment arguments is that when combined together they form a foolproof attack against immigration and deny the very possibility that immigrants could contribute to the British economy. If Bulgarians and Romanians come to Britain without the intention to work—i.e., if they come to exploit the benefits system—then they are detrimental to the economy and they are not wanted; if, however, they do come with the intention to work, then they are taking jobs away from British youth and are once again

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detrimental, if not to the British economy, then at least to the economic well-being of British young people. Whether immigrants come to work, or whether they come to not work, their presence will have a negative impact all the same. This rationale is far more exclusionary than the earlier discourses of criminality because it encompasses and targets all Bulgarians and Romanians, regardless of their profession, character or intent. It is also far more culturally and ethnically neutral (despite the insulting assumption that Bulgarians and Romanians are “benefit seekers”) because it attempts to pose the issue in terms of real, statistically verifiable economic differences between Britain and Eastern Europe, without making claims to cultural superiority or moral values. The issue here is not that Bulgarians and Romanians are disliked—saying that would be overtly racist and thus socially unacceptable—but rather that their arrival in large numbers cannot be accommodated.

From economy to social cohesion: the problem of the Roma One wonders to what extent the anxiety provoked by Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants is really about economic issues as opposed to something else that is perhaps only expressed and disguised as an economic concern. The reason I say this is because there is substantial evidence that immigrants from East European countries have made a positive economic impact since 2000, and have paid more taxes and used less benefits than British citizens. The positive contribution of East European immigration has been emphasized by high-ranking state officials and publicized by the media,31 but it has not quelled public fears about immigration, and certainly has not convinced right-wingers like Farage. In fact, when confronted with this evidence, Farage has responded by deferring the problem from the domain of the economy to the domain of social cohesion, adding yet another layer to the cultural and economic reasons for closing the borders. Here is how he did this in an interview on BBC Radio Four: If you said to me, would you want to see over the next ten years a further five million people coming to Britain, and if that happened, we would all be slightly richer, I would say “actually, you know what, I’d rather we weren’t slightly richer, and I’d rather we had communities that felt more united, and I’d rather have a situation where young, unemployed British people had a realistic chance of getting a job.” So yes, I do think that the social side of this matters more than pure market economics.32

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It is somewhat unclear where these five million people will come from (perhaps over a quarter of the twenty-nine million Romanians and Bulgarians that he talks about have plans to immigrate to Britain), but the general point is easy enough to grasp: foreigners remain foreign (as opposed to becoming British), they take the jobs of local youth, and they divide communities. In another interview, Farage makes this point even more explicitly, while simultaneously paying lip service to British “multiracial society”: A multiracial society can be harmonious, successful, and in most parts of this country, it is. What I’m afraid we’ve had in the last few years are very large numbers of people coming to Britain who don’t even speak English. When you have that situation, there’s no chance of integration happening within our towns and cities and we finish up with a more divided society.33

Here, we arrive at the logic of “cultural racism” where too much cultural difference and too many immigrants become a threat to community cohesiveness, despite the potential economic benefits. This shift in focus from economy to community coincides with a shift from Bulgarians and Romanians to East European Roma gypsies as the main threat. The integrity and cohesion of British communities is seen as specifically threatened by the East European Roma. This has been highlighted by the Labour MP David Blunkett34 and the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg35 in relation to a specific case in Sheffield, where Roma immigrants from Slovakia have allegedly caused trouble in the community. The Roma, according to local residents, are an isolated group showing no sign of integrating into British life; they are loud and disturb the neighbourhood during late hours, they are always out on the streets, and they do not practice proper waste disposal. The tensions between the Roma and local residents are apparently so severe that Blunkett, the MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, has gone as far as warning that the Roma may cause new race riots in the UK.36 This fear of the Roma, of course, has consequences for Bulgaria and Romania because they have substantial Roma populations that could potentially move to the UK and cause similar trouble in other cities. Thus, the problem is that while immigration may bring an overall economic benefit, one aspect of it—the threat of the Roma—can have disastrous consequences for communities across Britain. In this discourse, the Roma are singled out as the most dangerous group of all the “twenty-nine million poor people in Bulgaria and Romania”: they are stereotyped as anti-social and with little regard for the rules of the communities they move to; they are at the very bottom of the economic ladder; and they are even seen as potential initiators of riots.

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There is an implicit slippage in this discourse from the exclusion of the particular Roma community to the exclusion of Bulgarians and Romanians as a whole. The fact that “the dropping of border controls for Bulgarians and Romanians […] has […] sparked a public outcry about the potential influx of Roma gypsies,”37 is closely tied to arguments against the lifting of working restrictions in 2014. Because of this, fear of the Roma and fear of loosening border controls for Bulgarians and Romanians are often conflated. This slippage takes place in conjunction with the shift described earlier from an economic argument to a social cohesion argument, and it completely nullifies the fact that immigration from Eastern Europe is advantageous. The implicit line of reasoning is as follows: Bulgarian and Romanian immigration as a whole may be economically beneficial, but a part of it—Roma immigration—is socially (as well as economically and culturally) detrimental; consequently, Bulgarian and Romanian immigration as a whole is detrimental and this is why the UK should keep its borders shut. Singling out the Roma in this way, and proposing antiimmigration policies against two entire countries on the grounds of their large Roma populations, is extremely dangerous for at least two reasons: first, this alienates and marginalizes the Roma even further; and second, it will likely make the ethnic majority in Bulgaria and Romania feel excluded from Europe on account of the Roma, leading to even stronger anti-Roma sentiments in these countries. Nigel Farage has tried to preventively clear himself from potential charges of alienating the Roma by shifting the blame to Bulgarians and Romanians, and emphasizing the Roma’s exclusion from mainstream society in these two countries. In an interview on “the Roma threat” posted on his personal blog, Farage claims to sympathize with the Roma’s social and economic conditions and the persecution they suffer in Eastern Europe.38 Yet, when the interviewer asks whether this is not sufficient reason to try to help the Roma as opposed to excluding them even further, Farage—clearly caught by surprise—declares that Britain has enough problems as it is: Farage: I have visited their communities, they are singled out, they are treated about as well as the Jews were in the mid-1930s in Germany. Let’s be frank: these are the circumstances these people are living in in Romania and Bulgaria. If you don't believe me, go and see it, it’s unbelievable. But… Interviewer: Isn’t that a very good case then for taking them? Farage: How many? Half a million? A million? Two million? Three million? I mean what are you suggesting?

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Chapter Eight Interviewer: I mean a very similar debate was had about the Jews in the 1930s. Farage: Well, but they are not—yeah—they are excluded from society, I don’t think because they are excluded from society, they count as refugees. They’re not actually gonna be perse—you know they’re not—they’re not actually being killed, they’re just being treated very badly in their own communities. And whilst I feel sorry for them because I’ve been there and met them, I think the message that has to come from this country is we’ve got enough social problems of our own, without taking on any more.

This astonishing exchange is indicative of the way in which Farage perceives the difference and relationship between the British on the one hand, and Bulgarians, Romanians and Roma, on the other hand. Beneath the layers of cultural, economic and social argumentation, there is a gulf between the two sides that more or less forecloses any form of empathy or ethical commitment towards either the Roma minority or the Bulgarian and Romanian ethnic majority. This is where Farage’s racism comes the closest to exposing itself as such—as the absolute refusal to identify with the other, to put himself in the other’s shoes, or to show genuine concern without implicating negative stereotypes. With respect to the Roma, Farage claims to “feel sorry for them” because they are marginalized in all imaginable ways, but he expresses no willingness whatsoever to improve their condition because, in his words, “they’re not actually being killed.” With respect to the ethnic majority in Bulgaria and Romania, Farage evokes a rather callous double standard: when Bulgarians and Romanians marginalize the Roma, they are compared to German Nazis in the 1930s; yet when Farage marginalizes the same people, it is because Britain has enough problems as it is. Evidently, it does not occur to him that maybe the “poor people in Romania and Bulgaria” turn their backs on an isolated, impoverished, and anti-social Roma community for the same reason as he turns his own back on it—because they have “enough […] problems of [their] own, without taking on any more.” Had this occurred to Farage, and had he been genuinely concerned about the Roma’s condition, he might have approached the issue differently and tried to work with both the Roma and the ethnic majority in Romania and Bulgaria, as opposed to shutting the doors to both and portraying them as lesser human beings.

Conclusion This essay argues that the anti-immigration campaign against Bulgarians and Romanians is based on three main logics of exclusion, revolving

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around (1) cultural stereotypes of criminality, (2) the economic disparity between the UK and Eastern Europe, and (3) British social cohesion and the threat of community fragmentation. These logics can converge upon one another to form complex and multi-layered representations of immigrants (the fraudulent and poor “benefit seeker,” the impoverished Roma who disrupts community life), and they can also act as fail-safes for one another (e.g., when immigration proves economically beneficial and the focus is shifted to the problem of social cohesion). As someone reluctant to reduce all immigration anxiety to racism, I think we ought to be cautious when dispensing accusations of racism against politicians and people who want to see immigration reduced. Yet, I also think that the contradictions, slippages, and deferrals of the anti-immigration discourses discussed here should alert us that the apparently neutral languages of economic sustainability or community cohesion often conceal xenophobia, ethical indifference, and a stubborn refusal to give up one’s fear of otherness.

Notes 1

These were Portugal, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Malta. 2 David Cameron, “Free Movement within Europe Needs to be Less Free”, Financial Times, November 26, 2013, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/add36222-56be11e3-ab12-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2s01x8TSk (accessed January 30, 2014). 3 Patrick Wintour, “Nigel Farage: Ukip Wants Five-Year Ban on Immigrants Settling in the UK”, The Guardian, January 7, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/07/ukip-ban-immigrants-nigelfarage (accessed January 30, 2014). 4 Alison Little and Martyn Brown, “Join Our Crusade Today... Stop New EU Migrants Flooding into Britain”, Daily Express, October 31, 2013, http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/440206/Join-our-Crusade-today-stop-new-EUmigrants-flooding-in-to-Britain (accessed January 30, 2014). 5 Viviane Reading, quoted in Bruno Waterfield and Matthew Holehouse, “David Cameron ‘Lying to British Voters’ about the EU and Immigration, Viviane Reading Claims”, The Telegraph, January 10, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10562740/DavidCameron-lying-to-British-voters-about-the-EU-and-immigration-Viviane-Redingclaims.html (accessed January 30, 2014). 6 Elizabeth Rigby, “Ukip More Popular than the Tories, Shows Poll”, Financial Times, January 19, 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30bc428e-80f0-11e3-95aa00144feab7de.html#axzz2qqQ9n0J1 (accessed, January 30, 2014); Jane Merrick and John Rentoul, “Ukip Tops Independent on Sunday Poll as the Nation’s Favourite Party”, The Independent, January 19, 2014,

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-tops-independent-on-sundaypoll-as-the-nations-favourite-party-9069625.html (accessed January 30, 2014). 7 NatCen Social Research, “Attitudes to Immigration”, in British Social Attitudes 30 Report (London, UK: NatCen Social Research, 2013), http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/205569/immigration-bsa31.pdf. 8 Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 242. 9 Steven Vertovec and Susanne Wessendorf (eds.), The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices (New York: Routledge, 2010). 10 Martin Barker, The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe (Frederick: University Publications of America, 1981); Etienne Balibar, “Is there a ‘Neo-Racism’?”, in Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, eds. Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (London: Verso, 1991); Verena, Stolcke, “Talking Culture: New Boundaries, New Rhetorics of Exclusion in Europe”, Current Anthropology 36 (1995); Ralph Grillo, “Cultural Essentialism and Cultural Anxiety”, Anthropological Theory 3 (2003). 11 Balibar, “Neo-Racism”, 21. 12 Ralph Grillo, “British and Others: From ‘Race’ to ‘Faith’”, in Vertovec and Wessendorf (eds.), The Multiculturalism Backlash; Justin Gest, Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West (New York, Columbia University Press, 2010). 13 Ralph Grillo, “An Excess of Alterity? Debating Difference in a Multicultural Society”, Ethnic and Racial Studies 3 (2007), 984. 14 Ibid., 987. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah and Laurence Cooley, “Stemming the Flow? The Causes and Consequences of the UK's ‘Closed Door’ Policy towards Romanians and Bulgarians”, in Accession and Migration: Changing Policy, Society, and Culture in an Enlarged Europe, eds. John Eade and Yordanka Valkanova (Surrey: Ashgate 2009); see also “Hughes Resigns over Visa Scam Row”, BBC News, April 1, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3589131.stm (accessed January 30, 2014). 18 Farage, quoted in “Farage: Romanian Crime Epidemic in London and UK Cities,” BBC News, April 24, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics22280749 (accessed January 30, 2014). 19 “Open Borders: British voters will deliver verdict next May— @GerardBattenMEP @UKIP,” Youtube video, 1:06, from an intervention of Gerard Batten in the European Parliament, posted by “UKIP MEPs”, January 15, 2014, http://youtu.be/uolKMc2Ie1o (accessed February 20, 2014). 20 Cameron, “Free Movement”. 21 Simon Murphy and Maria Avramova, “Exposed: Bulgarian Fixers Tell New Arrivals to UK... We will Fake Documents so You Can Claim Benefits”, Mail Online, January 4, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2533889/ Exposed-Bulgarian-fixers-tell-new-arrivals-UK-We-fake-documents-claimbenefits.html (accessed January 30, 2014).

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Cameron, “Free Movement”. Nigel Farage: Interview by John Humphrys. Today, BBC Radio Four, January 7, 2014. 24 See Jonathan Rugman, “Immigration Nation: Nigel Farage’s Bulgaria Trip— Video,” Channel Four News, April 23, 2013, http://www.channel4.com/news/nigel-farage-ukip-immigration-bulgaria-romaniavideo (accessed January 30, 2014). 25 Giles Sheldrick, “Nigel Farage Praises the Daily Express for Highlighting Britain’s Immigration Problem”, Daily Express, January 12, 2014, http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/453474/Nigel-Farage-praises-the-DailyExpress-for-highlighting-Britain-s-immigrationcrisis?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+da ily-express-uk-news+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+UK+Feed%29 (accessed January 30, 2014). 26 “UKIP Backs Daily Express Petition on EU Migration”, UK Independence Party, http://www.ukip.org/newsroom/news/979-ukip-backs-daily-expresspetition-on-eu-migration (accessed January 30, 2014). 27 “David Cameron Defiant over Tougher EU Benefit Plans”, BBC News, November 27, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25114890 (accessed January 30, 2014). 28 See Rugman, “Immigration Nation”. 29 “UKIP Concerned over Youth Unemployment”, UK Independence Party, http://www.ukip.org/newsroom/news/760-ukip-concerned-about-rising-youthunemployment (accessed January 30, 2014). 30 Cameron, “Free Movement”. 31 Christian Dustmann and Tommaso Frattini, “The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK”, (Discussion Paper Series 22/13, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, University College London, UK, 2013); James Kirkup, “Immigration has Positive Impact, Says Office for Budget Responsibility Head”, The Telegraph, January 14, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10570839/Immigrationhas-a-positive-impact-says-Office-for-Budget-Responsibility-head.html (accessed January 30, 2010); Steven Swinford, “Bulgarians and Romanians will Pay More Tax than British ‘Natives’”, The Telegraph, January 7, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10557284/Bulgarians-andRomanians-will-pay-more-tax-than-British-natives.html (accessed January 30, 2014). 32 Nigel Farage interview by John Humprys. 33 “Ukip Leader Condemns Council’s Foster Care Decision”, Youtube video, 5:09, posted by “Channel Four News”, November 24, 2012, http://youtu.be/wUwbFr4WaE (accessed February 20, 2014). 34 “David Blunkett Riot Fear over Roma Migrant Tensions”, BBC News, November 12, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24909979 (accessed January 30, 2014). 23

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“Roma Immigrants Must Behave Sensitively, Says Nick Clegg,” BBC News, November 14, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24944572 (accessed January 30, 2014). 36 “David Blunkett”, BBC News. 37 Myranda Prynne, “Cameron to Clamp Down on Migrants’ Rights to Benefits”, The Telegraph, November, 23, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10469625/ Cameron-to-clamp-down-on-migrants-rights-to-benefits.html (accessed January 30, 2014). 38 “Nigel Farage and Peter Oborne Discuss the Roma Threat”, Nigel Farage Blog, http://nigel-farage.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/nigel-farage-peter-oborne-discussroma.html (accessed January 30, 2014).

PART THREE: ETHNIC, BODILY AND SEXUAL IDENTITIES

CHAPTER NINE FROM FOOLS TO VILLAINS: CHANGES IN THE CHARACTERIZATION OF AN ETHNIC STEREOTYPE ANNA-LEENA KORPIJÄRVI

Introduction An inscrutable Chinese laundryman and a sinister yellow villain are two archetypes that come to mind when thinking of Chinese stereotypes. This essay examines how the “Chinese character”1 has been depicted in American popular literature, and how its development reflects the social and political climate in the United States and China. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, using Literary Studies and East Asian studies in an effort to provide a detailed analysis of the development of the “Chinese character” in selected popular fiction. The two characters discussed herein have typically been stereotyped to the extreme, warping them into almost unrecognizable and clownish caricatures of the ethnic group they are supposed to represent. This stereotyping, while recognized as racist, is nevertheless pervasive and endures in one form or another in popular entertainment media. This essay examines the sudden change at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in Chinese characterization, from a heathen trickster into a “yellow villain”, and seeks to explain why this change occurred relatively suddenly. This is achieved by examining two iconic characters, John Chinaman and Fu-Manchu, that shaped the representation of the Chinese in a way that has continued to this day. I discuss FuManchu only in the American cultural context: while I am aware of his British origins and his cultural influence in Europe, they are outside the scope of this essay. Firstly I establish and define these characters and bring them into a cultural and historical framework, which, I argue, was the driving force behind the sudden change. Secondly I answer the question of why the change occurred at this specific time, by positing that historical

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and political events in the United States, such as the California Gold Rush and the Anti-Chinese Movement, and in China, the Boxer Uprising (18991901), were central to the sudden shift from one extreme to another. The theoretical framework of the essay lies in Postcolonialism, which provides the necessary critical tools to assess this shift as represented in popular fiction, and to put it in the context of colonial discourse. Postcolonialism investigates the legacy of colonialism and imperialism, including the concept of “Othering” and power relationships or hierarchies. These issues are central to the development of Chinese characters in American popular fiction. Edward W. Said’s Orientalism provides additional insights in interpreting and examining material written from a colonialist perspective. However, Said does not devote much discussion to East Asia or China; therefore, it is necessary to discuss critical works in this paper which apply Orientalism in a Chinese setting, and thus critics such as Arif Dirlik and Zhang Longxi are included. In the context of this essay it is crucial to define both a stereotype and the “Other”. A stereotype and the “Other” have many interlinking qualities. They both function, according to Michael Pickering, as symbolic strategies of containment and risk. Furthermore they attempt to contain and combine contrary themes.2 In addition to this a stereotype is a hierarchy of power.3 Moreover a literary stereotype can be defined as a reproduction of an earlier image without the addition of anything new or creative.4 Previous studies are rather dismissive of the two characters discussed in this essay. They have been seen solely as racist stereotypes, often excluding further observations. Moreover, in the fields of Literary Studies and Asian American Studies, the characters have often not been considered important enough to investigate further than this, due to their roots in pulp and popular literature. This essay does not attempt to tackle the wide spectrum of American popular literature that features Chinese characters and all of the imagery attributed to them. Instead, it uses John Chinaman and Fu-Manchu as representations of the two phases of the stereotype, and through them and a selection of textual examples from popular fiction examines the developmental phases of the “Chinese character”. The purpose of this essay is to provide the field with a new perspective on the development of early fictional representations of the Chinese in the United States. Of the two characters, Fu-Manchu has been studied primarily as a racist stereotype, while John Chinaman has received little scholarly attention. They have not been studied as part of larger socio-cultural developments in the United States, or as forms of representation from an Anglo-American perspective. In addition, very

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little attention has been paid to the connection between historical and political events in China and the development of the Chinese image in the United States.

John Chinaman: the original houseboy John Chinaman was not created by any single author, but is rather an amalgam of a stock caricature and national stereotype. He appeared in a variety of media, from advertisements to illustrations and popular fiction; despite not originating as a fully fleshed-out character, he was so widely used that, over time, he eventually developed into one. In many ways he became the image of the ultimate Other.5 John Chinaman is a representation of all the stereotypes that Anglo-Americans associated with the Chinese. The majority of these stereotypes were highly negative and their purpose was to influence public opinion of the Chinese concerning current political issues such as colonialism, labour, immigration and interracial relationships. It can be argued that literature is a powerful force in shaping opinion with regards to culture as well as national and ethnic identity. The effects of popular literature on the Chinese minority in nineteenth-century USA reflect this observation. John Chinaman usually featured in social commentary concerned with issues and social problems relating to the Chinese, particularly, cheap labour, the California Gold Rush (1848-1855) and interracial marriage. Thus, the material featuring him can be divided into these three key themes. They shaped his characterization, and through him, the image of the Chinese as an ethnic group. As a character John Chinaman was portrayed as the opposite of whiteness in every respect.6 His characterization included qualities such as inscrutability, femininity, childishness, foolishness and cunning. He was typically depicted as a physically diminutive and effeminate or even girlish little man, whose facial features resembled more an ape or a monkey than a human being.7 This physical “otherness” sets him apart from a traditional Western interpretation of masculinity.8 John Chinaman was most often depicted as a passive or economic threat, who could be controlled. He is not openly threatening or physically violent, in contrast to the uncontrollable alien force popular during the early twentieth century. His name became associated with the Chinese as an ethnic group, and Chinese immigrants in California were commonly referred to as John.9 The Chinese were not the only group that was referred to in such a way; in fact, John Chinaman is not dissimilar from other national stereotypes, such as John Bull and Jack Tar.10 It is difficult to

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determine when the name became associated with a caricature, or which author first made the transition, but during the latter half of the nineteenth century songs, poems and caricatures featuring John Chinaman began to circulate widely, not only in California, but nationally as well. By 1849 the Gold Rush had begun in earnest, and California was soon flooded with hopeful miners-to-be, of whom the Chinese formed a small group.11 The Gold Rush brought the Chinese into the public eye in a primarily negative light. Although they were by no means the only immigrant group to mine for gold, or the largest, they became personified as targets of aggression, jealousy and disappointment. This was reflected in popular fiction, which portrayed the Chinese as thieves and swindlers on the gold fields, while Anglo-American miners languished emptyhanded. “The National Miner” is one of the most popular and widelyknown examples of this type of fiction.12 Cheap labour (or coolie labour) quickly developed from a perceived social problem into a volatile political issue. The Chinese, driven from the gold fields through legislation, discrimination and violence, moved to menial labour and the more dangerous jobs offered on the transcontinental railroad to earn a living. This development was widely reflected in popular media as well, which was later used as fodder against the Chinese in antiChinese propaganda. In this context popular fiction became the instrument of an Orientalist political power play.13 The Anti-Chinese movement (at its most active from 1854-1882)14 began over the issue of contract labour, but in the 1870s it developed into a national movement which opposed Chinese immigration, labour, entrepreneurship and naturalization.15 Songs such as “John Chinaman” and “John Chinaman My Jo” referenced AngloAmerican sentiments towards coolie labour.16 None reached the phenomenal popularity of Bret Harte’s misappropriated “Plain Language from Truthful James”, which was an overnight success and became the most popular American poem of its time.17 Despite Harte’s subtle proChinese message, the poem was soon adopted as an anthem by the AntiChinese movement.18 The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a groundbreaking piece of immigration legislation: to date, it is the only law in the United States to ban entry from a specific ethnic group. It banned the entry of Chinese labourers into the United States for the next ten years, and was repeatedly renewed. The Exclusion Act had several incarnations until 1943, when it was repealed. However, only after the Immigration Act of 1965 did legislation shift towards a less restrictive policy on Chinese immigration.19 The Exclusion Act can be seen as an exercise of Orientalist political power and control.20

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John Chinaman is portrayed as sexually ambiguous, shifting between asexuality and homosexuality, and occasionally assuming the role of a seducer. His contradictory sexuality is typically connected with criminality, through association with drug use. He is not portrayed as masculine by Anglo-American standards, but rather as a womanish weakling (an image which resulted from the Chinese on the frontier assuming “women’s work”, such as cooking and washing clothes, that no white man would voluntarily do).21 Moreover, the Chinese immigrant population in the United States was overwhelmingly male, which led to speculations of both promiscuity and homosexuality. This disparity in the gender ratio was due to the social conventions and political policies of the Qing Empire rather than sexual preference or corruption.22 However, it had an irredeemable effect on the image of Chinese men as deviants who existed outside conventional definitions of masculinity. Many poems and stories describe John Chinaman’s impotent attempts at seducing AngloAmerican women or deceiving them into marriage, such as Adeline Knapp’s “Ways that Are Dark” and J.W. Conner’s “Marriage of John Chinaman”.23 The contradictory nature of John Chinaman’s sexuality is also evident in his presentation as an object of forbidden desire, and this was seemingly reflected through marriages between Irish women and Chinese men.24 Despite the fears and anxieties concerning the sexuality and corrupt nature of John Chinaman, the threat he posed to white womanhood is presented in popular media as passive, and he is never able to successfully consummate his desire. While the relationships between Irish women and Chinese men were seen as threatening, they did not truly uproot the social and racial structure of nineteenth-century Anglo-American society. The Irish were barred entry into the ranks of white Anglo-Saxons, and thus their miscegenation, while unnerving, was not a true threat. Moreover, despite John Chinaman’s Oriental allure, his lack of true masculinity ensured that his affairs with white women would remain unconsummated. By the end of the nineteenth century, political unrest and violence in China forced both the United States and Britain to re-evaluate their existing attitudes towards and stereotypes of the Chinese. The passive, foolish but relatively harmless John Chinaman no longer fitted changing worldviews in the context of the Yellow Peril. He was soon to be replaced by a more modern stereotype, a fiendish “Devil Doctor”. One of the last appearances of his name occurs in 1913, in Dickinson G. Lowes’s Letters from John Chinaman.

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Fu-Manchu The turn of the century signalled the end of an era of sorts, and John Chinaman’s time as the ruling Chinese stereotype was coming to a close. While Chinese villains in crime-ridden Chinatowns had become more common during the late nineteenth century, they had not completely replaced John Chinaman as a stereotype. Several causes have been suggested for the gradual shift from John Chinaman’s passive foolishness to the active violence of yellow villains, such as the archetype of a sinister Chinatown in popular fiction. However, previous study has not reached any consensus on the issue. I propose that a shift occurred at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which permanently changed Chinese ethnic stereotyping in popular fiction; the cause of this shift was the political and social impact of the Boxer Uprising (1899-1901). This changed the image of China and the Chinese forever in the mind of the West. A stereotype was needed that was essentially more believable in the new political context, to replace the outdated John Chinaman. The rebellion occurred soon after the idea of the Yellow Peril (a term usually attributed to Kaiser Wilhelm)25 had gained popularity in Europe, which only further fuelled the newfound fear and distrust towards the Chinese. The Boxers were not taken seriously at first, primarily because of their poor rural background, and the general opinion in the West was that the Chinese were too lazy and disorganized to keep the movement (or anything else) going for long. However, the Boxer Uprising ultimately shook the foundations of European supremacy in China and forced the West to face the possibility that the Chinese were not a lethargic, passive and harmless mass who could be managed without much effort.26 Portrayals of the Chinese began to stress their active danger. The reasons for this were the Boxers’ brutality towards foreigners, their fanaticism, and their rejection of technology, which gave them a more threatening image in the West.27 By August 1900, two hundred foreigners had died in skirmishes around the Diplomatic Quarter in Beijing.28 This in itself was significant, because China had been perceived as a stable and safe colony. The Yellow Peril had become manifest and real; it was no longer merely paranoid speculation of Sino-Japanese conspiracies and European powers harnessing yellow hordes as their armies. The Boxer Uprising changed China’s image in the West; as Preston argues, “Boxers, indeed all Chinese, seemed the personification of alien superstition, xenophobia and cruelty”.29 The change that the Boxers initiated was not only socio-political, but cultural. The Chinese no longer saw white Westerners as an indomitable

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force, while white Westerners saw the Chinese in a new and threatening light. They could no longer be akin to the foolish, lazy and controllable John Chinaman, for they had been transformed into something altogether more sinister. It is in this context that Fu-Manchu’s emergence should be understood. As the first internationally-known villainous Chinese character, the Devil Doctor (as he is also known) is represented as the embodiment of villainy.30 Fu-Manchu was conceived by the freelance reporter and author Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, who used the pseudonym Sax Rohmer. (Although Rohmer originally set his Fu-Manchu thrillers in London and wrote for a British audience, the setting was shifted from Great Britain to the United States after the first three novels, when he moved to the latter for financial reasons.) Rohmer created his iconic villain when the Yellow Peril fear was at its height. Although his interest in, and knowledge of, the Chinese was minimal at best, the fact that he wrote about “Orientals” (which according to Cay Van Ash and Elizabeth Sax Rohmer meant anything east of Istanbul) also qualified him to write about the Chinese.31 Rohmer’s observation that the time was right for a Chinese villain was astute, as the Yellow Peril was creating paranoia and widespread distrust towards the Chinese as an ethnic group, simultaneously providing an audience for Rohmer’s Devil Doctor. National stereotyping requires the audience to willingly suspend disbelief, and ethnic authenticity was rarely a concern in early twentieth-century popular writing.32 Furthermore at the time all nonWestern cultures were represented as having little or no individual variation, and this applied especially in the context of East Asia.33 Tales of Chinese villains lurking in Chinatowns became a popular genre, first in magazines and then, during the 1920s, in films.34 The mystery and thrill of imaginary Chinatowns had resonated with the threat of the Yellow Peril since the late nineteenth century. Rohmer tapped into this growing trend and was the first to truly popularize it, by having FuManchu inhabit these dreaded dens of scum and villainy as his lairs.35 The Devil Doctor represents a dramatic change from the harmless and foolish John Chinaman, as the stereotype shifts from one extreme to the other. John Chinaman embodies non-threatening and almost comic qualities, whereas Fu-Manchu cuts a menacing and sinister figure wrapped in mystery. Whereas John Chinaman never presents a real threat to the stability of white society, Fu-Manchu threatens to conquer the West and enslave it under “yellow sovereignty”, reversing the hierarchy of power between East and West. Although John Chinaman haplessly dominated the labour force and even skewed sexual and gender roles, he would never be able to fundamentally change white Christian society in a permanent way.

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The threat he posed, although real enough, was passive, and thus easily thwarted and ultimately overcome by his “betters”. This enforced the traditional consensus held by the West towards the Orient: it was infinitely decadent and alien, but ultimately incapable of action, and in constant need of guidance that only the West could provide. It was merely an extension of Western power.36 Fu-Manchu was the most memorable of several Chinese villains popular in the 1910s and 1920s. Although the readership of Rohmer’s thrillers eventually dwindled, he wrote thirteen Fu-Manchu novels over the course of almost fifty years, beginning with The Devil Doctor (1913) and ending with Emperor Fu-Manchu (1959), which described the insidious Devil Doctor’s attempts at world domination. This last instalment in the series is the only novel actually set in China. Rohmer’s initial success was in Europe, but it quickly spread to the United States, where both his and Fu-Manchu’s fame would peak.37 Despite fear of the Yellow Peril being replaced over time by the equally strong fear of communism, the Fu-Manchu stories retained their popularity. This was mostly due to Rohmer’s bestselling formula, around which all of the stories were centred: Fu-Manchu’s attempts to conquer the Western world and found his Yellow Empire.38 Although Rohmer taps into the Yellow Peril and the fear it incited in the West, his novels are not truly political. Nonetheless, he does refer to historical events of political significance, such as the Boxer Uprising; in fact, he even gives the rebellion a fictionalized spin in The Devil Doctor, according to which the missionary Pastor Dan actually caused it: In appearance he was indeed a typical English churchman; but in China he had been known as “the fighting missionary” and had fully deserved the title. In fact this powerful looking gentleman had directly brought about the Boxer Risings!39

However, Rohmer leaves out major international political events; the First World War, for example, is not mentioned in any of the novels. Due to this approach, the Fu-Manchu thrillers appear to exist almost outside of time. Rohmer instils Yellow Peril fear at the very beginning of The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu, by describing China as a rising Eastern power.40 This reversed traditional power structures and created additional thrills for Rohmer’s audience, by referring to China with a term that was, with the exception of Japan, reserved only for Western colonizing nations. Rohmer played on common fears in the early 1910s and 1920s of Chinese drug lords seducing upper-class women and effeminate men into corruption and ruin.41 While the Fu-Manchu thrillers appear unaffected by

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current events, they do, nevertheless, integrate and enhance the uncertainty and distrust felt by the West towards the Chinese. They adapted to changes in real-world politics by obscuring Fu-Manchu’s political agenda, and by gradually distancing him from his anti-imperialist roots. Fu-Manchu, along with Doctor Moriarty, is one of the earliest supervillains in modern popular literature. Rohmer’s Yellow Peril thrillers were clearly influenced by Sherlock Holmes’ adventures in many ways, with Fu-Manchu’s ruthless villainy, reminiscent of that of Doctor Moriarty’s, being only one aspect of this relationship. Fu-Manchu is the supreme villain, but in order for his villainy to have any impact, he requires an equally powerful hero who is capable of thwarting his sinister machinations. This is the role reserved for the Holmesesque detective Denis Nayland Smith, the ex-Burmese Commissioner, who gallantly defends the British Empire against the fiendish Devil Doctor and his yellow hordes: No man was better equipped than this gaunt British Commissioner to stand between society and the menace of the Yellow Doctor; I [Petrie] respected his mediations, for, unlike my own they were informed by an intimate knowledge of the dark and secret things of the East, of that mysterious East out of which Fu-Manchu came, of that jungle of noxious things whose miasma had been wafted Westward with the impeccable Chinaman.42

Just as Sherlock Holmes has aid in the form of Dr Watson, Smith has Dr Petrie: a Watson-inspired candid narrator, who (like his role model) is always one step behind the detective.43 In fact, it can be argued that Rohmer duplicates the idea of the ingenious detective and his sidekick virtually to the letter, and the parallel is almost comically obvious.44 The two British heroes pitted against the evil Chinese doctor reflect Orientalist attitudes in both their characterization and opposition. Moreover, the British official Smith and the criminal, traitor and rebel Fu-Manchu fulfil all the criteria of a standard hero-and-villain pairing.45 Fu-Manchu deviates distinctly from the typical “Chinese character” by being civilized by Western standards: he has an education from a Western university and wields power provided by science. In this sense he is an equal, whereas John Chinaman is an inferior. In addition to this, where John Chinaman is often left without a voice of his own, or encumbered by mangled pidgin, Fu-Manchu experiences no such obstacles. He is articulate and speaks several languages flawlessly. Furthermore he has a striking physical presence, which all of the characters who encounter him react to. Their response is always the same, a mixture of revulsion and fear.46 Otherwise he embodies the stereotypical sensual, corrupt and

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infinitely devious Oriental. Although Rohmer created a new kind of “Chinese character” and the quintessential Chinese villain, Fu-Manchu is still very much an Orientalist representation. Like John Chinaman, FuManchu and his Oriental minions are described as, or compared to animals.47 While Smith and Petrie both reflect the Victorian ideal of the Christian, honest, upstanding hero, their nemesis is a terrifying combination of Western education and Oriental inscrutability. He is in fact a hybrid form of combined fears; linking the Yellow Peril with an educated Oriental creates a disturbing otherness which goes against existing stereotypes of Oriental passivity and single-mindedness. Although Fu-Manchu makes only a few appearances in the Fu-Manchu thrillers, Petrie and Smith constantly (almost obsessively) discuss him and his scheming. Fu-Manchu is a representative of the ruling mandarin class in China, and unlike any popular fictional Chinese figure before him, he has received a Western education.48 John Chinaman is always a member of the lower working-class. He is an immigrant without education or understanding. The Devil Doctor, by contrast, is referred to as “the most stupendous genius that ever worked for evil”.49 The English language poses no obstacle to him, and he uses it as deftly as any other tool he wields in his impressive arsenal: “He is a linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any of the civilized languages, and in most of the barbaric”.50 He uses Western resources and science against their creators without a second thought. Where John Chinaman was a clear subordinate to the dominant white society, Fu-Manchu is not as easily definable. Rohmer portrays him in a traditionally Oriental way in the sense that he is as passive physically as John Chinaman. Although Rohmer modernized his Chinese villain, he nevertheless incorporated traditional Chinese stereotypes into the figure of Fu-Manchu. Rohmer often represents him erotically, almost always depicting him as lying down among luxurious carpets and cushions, surrounded by exotic Oriental furniture, often helpless in an opium haze.51 Fu-Manchu shares other typical traits associated with Orientals beyond his apparent submissiveness. James Hevia observes that he is “clever, cunning, insensitive to his own pain and that of others, cruel, industrious and pragmatic”.52 While he possesses stereotypical Oriental vices, such as decadence and an addiction to opium, he is nevertheless eerily charming when he wants to be. Although Fu-Manchu keeps his word of honour he is still as childish and superstitious as any other stereotyped Oriental.53 Masculinity—how East and West manifest it, with the Western version always victorious—is a recurrent theme in the Fu-Manchu thrillers, as it is

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in the John Chinaman stories. Rohmer illustrates this contrast of masculinity by juxtaposing Fu-Manchu’s “yellow East” with Smith’s “pure and strong West”.54 Rohmer’s comparison between East and West mirrors the juxtaposition between Self and Other, where Smith stands for the familiar and Fu-Manchu represents the alien.55 Fu-Manchu’s sexual ambiguity is not dissimilar to John Chinaman’s; however, he is not a seducer in the same sense. Although he does use drugs as one of his methods of corruption, he does not seduce his victims sexually. FuManchu prefers coercion, blackmail and even bribery. He, like Smith, is above and beyond sexual temptation, and his physical grotesqueness makes seduction almost impossible. Thus, Fu-Manchu appears to be even more asexual than John Chinaman, and he does not have any liaisons. The only person he has any passion for in the novels is Smith, and their relationship, which is highly antagonistic and adversarial, appears to have an erotic undertone.56 Smith’s ongoing obsession with the Chinese doctor is significant because he does not express such devotion or inverted passion towards any other character in the novels. The only priority Smith has is to capture Fu-Manchu and protect the British Empire. He has eliminated all romantic distractions from his life in order to pursue this goal. His masculinity is not called into question, as Fu-Manchu’s continually is; yet Fu-Manchu, despite his weak feminine demeanour, is the only part of the Orient that Smith continually fails to dominate and conquer, and is thus a continual source of frustration. Nevertheless, Smith’s manhood is not questioned as long as his goal is to conquer FuManchu.57 There has been some debate over the racist nature of Fu-Manchu and even the racist intentions of his creator. According to Rohmer’s biographers he never intended Fu-Manchu to be racist in nature; they see the Devil Doctor as a creation of the Yellow Peril atmosphere at the time. Scholars have argued that Rohmer’s imperialist fantasies were similar to those in the Bulldog Drummond stories and other contemporary texts, also pointing out that Fu-Manchu is a product of his age, rather than a deliberate racist attack. Therefore given the popularity of Chinese villains at the beginning of the twentieth century, the durability of Fu-Manchu is exceptional, and he can be seen as a manifestation of the imagined divide between East and West.58 What makes Fu-Manchu remarkable as an Oriental villain is that he has no qualms about stooping to violence, and even murder, to reach his ultimate goal of world domination. However, no matter what the heroes believe or how desperate their situation seems, Fu-Manchu is by no means invincible, and Smith and Petrie thwart his attempts at world domination

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at every turn. His status as a terrifying master criminal is in a way compromised by the fact that he can never win; although white audiences wanted to read Yellow Peril thrillers, and especially ones featuring FuManchu, they did not want to see Orientals triumph over the West. Thus Fu-Manchu is invariably stuck in a narrative in which his nefarious machinations are ultimately fruitless, and his threat of world domination is impotent. The change from John Chinaman to Fu-Manchu, therefore, does not mean that the old image was simply replaced by a new one. Instead of replacing an outdated version of the “Chinese character”, a new stereotype arose alongside it, which was in some ways the polar opposite of the old one.59 Thus the new “Chinese character” still contains recognizable similarities with the old stereotype; yet at the same time it remains an independent entity.

Conclusion Early Chinese stereotypes in American popular literature can roughly be divided into two, the passive fool and the yellow villain. This apparently clear division can be made because of an abrupt change in Chinese stereotyping at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the polar opposition between the two stereotypes. This essay has examined the origins of both types of “Chinese characters” and discussed their appearances in American popular media. Furthermore it has reviewed their cultural use and impact, as well as the influence of historical and political events on their development and use. While other critics have seen the change in development as more gradual and focused their attention almost exclusively on developments in the United States, this essay has argued that the change was sped up by political events and upheavals in China, specifically, the Boxer Uprising. The widely-publicized violence of the Boxers and the already-brewing fear of the Yellow Peril ignited a widespread and active fear of the Chinese. John Chinaman, the old stereotype, became suddenly outdated and was eventually fully replaced by Fu-Manchu, who was the most culturally influential and popular character in the new trend for Chinese villains. Although Fu-Manchu represented a new era in stereotyping, expanding the scope of Yellow Peril fears to include the whole Western world, he was nevertheless a product of an Orientalist imagination. He is not wholly without resemblance to John Chinaman, and exhibits many core elements present in the “Chinese character”, such as sensuality, passivity and inscrutability. Rohmer’s villain found an international audience, with a rampant fear of a conquering East, at a time when the atrocities of the Boxers were still

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fresh in people’s minds. Fu-Manchu embodied these new fears and anxieties: he was represented as violent, intelligent (even more so than any white man), with a capability and willingness to take over the world. John Chinaman and Fu-Manchu thus represent the two opposite extremes of the “Chinese character”, a general purpose stereotype. Without the wide publicity of the Boxer Uprising and the influence of the Yellow Peril as an ideology, this abrupt development in the “Chinese character” would not have occurred at this time, or as quickly as it did.

Notes 1

The term comes from a stock stereotype used in nineteenth-century print media. This grouped all Asian minorities under a negatively generalized “Asian character” encompassing “typical” behaviour and traits from any Asian ethnic group. It was used to steer public opinion towards the Chinese in an increasingly negative direction, and to support anti-Asian (and specifically anti-Chinese) agendas (Rachel C. Lee, “Journalistic Representations of Asian Americans and Literary Responses,” in An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, ed. KingKok Cheung (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 251. 2 Pickering, Michael, Stereotyping, The Politics of Representation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), xi. 3 Ibid., 3. 4 Wu, William F., The Yellow Peril: Chinese Americans in American Fiction, 1850-1940 (Connecticut, Archon), 3. 5 Zhang, Longxi, “The Myth of the Other: China in the Eyes of the West”. Critical Inquiry 15.1 (Autumn 1988), 110. 6 Said, Edward W., Orientalism (London: Clay Ltd, 1978), 38. 7 Tchen, New York Before Chinatown, 271. 8 Blue, Gregory, “Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the “Yellow Peril,” and the critique of modernity.” Journal of World History 10.3 (1999), 101. 9 Cheng-Tsu Wu, “Chink!” (New York: World Publishing Company, 1972), 2. 10 Tchen, New York Before Chinatown, 231. John Bull was a national stereotype of Great Britain in general and England especially. Jack Tar was a stereotype of sailors in the Merchant or Royal Navy. 11 Ibid., 170. 12 John A Stone, “The National Miner”, in Put’s Original California Songster, 1854, www.manifest-history.org/californiacolumnResearch/music/TheNationaMiner (accessed November 10, 2010). 13 Dirlik, Arif, “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism.” History and Theory, Volume 35, Number 4 (December 1996), 99. 14 Avakian, Monique, Atlas of Asian American History (New York: Checkmark Books, 2002), 43. 15 Tchen, New York Before Chinatown, 170.

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Anonymous, “John Chinaman”, in The California Songster 1855, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/baker/w3630/edit/chinpoem.html (accessed February 23, 2014). J.W. Conner, “John Chinaman My Jo”, in Conner’s Irish Songbook, 1868, http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiJOHNAND7;ttJOHNAND.html (accessed February 23, 2014). 17 Harte, Bret, “Plain Language from Truthful James.” Overland Monthly, September 1870, URL: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/ahj1472.1-05.003 ?node=ahj1472.1-05.003:14&view=text&seq=283&size=100 (accessed November 4, 2013), 287–288. Gary Scharnhorst, Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 52. 18 Scharnhorst, Bret Harte, 53. Scharnhorst, Gary. “‘Ways That Are Dark’: Appropriations of Bret Harte’s ‘Plain Language from Truthful James’” NineteenthCentury Literature 3 (1996), 378, 380, 386. 19 Avakian, Atlas of Asian American History, 51. Tchen, New York Before Chinatown, 278. 20 Dirlik “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism”, 111-1122. 21 Prasso, Sheridan. The Asian Mystique Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls & Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), 103. 22 Metzger, Sean , “Charles Parsloe’s Chinese Fetish: an Example of Yellow Face Performance in Nineteenth-Century American Melodrama”, Theatre Journal 56 (2004), 632. 23 Knapp, Adeline, “The Ways That Are Dark.” San Francisco Sunday Call, 18 August, 1895, 16:1-3. Conner, J.W. “Marriage of John Chinaman”, in Conner’s Irish Songbook, www.sniffnumachi.com/pages/tiHOHNAND7.html. 24 Lee, Robert, G., Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999), 10. 25 “The Yellow Peril” (die gelbe Gefahr) was coined by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany at the end of the nineteenth century (Lee, Orientals, 246). It refers to fears (in both Europe and the United States) of a large-scale Asian invasion of Europe, which would be a form of counter-colonialism. There was speculation that Germany or some other European power would lead a united army of Chinese and Japanese soldiers to conquer Europe. It was also feared that faceless Asians would eventually flow into the civilized West and threaten both Western culture and the integrity of the white race (Lee, Orientals,106). 26 Said, Orientalism, 86. 27 Cohen, Paul A., History in Three Keys: the Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth (New York, Columbia University Press, 1997), 15. 28 Preston, Diana, The Boxer Rebellion: China’s War on Foreigners, 1900 (London, Constable and Robinson Ltd,1999), xix. 29 Ibid., 367. 30 Lee, Orientals, 114. 31 Van Ash, Cay and Sax Rohmer, Elizabeth, Master of Villainy: A Biography of Sax Rohmer (London and Presscot: Tingling and Co., 1972), 4. 32 Leersen, Joep, “The Rhetoric of National Character: A Programmatic Survey”, Poetics Today, 21.2 (2000), 282.

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Said, Orientalism, 38. Shim, Doobo, “From Yellow Peril Through Model Minority to Renewed Yellow Peril”, Journal of Communication Inquiry 22 (1998), 388. 35 Wu, The Yellow Peril, 78. John Seed, “Limehouse Blues: Looking for Chinatown in the London Docks, 1900-40”, History Workshop Journal 62 (2006), 58-85. 36 Said, Orientalism, 86. 37 Barnes, Alan, “British Icons: Dr Fu-Manchu: Big Trouble in Little China”, Judge Dredd Magazine, Number 243 (April 2006). 38 Seshagiri, Urmila, “Modernity’s (Yellow) Perils: Dr Fu-Manchu and English Race Paranoia”, Cultural Critique 62 (Winter 2006), 162-194. 39 Rohmer, Sax, The Fu-Manchu Omnibus Volume I (London: Allison and Busby, 1995), 225. 40 Ibid., 14. 41 Hevia, James L., “The Archive State and the Fear of Pollution: from the Opium Wars to Fu-Manchu”, Cultural Studies 12.2 (1998), 235. 42 Rohmer, Fu-Manchu Omnibus, 321. 43 Barnes, “British Icons”. 44 Seshagiri, “Modernity’s (Yellow) Perils”, 168. 45 Klapp, Orrin E., “Villains and Fools as Agents of Social Control”, American Sociological Review 19.1 (1954), 57. 46 Rohmer, Fu-Manchu Omnibus, 344. 47 Ibid., 132, 194. 48 Mandarins were highly-educated, high-ranking bureaucrats in imperial China. 49 Rohmer, Fu-Manchu Omnibus, 241. 50 Ibid., 14. 51 Shih, David, “The Color of Fu-Manchu: Orientalist Method in the Novels of Sax Rohmer”, The Journal of Popular Culture 42.2 (2009), 311. 52 Hevia, “The Archive State and the Fear of Pollution”, 250. 53 Ibid., 251. Zhang, “The Myth of the Other”, 124. 54 Rohmer, Fu-Manchu Omnibus, 80. 55 Zhang, “The Myth of the Other”, 113, 114. 56 Shih, “The Color of Fu-Manchu”, 310. 57 Ibid., 311. 58 Bulldog Drummond, created by “Sapper” (H.C. McNeile) is a British private detective and adventurer in a series of books that spanned several decades. See Shih, “The Color of Fu-Manchu”, 305, and Diamond, Michael, “Lesser Breeds”: Racial Attitudes in Popular British Culture, 1890-1940 (London: Anthem Press, 2006), 6. 59 Leersen, “The Rhetoric of National Character”, 278. 34

CHAPTER TEN DIS(RE)MEMBERING BODIES: DISABILITY AND SELF-CONSTITUTION IN TONI MORRISON’S THE BLUEST EYE AND OCTAVIA BUTLER’S KINDRED ARETHA PHIRI AND MAJA MILATOVIC

Introduction: “the pain of being black” In an interview with Bessie Jones and Audrey Vinson in 1985, Toni Morrison stated that “quiet as it’s kept much of our business, our existence here, has been grotesque”,1 and in an interview with Bonnie Angelo featured in Time Magazine in 1989, she clarified that “black people have always been used as a buffer in this country [...] becoming an American is based on an attitude: an exclusion of me”.2 The systemic marginalization of African-Americans is evidenced in the arrival of the first African slaves at Virginia in 1617 and in their subsequent treatment. Orlando Patterson aptly describes slavery as “social death”: a condition of “no socially recognized existence,” on the “margins between community and chaos, life and death, the sacred and the secular”.3 This sense of a liminal subjectivity undermined the premise of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the attempt at Reconstruction from 1865-1877, periods characterized by legislation and violent extra-legal practices designed to curtail the liberties and rights of black Americans. Into the twentieth century, institutionalized violence against blacks as well as legal segregation typically referred to as “Jim Crow” laws necessitated the militant civil rights movements of the 1960s and early 1970s. As an ostracized social body and community, blacks have been dis(re)membered from and disinherited by the body politic; black national and cultural inclusivity has been consistently thwarted in a racialized and fundamentally racist America. In The Bluest Eye (1970), a novel about a

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young black girl’s yearning for blue eyes, Morrison is concerned with not just remembering blackness—with giving voice and body to the AfricanAmerican experience—but with psychologically re-envisioning and remembering the placement of black (cultural) subjectivity within the (white) national narrative. Complementing Morrison’s exploration of black subjectivity and its location in white supremacist America is Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), a novel which imagines the return, and psychological and physical marking, of displaced black and white subjects to the period of slavery. Both novels negotiate the relationship between disability and whiteness and consider the difficulties of reclaiming one’s subjectivity in/against a society burdened by a history of violence and exploitation.

Grotesque subjectivities in The Bluest Eye Morrison’s critical commentary on the grotesque character of AfricanAmerican subjectivity is demonstrated in her 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye, which thematizes the historical violence on/of African-American subjectivity, especially for the black female subject. Here, the poverty of the central black family, the Breedloves, is figured as a metonymic “rape” by white America which reads as a political, structural term for the physical, psychic and social violation and disempowerment of black Americans, and which manifests in the community in the sexualized/gendered violation of the novel’s protagonist, Pecola Breedlove. At the same time, however, written in the context of the 1960s and 1970s civil rights movement—whose political and aesthetic ideologies of black consciousness and empowerment attempted the “reclamation of racial beauty”4—the novel’s primary concern is the critique and exploration of the problematic racial self-loathing and self-destructiveness that permeates black existence and consciousness. More specifically, Pecola’s desire for blue eyes is metaphoric for communal and individual espousal of (and subscription to) a master narrative of whiteness, inscribed since the nation’s founding, and registered as socially and psychologically disabling. Morrison notes in her foreword that The Bluest Eye had initially begun as a “bleak narrative of psychological murder”5 in which a pervasive ideology of whiteness violates black (sense of) existential belonging. As the novel’s central focus, the Breedloves’ material and psychological poverty, while not universal, is an embodiment of generic white violence on the black community. The animated personification of their home as aggressively shabby, foisting “itself on the eye of the passerby in a manner that is both irritating and melancholy”,6 illuminates the general degradation

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of black America. This contrasts with the idyllic image of white community which, portrayed in the lucid white educational primer that opens the novel, suggests it as an authoritative meta-narrative of existence. Robert Reid-Pharr notes that “the Black” has been conceptualized in modern culture as “an inchoate, irrational, non-subject, as the chaos that both defines and threatens the border of logic, individuality and basic subjectivity”.7 In the textual disintegration of the Dick and Jane primer which prefaces each chapter but gradually becomes more incoherent, Morrison signifies whiteness as itself a profoundly incomprehensible and, for African-Americans, violent discursive sign. The chaotic character of blackness, which resonates with the (empty) presence of whiteness, manifests in self-destructive violence. This is evidenced in the Breedloves’ physical familial violence, in which Cholly and Pauline Breedlove, Pecola’s parents, fight each other “with a dark brutal formalism”.8 Their “muted” violence echoes the historical silencing of blackness in dominant discourse. But the “sound of falling things, and flesh on unsurprised flesh” implies a perverted attempt at giving bodily voice to that silenced subjectivity. Described in the double negative as a “crippled and crippling family”,9 the Breedloves are fundamentally negated—dis(en)abled by whiteness and dis(en)abling blackness in turn. Through their sadistic violence—a grotesque “ritual of exorcism”10—they are put “outdoors” of any existential order; that is, they exhibit no subjective authority because they accept their “peripheral existence”11 as legitimate and evince the subjective failure thematized in The Bluest Eye. In his study of literary representations of disability, Ato Quayson notes that in Morrison’s writing “disability takes on the role of a polyvalent fulcrum within a larger discursive configuration, allowing a variety of meanings to radiate out of the disability as well as leading to a number of shifts and transformations [...] in terms of perspectival modulations”.12 In The Bluest Eye, the Breedloves’ violence and Pauline Breedlove’s limp demonstrate Morrison’s interest in social and physical disability, respectively; yet she is more concerned with exploring and rendering social and physical disability as a manifestation and as symptomatic of psychological disability. In the novel, black subjective disability is rooted in but also dialectically responsive to the psychological and material effects of whiteness. Escaping the drudgery of everyday life, Pauline lives vicariously, internalizing and immersing herself in the destructively superficial ideals of romantic love and physical beauty—which, because these ideals are incommensurate with black lived reality, cause her to collect “self-contempt by the heap”.13 In their conviction of their ugliness,

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the uncharitable Geraldine pronounces the Breedloves “niggers,” a derogatory term that emphasizes worthlessness but also points to their loss or abdication of a culturally-informed subjective integrity. In invoking and provoking racist stereotypes within the black community, Morrison here proposes black subjectivity as problematized by an outer and inner perception, by literal and figurative seeing; that is, by the stereotypical ways in which African-Americans have been traditionally seen, and the ways in which they consequently see themselves. In her delineation of a young girl’s longing for blue eyes, Morrison stresses the ontological links between perception and being; the tension between being seen and seeing.

Seeing double: black consciousness and black existentialism In The Souls of Black Folk W.E.B. Du Bois describes the AfricanAmerican as characterized by “double-consciousness,” a sense of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others [...] two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body.” The repetition of doubleness emphasizes existential liminality; a kind of schizophrenic splitting and subjective lack in which one ultimately has “no true self-consciousness”.14 Morrison’s novel similarly portrays black existence as functioning traumatically, through the debilitating perception of the white gaze which violently negates black (efforts at) subjectivity. In a noteworthy scene, Pecola enters into Yacobowski’s store to purchase sweets and attracts his attention. His eyes “draw back, hesitate, and hover,” but at “some fixed point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because there is nothing to see.” Pecola, in turn, “looks up at him and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition”.15 Ed Guerrero describes the “the look” here as a “circuit of looking relations” in which both Pecola and Yacobowski “confirm their inhuman estimate of each ‘other’ and, significantly, of themselves”.16 But while the scene points to an intersubjective process of othering, it more aptly suggests the violence to and violation of black subjectivity. The phrase “between” here implies a (spatiotemporal) void in which Pecola’s a priori blackness, in comparison to Yacobowski’s whiteness, precludes and occludes her being. “[A]lwaysalready other—always-already beheld”,17 her blackness is never actually realized. In Sartrean existential philosophy “existence precedes essence”,18 but in the lived reality of the black American in white America, s/he is

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qualified by an a priori essence that precedes and negates the possibility of subjectivity. In The Bluest Eye, the white eye/“I” precedes and occludes the black “I”/eye and ironically embodies the “I” at the same time that it negates it, so that Pecola inhabits that precarious, liminal site, not unlike slavery, of “being” and “nothingness.” Yet in her desire for whiteness— represented in her yearning for blue eyes—she experiences her subjectivity as abjection, a condition in which “an Other has settled in place and stead of what will be me” and “precedes and possesses me, and through such possession, causes me to be”.19 Pecola’s desire for blue eyes unveils not just the void inherent in the subjective signifying process; it suggests an active investment in and usurpation of the self, a “crime of innocence”20 which anticipates her sexual violation by her father and marks her entrance into a failed existential world order.

Dis(en)abling rites of passage Sexual violence theorists concur that rape is not merely physical violence but the “ultimate violation of self”,21 and arguing for its roots in systemic violence, Catherine MacKinnon further observes that sexual violence “reaffirms the patriarchal social order”22 as a definitive act of “terrorism” against women.23 Significantly, Cholly’s rape of Pecola occurs after her physical entrance/rite of passage into womanhood: menstruation, affirming the accrued symbolism of female sexuality as polluting to, and necessarily expropriated by, the patriarchal system. But Pecola’s rape also parallels Cholly’s own systemic and literal rape by whiteness: as an adolescent, he is abandoned and rejected by his socially delinquent and inept parents; and as a teenager, he is violently initiated into black manhood by two white hunters, who force him to simulate sex for their amusement. With Cholly rendered “small, black, helpless”24 as a result, the novel establishes a material and psychological relationship of causality that displaces his subjective, patriarchal agency in the violence. In the rape scene, a drunken Cholly staggers home and sees his daughter pathetically “hunched over the sink”25 washing dishes; overwhelmed by nostalgia and incompetence, he proceeds to “fuck her— tenderly”.26 The semantic disjuncture here between the vernacular physicality of the act and its erotic, almost poetic description insinuates an existential tension. Problematically viewed from Cholly’s perspective, the representation of the rape serves to objectify Pecola and stress her subjective disabling; but it also reads as an empathetic act which seemingly bestows upon Pecola the subjectivity that he too, as a black male, desires and has been denied. In response to Claudia Tate,27 Morrison

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herself urged readers to view the rape as underpinned by love—an “embrace,” which is “all the gift he has left”.28 In its ambivalent representation, the novel implies that Cholly’s rape of Pecola, conventionally perceived as subjugation, is in fact a symbolic articulation of black male and subjective impotence; challenging the historical pathologizing of black male sexuality, incest here reads as the “failure of phallic signification, not its fulfilment”.29 As a symbol of black powerlessness, the rape ironically embodies—that is, gives body to—both of their traumatic existences, and suggests a kind of subjective interrelatedness which humanizes and politicizes their ubiquitously grotesque existence. While it is unpalatable, Morrison proposes incestuous rape as analogous to and symptomatic of the systemic and systematic abuse of black America by white America, which becomes a psychological and structural impediment to the achievement of black subjectivity, as evidenced in the final imagistic representation of an insane Pecola as an injured bird “in an eternal, grotesquely futile effort to fly”.30 Her consequent insanity at the novel’s end is not just testament to her own psychological undoing; it also points to a pervasive, black existential disability—the inability to see one’s own subjective worth. As such, this deliberately ambivalent re-membering of blackness becomes an attempt, in Irigaray’s words, “to recover the place of exploitation”.31 That is, Pecola’s madness bears witness to, and functions as a disruption of, dominant (white) existential metanarratives, and reads as a cultural statement of black experience, survival and endurance—thus allowing for the reclamation of black difference. The usefulness of Morrison’s social model of disability is the fact that it “forces the subliminal cultural assumptions about the disabled out into the open for examination, thus holding out the possibility that the nondisabled may ultimately be brought to recognize the sources of the constructedness of the normate and the prejudices that flow from it”.32

(En)abling blackness in Kindred Butler’s exploration of antebellum slavery in Kindred, and the possibility of physically experiencing slavery for a contemporary subject, places a particular emphasis on the wounded and dis-membered body. The body’s indelible scars, wounds, and ultimately an amputated arm, encapsulate what Lisa Woolfork terms “bodily epistemology”, in which the body serves as a site for knowing the traumatic past.33 Where Morrison’s social model of disability focuses on the structural and psychological dis(en)abling

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of blackness, Butler is concerned with articulating the literal, physical implications for African-Americans of such psychic woundedness. Connecting the body disabled by slavery with the construction of black subjectivity physically creates not only sites of wounding but also of reclamation and survival. In differently imagining and imaging blackness as disability, both writers reveal the devastating effects of internalized racist and sexist violence, and demonstrate the challenges of reclaiming subjectivity where it is denied. Commenting on her writing process, Butler stated that she wrote the work while “dealing with some 1960s feelings”.34 Indeed, Ashraf H.A. Rushdy rightly notes that the 1970s were marked by social, political and cultural responses to the Moynihan Report of 1965.35 Officially known as “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” the report argued that discrimination against, and the poor economic conditions of, AfricanAmericans in the 1960s was a direct result of matriarchal family structures forcibly established during slavery, which ‘emasculated’ black men.36 In emphasizing the reinstatement of black men’s authority over black women and children, the Report caught the attention of black feminists, scholars and writers who criticised it for its sexist and racist hypotheses, as well as its stereotyping of black families and their social and economic disadvantage. Octavia Butler’s Kindred challenges the Report’s misconceptions by imagining a highly politicised, literal return to the period of slavery to explore some of its physical and psychological repercussions. In this regard, Morrison’s structural rendering of disability speaks to, and opens up space for, the interrogation of physical disability in Kindred, which also connects disability with white supremacy and oppression. More specifically, the disabled body is used to dramatically convey the effects of enslavement on the black subject. That is, while The Bluest Eye puts forward a social model of disability, Butler’s Kindred is concerned with physical disability in terms of transformed physicality as a consequence of white supremacist circumscription of the black self. Extending Morrison’s emphasis on psychological disability, Butler considers the disabled body as marked by and literally dis-membered through slavery, with Dana’s amputated limb serving as a “metonymic proof of a knowable past”.37 More significantly, in the move from psychological to physical rendering of disability, Butler’s focus on amputation and the protagonist’s adjustment to a life with disability challenges the prevailing notion of disability solely as loss and victimhood.

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Kindred’s basic premise revolves around a contemporary black woman’s literal return to the antebellum past, challenging teleological historical narratives which circumscribe black subjectivity, and raising issues about subjective accountability, interracial desire and white privilege. Set in the 1970s, the novel centres on a black woman named Edana (Dana) Franklin, who is married to a white man, Kevin Franklin. Seized by a mysterious force, Dana is transported to antebellum Maryland whenever her white slaveholding ancestor, Rufus, is in danger. Dana’s own existence depends on this difficult task as she must keep Rufus safe long enough for him to start Dana’s family line by raping her foremother Alice. Since Dana’s husband, Kevin, occasionally joins her on her travels, both characters find their bodies as well as perspectives on individual and collective histories irretrievably transformed. They become, in Ashraf Rushdy’s words, “subject to history”, liable to be transformed by seemingly dead historical forces which Butler’s fictional return to slavery resurrects.38 The novel ends with Dana’s final act of resistance as she stabs and kills Rufus, after he tries to rape her. As she escapes to her present, Rufus pulls her arm and the time-travel gap closes upon it, severing her limb. The metonymic disfigurement and disabling of the black self by history complements Morrison’s depiction of Pecola’s rape, figured in her novel as the dis(en)abling of the black self by white America. In an interview with Randall Kenan, Butler explains the resounding effects of antebellum slavery on African-America and emphasizes the specific significance of Dana’s disability: “I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole”.39 Butler’s emphasis on the loss of wholeness and Dana’s resulting disability has courted critical responses that focus on the severed limb as synonymous with disfigurement, loss and the painful cost of revisiting the antebellum past.40 Here, Dana’s physical disability is figuratively connected to black victimization through the effects of enslavement and white supremacy. Dana’s brutalized and disabled body thus returns to her present, where her amputation bears witness to the extent of her antebellum suffering and serves, as Lisa A. Long’s suggests, as a generic “ahistorical signifier of authenticity”.41 Although Butler places emphasis on disability as the literal and figurative loss due to the historical trauma of slavery, her model of disability, with its particular emphasis on physicality and the amputated limb, is far more nuanced. The disabled body, prominently featured at the beginning and the end of the novel, is infused with notions of resistance and empowerment. Butler’s physical model of disability invests the disabled body with a “politics of affirmative identity”42 signalling survival

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and endurance in the face of adversity, rather than merely loss and disfigurement. The opening sentence of the novel’s prologue introduces disability as a nuanced, complex theme. Declaring “I lost an arm on my way home. My left arm”,43 Dana, recovering from her last encounter with Rufus, forces herself to look at her amputated limb and comments: “Somehow I had to see to be able to accept what I knew was so”.44 Facing her transformed physicality, she begins the gradual process of accepting and redefining herself after surviving a traumatizing encounter with slavery. But in order to make sense of these disruptive experiences in antebellum Maryland, Butler envisions another return, this time contained to the contemporary period. Her protagonists revisit the former site of enslavement to enquire about Dana’s ancestors. Although Kevin and Dana discover that her ancestors burned the Weylin plantation to hide Dana’s murder of Rufus, they are unable to find out what exactly happened to them. In this scene of return, the lack of historical evidence is implicitly linked to Dana’s changed physicality and her “empty sleeve”.45 Linking the permanently marked body with historical gaps and silences, Butler challenges appropriative discourses that distort or manipulate historical trauma. Thus, accepting such gaps and silences, and the fact that she will never be able to conclusively reconstruct her ancestors’ lives and experiences, is tied to Dana’s acceptance of her physical “loss”. The physically disabled body is figured as a prerequisite for healing, and reconfigured as affirmative rather than defeating. Butler’s disabled protagonist envisions an enabling blackness, which extends Morrison’s portrayal of disability to include the physical and its connections to affirmative constructions of the self.

(Re)Constructing “the violated self” In her discussion of disabled figures in literature and culture, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson claims that African-American women writers flaunt rather than obscure their protagonists’ physical differences: they “establish the extraordinary body as a site of historical inscription rather than physical deviance and they simultaneously repudiate such cultural master narratives as normalcy, wholeness and feminine ideal”.46 Applying Garland-Thomson’s argument to Kindred, Dana’s disabled body reflects the commodification and brutalization of the slave’s body as well as the repudiation of the slavemaster’s control. When Dana is drawn back to the antebellum past by her slaveholding ancestor Rufus, he literally dismembers her in an attempt to negate her selfhood. This scene explicitly

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links black physical disability with the (disabling) effects of white privilege. However, rather than viewing the lost limb solely in terms of irreparable physical loss or “violently denied” subjectivity,47 Butler invests Dana’s disabled body with resistant properties as she adjusts to living with a disability. Expanding Morrison’s exploration of black subjectivity and the disabling effects of internalized self-loathing, Butler suggests that literal and figurative negation of the black self during slavery can be reinscribed with affirmative potential. Dana’s disabled body bears witness to, in Garland-Thomson’s words, “the power of the violated self to endure injustice and yet prevail”.48 Through the process of reconstructing the self in her present as she heals from her physical injuries, Dana re-examines her familial ties, interracial marriage and identifies the various subtle ways in which antebellum oppressions continue to impact her present. Her newly acquired perspective on contemporary structural oppression stemming from slavery is inherently tied to Dana’s amputated limb and her life as an individual with a disability. Rather than presenting Dana as permanently disfigured, her changed embodiment signals the potential to rebuild ruptured relationships between blacks and whites, and highlights the political necessity to challenge hegemonic social structures which privilege whiteness and able-bodiedness. Inhabiting a body with a disability necessitates a perspective which accommodates physical difference, challenging the constructed notion of physical wholeness as normative. Butler’s notion of healing reflects new relationships to the self and the body, and points to potentialities rather than irreparable losses. The disabled body thus constructs “a black female subject that displaces the negative cultural images generated by America’s aggregate history of racism and sexism”.49 Butler’s nuanced view of disability and black subjectivity reclaims the black subject historically dis-membered by slavery and white supremacy, and challenges the very concept of wholeness based on the prescriptive notion of the normate. Re-membering the black body and its agency historically annihilated by slavery, Butler’s disabled body challenges oppressive power structures legitimized during slavery and perpetuated in the present, and serves as a productive framework for reinscribing the black subject into American history.

Conclusion: affirmative disability While differently imagined and imaged, Morrison and Butler’s texts both present politically engaged representations of black disability, dissecting

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the effects of psychological and physical violence on/to black subjects violated by an oppressive, pervasive ideology and rhetoric of whiteness. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison provides a social frame for the dis(en)abling effects of white supremacy and internalized racial self-loathing on/by black subjects as a kind of psychological disability which manifests in further (sexualized/gendered) violent dis(en)abling of and within the black community. In Butler’s exploration of physical disability and its relationship to white supremacy and the legacy of slavery, the disabled body becomes a site for reclaiming the black self. In the authors’ representations, the disabled self/body is contrasted with the (white) normate and normative. Morrison’s model of psycho-social disability highlights the incommensurability of white metanarratives of existence to black lived experience, while Butler’s representation of physical disability reinscribes typically defeatist discourses and transforms the disabled body into a site of affirmation. Physical disability in Butler’s portrayal represents the black self which survives and endures, despite and against whiteness. Significantly however, both Morrison and Butler end their novels inconclusively. Pecola Breedlove is rendered insane by her experience of blackness, and Dana is left physically disabled and unclear about her ancestral history and her marriage to Kevin. The ambiguous conclusions demonstrate how oppressive discourses continue to saturate the present— something demonstrated not least in the deceptively utopian post-racial discourse surrounding the 2008 election of the first African-American president, Barack Obama. Playing on and subverting the contemporary obfuscation of race and race- relations in American politics, Morrison and Butler show the continual devastating consequences of slavery and internalized racism, and the ways in which these oppressive discourses can be transformed into sites of affirmation.

Notes 1

Bessie W. Jones and Audrey Vinson, “An Interview with Toni Morrison,” in Conversations with Toni Morrison, ed. Danille Taylor-Guthrie (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1994), 171-86 (181). 2 Bonnie Angelo, “The Pain of Being Black: an Interview with Toni Morrison”, Time, May 22, 1989, http://www.time.com/time/community/pulitzerinterview.html (accessed May 10, 2009), 255. 3 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and the Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982), 5, 51. 4 Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (New York: Vintage, 1999), iii. 5 Ibid., ii.

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Ibid., 24. Reid-Pharr, Robert F. “Tearing the Goat’s Flesh: Homosexuality, Abjection, and the Production of a Late Twentieth-Century Black Masculinity”, in AfricanAmerican Literary Theory: A Reader, ed Winston Napier (New York: New York UP, 2000), 602-622 (603). 8 Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 32. 9 Ibid., iv. 10 Ralph Ellison, “Change The Joke and Slip the Yoke”, in The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1994), 100-112 (102). 11 Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 11. 12 Ato Quayson, Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 86-7. 13 Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 95. 14 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Terri Hume Oliver (New York: Norton, 1999), 11. 15 Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 36. 16 Ed Guerrero, “Tracking ‘the Look’ in the Novels of Toni Morrison”, in Toni Morrison’s Fiction: Contemporary Criticism, ed. David Middleton (New York: Garland, 2000), 27-41 (32). 17 Ann DuCille, “Phallus(ies) of Interpretation: Toward Engendering the Black Critical ‘I’”, in African-American Literary Theory: A Reader, ed. Winston Napier (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 443-459 (445). 18 Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, trans. and intro. by Philip Mairet (London: Methuen, 1973), 26. 19 Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 10. 20 Terry Otten, The Crime of Innocence in the Fiction of Toni Morrison (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1989). 21 William Sanders, Rape and Woman’s Identity (Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1980), 137. 22 Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987), 3. 23 Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987), 88. 24 Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 118. 25 Ibid., 127. 26 Ibid., 128. 27 Claudia Tate, “Toni Morrison”, in Conversations with Toni Morrison, ed. Danille Taylor-Guthrie (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1994), 156-170. 28 Ibid., 164. 29 Hortense J. Spillers, “‘The Permanent Obliquity of an In(pha)lliby Straight’: In the Time of the Daughters and the Fathers”, in Changing Our Own Words: Essays 7

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on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women, ed. Cheryl A. Wall (London: Routledge, 1990), 127-49 (140). 30 Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 162. 31 Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), 76. 32 Quayson, Aesthetic Nervousness, 17-18. 33 Lisa Woolfork, Embodying American Slavery in Contemporary Culture (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 2. 34 Randall Kenan, “An Interview with Octavia E. Butler”, Callaloo 14: 2 (1991), 495-504 (497). 35 For a reading of Kindred in the context of the Moynihan Report and its repercussions, see Ashraf H.A. Rushdy, Remembering Generations: Race and Family in Contemporary African American Fiction. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. 36 Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey. The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1967; Angela Davis: Women, Race and Class. . New York: Random House, 1981. 37 Lisa A. Long, “A Relative Pain: The Rape of History in Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Phyllis Alesia Perry’s Stigmata”, College English 64: 4 (March 2002), 459-483 (461). 38 Ashraf H.A. Rushdy, “Families of Orphans: Relation and Disrelation in Octavia Butler’s Kindred”, College English 55: 2 (February 1993), 135-157 (145). 39 Kenan, “An Interview with Octavia E. Butler”, 498. 40 See for example, Anne Donadey, “African American and Francophone Postcolonial Memory: Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Assia Djebar’s La femme sans sepulture”, Research in African Literatures 39:3 (2008), 65-81 (72). 41 Long, “A Relative Pain”, 461. 42 Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 107. 43 Butler, Octavia, Kindred (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), 9. 44 Ibid., 10. 45 Ibid., 264. 46 Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 105. 47 Barrett, Lindon, “African-American Slave Narratives: Literacy, the Body, Authority”, American Literary History 7: 3 (Autumn 1995), 415-442 (431). 48 Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 111. 49 Ibid., 103.

CHAPTER ELEVEN GERTRUDE STEIN’S QUEER AMERICA ERY SHIN

A novel where the word “queer” appears roughly 211 times (as an adjective only), The Making of Americans was begun a little over a decade before Joyce’s Ulysses took shape, but remains nowhere near as critically lauded due to its difficult publication history and disavowal of common high-modernist gestures. It finds its modernism through starkness—gone are the exotic dictional pyrotechnics and arcane allusions of Joyce, Pound, Eliot, and Barnes—and rigorously elliptical syntactical arrangements. Its length (925 pages in the Dalkey edition) and imaginative breadth beg comparisons with Ulysses’, but the book cannot rightfully be said to be Stein’s answer to or anticipation of Joyce’s magnum opus.1 Rather, both tomes surface as parallel experiments within modern(ist) Western Europe. Their expatriate authors dwell on locales left behind, with a gleeful disregard for conventional punctuation and grammar. Both authors exploit interior monologues, albeit in different ways—Stein favouring a more austere, vague vocabulary set (ones, some, things) applied in circular bursts. Both authors reveal much interest in “obscene” sexual expression, Stein’s artistic meta-reflections, for instance, exuding a rolling exuberance similar to that underlying Molly Bloom’s final soliloquy. Stein’s passage on “Mr. Arragon the musician” becomes a reverie on writing as a kind of erotic purging that recalls Molly’s climax “yes I said yes I will Yes”:2 Always each thing must come out completely from me leaving me inside me just then gently empty, so pleasantly and weakly gently empty, that is a happy way to have it come out of me each one that is making itself in me, that is the only way it can come to be content for me in me, it can come out fairly quickly very slowly with a burst or gently, any way it feels a need of coming out of me […].3

Such observations aren’t meant to preface a Stein-Joyce comparison, but to situate Stein’s behemoth of a book against its rivals and draw attention

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to the relative silence surrounding this family saga. Silence can be a boon. At other times, it is a form of evasion, an unjust denial. The Making of Americans elevates monotony and the mundane into high art and is perhaps the most difficult modernist masterpiece to read as a result. Let that not deter us, however, from proceeding. “To begin now then,” as the book’s narrator oft-repeats.4 Making sense of who is doing what in The Making of Americans is almost impossible. Everyday words are densely layered in circular, undulating patterns, where Stein achieves an atmosphere of anonymity through the over-generalized or hyper-specialized. Take, for instance, “He was doing some things then and some others were doing some things then […] He was sometimes feeling something about some of them”5 or the equally uninformative “Florentine Cranach and Hilda Breslau and Ernest Brakes and Selma Dehning and Ella Housman and Robert Housman and Fred Housman and Florence Arden and James Curson and Bertha Curson and Hilda Gnadenfeld and Algar Audenried and every one who knew any one of them were sometime being in living, were all their living going on being in living.”6 Just as daunting for the critic is the challenge of quoting from a book where all statements tend to be contradicted at least once and where the repetitive aesthetic itself undergoes changes as sections progress. After the first fifty pages or so, The Making of Americans moves from Three Lives’ intermittently repetitive style to the more intense repetitiveness characterizing “Miss Furr and Miss Skeen.” This mode persists until page 427, when Phillip Redfern appears. The Redfern interval (which is Stein’s early short story “Ferhhurst” adapted and choppily inserted7) hearkens back to Stein’s realist phase. But once Martha’s marriage dissolves and Alfred and Julia’s chapter begins, the book drifts into the increasingly obscure, abstract repetitions we find in Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein with Two Shorter Stories.8 Repetition in general functions through a musical canon-like organizing principle in this giant family chronicle. Narrative snippets are expanded and variegated before usually concluding with a summarizing refrain. The overarching Hersland canon borne from the lives of four immigrant women—the first-generation matriarchs of the Dehnings, Herslands, Hissens, and an unnamed fourth family—breaks off into smaller canons that either dribble off or return to the text’s broader interest in repetition as an epistemological method and immortalizing prayer. As an epistemological method, if everyone’s “bottom nature” slowly “comes to be repeating in them,”9 repetitive language, by mirroring those behavioural patterns, sliver-by-sliver unveils a personality’s essence in real-time for us. As a bid for eternal life, contrastingly, repetition takes on

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a mystical quality when used to indefinitely delay final outcomes. The Making of Americans speaks of “a world without ending.”10 Through repetition, one could say it poetically creates that world. “Nothing is ever ending”11 when we go in circles. Within this fluctuating linguistic present, the Hersland story touches upon what kinds of queerness exist. Amidst much “diagramming”12 of personality-types (or the “sad” failure to),13 the novel builds towards a promise of queerly “vital singularity.”14 “It takes time to make queer people,” the narrator says,15 yet we sense their appearance isn’t far-off for Stein. The last chapter’s reassurance that older generations will pass, new ones will take their stead, and “family living” will evolve in the meantime implies a thorough reorientation from loving-doing-being rooted in the old ways: “The way of doing what is done and done in a family living is a way that a family living is needing being one in a way existing. Sometimes then that family is going on in that way of existing. Sometimes that family living is going on into another way of being existing.”16 Death will cleanse America’s cultural palate, allowing future generations of middle-class immigrants to inch their way towards vitally queer singularity. The lines “Very many are living in family living. Very many have been living in family living. Very many are living. Very many who were living are not living” and “Old ones come to be dead. Any one coming to be an old enough one comes to be a dead one. Old ones come to be dead ones” aren’t dirges for humankind,17 but new hymns for the queer. I wouldn’t go so far as to say death spells new life for Stein’s America, only that between families existing and their extinction, between melancholic stasis and shifts, the queer “vitally” evolves. The narrator’s class biases, as this essay argues, interestingly complicate this evolution. This observation isn’t some kind of Marxist criticism levelled against Stein’s or her narrator’s politics, but a recognition that even the most liberal art emerges in relation to, like all other human artefacts, prevalent social values. For an otherwise progressive narrative persona reveals an underhanded bourgeois elitism that demands queerness be embraced only on the grounds that it is a certain “strain of singularity.”18 Not necessarily one “well within the limits of conventional respectability a singularity that is, so to speak, well dressed and well set up,” but an as yet “unknown product.”19 This queerness is “neither crazy, sporty, faddish, or a fashion, or low class with distinction.”20 Different varieties of queerness—servant queerness, governess queerness, poor queerness, Mr Hersland’s world-embracing queerness, singular queerness—exist in different intensities for the narrator (not all of them sexual), but “poor queerness” lacks that unique refinement he or she

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associates with genuine singularity. A voice that chants of strange and compelling tomorrows remains just as entrenched in some of yesterday’s attitudes as many of the characters it recapitulates. The Making of Americans eerily anticipates class divisions within contemporary LGBT circles in this regard, by assuming that the ideal queer America is still a discerning white-middle-class one. In this case, the narrator’s middle-class background cannot be separated from his or her queer agenda. Why a radical vision of “Brothers Singulars” remains tempered by class inhibitions becomes clearer when the self-proclaimed prophet appears to be a third-generation, earlytwentieth-century, Judeo-Christian, white, middle-class transgender.21 And not just any middle-class persona, but an adamantly class-conscious one. So class-rooted, in fact, that despite his or her liberal attitude towards unconventional “loving” and “marrying,”22 the narrator remains oblivious to how class distinctions frame his or her vision of queer singularity. The Making of Americans “is not just an ordinary kind of novel with a plot and conversations to amuse you, but a record of a decent family progress,”23 that is, “my family’s progress,” the narrator declares.24 That decent family comes from a class tradition deemed “human, vital, and worthy.”25 “Vital singularity” is a queer offshoot of middle-class vitality, not necessarily constrained by the same sexual conservatism defining the American bourgeoisie but still dignified in a way “the common lot”26 cannot be. For the narrator always takes pains to distinguish queer singularity from seediness or upper-class decadence. The disdain with which Cora Dounor’s lustful temperament is described signals that queer singularity isn’t graspable in back alleyways, whorehouses, opium dens, dance halls, or any place where sex plays out in gritty, unimaginative ways.27 The average bedroom can house “low class” encounters if its visitors exude no special ardour. Mansions can want singularity as well if their inhabitants indulge their desires in a “crazy, sporty, faddish” manner, worn down by ennui and thoughtless excess. Here, I return to the Brothers Singulars passage, which situates the “noble” queer somewhere beyond such (selfimposed) extremes: To a bourgeois mind that has within it a little of the fervour for diversity, there can be nothing more attractive than a strain of singularity that yet keeps well within the limits of conventional respectability a singularity that is, so to speak, well dressed and well set up. This is the nearest approach the middle class young woman can ever hope to make to the indifference and distinction of the really noble. When singularity goes further and so gets to be always stronger, there comes to be in it too much real danger for any middle class young woman to follow it farther. Then comes the danger

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To the narrator, a self-identified member of the Singular Brotherhood, the lower and upper class lack a certain depth, a purposefulness that would singularize their acts of love and being. We say lower and upper, but Stein mostly cautions against the poor. Her Joseph-metaphor says enough: the brother who, although unrecognized by his siblings after years of separation, is exalted by birth as Jacob’s beloved son. This biblical hero is the spiritual prototype for Stein’s queers, affirming their innate integrity and separation from libertines or destitute solicitors. “Yes I say it again now to all of you, all of you who have it a little in them to be free inside them,” the narrator rallies some twenty pages later, I say it again to you, we must leave them, we cannot stay where there are none to know it, none who can tell us from the lowest from them who are simply poor or bad because they have no other way to do it. No here there are none who can know it, we must leave ourselves to a poor thing like Alfred Hersland to show it, one who is a little different with it, not with real singularity to be free in it, but it is better with him than to have no one to do it, and so we leave it, and we leave the Alfred Herslands to do it, poor things to represent it, singularity to be free inside with it, poor things and hardly our own in it, but all we can leave behind to show a little how some can begin to do it.

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Yes real singularity we have not made enough of yet so that any other one can really know it.29

Real singularity cannot be coarse (“simply poor”) or spiritual vitiated (“bad”), even as it should not be cowardly before rigid middle-class sensibilities. The queer singular subsequently floats in an existential noman’s land. It adopts a paradoxical stance towards middle-class America by being both of and against it. Stein’s narrator, the Singular Brotherhood’s mouthpiece, bemoans the lack of queer vitality around, yet expresses fondness for the middle class that brings about this dearth. Vital queerness hence remains negotiated by classist qualifications. The narrator’s wonder at the courage it takes to “lik[e] things that are low” or “dirty thing[s],”30 for instance, implicitly patronizes working-class tastes even as it reclaims them under singular queerness. The lowbrow becomes synonymous with the poor. The poor, however, never possess the self-reflective distance or taste to render their aesthetic choices “courageous.” Kitschy objects like clocks “every one thinks only a servant should be owning”31 or “bright colored handkerchiefs”32 attain a queerly singular quality only at the hands of an incisive, bold elite. There is no public space for vital singulars to live in this world, the narrator laments. Yet at this rate, we sense that if and when such spaces were to form, working-class or impoverished queers would be barred at their threshold. The idea of queer space appears circumscribed by the right kind of queer, one above the vulgarity associated with “poor queerness.” “There are many ways of having queerness in many men and women,”33 but not all are equal or desirable. But to be clear, the novel isn’t insinuating that every “poor” character lacks queer singularity by virtue of his or her class, only that what make certain types of queerness “low” for true singulars are their negatively-stereotyped working-class attributes. Poor queerness becomes another name for the way of the mean and illbred bewildering those living elsewhere. While “queer” can, again, be employed in various ways,34 it is most often applied to the poor, not actual romantic outsiders like Mary Maxworthing or Madeleine Wyman. And as most of the talk on Gossols’ “queer poor kinds of people”35 occurs in the book’s first third, “queer” appears most often there as well. In those working-class contexts, the term confers an anonymity and object-hood. One of the Herslands’ “poor queer” neighbours is an unnamed family with three daughters: Anna, Cora, and Bertha. The children are granted first names, their mother and father, none. The father is alive but described as being “not really existing.”36 This family’s queerness has to do with its “uncertain ways of being” and disconnectedness from “past or present or future.”37 The same sense of anonymity cloaks the Fishers and Henrys,

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who are so nondescript as to leave no lasting impression on the Hersland children. The more the narrator speaks of the poor, the more the poor recede from us and the bourgeois come forward. Musings such as, Mostly in the little houses in the part of the town where no rich people are living the families many of them have such kind of mysteries in them. No one ever talks about them. No one is ever certain with them how many children there are of them, what some of them do to make a living, whether there is a father to them, whether there is a mother to them, how they all come to the money they have for their daily living38

say more about the narrator than the phantom-like neighbours. Anonymity may not be the sole domain of the poor, as the well-to-do Shillings’ queerness suggests (“Perhaps really the queerness of them came from there not being enough in each one of them to fill out the inside in them and so they did not have much meaning or any power or any sense of appealing”39), yet only the poor are rendered anonymous and unremarkably queer through poorness. Their class-rooted bodily habits render them baffling to the upper classes, a cultural divide the narrator even concedes: “I see some kinds of men and women, I look long at some of these kinds in men and women and I see nothing of the way they do their loving. And then I am very much regretting I do not yet know everything.”40 The issue is we do not know “poor” ways of life. The Herslands, the narrator, and therefore the reader can only piece together the daily routines of poor Gossols households in absentia. Working-class anonymity ties into the larger motif of working-class historical erasure. The novel’s very format testifies to how Stein’s official record circumvents the poor, as working-class families only enter the picture in relation to the rich Herslands.41 Only middle-class family trees are detailed, no matter how obscurely. Outrageous lies such as, “This is now a history of every kind of them of every kind of men and every kind of women who ever were or are or will be living, of every kind of beginning of them as they are babies and children,”42 keep circulating, yet not all of them can be construed as playful hyperboles. Firstly, at its most literal, “This” restricts itself to the well-to-do narrator (the novel may just be the longest character study ever) and the Hersland-Dehning union, with bits of working-class garnish thrown in. Sometimes, the book admits this omission.43 But mostly it goes on promising an ethnological breadth and clarity that never arrive. Secondly, and more seriously, because the novel so untiringly insists it presents an all-inclusive history of humanity, it means something when it says of someone, “There was nothing in her to connect her with the past the present or the future, there was not any

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history of her.”44 The “her,” in this case, denotes Anna, Cora, and Bertha’s nameless mother. She possesses “character” and the “existence of the useful things around her,” but lacks “importance to any one around her.”45 Her character resembles more of an object than embodied subject, which brings us to our next point: poor objectification. Unlike Mr Hersland and his kin, the poor Gossols inhabitants float as objects in the narrator’s consciousness. Or put less starkly, the poor appear less embodied in the phenomenological sense than the rich. In his posthumously published The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty writes, “Our body is a being of two leaves, from one side a thing among things and otherwise what sees them and touches them,”46 but The Making of Americans’ working-class descriptions escape such logic. “[P]oor queer kind of people”47 resemble objects observed from afar, stripped of names, attributes, histories, and even subjectivity itself. They assume an impersonal, almost inhuman sheen. The immigrant mother mentioned above is repeatedly described as “wooden,”48 present but unimpressive. A “solid thing,” one “who ha[s] existence like the useful things about her”49—say, wood burned for fuel (“her face and body was getting to be wooden all through her”50)—the mother becomes a metaphor for being without seeing or memory. An object (wood incarnate), the mother sees (as much as stick figures can “see”) her family in the same light. Nothing “ma[kes] a history for her,” even the “changes in the girls with her were like all the objects around her.”51 This is a life without a sense of her own story. Mr Hersland’s queerness aggressively contrasts with such “poor queer” thing-ness. If “poor queer people”52 are queer because they remain objectified and severed from history, the elder David Hersland is queer because he refuses those conditions, transmitting his “queer ways”53 to his children and epitomizing embodied understanding. When Stein specifies, “He was as big as all the world around him, he was it, it was in him, there was no difference with it inside him or outside for him,”54 she paints the patriarch’s intuitive mediation between insides and outsides, the self constituted by, and constituting, the world. Mr Hersland’s “abundant world embracing feeling”55 derives not from the ego of a wealthy patriarch who mistakes the world for his playground. No, his experiencing the world as an extension of himself and as that which encompasses him renders him the most intensely embodied character in the novel. The “queer ways” that Hersland imparts to his children, in turn, ensure that “[l]ater in their life they [become] queer too like him,”56 talking “conspicuously” on sidewalks, sampling fruits and cakes from shops without asking, being fickle, and promoting “strange ways of educating.”57

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So Hersland history is made, but what its queer secrets consist of is another matter. Unlike their poor neighbours, the Herslands possess fully embodied identities and roots. Why, then, does the prominent family still fall short of vitally singular queerness and even decline? “[T]his decent family’s progress”58 culminates in two divorces and one premature death. Weakening into “impatience,” the father loses his fortune. His wife, Fanny Hissen, grows alienated with age, “lost among her children and her husband.”59 Martha separates from Redfern once he philanders. Alfred’s marriage to Julia crumbles when Alfred spends his father-in-law’s money dishonestly. David dies “before he was a middle aged one”60 from morbidity-induced malnutrition (“He was then being eating only one thing. He came then to be a dead one”61). The Making of Americans unfolds through a series of Greek tragedies, each Hersland meeting adversity through an integral flaw: impatience, frailty, mediocrity, guile, and depression. Why the Herslands never realize vital singularity becomes inseparable from their proximity to the “poor queer kind of people […] in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living.”62 Hersland queerness intertwines with poor queerness, garnering symbolically disastrous results. The Herslands find themselves unmade by the “queer mixture in them,”63 instilled from the practice “of forcing themselves into a kind of living as if they were poor people.”64 Such “queer poor” habits affect the children more than their parents, who are already set in their ways: “More and more then it was then slowly coming to be true of them that the children were more entirely of them, the poorer people who lived around them, than they were of their mother then.”65 With poorness summoning low, coarse existence for the narrator, the queer Herslands seem tainted by association. An unspoken something from their hybrid culture contributes to their demise. This isn’t to say that the opposite is true, that decent bourgeois living guarantees vital queerness. Far from it. Mrs Hersland remains too rooted in “right well to do middle class living”66 to imagine singularly queer being. Yet class bias nonetheless permeates the novel’s queer dead-ends. Mr Hersland’s European working-class origins too intensely linger (“The father David Hersland we cannot count for us, it was an old world that gave him the stamp to be different from the adolescent world around us”67). Martha wavers between a stodgy new-world feminism and social displacement, too queer for the rich, too rich for the poor, lost to both worlds.68 Alfred’s childhood friendships with Gossols locals and adult attachments to poor bohemians and dubious socialites—his second wife, Minnie Mason, a chief case—disqualify him from any authentically noble

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queer feeling. Even David, the narrator’s “hope,” misses “that vital steadfast singularity inside him that custom passion and a feel for mother earth can breed in men.”69 Not coincidentally, the youngest son most closely identifies with his poor neighbours, “so entirely of them when he was in his beginning […] that in the description of the being in him there will be very much description of the being in many of them.”70 This connection deepens David’s anonymous qualities. He is the only Hersland who dies young, unwed, and childless, although he never expresses an interest in fatherhood either. The lonesome loner departs without being truly known by another or knowing himself. The Herslands head for oblivion despite their male potential. They are not the only ones. By marriage, the Dehnings become dragged into the Herslands’ downward slide. Julia and Alfred’s marriage disintegrates due in no small part to class-based tensions. The Dehnings are as far away from a singularly queer sensibility as a family can be. Like Fanny Hissen in their “very rich very decent right american living,”71 the Dehnings exist “quite pleasantly, quite generously, reasonably honestly, reasonably lovingly, somewhat urgently”72—lacklustre enough to avoid the heady heights offered by vital singularity or the lows brought on by gruelling need. On no terms does Alfred share his wife’s “family living”: “Alfred Hersland was not really then of Dehning family living, Julia was really then always of Dehning family living. Mr. Dehning was then fairly slowly quite certain that Alfred Hersland was not such a reasonably honest one as Mr. Dehning needed for business living. Julia Hersland had come fairly quickly to be certain that Alfred Hersland was not the kind of a one she needed for fairly honest daily living.”73 To be clear, Alfred’s dishonesty cannot be attributed to the inherently middle-class Herslands themselves, but to the company they keep and locale they reside in. “Hersland family living was honest enough living for any daily living,” Stein clarifies,74 but Alfred “was never really of the Hersland family living.”75 How can he be when “poor queer” bosom-buddies like Will Roddy set a damaging example? Frank and Will Roddy often were there in the evening at the Hersland place playing with Albert Banks and Alfred Hersland and David. […] Frank Roddy later in his living went into the country to earn his living. Will Roddy later went into a cigar stand, clerking, and then his father died and he had a little money and he came to be a partner and then he and the other one failed and they were not fair then they very much favored one creditor, they had some trouble, later very many years later some of the Herslands happened to hear from some one that Will Roddy was in jail because of something he had been doing. He was supposed not to have

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Will Roddy is the only other character who conducts shady financial dealings and falls into a working-class stereotype as a result. Torn between a queerly dishonest father and a “rich right” mother, the fourth generation falters. Out of Alfred and Julia’s three children, the two sons who resemble Alfred are sickly. One dies as an infant. The other eventually “c[omes] to be quite a strong enough little one a little later in his living,”77 thanks to some likeness to Julia’s upright brother, George. The daughter takes after Julia from the outset, conversely, and fits right into “Dehning family living.”78 None become queer singulars and therefore interesting to the narrator.79 Stein bespeaks a queer America coming into its own, but The Making of Americans insinuates that such a transformation will not come about through the Hersland-Dehning union. The vital singularity defining the homosexual outcast out of step with his or her time cannot be sought in either the Herslands’ poor-tinged queerness or the Dehnings’ bland respectability. A voice that tells itself, “Now I am going on. Now go on,”80 cannot do so, again, when it comes to the class question.

Notes 1 Stein is, of course, still aware of Ulysses’ influence, even aligning her narrative breakthroughs with Joyce’s in “Portraits and Repetition.” See Gertrude Stein, Look at Me Now and Here I Am: Writings and Lectures, 1909-45, ed. Patricia Meyerowitz (London: Penguin, 1990), 110. 2 James Joyce, Ulysses, ed. Jeri Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 732. 3 Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans (Normal: Dalkey, 1995), 586. 4 Ibid., 545. 5 Ibid., 802, 820. 6 Ibid., 718. 7 Leon Katz, introduction to Ferhurst, Q. E. D., and Other Early Writings, by Gertrude Stein (London: Peter Owen, 1972), xxiii-xxix. 8 For additional synopses of The Making of Americans’ stylistic progression, see Katz, introduction, xxviii; Jane Palatini Bowers, Gertrude Stein (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993), 63-82; Richard Bridgman, Gertrude Stein in Pieces (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 60-61; Janet Malcolm, Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 114-21; and Janice L. Doane, Silence and Narrative: The Early Novels of Gertrude Stein (Westport: Greenwood, 1986), 83. 9 Stein, Making of Americans, 299.

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Ibid., 511. Ibid. 12 Ibid., 580. 13 A pursuit heavily inspired by Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character. See Leon Katz, “Weininger and The Making of Americans,” Twentieth-Century Literature 24 (Spring 1978): 8-26; Joan Retallack, introduction to Gertrude Stein: Selections, ed. Joan Retallack (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 23-26; and Jayne L. Walker, The Making of a Modernist: Gertrude Stein from Three Lives to Tender Buttons (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 47. 14 Stein, Making of Americans, 21. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 922. 17 Ibid., 919, 923. 18 Ibid., 21. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 The voice orating the past and future of Stein’s America alternately identifies with and claims intimate knowledge of both sexes. Maleness surfaces in the ongoing “we” of the “Brothers Singulars,” not to mention casually sexist remarks (“[Women] have simpler reaction in them” [226]). Yet a strong feminine presence intrudes from time to time. “I like better to tell it about women the nature in them because it is clearer and I know it better, a little not very much better” (225), the narrator confesses at one point. A similar admission occurs a little over 400 pages later: “I know then now always very much always more and more the being in women, the being in them when they are young girls coming to be going to be young women. I know always more and more what men are coming to be doing in their living, I do not know very much more now of the being of men when they are young boys coming to be going to be men” (653). See also Stein, Making of Americans, 3, 16, 20, 28, and 205. 22 See ibid., 605-06, 648. 23 Ibid., 33. 24 Ibid., 34; italics my own. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 438. 27 Ibid., 437-38. 28 Ibid., 21. 29 Ibid., 47. 30 Ibid., 463, 485. 31 Ibid., 463. 32 Ibid., 487. 33 Ibid., 194-95. 34 For instance, “servant queerness” (not to be confused with “servant girl nature”) stems from solitary living and is usually attributed to foreign servants or governesses who have to be “sent away all of a sudden” (169). From “cooking, from cleaning and from their lonesome living, from their sitting in the kitchen, 11

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from having a mistress to direct them, and children to tease them” (170), some staff members turn “queer, sometimes a little crazy” (169). Such women may not desire other women, but come across as queer by remaining unwed and childless— outside familiar reproductive narratives. 35 Stein, Making of Americans, 47. 36 Ibid., 98. 37 Ibid., 100. 38 Ibid., 96. 39 Ibid., 81-82. 40 Ibid., 658. 41 The third Banks brother, one of Alfred’s childhood friends, never earns a career description like his older brothers, since “his later living came when the Herslands did not any longer […] know what happened to any one in that part of Gossols and so there is not to be any telling of his future living” (531-32). When “poor queer people” make an appearance, it remains brief and subsumed under the Hersland narrative. 42 Stein, Making of Americans, 220. 43 Ibid., 285. 44 Ibid., 100. 45 Ibid. 46 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, ed. Claude Lefort (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 137. 47 Stein, Making of Americans, 78. 48 Ibid., 100-01. 49 See ibid., 104. 50 Ibid., 107. 51 Ibid., 101. 52 Ibid., 156. 53 Ibid., 49. 54 Ibid., 61. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., 51. 57 Ibid., 49. 58 Ibid., 34. 59 Ibid., 427. 60 Ibid., 725. 61 Ibid., 903. 62 Ibid., 64. 63 Ibid., 52. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid., 95. 66 Ibid., 54. 67 Ibid., 47. 68 Ibid., 413. 69 Ibid., 48.

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Ibid., 395. Ibid., 623. 72 Ibid., 650. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid., 656. 75 Ibid., 654. 76 Ibid., 533. 77 Ibid., 671. 78 Ibid. 79 See ibid., 691. 80 Ibid., 664. 71

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CHAPTER TWELVE CHRISTIAN AND LESBIAN/GAY/ BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDER: RECONCILING IDENTITIES THROUGH COMPARISON ANDREW GREY

Introduction One of the challenges facing many Christians who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT) is to maintain both their religious identity and their identity as people who are not heterosexual—taking each of them seriously without diminishing either. This rests on an important question: are the two identities inherently in competition with one another, and therefore mutually exclusive, or can they co-exist? This essay will attempt to explore possible approaches to maintaining these two identities. Some might object to this endeavour on the grounds that it reflects the tendency of modern, Western, societies to place a potentially disproportionate emphasis on sex and sexuality, in this case by suggesting that there is a need to give non-heterosexual orientations a proper place within people’s identities. The underlying concern of this point is noted: there can be a tendency to exaggerate the significance of sex and sexuality in modern Western society. However, our discussion should hopefully provide an antidote to this problem, by attempting to gain a balanced, healthy understanding of the place of sexuality in a person’s life. At the same time, it cannot be denied that sexuality is, for many, an important aspect of their identity, whether in terms of their attractions, their relationships, or in some cases, their celibacy. Whilst it is important not to exaggerate the place of sexuality in the identity of Christians, therefore, we must nonetheless acknowledge that it will have some kind of role.

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A further concern might be that such a perspective is individualistic: why should an individual’s perception of their own sexuality and faith be regarded as a fundamental concern? However, this essay intends to answer the question concerning identity precisely because a person needs to have a healthy understanding of themselves in order to participate in their respective communities: if a person cannot maintain both identities, it becomes extremely difficult for them to maintain relationships with people of the same faith or sexual orientation and identity. Despite the importance of this question, there is very little literature devoted exclusively to it; generally, the issue has been raised within works that discuss homosexuality more broadly. We will consider two such works, which offer relatively polarized opinions on this issue, before attempting to offer a more nuanced approach by making a comparison with early Jewish Christian identity. Early Jewish Christians were in fact initially the only Christians: all “Christians” were Jews who accepted that Jesus was their Messiah. Indeed, according to the New Testament book, the Acts of the Apostles, it was non-Jews who were alien to the Christian community at first, and Jewish Christians had to be persuaded to allow non-Jews, or Gentiles, to become members.1 However, within a relatively short space of time, Gentile Christians had begun challenging those who wished to maintain a Jewish identity. At this point, it is necessary to clarify the focus of this essay. Our discussion is not concerned with the (nonetheless interesting) question of whether same-sex relationships are consistent with Christian ethical teaching. Rather, we start with the empirical observation that some Christians do identify as LGBT without considering their sexuality to be incompatible with their faith, and we wish to ask how these particular Christians should conceive of their relations between the two identities.

Rationale Before proceeding, it is worth taking a moment to justify the choice to draw this particular comparison. Why look at the early church at all, and why at Jewish Christian identity in particular? The early Church is a particularly interesting period to consider because in many ways Christian identity was of greater significance in the church’s embryonic stages. Those who considered themselves to be followers of Christ felt a greater urgency to assert their distinctive identity, as they were very much in the minority, and were part of a new community that was nonetheless gradually growing. For instance, in the time of some of the earliest Christian leaders and writers (such as Clement

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of Alexandria and Tertullian in the second century CE), engaging in certain behaviour associated with Greco-Roman culture, such as attending theatres, or baths, or participating in certain jobs, became a source of tension.2 Christians wished to distinguish themselves clearly from the more broadly accepted milieus and activities of the societies in which they lived. Specifically, there are important similarities between the cases of early Jewish-Christian identity and modern LGBT Christian identity. For both Jewish Christians in the early Church and LGBT Christians in the presentday church, there is a serious concern to honour their identity as followers of Christ without diminishing this other aspect of their self-understanding. This has been attested, for instance, by the sociologist Jodi O’Brien, who interviewed several subjects “who endeavour[ed] to maintain both a strong Christian identity and an open and ‘proud’ lesbian or gay identity”.3 And just as Jewish identity was integral to the lives of many Jews in the early Church—representing their very origin and the stories with which they were raised—sexuality is integral for many LGBT people, their attractions and romantic relationships being a fundamental part of their personal existence.

Existing opinions Currently two positions in the debate stand out, both of which regard homosexual identity and Christian identity as necessarily in competition with one another for the status of defining a person, and therefore unable to co-exist. One opinion is expressed by such thinkers as the New Testament scholar Richard Hays, who refers to the concerns of his late gay friend that homosexual Christians were being encouraged to “draw their identity from their sexuality” and thus, in Hays’ words, “to shift the ground of their identity subtly and idolatrously away from God”.4 For Hays, there is seemingly one single “ground” of a person’s identity, and it belongs properly to God, whilst some Christians have a tendency to allocate this place to their sexuality instead. A similar argument has been made by the theologian Steve Holmes in an interview with Vicky Beeching, the founder of the recent “Faith in Feminism” project. Holmes claims that “in Christ there is no gay or straight or lesbian or bi—and those of us who have been baptized into Christ can own no identity except ‘Christian’”.5 Meanwhile, another theologian, Walter Moberly presents this as a challenge to LGBT Christians: “are we willing to find our identity in Christ […] rather than in the fashions of contemporary gay movements?”6

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For people with same-sex attraction who would share this view, their religious identity generally defines who they are, whilst their sexuality is merely a kind of sickness, or “struggle”.7 The other view, expressed by the literary critic Michael Warner in his book The Trouble with Normal, is that sexuality ought to define a person. He rejects the attempts of many LGBT activists to “normalize” their lifestyles by fighting for marriage rights, and to live lives that effectively parallel those of heterosexual married couples, as if their sexual orientations were irrelevant to their ideals, principles and aspirations. For Warner, the idea that LGBT people should be about “more than sexuality” is a suppression of their authentic sexuality.8 Whilst Warner does not explicitly mention religious identity, he implies that there is no room for it by arguing that one’s sexuality is allencompassing, and should be the locus of all of one’s values, principles and hopes. This is evidently the territory of religious faith. For LGBT people who once had a Christian faith, but who identify more along these lines, sexuality is a fundamental part of who they are in a way that religion is not; therefore, the religious lifestyle is rejected as being unable to respect the person’s true nature. A recent study by Andrew Yip and others attests to this, reporting that many religious LGBT young people felt it necessary to downplay this aspect of their identity outside of their religious contexts.9 Therefore, the two most prominent voices, despite being on opposite ends of the debate on homosexuality itself, are in agreement on one point: homosexual/bisexual/transgender identity and Christian identity are fundamentally incompatible, because they operate within the same space. Both positions could be said to be employing the tactic of denying “their opponents’ identity status in order to render them powerless”.10 I will reject both strategies, and seek a third way from the example of early Jewish Christians.

Definitions Before dealing with the question of how Jewish Christians in the early Church reconciled Jewish and Christian identities, it is important to first clarify our understanding of these terms.

Judaism in antiquity Firstly, being “Jewish” in antiquity took various different forms, just as it does today. Textual evidence from Josephus’ Jewish War and Jewish

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Antiquities suggests that there were, at minimum, four different Jewish sects in the first century: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and followers of the “Fourth Philosophy”.11 These sects varied to some extent in their beliefs, but all of them shared a belief in the one God of Israel, the authority of the Jewish Scriptures, and observation of the Jewish Law as set out in those writings.

“Christians” in antiquity It is not clear when the term “Christian” first came into common use. The Greek version, Christianos, appears on only three occasions in the New Testament, each time in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and in each case, used by characters outside the Christian community rather than as a term of self-identification. However, for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to anyone who was part of any community of followers of Christ, and who held Jesus to be the Messiah, as “Christian” (conscious of the fact that using the term is slightly anachronistic).

“Jewish Christians” in antiquity Defining “Jewish Christians” is more complicated. What criteria can be used to render people in the early church to have been members of the Christian community with a simultaneous Jewish identity? Adolf von Harnack argued that “Jewish Christians” should refer to those members of the community with Jewish parents: that is, those who were ethnically Jewish.12 However, this suggestion is overly simplistic and does not do justice to textual evidence that some Christians engaged in Jewish practice.13 Clearly Jewish Christians were not a monolithic entity (just as neither Jews nor Christians in antiquity were). However, though they varied on the details of their theology, and in particular on whether non-Jews could be “saved”, a lowest common denominator appears to be that all the Jewish Christians referred to in the textual evidence we will examine seem to have observed the Jewish law and to have perceived themselves to be followers of Christ. These common factors will therefore be assumed whenever we make reference to “Jewish Christians”.

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The early church Having defined our terms, we can now examine the evidence. When considering how those who were from a Jewish community reconciled this identity with their Christian identity, the natural starting-point is to look at the most prominent example of an early Jewish Christian: the Apostle Paul. Paul was formerly a member of the Jewish sect of the Pharisees,14 but later became a follower of Christ. Many assume that he therefore “converted” in a straightforward fashion, from Judaism to Christianity. But at no point in his letters does Paul claim to have abandoned this Jewish aspect of his self-understanding. On the contrary, on multiple occasions he affirms his continuing Jewish identity: in his letter to Christians in Rome, he writes: “I am an Israelite, from the seed of Abraham” (Rom 11:1); in his second letter to the Christians in Corinth, he reiterates his identity as a Hebrew, Israelite and descendant of Abraham (2 Cor 11:22); and, most strongly, in his letter to the Christians in Philippi, Paul declares that he is: “circumcised […] of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin”—indeed “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil 3:5). Nonetheless, on many other occasions, Paul strongly emphasizes his new identity in Christ—declaring at the openings of several letters that he is an “Apostle of Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 1:1), and stating in his letter to the Christians in Galatia: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Clearly, then, Paul identified simultaneously as a follower (indeed, an apostle) of Christ and as a Jew. He was therefore able to retain both identities without regarding them as necessarily in competition for the same space. Yet Paul’s writing is sometimes used to argue that Christians should shed any identity other than their Christianity.15 This argument often draws on his “unity formula”, which occurs in similar wording in three of his letters: 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians. The Galatians version reads: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Out of context, this quote (which is a formula many scholars believe was used in baptisms16) appears to deny the existence of any other identity than that which is found in Christ. However, as the label “unity formula” indicates, the purpose of the verse is not to monopolize identity but to unite communities. It is not necessary to conclude, along with, for example, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, that Paul is arguing that “the new creation results in the nullification of previous identifications”.17 Rather, Bruce Hansen’s interpretation is truer to the context: that the main issue was not the existence of other identities, but the use of the

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differences in those identities to divide the Christian community in their loyalties. People’s identifications with other groups were threatening the social cohesion of the Christian community: their genders and ethnicities being used to separate themselves from one another. In practice, Paul’s advice was not therefore to eradicate any other identities, but to bear in mind that they were secondary to their identity as believers in Christ. In this sense, their unity as Christians was more important than their differences as Jews or Greeks, men or women. It is helpful to compare Paul’s approach here with the observations of the psychologists Sonia Roccas and Marilynn Brewer (2002) about attempts to resolve the phenomenon of “social identity complexity”: that is, how individuals construct their social identities when they have multiple ingroup memberships, which do not completely converge.18 Roccas and Brewer describe four main approaches to this.19 The first is “intersection”, where a person defines their in-group very specifically as only those people who possess both (or all) of their social identities. This seems to be the approach that Paul is rejecting in the unity formula: for him, everyone’s ingroup must include Christians who do not share their gender or ethnic identity. The second approach they describe, “dominance”, would involve subsuming ethnic or gender identities under Christian identity. This may at first sight appear to be what Paul is proposing: however, on closer examination, this is not the case, as it would require that these identities merely became other aspects of the self, rather than social identities in their own right. As Hansen argues, assimilation of identities does not require the abolition of existing identities. The third approach discussed by Roccas and Brewer is “compartmentalization”, whereby a person maintains multiple identities, but each identity is specific to a certain context. The person identifies with one group in a particular setting, but another in a different setting. If a person happens to be in a situation where more than one of their identities are relevant, they will identify more strongly in such circumstances with those who share both (or all) of their social identities. Under this model, a Muslim woman would identify with Muslim men in her mosque, but would identify more strongly with the other Muslim women. However, once again, this does not seem to be the approach Paul is suggesting, as it still creates division between people. The closest approach to Paul’s own is Roccas and Brewer’s fourth suggestion: “merging”, whereby a person perceives their in-group as consisting of everyone who shares any single one of their identities, regardless of what other identities they may have. Their social identity is,

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then, the sum of all the groups with which they identify. This approach would mean that the early Christians were honouring their identity as Christian and as Jewish or Gentile, slave or free, female or male. But they did not require the other Christians to share these additional aspects of themselves in order to identify with them. Nonetheless, Paul’s approach is more nuanced than this, as it requires the prioritizing of one particular identity when loyalty to other identities threatens the cohesion of those united by it; so, effectively, the two are in peaceful co-existence until such a situation. It could therefore be described as “merging” as far as possible without alternative identities coming into conflict. This need for further clarification demonstrates that, though these modern approaches are immensely helpful, they do not always comfortably fit into ancient approaches. From this examination of Paul’s approach, the guidance we can offer modern LGBT Christians is to ensure that their membership of the LGBT community does not separate them from their fellow Christians. Unfortunately, this will often not work in practice as some groups of Christians may refuse to identify with them. But, as far as possible, their focus should be on trying to identify with as many other Christians as possible, rather than perceiving themselves as being in an entirely separate category from them. This merits consideration in relation to the Metropolitan Community Church, a Christian denomination founded in the US in the 1960s by the Reverend Troy Perry, who sought to offer a spiritual home for the LGBT Christians who were outcast by mainstream churches at the time.20 While undoubtedly meeting a need in that particular time and place, members of the church today, or in the future, might wish to ask whether the existence of an entirely separate denomination is still necessary or helpful. To develop the insights we can gain from early Jewish Christians, we will now examine the development of Jewish Christian identity after Paul, in and beyond the first century CE. If they did merge Jewish and Christian identities, how did they go about this? Eusebius of Caesarea, a Christian historian and Bishop in the third and fourth centuries CE, reports one group, or sect, of Jewish Christians called Ebionites. The Ebionites were Christians according to our definition, as they were followers of Christ. However, they might be considered heretical by many modern Christians as they rejected certain creedal notions, such as the Virgin Birth (bearing in mind they were present before the production of the first official church creeds!). Nonetheless, they observed certain Christian practices—but also observed Jewish customs. Eusebius writes: “They observe the Sabbath and other disciplines of the

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Jews, just like them; but on the other hand, they also celebrate the Lord’s days very much like us.”21 Clearly this group managed to observe practices of both Jewish and Christian communities, and therefore maintained their identification with both groups. Scholars such as Ray Pritz have recently suggested that there is evidence for the existence of at least one other sect of Jewish Christians, called “Nazarenes”.22 For instance Augustine, writing in the early fifth century, used this term to refer to a group that was seemingly still in existence at that time. He described them as practising circumcision, abstaining from eating pork, and keeping the Jewish Sabbath, but professing to be Christians.23 Although Augustine was sceptical of the group’s ability to identify with both Christian faith and Jewish practice, evidently the members of this community felt able to do so. Clearly, then, the identity of these Jewish Christian groups involved the maintenance, through practice, of both of these identities. Thus it was perfectly possible for some groups to express their Jewish identity without it subverting their Christian identity. They learnt to maintain both without them occupying the same space. How did they do this specifically? One of the most helpful indicators of the answer to this question is a theme that recurs in several ancient writers’ discussions of Jewish Christian groups: salvation. Eusebius seemed to object to the Jewish Christians’ observation of the law, not because it was problematic for them to honour their Jewish identity, but, rather, because of their motivation for doing so. He writes that: “with them the observance of the law was altogether necessary, as if they could not be saved only by faith in Christ and a corresponding life”.24 The issue was specifically whether they were practising the law as a means to salvation. Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, approached the issue from a similar perspective. In his Dialogue with Trypho, the eponymous character, who is generally deemed to have been a fictional literary device rather than a historical person, asks Justin whether salvation is also available to those who, in his words: “wish to live in the observance of the institutions given by Moses, and yet believe in this Jesus who was crucified, recognizing him to be the Christ of God.”25 Justin’s reply is that: such a one will be saved, if he does not strive in any way to persuade […] Gentiles […] to observe the same things as himself, telling them that they will not be saved unless they do.26

He even goes further and suggests that, if some Christians “wish to observe such institutions as were given by Moses” (i.e. to continue observing Jewish law), “yet choose to live with the Christians and the

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faithful”, then he and Trypho, as Christians, also ought to identify with them. For Justin, therefore, it was possible for people to maintain a Christian identity and observe Jewish practices, provided they did not seek salvation through the latter. Can this translate into the modern dilemma with LGBT Christians? We would be hard-pushed to find an analogy between those few ancient Jewish Christians who may have attempted to persuade other Christians that their practices were necessary for salvation and modern LGBT Christian behaviour, but the principle behind it is nonetheless helpful. These early church Fathers tested whether the Jewish and Christian identities were in conflict by assessing whether the expression of Jewish identity came to be regarded as a means of salvation—it was therefore problematic if it began to encroach on the central theological concern of Christianity, namely the human condition and the need for salvation. This can be perceived as a distinction between core theological matters and questions of conduct in relation to specific issues. Applying this perspective to our issue, the crucial question then becomes: does a person’s sexual orientation attempt to encroach on the central theological concerns of Christianity? This question brings us back to Michael Warner, who regards a person’s sexual orientation as all-encompassing, and would presumably therefore argue that it should transform a person and their entire worldview. However, such a view is at odds with the attitudes of many LGBT Christians. Among prominent Christians rejecting this approach are Andrew Sullivan,27 a Roman Catholic political commentator; and the Anglican Dean of St. Albans in England, Jeffrey John. These figures, like many LGBT Christians, maintain their religious identities, but express their gay identities primarily by having romantic relationships with other men. Their understanding of their status as human beings (that is, sinful or “fallen”, but redeemed through Christ) is guided by their Christian faith. For these Christians, there is no need for their identity as LGBT people and their identity as Christians to be in competition for the same space: their understanding of the status of human beings and the meaning of human life is shaped by their Christian convictions, rather than by the fact that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Nonetheless, their sexuality has its own domain, in terms of their romantic relationships and potentially in their understanding of gender. Just as early Jewish Christians held to Jewish understandings of how they should eat, structure their weeks and so on, without encroaching on the Christian gospel, LGBT Christians today can have understandings of romantic relationships and sexuality based on their experiences as non-heterosexual people, without

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encroaching on the Christian gospel message of the nature of humankind and its need for salvation through Christ.28

Conclusion We have seen that for some early Christian writers, Jewish identity was not necessarily to be regarded as occupying the same space as Christian identity. Rather, this was only the case when Jewish practice was seen as exercizing control over a person’s salvation, something which is the domain of Christian faith. This seems to be a helpful model for understanding LGBT identity. Identifying as LGBT is not inherently in competition with identifying as Christian, as long as LGBT Christians respect that their understanding of human beings (as made in the image of God, but fallen, redeemed by Christ, and affirmed by the fact that the Word of God became a human being, along with other such implications of the Christian story) is to be guided by their faith. Meanwhile, their specifically romantic relationships and understanding of related issues are guided by the fact that they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.29 To reiterate the point at the beginning of this chapter, this argument does not settle the homosexuality debate; but this suggestion—combined with the insights on not perceiving LGBT Christians as being in an entirely separate category—does offer a constructive way forward for those who do not necessarily find homosexual practice to be incompatible with Christian conduct, but may be concerned that they allow neither their sexuality nor their faith to dominate their identity without the other being given its proper place.

Notes 1

This is narrated in the story of Cornelius, a centurion, who has to be accepted by the Jewish council of the church in Jerusalem. This can be found in the New Testament book The Acts of the Apostles, chapters 10-15 (especially chapter 15). 2 Judith Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 133. 3 Jodi O’Brien, “Angel of Contradiction”, 188. 4 Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 379. 5 Vicky Beeching, “Christian, Feminist and Conservative on Sexuality?”, http://faithinfeminism.com/feminist-conservative-on-sexuality-2/ (accessed January 10, 2014).

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Walter Moberly, “The Use of Scripture in Contemporary Debate about Homosexuality”, Theology 103 (2000), 254. 7 This sort of perspective can motivate some Christians to attend infamous “exgay” therapies and ministries. Cf. O’Brien, “Angel of Contradiction”, 187. 8 Michael Warner, The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (Cambridge, MA & Cambridge, UK: Harvard University Press, 2000), 66. Warner also laments the attempt of James Collard, then editor of Out magazine, to call for a “post-gay identity”. Warner viewed this as constituting “an implicit devaluation of sexuality”. Cf. Warner, Normal, 65. 9 Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip, et al, Religion, Youth and Sexuality: Selected Key Findings from a Multi-faith Exploration (University of Nottingham), 17, http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sociology/pdfs/rys-research-report.pdf (accessed December 27 2013). 10 R. R. Ganzevoort, M. van der Laan & E. Olsman, “Growing Up Gay and Religious: Conflict, Dialogue and Religious Identity Strategies”, Mental Health, Religion and Culture 14.3 (2011), 213. 11 Christopher Rowland, Christian Origins: The Setting and Character of the Most Important Messianic Sect of Judaism, 2nd edn. (London: SPCK, 2002), 64-5. Followers of this philosophy are commonly identified as “Zealots”. 12 Adolf von Harnack, “Appendix: The Christianity of the Jewish Christians” in A History of Dogma, Vol. I, trans. Neil Buchanan (Boston: Little Brown & Co. 1901), 288. 13 See the section of this essay entitled “The Early Church”. 14 Acts 26:5. 15 Oliver O’Donovan at least argues that this is the case on a theological and ontological level. Cf. O’Donovan, Oliver, “Homosexuality in the Church: Can there be a fruitful theological debate?”, in The Way Forward? Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church, 2nd edn., ed. Timothy Bradshaw (London: SCM Press, 2003), 29. 16 Bruce Hansen, “All of you are one”: The Social Vision of Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:3 and Col 3:11 (London: Continuum, 2010), 6. 17 Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “The Singularity of the Gospel: A Reading of Galatians” in Pauline Theology (vol. 1: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon), ed. Jouette M. Bassler (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 149, quoted in Hansen, Bruce, “All of you are one”, 86. 18 Aside from Roccas and Brewer’s own article, cf. e.g. Grant, Fiona and Hogg, Michael A., “Self-uncertainty, social identity prominence and group identification”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012), 538. 19 Sonia Roccas and Marilynn B. Brewer, “Social Identity Complexity”, Personality and Social Psychology Review 6.2 (2002), 90-1. 20 Metropolitan Community Church, “History of MCC”, http://mccchurch.org/overview/history-of-mcc/ (accessed December 27, 2013). 21 Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 3.27 in “The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine”, eds. C.F. Cruse and Henri de Valois (London: G Bell, 1876).

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Ray A. Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity: From the End of the New Testament Period Until its Disappearance in the Fourth Century (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988). 23 Augustine of Hippo, “Contra Faustum”, Book XIX.4, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/140619.htm (accessed December 27, 2013). 24 (Ecclesiastical History 3.27; emphasis added). 25 Justin Martyr, “Dialogue with Trypho”, 46, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01283.htm (accessed December 27, 2013). 26 Ibid. 27 Cf., for example, Andrew Sullivan, “The End of Gay Culture: Assimilation and its Meaning”, New Republic (2005), http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/the-end-gay-culture (accessed December 30, 2013). 28 The only possible hindrance would be viewing homosexual or bisexual attraction, or the desire for gender alteration, to be a consequence of human sinfulness. But such a problem does not arise for those with whom this paper is concerned: namely, those who do not deem their sexuality to be problematic in this way. 29 With more space, this would need to be considered more fully in the future with reference to actual Christian experience.

PART FOUR: VISUALITY, TECHNOLOGY AND IDENTITY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN HYPER-BODIES OF THE OBJET A-VATAR: THE ASSEMBLAGE OF THE DIGITAL SELF GARFIELD BENJAMIN

The avatar has become a key tool in the mediation of digital environments. From forums to virtual worlds, a visual representation of each individual user is an important aspect of communication, a placeholder for the self within a realm we cannot walk. The increasing usage of avatars in the mediation of virtual space raises key questions concerning the construction of identity in digital media. Furthermore, the analysis of the relation between the individual subject and its manifestation within the digital realm reveals the underlying structures of assemblage in both the physical and digital self. With a transfinite array of possible constructions, the digital subject is constrained in their identity only by their access to technology and their own subjective presuppositions about the nature of their identity. Therefore, this essay will examine not the specific manifestations of individual identity, its signifiers and embodiments, for such constructs are innately fluid within immaterial realms such as the digital. Rather, an assessment is required of the creation of identity as such within consciousness, in order to deepen our understanding of the assemblage of the human across physical and digital domains. Beyond the visual manifestation of the individual there lies a range of semantic and interactive tools available for the expression of digital identity and the embodiment of the human as data in manifold abstract worlds. This essay will examine the use of avatars in Second Life, both the medium and its art practice, through the use of Žižek’s cultural application of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Deleuze’s theories of schizoanalytical assemblage, in relation to conceptions of thought, observation and reality posited by quantum physicists such as Heisenberg and Bohm. Using this framework of theories that place the subjective perspective of the engaged observer at the centre of a flexible reality, the chapter will explore the more general role of the avatar within the structures of assemblage in

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digital identity and look beneath the surface constructions of embodiment towards the hyper-textual assemblage of the digital avatar and its relation to subjectivity. In reassessing this construction of identity beyond the image on the interface screen, the constituent elements of the avatar, and even the bodied form of the avatar itself, will be revealed to be a lost or partial objectification of subjectivity, suggesting interesting ramifications for the fundamental assemblage of any identity. Through examining the various psychological constructions of the avatar in works by Angrybeth Shortbread, Bryn Oh, and Eva and Franco Mattes, the chapter will critically assess the construction of the visual avatar itself as lost or partial object, the creative negotiation of the avatar as a functional and sensory interface, and the reception of the avatar by others. Through this analysis of avatars in Second Life, reconceived as a hypertextual subjective assemblage, the physical body itself will be posited as an objet a, thus illuminating the underlying psychological structures of identity, beyond anthropocentric figuration, as it engages with any given reality.

The avatar We might first assess the very term “avatar”, if we are to untangle its relations of assemblage. The avatar has its origins in Hinduism, as the “going down into” the world of a deific being. This suggests a limiting factor of manifestation, reducing the god to a form in which it can interact with mere humans. The contemporary usage, however, conventionally denotes a purely visual expression of identity that stands in for a human controller. Perhaps it is possible to expand the word to a definition between the Hindu myth and its common reappropriation in digital media, towards “a visible manifestation or embodiment of an abstract concept; archetype”.1 Here the subject itself constitutes the abstract concept, in the virtuality of self-posited consciousness, and is represented in both physical and digital worlds by a collection of data (nucleobases or bits). This is formed according to certain archetypes of what is recognized as “human”. There is an obvious link here to Jungian archetypes (another word rooted in the manifestation of a deific being), which are described as the universal, and perhaps transcendental, “contents of the collective unconscious”.2 It is perhaps not surprising that the avatar has such firm links to anthropocentric embodiment, yet the Jungian construct that forms the deepest levels of subjectivity supports a broadening of the term into abstract, oneiric and super-natural assemblages of consciousness.

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The definition of this representation of embodiment that we call “avatar” has been expanded in recent research, to encompass a broader scheme of engagement. As Gunkel insists, “the avatars that are encountered within the virtual world are not the representatives and delegates of some independent and pre-existing real thing. The order of precedence must be reversed”.3 Hill expands upon the work of Gunkel, in the expression of digital identity as emergent and several, to separate four “standard” definitions or expressions that qualify under the term: “animated avatar [as seen in Second Life], web-cam avatar [used in Skype], profile avatar [for example Facebook], and portrait avatar [a Twitter image plus 140 character caption]”.4 We will apply the emergent absence of the Lacanian gaze to the functional relations beneath all these manifestations of the digital subject, as a simultaneous lack and excess, in order to extend the Žižekian notion of consciousness as always-already false. This emergent simultaneity of subjectivity between physical and digital worlds upturns the conventional relation of humans towards the presumed root of identity in the “real” physical body.

Objet a In all definitions, however, it appears that the avatar form contains a certain lack compared to the complete human subject it represents. As a partial manifestation of the individual, the embodiment presented by the avatar only ever maintains an appearance-of-appearance. That is, we never “are” the representation of ourselves, the body we occupy always lacks an element of genuine subjectivity, a filling-in of the object with the void of consciousness. This lack places identity as an objective entity, but such an objectification approaches Lacan’s objet petit a, the lost object that causes desire and is yet always unattainable. Within the assemblage of identity, this objet a constitutes what is “in me more than myself” as a cognitive externalization of archetypal, unconscious impulses. The very term “avatar” could be considered an objet a, a lack and excess, in its relation to our gaze and engagement with digital realms. Filled with data, the excessive flow of information through the avatar into virtual existence is more than our view of the representation makes visible. Here it is the construction of the subject itself that functions according to the lost or partial object, the objet a that constitutes the cause of desire within the gaze and the psychological kernel of reality. Even our familiar physical reality reacts according to this lost objectification in the subjective gaze. The developments in physics over the past hundred years have led to the discovery of the quantum realm of

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wave-particle duality, probability and uncertainty. This principle was suggested by Heisenberg as the fact that “the exact knowledge of one variable can exclude the exact knowledge of another”.5 This is an inherent part of the act of observation; inscribed in the gaze is a presupposed unobservable element that is always lost, yet bears down upon us as a quasi-causal force beneath what is observable. Bohm describes this fundamental state as the fact that “not all physically significant observables can be determined together”,6 which Albert summarizes and expands as a situation whereby “there will sometimes not even be matters of fact about what observers think”.7 Our identification of the appearance of an objective world is formed through the lost object of the gaze itself, a fundamental lack within our consciousness that leaves the subject everincomplete. Understanding this inherent lack within identity is thus essential in uncovering the desires and drives that govern our use of the avatar as a digitally objectified self and its role within the entire subjective assemblage.

Assemblage The science fiction writer Greg Egan suggests that quantum observation, what we can call here the primary gaze that constructs the subject, could be simply stated as “one possible solution to a giant cosmic anagram”.8 That is, the world that is actualized, and our place within it, is one formation of the lost or partial objects—objet petit a—that move into and out of our gaze and our identity. For Deleuze, however, partial objects are not constituted in themselves as a lack but, rather, as an element in the complete assemblage of machinic desire. Thus, to reconcile Žižek and Lacan with Deleuze, we might view lack as a self-posited part of the processes of assemblage that form the subject. The functions of desire and partial objects occur simultaneously within consciousness, posited as presupposed within the virtual structures that underpin identity formation. Smith expands on this emergent nature of subjectivity in Deleuzian theory, suggesting that “if identities were already pre-given, then there would in principle be no production of the new”.9 In the positive construction of subjectivity, then, we can move beyond pure lack to the fusion of lack and excess in the identity of an avatar. As part of a broader process of assemblage, the avatar can reveal a great deal about the construction of the digital subject in general. Thus, using the work of Deleuze, for whom “everything starts out in the abyss”,10 we can shift towards the affirmative processes of desire in the production of subjectivity. As Caldwell states: “liberating the ‘objet petit a’ from its subordination to lack, [Deleuze and

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Guattari] transform Lacan’s concept into a primordial source of energy that transforms and is transformed through the ways it is organized”.11 The avatar here is not merely a representation of ourselves as a fictional character set in a specific simulated fictional environment, for such could be said of the cognitive processes applied in diverse media, from firstperson novels to paper role-playing games to cosplay. Rather, identity is created between the “physical” user and their entire gamut of “digital” identities, whereby the subject as the gap between physical and digital worlds is the eternally becoming interaction between the various parts: an assemblage between each fragmented aspect of differentiation around the subjective void. This raises a complex interaction of fragmentary selves observing their other selves within any creative digital setting.

A stained gaze The gaze is of prime importance to Lacan in the formation and development of subjectivity. Within the construction of the self, beyond the “pre-existence of a gaze”12, the always-already seen, there is the severed construct of “the eye and the gaze […] the split in which the drive is manifested at the level of the scopic field”.13 This inherent split, of the self in the gaze, also always incorporates a parallax stain, “marking the pre-existence to the seen of a given-to-be-seen”.14 The gaze itself, and its conditions, are thus a necessary presupposition of the subjective construction of any “self”. Similarly, within thought it is possible to separate the “I” that thinks and the “I” that thinks it thinks: Even if thinking seems to exist in the moment the thought is thought, this does not necessarily mean that any “I” has to exist. It merely means that something at that same moment thinks “I” and possibly has an ulterior motive in doing so.15

This we can expand to include an “I” that perceives (and thinks), an “I” that thinks it perceives (and thinks) and an “I” that is in the perception (and thought) itself. The construction of this “I” is inextricably linked to its position as the gaze in an engaged act of perception, the moment in which “I emerge as eye”.16 Three selves emerge here concurrently: the position of the gaze, the stain in the gaze and the cognition of the gaze. The ontological implication of such a gaze can be seen more explicitly in Žižek’s notion of parallax,17 whereby a shift in perspective by the subject creates an actual shift in being of the object. This view, however, always carries with it the “stain” of subjectivity. The inclusion of the gaze within the perceived object functions as a blind spot within reality, an excessive

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lack of the subjective viewpoint within the world. When this perceived object is in fact a representation of the subject itself, in the form of an avatar, we begin to see a complex self-positing of reality around the absent centre of our perceptual position.

A gap in reality Quantum physics, and its metaphysical implications, seeks to delve beneath the illusion of macroscopic certainty, to confront the fact that the “sense of the reality of objects and things is constructed”.18 Bohm demonstrates the importance of thought within such a reality, in a reciprocal interaction of perception whereby “instead of saying “an observer looks at an object”, we can more appropriately say, “observation is going on, in an undivided moment involving those abstractions customarily called ‘the human being’ and ‘the object he is looking at’”.19 In the digital realm, this gains further significance, as visual and cognitive engagements take on mutual uncertainties. Bohm tells us that “thought is incomplete […] a signification, or an ‘abstraction’ […] thought provides a representation of what you are thinking about”,20 and in the same function towards consciousness, the avatar—the digital manifestation of the observer-as-observed—becomes a “representation of what you are representing”, a simulation-of-simulation in the subject beholding itself as object. This is the manner in which the avatar forms the stain in the gaze, the lost object as an absence within the computer screen through which we are able to engage with the digital world. Rancière suggests the necessity of the unrepresentable as a condition for representation,21 and it is this function of the inaccessible that draws the objet a into its integral role in our consciousness of a given world. If, as Žižek suggests against MerleauPonty’s bodily phenomenology, “I never ‘am’ my body”,22 then both the digital body of the avatar and the physical body against which the avatar appears as Other are elements of an absent perspective with which we embody a given reality. The individual therefore begins to occupy a space between physical and digital bodies, what Heisenberg identifies in quantum wave functions as “a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality”.23 Just as waves and particles become synonymous at the quantum level, so too at the level of subjectivity does the avatar act as both matter and movement; a placeholder for potentiality as a stain in the computer screen that allows our entry into digital reality.

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Me, iSelf and eye Philip K. Dick, an author well-established in confronting issues of fleshy human authenticity, predicted: “Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves”.24 However, Žižek claims that “reality always-already was virtual”,25 which can be expanded here to add that “humanity always-already was a forgery of itself”. That is, whether in a computer simulation or physical universe, the authentic gaze, the primal existence, is merely presupposed by an always-already false consciousness within the emergent assemblage of subjective identity. Deleuze and Guattari extrapolate a similar notion in discussing their identity in the dual authorship of their writing: The two of us wrote Anti-Oedipus together. Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd […]. Why have we used our own names? Out of habit, purely out of habit. To make ourselves unrecognisable in turn […]. To reach, not the point where one no longer says I, but the point where it is no longer of any importance whether one says I. We are no longer ourselves.26

Here the two physical writers become lost in the assemblage of their many selves and the work, a collective between subjects. With digital identity, however, even the singular subject is lost in each of its manifestations or embodiments as physical body and manifold potential avatars. In such an engagement with digital media, the individual subject itself becomes a collective assemblage of points of view from which the fragmented and decentred subjective perspective can be enunciated. This expanded digital identity between specific avatars, detached from our physical self, provides a literal expression for being “no longer ourselves” and confronting the self-as-other. As Lacan insists, “it is in the space of the Other that [the subject] sees himself and the point from which he looks at himself is also in that space”.27 Through the avatar as an altered mode of presence in digital space, we can perceive our identities outside of ourselves and thus creatively challenge our negotiation of selfhood.

Framing hypertextual presence The avatar, however, is only present in the visual representation of a digital world as a manifestation of data. The underlying code can be seen as the substance of the digital self, whether it be in files of information on a physical human—their browser history, shopping wish list or collection

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of usernames and passwords—or the causal reality of the avatar. This informational identity of a subject can be expressed visually through avatars. The artworks by avatar Angrybeth Shortbread confront the engaged user with this situation. Avatar DNA offers a basic interaction— the Second Life “touch”, a click of the mouse—which converts the avatar’s UUID, universally unique identifier, from hexadecimal characters to a colourful double helix. This rendering of the avatar-as-data into the visual allegory of the basic building blocks of the physical human body reveals the role of code as an objet a and stain in the objectification of the subject. This is furthered in UUID Polyphony, which saves the avatar data to memory as a musical motif played at random, reassessing the notion of presence beyond the visual into pure data, expressed sonically as a hypertextual presence. This hypertextual embodiment is inherent to the construction of digital identity. Although many avatars seek simply to replicate and/or improve the user’s physical appearance, this alone is not sufficient for digital existence. The range of visual gestures available to avatars is not limited to the expected “sleepy”, “laughter”, “sad”, or “kiss”. Also included is the lolling head of avatars in the “away” state in Second Life, reminiscent of messenger software or chat rooms, the “emphasis” gesture that visualizes a common hypertext tag, and the “thinking” gesture that recalls the eternally frustrating timer icon or spinning coloured disc that forms a baleful signifier to any impatient computer user. These hypertextual fragments of “presence” display an underlying need for an expanded view of participation in avatar-mediated environments, for even the most “realistic” can never suffice for a genuinely digital existence. The HeadsUp-Display that re-frames any digital environment maintains a detached identification with data. This need to be present through contact with information can lead us to uncover the potentiality of a subject identified as data through avatars. Visual bodies alone possess a lack in the digital realm, a further statement of the objet a in the requirement for an avatar as a hypertextual interface. .

Interface: masks, structures, pentagrams The works of Bryn Oh, who exists as a Second Life avatar-artist completely detached from a human user, develop the role of the avatar as a lost object through which to interact with a digital environment. Her installations, full of traps, puzzles and hidden content, utilize a nonlinear approach to narrative through a three-dimensional space that constructs “a mobile gaze that is made flesh in the metaverse”.28 The recent work

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Imogen and the Pigeons begins with a climb out of the decayed “RebirthTM life encryption centre” wasteland, up irregular stairs that appear only when an avatar is about to tread on them. A wrong footing sends the avatar plummeting to the ground to start the ascent again. Later in the installation, amidst the psychologist’s clinic holding Imogen, a girl who imagines herself to be a pigeon, avatars may “sit” on a feather in order to walk up walls and ceilings to progress further into the narrative world. The artist says of her work, “the stories I tell […] are my own hopes, dreams and fears hidden behind the mask of robots”,29 and the progression of Imogen through troubled patient into a consciousness uploaded to a computer challenges the viewer with specific modes of being and moving through the avatar interface. The installation denies the flight that is common to Second Life avatars, instead controlling, if not a specific linearity of narrative, then spatial constraints on the nature of interaction. Through these complex arrays of “combinatory paths, multimedia hyper structures, and the provision of a visual pentagram”30 that are often seen in her work, Bryn Oh carefully controls which elements of the avatar are lacking at any given moment, to the extent that the fully functioning hypertextual body of the avatar interface becomes once more an objet a in its relation to the human subject as “user”; an extension of the mind as a semantic-haptic assemblage.

Portraits of perverts, psychotics and hysterics Žižek identifies three psychological “disorders” that are of relevance to the avatar as an object of the mind: perversion, the “permanent reshaping of one’s symbolic identity”; psychosis, our “incestuous immersion into the screen as the maternal thing”; and hysteria, in the “permanent questioning […] [of an] anonymous other”.31 While these can be applied to our interactions with any digital object or digital other, when that object/other (as Lacan’s objet a) is the subject itself, a number of peculiar interactions are brought into play within the construction of identity. This can perhaps be best demonstrated in the simultaneous perversion, psychosis and hysteria of numerous art projects labelling themselves “Avatar Portraits”, raising the image of the avatar to the level of a consumed yet revered object, a totem in our digital existence. These include, perhaps most notably, that of Eva and Franco Mattes as the digital art collective 0100101110101101, whose 2006 exhibition 13 Most Beautiful Avatars brings the avatar-as-object across the physical-digital divide. Images of Second Life avatars were shown both on the collective’s website and as canvas prints in a New York gallery. The creation of anthropocentric

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avatars could suggest a representational and figurative digital art form. However, this occurs in a postmodern twist of realism in digital media that Jameson describes as “a realism of the image rather than of the object [that] has more to do with the transformation of the figure into a logo than with the conquest of new ‘realistic’ and representational languages”.32 The apparent return to “figurative” portraiture in these works critiques notions of consumptive imagery through the mediated transformation of form into logo. In this reappropriation, which comes to “signify emergent aesthetic values of Second Life, and remediate pop art modalities of the fallacy of ‘portraiture’ through digital culture”,33 the traditional portrait as a representation of identity is disrupted: visually, by the faces over-filling one side of the image rather than being centred neatly within the frame, and conceptually, through the apparent absence of “human” identity. The objectification of the avatar not only mimics the familiar objectification of the human form in popular media, but projects such a critique of objectification onto all forms of visual identity, levelling the reverence for the human face and the figure of the human body in general with its plethoric digital, malleable, anonymous counterparts that place the subject as an absent centre of the complex assemblage of identity.

Conclusion: hypertextual subjective assemblage This essay has outlined a new method for viewing the relation between digital avatars and identity as a relation of loss. The objet a-vatar represents the loss of a body inherent to digital embodiment, and in doing so highlights the state of the physical body as also lost. Beyond the visual representation of a physical structure, the avatar creates a disruption of the gaze, by embedding the subject within the computer screen to be seen by itself. This placement of identity as an Other gaze draws the subject into a space between the physical body identified with the “user” and the digital body identified with the “avatar”. The many roles of the avatar—visual placeholder, representation of data, interface and point of view—form an assemblage of the contemporary subject that can be seen fragmented throughout our digital existence: in social media, computer games, email and video calls, and any number of other modes of communication in which we require a signifier in the many abstract landscapes of digital space. This subject as a singular entity is inherently a lost object, as the entire assemblage of identities cannot be grasped at once in all their relations, echoing in the digital realm the quantum physical problems of the uncertainty of observation and thought in our engagement with any given reality.

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It is possible for the critique of embodiment allowed by this theorization of the avatar to demonstrate a “new distribution which it imposes on beings and concepts”.34 This is not only a disruption of the anthropocentric view of what constitutes a “body” and its relation to human consciousness, but what Deleuze conceives as the measure of philosophy in a process of creating concepts which, as Žižek describes, “undermines both our immersion into the life-world and our position of abstract observers of reality”.35 The avatar as a function within consciousness, allowing for a direct confrontation of issues of identity that are usually bound too tightly within our “embodied” physical self, takes on such a philosophical role within its problematic coincidence of lack and excess, absence and presence. The avatar beyond visual expression, the objet a of the body, can form a hypertextual assemblage through which a subject is formed as a series of relations; an embodiment of mind within the space of its own subjective reality. Such a subject, emerging through the cracks between its range of possible physical and digital identities, therefore takes on a genuinely cybernetic identity. As Gunkel expresses: The cyborg, therefore, does not constitute the mere destruction or annihilation of the subject but delimits a postmodern subjectivity that deconstructs the presumptuous, sovereign individual of modernity without resolving into either naïve objectivism or simple relativisms.36

Such a construction of identity through the creative hypertextual interfaces of avatars draws the subject into its own emergent assemblage: formed from the fragmentary bodies of the objets a that provide a locus for the self-positing desires of consciousness to exist as a subjective identity.

Notes 1

“Avatar”, Collins English Dictionary (HarperCollins), http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/avatar (accessed February 5, 2013). 2 Carl Gustav Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), 4. 3 David J. Gunkel, “The Real Problem: Avatars, Metaphysics and Online Social Interaction”, in New Media and Society No. 12 (January 2010), 127-141, 136. 4 David Hill, “The Ethical Dimensions of a New Media Age: A Study in Contemporary Responsibility”, PhD Thesis, University of York (2011), 50. 5 Werner Heisenberg in Nobel Foundation, Nobel Lectures, Physics 1922-1941 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1965), 299. 6 David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge, 2002), 85.

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David Z. Albert, Quantum Mechanics and Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 179. 8 Greg Egan, Permutation City (London: Gollancz, 2010) [kindle edition], 160. 9 Daniel W. Smith, “Conditions of the New”, in Deleuze Studies Vol. 1 (June 2007), 1-21, 1. 10 Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale (London: Continuum 2004), 216. 11 Luke Caldwell, “Schizophrenizing Lacan: Deleuze, [Guattari], and AntiOedipus” in Intersections 10.3 (Autumn 2009), 18-27, 23. 12 Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: The Hogarth Press, 1977), 72. 13 Ibid., p.73. 14 Ibid., p.74. 15 Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist, The Futurica Trilogy [kindle edition], trans. Neil Smith (Stockholm: Stockholm Text, 2012), 525. 16 Lacan, 82. 17 Slavoj Žižek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009). 18 David Bohm, Thought as a System (London: Routledge, 1994), 109. 19 Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 37. 20 Bohm Thought as a System, 92. 21 Jacques Rancière, The Future of the Image, trans. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso), 109-138. 22 Slavoj Žižek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), 227. 23 Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (London: Penguin 2000), 11. 24 Philip K. Dick, The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings, ed. Philip K. Dick and Lawrence Sutin (New York: Vintage, 1996), 263-264. 25 Slavoj Žižek, The Indivisible Remainder (London: Verso, 2007), 193. 26 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (London: Continuum, 2004), 3-4. 27 Lacan, 144. 28 Francisco Gerardo Toledo Ramirez, “Because I am Not Here. Selected Second Life-Based Art Case Studies: Subjectivity, Autoempathy and Virtual World Aesthetics”, Doctor of Arts Thesis, University of Western Ontario (2012), 120. 29 Bryn Oh quoted in Dividni Shostakovich, “Bryn Oh’s Identity Discovered!”, August 11, 2010, http://dividni.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/bryn-ohs-identitydiscovered.html (accessed February 21, 2013). 30 Ramirez, 135-136. 31 Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: the Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London: Verso, 2009), 294. 32 Fredric Jameson, “The End of Temporality”, in Critical Inquiry 29.4 (Summer 2003), 695-718, 701. 33 Zara Dinnen, “Pictures of Self-Portraits: Eva and Franco Mattes’ Avatar Portraits”, 1 May 2012,

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http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2012/05/01/pictures-self-portraitseva-and-franco-mattes-avatar-portraits (accessed February 22, 2013). 34 Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, 8-9. 35 Slavoj Žižek, Organs Without Bodies: on Deleuze and Consequences (London: Routledge, 2012), 26. 36 David J. Gunkel, “We are Borg”, in Communication Theory 10.3 (August 2000), 332-357, 344.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN CLONING AND THE VISUAL FORMATION OF IDENTITY IN DOCTOR WHO AND MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN LIZA FUTERMAN

In Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present W.J.T. Mitchell points to the prevalence of the theme of cloning in popular culture since the early 1990s. He notes that the clone is first and foremost an “iconic concept” that has become synonymous with images of mutants, replicants, cyborgs, and mindless, soulless masses of identical warriors, ready to sacrifice themselves in suicide missions. What might be called “clonophobia” embraces a host of anxieties, from the spectre of the uncanny double and the evil twin to the more generalized fear of the loss of individual identity.1

Building on Mitchell’s definition of cloning, this article examines the concept of the clone in Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) and in two consecutive episodes of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, “The Rebel Flesh” and “The Almost People” (2011).2 I exemplify how the engagement with the two visual narratives illuminates the ways in which the clone materializes the process of identity formation, while at the same time the clone’s presence in both texts dramatizes the incoherence of a unique and unambiguous identity. This paradox that constitutes the clone’s identity evokes Linda Hutcheon’s classification of parody as a postmodern form that “paradoxically both incorporates and challenges that which it parodies.”3 In light of Hutcheon’s insight I argue that the clones in both texts do not merely threaten the identity of their human counterparts but rather parody the notion of a coherent individual identity by both incorporating and challenging it.

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The clone in both plots is a material commodity that is constructed and used by humans for their own needs. Once given life, having been transformed into a thinking being rather than a “mindless, soulless” one, the clone voices its desire to be treated as an individual—a desire that the human characters neglect and oppose. I demonstrate that the clones in each of the plots assert their distinction from their respective creators only after an engagement with an indexical object, a visual representation that links the clone to its creator: a photograph in Doctor Who and a journal containing a sketch of the creature in Branagh’s production. Following an observation of the respective objects the clones claim to “remember” who they are. The clones’ configuration of their individual identities based on images—objects of consumption—presents them as agents who display outwardly the process of identity formation, and by so doing renders the concept of identity a consumable commodity much like the clone itself. In my engagement with the concept of identity I rely on two pivotal factors: the first is that a personal identity depends on a cohesive narrative, and the second is that identity is a self-contained property which emphasizes the extent to which the thing or person under observation is visually as well as conceptually different from everything and everyone else. In other words, identity is “the condition of being a single individual; the fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else” [emphasis mine].4 However, the “singleness” of one’s identity is destabilized once the clone is introduced into the equation. Mitchell rightly observes that “[t]he logic of identity itself is put in question by the clone” since “the different arrives masquerading as the same, threatening all differentiation and identification.”5 Yet the real question arises when the different does not actively masquerade as the same but is the same. Mitchell notes that: Cloning is not merely a specific biological process; it is a form of imagemaking in its own right, i.e., the production of living copies of living organisms. It is both a natural process and an artificial technology, both a literal, material event and a figurative notion, both a fact of science and a fictional construct.6

The production of copies has a twofold implication. Firstly it implies that we are expected to face two entities of the same kind, an outcome that calls into question the “singleness” of one’s identity and evokes ethical queries: for example, is the clone entitled to its own identity or does it share the identity of its original, its creator? Secondly, the process of cloning—creating a living being in the shape of its creator without sexual intercourse—gives rise to questions of immortality and undermines the concept of personal identity altogether, by presenting the possibility of

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substituting a living organism with an exact visual and conceptual replica of him/herself. This prospect of replacement can be achieved through what Jean Baudrillard terms the “nullification of differences”, which in turn is bound to result in a lack of individuality and the transformation of the meaning of identity from an identifiable, unique subject to an object identical to and indistinguishable from certain other objects.7 In this context, one could argue that Frankenstein’s creature cannot be classified as a clone since he does not look like his creator. Yet I maintain that Branagh’s version of the creature as a “vividly, cruelly stitched” being illuminates the fragments that constitute an “identity” and as such, fits Mitchell’s definition of a clone as being the uncanny double that fragments and challenges the concept of identity.8 Before I discuss the significance of visual means to the construction of personal identity in the respective plots I will delineate a synopsis of the two visual texts, the pivotal scenes and the questions these raise. Both narratives present us with characters who answer to the title “Doctor.” In the case of Branagh’s screen adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Dr Victor Frankenstein experiments with metaphysics and electricity to create life. He ventures into cemeteries in search of the finest body parts, intending to create the perfect being. It is only when the process of creation is complete that Frankenstein, as well as the viewer, realizes the hideous result. He abandons the creature, which is forced to survive on its own. Discovering that his appearance alarms people and provokes violent reactions, the creature takes refuge in a forest. When in hiding he finds Frankenstein’s journal, in which he sees the plans for his creation, and sketches of what he recognizes as himself. This knowledge sets him on a mission to find his maker, and force him to take responsibility for the creature’s misfortunes. The Doctor in Doctor Who is an alien, able to move through space and time using the TARDIS. In the said two-part episode, the Doctor, together with his companions, Amy and Rory, arrives at an island monastery which functions as an acid-pumping factory. It is the twenty-second century and the crew of the factory has scientifically created “gangers”—clones that look just like the crew members. While Branagh’s production (much like Shelley’s original text) presents the creature as physically deformed—an appearance that is met with horror and disgust—the clones in Doctor Who at first obtain a human form, and thus evoke sympathy in the other characters. Neither Frankenstein’s creature nor the gangers can operate on their own initially, both needing the assistance of their human creators. However, while Frankenstein’s creature requires physical help to stand up

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and operate his limbs, the gangers need no assistance in this respect. They emerge smoothly and briskly from a white fluid called “flesh,” climbing out of a tub—which iconographically resembles the tub from which Frankenstein’s creature emerges—and set about maintaining the factory. Although the gangers do not require physical help, they are controlled by humans lying securely in metal harnesses within a chamber. These harnesses look much like the one in which Frankenstein’s creature is reared. In both narratives the harness functions as a kind of resting-place, in which the body lies idly and inactively until it is animated by technological devices. Yet in both texts it also fulfils an additional role: in Frankenstein it functions as a veil that conceals the creature from the prying eyes of the viewers; while in Doctor Who, the harness can be seen as a kind of exhibition-stand that displays the human body to the public gaze. In the same manner, Doctor Who exhibits the gangers through a frontal shot as they leave the tub, while Branagh’s film does not show the creature’s face as it emerges; instead we see its disfigured and stitched nape and back. The first organs that materialize from the “flesh” are the eyes of a ganger, which look straight at us. In this context I draw on Margaret Olin’s consideration of the gaze in film and visual art. For Olin, “[t]he direct address of the spectator […] draws his attention to the voyeuristic quality of his gaze.”9 Following this observation, I suggest that the wide-open eyes of the ganger challenge the viewers’ gaze and urge us to become aware of ourselves in the act of looking at a construction of a being, as well as of our own constructedness. This is further stressed by a scene in which the factory commander demonstrates to the Doctor and his companions how the gangers are formed. She instructs one of the crew members, Jennifer, to enter her identification data in a harness and secure herself in it, while the Doctor observes the “miracle of life”—the materialization of the clone, ganger Jennifer, from the “flesh”. The ganger’s visual materialization, as well as its confronting gaze, invites us to acknowledge the extent to which we rely on what we see in order to construct meaning. It would seem that no such realization is invited by Branagh’s production, as the creature never confronts our gaze. However, I propose that by moving its supposedly uncontrollable limb towards Frankenstein’s face upon its emergence from the tub, the creature might be seen as attempting to obstruct his creator’s gaze. The comparison between these two visual plots and the interplay between what can and cannot be seen invites us to observe identity as an assemblage of raw materials that eventually misleads us into perceiving it as a unified whole, a single entity. Despite the display of the gangers in Doctor Who, the

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process by which they are created is never revealed; we see only the final outcome. This process is hidden behind the smooth façade of ganger Jennifer. In contrast, while Branagh conceals the product of Frankenstein’s creation behind the harness and through camera angles, the process by which the creature is created is graphically explicit. Yet, throughout the elaborate process of creation we witness only the various body parts that comprise the creature, never at this stage seeing the creature as a whole. The comparison between these two processes underscores that the impeccable appearance of the ganger conceals the fragments which comprise it. We are not allowed to see the creature’s body until it is “born”, emerging from the tub, and even then our visual access is limited. As noted above, at first we do not see the creature’s front; instead we witness the scientist kneeling in front of his creation to stop the latter from falling. When we finally see the creature’s front, we realize how disfigured it is. I read the suspense experienced between the exposure of the creature’s back and front as another way of emphasizing its fragmented body, as well as our fragmented gaze. By fragmentizing our gaze, Branagh’s Frankenstein, much like the gangers in Doctor Who, challenges the possibility of obtaining a coherent image, which in turn questions our perception of identity as a unified whole. This fragmentation is analogous to the stitches on the creature’s face: our gaze allows us to stitch the creature’s body, front and back. As spectators, we are transformed into mad scientists that can assemble and disintegrate lives and identities. Moreover, I suggest that the assemblage of the creature’s body from dead body parts, and the visual inaccessibility that viewers experience, parallels the construction of personal identity from different elements of past events: memories, experiences and stories that we narrate to others (and ourselves) to account for the abstract and invisible identities we claim to obtain. It is worth noting that while in Frankenstein the creature is the passive object and Frankenstein is the active subject, in Doctor Who there is a reversal of roles right from the start, as the humans are the ones who lie passively in harnesses while their clones run the factory. Nonetheless, we soon realize that the manipulation of the gangers is taking place within the humans’ minds, and as the factory’s commander explains, once “the link shuts down, the gangers return to pure flesh.” Hence, we learn that the idle postures of the humans are merely an appearance since, unlike Frankenstein’s unconscious creature, the beings occupying these harnesses are very much conscious; they run the factory by manipulating their clones, which are thought to have no individual aspirations.

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However, a dramatic turn takes place when a solar tsunami strikes the island. This awakens the gangers’ free will. They no longer require a human counterpart to operate them; they have their own desires, but they can still obtain the humans’ thoughts and memories. As a result, there are two exemplars of each crew member, one being real and the other a copy. Once the duplicates start acting independently from the humans they are based upon a conflict ensues: the gangers who possess the same memories as their human counterparts insist on being treated as the “real” people, rather than as disposable clones. We become aware of the clones’ desire to be seen as the “real” people when Rory, one of the Doctor’s companions, follows ganger Jennifer to try and find out what happened to the human Jennifer (who was not in her harness following the tsunami). He finds the ganger sitting on a bench with her back to him and the viewer, and once she senses Rory’s presence she starts telling “her” childhood memory in the manner of a fairytale: “When I was a little girl […].” This sentence echoes the familiar “once upon a time” beginning that we learn to recognize as children. This strategy evokes Jerome Bruner, who notes “the possibility of narrative as a form not only of representing but of constituting reality.”10 He argues that “we organize our experience and our memory of human happenings mainly in the form of narrative.”11 With Bruner’s claim in mind, I read this scene as an exhibitionary exercise in which the clone articulates the very essence of identity construction: its narrativity. Following the ganger’s opening line, the camera’s point of view shifts so that we now see her face—white and unhuman. She goes on to recount her memory using details, sensory descriptions and the present tense, which together emphasize the authenticity of the experience: “I got lost on the moors, wandered off from the picnic. I can still feel how sore my toes got inside my red wellie boots.” The ganger’s use of “still” brings the experience temporally closer and enhances Rory’s and the viewer’s empathy. Moreover, the ganger’s description of small details, such as the colour and type of shoes she was wearing, stresses the reliability of her story and evokes sympathy. These details, more than anything else, call attention to the fact that the gangers’ memories are similar to those of their human counterparts, and so legitimize the right of the gangers to be considered as real as the humans they are based upon. Nevertheless, the next shot challenges the truthfulness of the memory, as we see the ganger holding a photograph of Jennifer as a child, sitting on a rock on a moor and wearing red wellie boots. We now wonder if ganger Jennifer actually remembers this experience, or if she has invented the narrative in order to evoke sympathy. The memory’s veracity seems to be

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undermined by the photograph since if Jennifer was actually lost, there would not have been anyone present to take it. On the other hand, according to Barbie Zelizer, pictures “materialize” memory, and the photograph could therefore have triggered the surfacing of a genuine memory.12 Either way, it functions as an object that constructs the reality ganger Jennifer presents. After we see the photograph of the child, ganger Jennifer goes on with her story: “and I imagined another little girl, just like me, in red wellies, and she was Jennifer, too. Except she was a strong Jennifer, a tough Jennifer. She’d lead me home.” At this point we are invited to further question the ganger’s memories: did Jennifer the child actually imagine a clone of herself that could help her, or is it rather the ganger’s addition, to show that we sometimes wish to have a second self— suggesting that clones are indispensable for human lives? Immediately after the ganger’s story, we see her gazing at her reflection in a mirror she is holding. Significantly, the mirror is the exact same size as the photograph she observes. The mirror in this scene draws our attention to the sharp contrast between a reflection and a construct, such as the photograph. This discrepancy accentuates the illusive role of photography in reflecting reality through its indexical link to the material world. Seeing the white inhuman face, ganger Jennifer panics and quickly covers the mirror with another photograph, this time of the adult Jennifer. Through this gesture the ganger rejects a self-reflective observation and turns to a semi-real representation: the photograph. The ganger assumes that the photograph is indexical to the real Jennifer and, by extension, to the ganger herself. By covering up her reflection with a present-day photograph of the human Jennifer, she displays her reliance on an already-constructed image for the purposes of identity formation. As soon as she looks at this photograph, ganger Jennifer announces: “My name is Jennifer Lucas. I’m not a factory part. I had toast for my breakfast, I wrote a letter to my mom […].” Despite the sympathy the ganger might evoke by mentioning the mundane actions of her daily life (which in fact were actions the real Jennifer performed, or manipulated her ganger to perform), Rory is not convinced, and he implores the ganger: “Where is the real Jennifer?” Rory’s response prompts the ganger to say: “I am Jennifer Lucas. I remember everything that happened in her entire life. Every birthday, every childhood illness. I feel everything that she’s ever felt, and more.” The ganger’s addition of “and more” renders her, as Baudrillard would put it, a “hyperreal” figure that is generated “by models of a real without reality.”13 This hyperreality is further stressed when the ganger’s face recovers the human appearance that she observes in the adult photograph. The re-acquisition of the human

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form convinces Rory of the ganger’s reality. However, the question remains: how real is this reality? In this context I draw on Hutcheon, who states that “[p]hotography today is one of the major forms of discourse through which we are seen and see ourselves.”14 Ganger Jennifer determines her identity through an external element that, in Annette Kuhn’s words, “constructs whatever is in the image as object of consumption—consumption by looking.”15 As a response to the photograph ganger Jennifer declares: “My name is Jennifer Lucas”. She asserts her right to possess the name, to own it as if it is a commodity. Ganger Jennifer consumes the photographic representation of the real Jennifer as if it was Jennifer herself, and not merely another copy. By treating the photograph as if it was the actual person, the clone ironically consumes the identity of a copy—a visual construct, “a trace,” that is often mistaken for the actual subject.16 The irony is enhanced when Rory accepts the ganger’s assertion and softens towards her. By accepting the ganger as the “real” Jennifer, Rory falls into the trap that photography has been setting ever since the invention of the camera: he perceives the ganger Jennifer just as he would have perceived a photograph—as if it was an authentic copy of the original. The irony lies within the premise itself, for copies by definition cannot be originals. This treatment of copies demonstrates the “desired relation” between reality and the representation of reality, but at the same time, it underlines that this desire can never be fulfilled, for it “is one […] of the wildest dreams of realism, the dream according to which representation becomes embodiment, in which the text no longer stands for something but is itself a presentation of that of which it speaks.”17 This observation renders ganger Jennifer an empty signifier that is removed even further from the original, as she relies on a photograph for the assertion of her identity. The ganger fails to recognize that she relies on a copy which lacks a stable origin. This dependence is symbolically marked by her later transformation into a monstrous creature whose head is inconveniently and unnaturally small in comparison to her deformed body, which develops at an uncontrollable pace. Her limbs and body are disproportionate and asymmetrical. As we witness her growth from afar and through a cloud of smoke, she is rendered colourless, a kind of absent presence that metaphorically (as well as physically) haunts the remaining gangers and humans alike. Her colourlessness is manifested in her ability to absorb different colours like a chameleon as her shapeless form changes colour according to the different shades around it. Although reviewers such as Dan Martin of the Guardian and Gavin Fuller of the Telegraph criticized the poor quality of the computer-generated imagery, with the latter

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describing Jennifer’s monstrous transformation as “something of a pity,” I claim that it achieves a greater effect through its low quality, for it positions the clone as an unfinished image that has been arrested in the process of development.18 Significantly, the ganger in Doctor Who is not the only one to rely on an image for the purposes of identity assertion. Frankenstein’s creature also relies on visual means to affirm his identity. In the stolen journal in which Frankenstein documents his project of creating life, the creature sees a drawing of what he realizes to be his own body, and thus learns about who he is. For Frankenstein’s creature, the drawing and the journal play a similar role to that played by the photographs of Jennifer for the ganger in Doctor Who. Although a drawing bears no indexical link to the drawn object, it still functions as a method of documentation; more importantly, the journal contains the narrative of the creature’s origins. Therefore, the sketch and the journal grant the creature access to his story, and by doing so, define his identity, again through a narrative. Still, unlike ganger Jennifer, who declares her ownership of her creator’s name, the creature does not claim possession of the name of his maker. When seen beside the diseased Frankenstein at the end of the film and asked “who are you?”, the creature retorts: “He never gave me a name.” However, this lack does not prevent him from declaring his relation to, and ultimately his possession of, Frankenstein. The creature says: “He was my father” [emphasis mine]. Ironically enough, while the creature does not claim ownership of his creator’s name, the title “Frankenstein” is often erroneously associated with the creature rather than the scientist. Although the creature relies on the written journal and the sketch to construct his identity, he still cannot declare who he is independently of his creator. Therefore, upon meeting Frankenstein for the first time, the creature asks the latter to define him: “Who am I?” Receiving no answer, except for an uncertain “you… I don’t know,” the creature asks Frankenstein to create a companion for him. The creature’s inability to define himself and to construct his personal identity narrative prompts him to ask his creator for a female companion with whom he could identify. The creature wishes to “travel [with this companion] to a place where no man has been, [where] no one will see us again” [emphasis mine]. The creature’s desire to disappear from the public sphere is reminiscent of his pre-born state when he was unseen, concealed from the viewer’s gaze. In this context I draw on Richard Meyer’s observation of “the individual’s need not only to inhabit the space of identity but also, and even simultaneously, to get the hell out of there.”19

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In conclusion, through my engagement with the representation of clones in Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and in the two-part episode of Doctor Who, I have argued that the clone both affirms and resists the concept of a unified identity. In so doing, I have presented the parody inherent in the notion of identity, which overtly appears as a unifying quality while covertly disguising a network of fragments that are stitched to one another through a narrative. I have further demonstrated that the clone illuminates the constructed and fragmented aspects of identity through the narratives one collects, nourishes and exhibits. This demonstrative gesture renders identity a complex concept that “can never be understood as symmetrical, straightforward, or fully resolved.”20 Therefore, the visual narratives discussed in this article parody the notion of a unified identity through the clones’ unstable and fragmented exteriors.

Notes 1

W.J.T. Mitchell, Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 19. 2 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Dir. Kenneth Branagh (Tristar, 1994); “The Rebel Flesh” and “The Almost People”, Doctor Who (BBC One, UK), May 21 and 28, 2011. 3 Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (New York: Routledge, 1988), 251. 4 “Identity, n.”. OED Online, Oxford University Press, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/91004?redirectedFrom=identity& (accessed 26 December 2012). 5 Mitchell, Cloning Terror, 34. 6 Ibid.,14. 7 Jean Baudrillard, The Vital Illusion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 8. 8 J.A.W. Heffernan, “Looking at the Monster”, Critical Inquiry 24.1 (Autumn, 1997), 133-158, 144. 9 Margaret Olin, “Gaze”, in Critical Terms for Art History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 318-329, 322. 10 Jerome Bruner, “The Narrative Construction of Reality”, Critical Inquiry 18 (1991), 1-21, 5. 11 Ibid., 4. 12 Barbie Zelizer, qtd. in Marianne Hirsch, “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory”, The Yale Journal of Criticism 14.1 (Spring 2001), 5-37, 14. 13 Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra”, in Simulacra and Simulation (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 1-28, 1. 14 Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1989), 43. 15 Annette Kuhn, qtd. in Hutcheon, Politics, 22.

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16

Hirsch, “Surviving Images”, 13. Christopher Prendergast, Triangle of Representation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 130. 18 Gavin Fuller, “Doctor Who, Episode Six: ‘The Almost People’”, The Telegraph, May 28 2011; Dan Martin, “Doctor Who: which is the best episode of this series?”, The Guardian, September 30, 2011. 19 Richard Meyer, “Identity”, in Critical Terms for Art History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 345-357, 357. 20 Meyer, “Identity”, 356. 17

CHAPTER FIFTEEN BODILY AND CELESTIAL COSMOLOGIES: TATTOOING AND ASTERISMS AMONG THE JAPANESE AND MƖORI MEGAN B. RATLIFF

This essay is a look at how various societies have inscribed central values, beliefs, and understandings onto the body and the night sky. It explores culturally constructed means of delineating worldviews through a juxtaposition of points in the sky and images on the person. All people universally experience both the body and the sky. Regardless of spatial or temporal locality, everyone who has ever existed has had to confront and mediate with the body and the sky; they are inescapable and universal. Personification is an inherent human trait, which serves to constitute order and create a sense of understanding. We take that which is outside of ourselves and make it fit within an ontologically recognizable framework. The human body is a universal form onto which cultural worldviews are etched in some form or another. The sky is a similar field, in which fixed points are assigned meaning. Through shared systems of referents, worldviews are given a venue to exist and operate for the entire community and individual. Mythology is a strong anchor and common language relating the expression of worldviews in tattooing and asterisms. Myths are psychologically symbolic, and their narratives and imagery are read as metaphor.1 They are statements expressing postulations on humankind’s place in the universe.

Body You construct an idea, belief, or behavior through analogies in nature and mentally move from the outside (the event in nature, an image, etc.), to inside (one’s thoughts), to the outside, where assistance or at least tools are necessary to place the thought or symbol back “into” or onto the body.

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This is a coding of the body, a characterization or label, something owned by the tattooed, and it is never separate from the mind and/or culture that thought it up.2

Across many cultures, body art performs various functions. Its diverse roles cross-culturally implement such aesthetic body modification as a means of enhancing sexual appeal, being threatening, demonstrating prominence within a hierarchical system, or as rite of passage. This cultural relationship with the body encompasses body painting, piercing, fashion, tattooing, scarification, gauging, or any systematic modification of the body for aesthetic purposes. One of skin’s many purposes is a psychological one, in which flesh is the mirror of an organism’s functioning.3 Tattooing is the embodiment of two-dimensional images living on the three-dimensional body. Skin becomes a living ornament,4 in which the application is always ritualistic, and the act of tattooing takes a measure of time and pain to complete. Tattoos are created over the course of hours of pain and dedication, on the part of the artist and subject, making the experience transformative. Historically, only important personal and communal beliefs have been reserved for the flesh. Aesthetically, the solidification of personal attributes is determined and iconographically shaped by the semiotics of one’s particular group. The tattoo is permanent to the bearer, but only lasts their lifetime—in this regard, the permanency of a tattoo lives with the person projecting its meaning. Flesh incised with ink speaks of an attempt at permanence by the wearer, by cementing ideologies and characteristics: “Skin is the subject and object of metamorphoses [and] establishes contact between man and environment; through this communication, man universalizes his body and anthropomorphizes the universe.”5 Tattooing negotiates both nature and culture, depth and surface. It reflects nuances of the individual while abiding by collective understandings.6 Modifying the body is a means to create order and a sense of stability. Tattooing is the act of personifying the body. As Frances Mascia-Lees explains, regarding the beliefs of the Kayapo people of Central Brazil, “[t]he human body is the most elementary unit of this cosmic hierarchy, which forms a nesting series of identical structuring processes: a universal system of bodies […] beyond the body.”7 We modify what is already natural and visualize abstract notions—and in doing so, we model abstract ideas on the body.8 Tattoos contextualize a person historically and culturally, which creates a sense of locality, of the self in space. Taking off one’s clothes strips oneself of personal and general history:9 “Man is the only animal born naked.”10 It represents a microcosm of understanding

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through patterning, and exists for the individual while also relating to larger structures. Tattooing applies an invented order to the body, and mirrors our relationship to (and means of dealing with) natural phenomena.

Sky Ethnoastronomy is the study of humanity’s cultural relationship with the sky and celestial events, and also of our understanding of astronomical phenomena.11 Astronomy was manifested historically as the oldest mathematical science12 in many societies (including the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese). Systems of direction developed by most societies created a sense of order and place.13 Palaces and temples, in conjunction with cardinal points, mirrored the structure of the universe and became an extension of that power.14 Sacred landscapes, mythic origins, and cosmovision are “symbols we have devised in order to explain how the world works, and the transformation of these symbols is linked with the cultural evolution of societies.”15 Ethnoastronomical functions permeated facets of many civilizations. The cyclical order of celestial bodies marked seasonal changes. Cardinal points influenced many groups of people and determined dealings with the land. Values placed on celestial bodies do not always manifest as unified patterns, but the fixed stars are typically personified. Humans have projected themselves onto the sky for millennia, by delineating patterns and constructing constellations modelled upon important symbols in myth. Today, there are eighty-eight “official” constellations; of these, many are human figures (Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Perseus, etcetera).16 As C.L.N. Ruggles explains, “[t]he sky, our common and universal heritage, forms an integral part of all human cultures around the world.”17 These figures are usually mythological in origin, and as such, they communicate communal metaphors and values. This creates a shared recognition and sense of order, both culturally and “functionally”. Star grouping is patterning on the macro scale, available to a much larger group. It is an act of entrusting a people’s most important values in a reliable and seemingly permanent systematic venue. It is a means of localization and anthropomorphization. This ordering sets permanence, but also creates a sense of locality. It represents an attempt to solidify belief-systems by the collective self. These communal orderings are what Durkheim describes as collective representations and social facts.18 In most pre-modern societies, the study of astronomy and astrology was restricted to a select few, but a general knowledge of sky lore existed

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and had some bearing on a person’s life. Our planetary perspective and the regularity of the heavenly bodies are important in the sky’s role as an ideologically imbued field. The fixed stars offer constancy, and a predictable pattern working within the gamut of fixed points allows for an ordered system, which is highly regulated, predictable, and permanent. Our experience with the sky is mediated by a series of specific cultural lenses. Constellations do not simply exist; they are invented through the mediation of a group’s particular worldview. Historically, fixed stars are a means of navigation and seasonal markers, and they are given names and histories. As Marsha Bol explains, celestial bodies “are living beings, related directly both morally and spiritually to life on Earth.”19 We create a deeply personal relationship with these forms and, in trying to make sense of them, we seek to order life.

Japan: ᪥ᮏ Irezumi is the art of tattoo in Japan, and to this day is highly recognizable. It implements a standard set of motifs, used since its onset during the Edo period. The resilience of traditional irezumi imagery is due to a number of factors, including the isolationism of Japan during the Edo period. It was created within a realm of very specific influences, developing in dialogue with kabuki (theatre) and ukiyo-e (woodblock printing). There is a particularly intimate visual relationship between the artistic practices of irezumi and ukiyo-e,20 which both draw upon Japanese mythology: this is the main source of inspiration for various tattoo motifs and the vast amount of subject matter found in the popular ukiyo-e prints.21 During the Edo period, these three art forms fed off one another, creating deep and recognizable bonds between them. Imagery included in these woodblock prints depicted everyday life, characters from folklore, prominent figures from kabuki theatre, and geishas. Supernatural beings depicted in ukiyo-e prints were incorporated into the motifs of irezumi, which would symbolize specific traits (loyalty, bravery, devotion, etcetera).22 These traits are attributed to the person bearing the image, because the process of irezumi means a long-term commitment of time, money, and discomfort. Irezumi is never a small undertaking, and the full body coverings take years to complete. The person donning the motif becomes that motif through the transformative act of tattooing. The exchange of imagery between irezumi and ukiyo-e creates a feedback loop, and solidifies value-laden imagery. For example, a tiger illustrated in a woodcut print may later be used as imagery in a tattoo, and the tattoo-bearer may then be illustrated in an ukiyo-e print. In

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other acts of translation, tattoos depicting mythological characters from folklore may be represented in prints that depict heroic characters bearing them. In such ways, depictions of supernatural beings in irezumi are connected with indirect and direct means of personifying mythical motifs. Both of these intermediaries serve as mirrors which translate the subject depicted multiple times. The most widely-known artist of this process is Hokusai. His body of work includes a series depicting Suikoden characters, and his inclusion of landscapes, geishas, and samurai in his prints was a key influence upon the appearance and motifs of irezumi. Suikoden (translated as Water Margin) is a popular Chinese storysequence, which influenced the growth of tattoo imagery emphasizing bravery.23 It concerns 108 Robin Hood-like bandits,24 heroic figures who follow a warrior code, with each possessing specific heroic qualities. As irezumi became increasingly graphic, tattoo artists used imagery from Suikoden, which contained stories of characters representing favourable traits such as bravery, loyalty, and honesty. The woodblock artist Kuniyoshi depicted these qualities in many ukiyo-e prints. In one, the Suikoden hero Konkoryu Rishun exemplifies superhuman strength by flipping over a boat carrying a crew of thieves. The overpowering aspect of the print is the tattoo that covers Rishun’s entire torso, depicting Raijin, the god of thunder.25 In this case the identity of Rishun is split. He is the one carrying out the heroic act, but his tattoo simultaneously transforms him into Raijin, the personified image of a natural force. As the audience, we are meant to understand that Rishun’s irezumi derives its meaning for him from ukiyo-e prints: the commitment on the part of the person tattooed transforms them, and in taking part in the act of tattooing, they become the motif they project. These motifs of personified images personify the wearer. Two additional Kuniyoshi prints depicting Suikoden figures reveal characters, such as Byôtaichû Setsuyei and Kanchikotsuritsu Shuki, donning full-body irezumi of blue dragon motifs. This creature relates to the Buddhist five-element worldview and personification of the seasons. Symbolically the blue dragon, Seiryuu, presides over the East and represents spring. The notion of the five-element system is manifested within multiple aspects of Japanese culture: cardinal points, the cyclical nature of life (as expressed through the five elements: fire, water, wood, earth, metal), and beings which represent the four seasons. This use of motif shows a clear connection between images relating cosmological beliefs and tattooing. Irezumi often draws upon communally recognizable imagery in this way: figures from folklore are used because of the attributes with which they are associated, and overlapping figures in

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irezumi and Japanese sky lore intersect at a point relating to several mythological figures. The Subaru (or Pleiades, which can be seen as part of the constellation Taurus) cluster is sometimes still referred to as Schichi Fukujin, “the seven happy gods”:26 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Jurojin (god of longevity) Fukurokuju (god of wisdom) Benten (goddess of the sea) Hotei (god of compassion) Bishamon (god of wealth) Daikoku (god of farming) Ebisu (god of trading and fishing)

These figures represent a group of benevolent traits, and are found in irezumi. They originated in the Indian subcontinent, and reveal a strong overlapping of Buddhism and Hinduism; each of these gods has ties to earlier iterations of themselves. They are both placed on the body and seen in the sky, preserving their individual and communal importance. The names of individual stars in this culture are known, but constellations are not well documented. At the end of the Edo period, when Japan opened its doors to the rest of the world, the asterisms of Western star groupings were so thoroughly absorbed that very little information is now available regarding pre-existing star patterns.27 Before this, constellations in Japanese culture apparently existed only in a very limited way, and no overruling Japanese view of the stars is thought to have existed. The constellation of Orion appears as at least five different patterns: Sode Boshi (kimono sleeve), Hyoushigi (two wooden blocks), Shakugo Boshi (ruler), Take no Fushi (bamboo joints), and the Tsuzumi Boshi (drum).28 The nomenclature of the stars changes according to each region and its predominant trades. From the information available, one can see that the personification of different traits in single celestial objects was valued over the Western notion of multiple stars constructing a single figurative entity. Stars considered important are distinguished as Yowaashi Boshi (stars that pass in the night).29 Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak, the stars of Orion’s belt, are called Katakana and Tsuzumi Boshi in Japan (tsuzumi is a kind of drum used in Nou and Kabuki theatre). The edges of Orion are called Waki Boshi, meaning “corner-edge stars”. In the 1880s, Western astronomical knowledge was completely absorbed into the Japanese worldview, becoming the one aspect of Western culture adopted wholeheartedly by Japan.30 For the Japanese there is no unified interpretation of patterned constellations. Stars and their patterns vary by region and serve to mark seasonal changes, important events, and religious

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symbols. European ideologies were informed by a monotheistic, fourelement view of the cosmos and its components, whereas the East split the fundamental matter of the world into five elements, with Shintoism and Confucianism employing the ying-yang system. The connection between the figures projected onto the stars and those drawn upon the flesh is not as direct as simply taking them from the sky and tattooing them onto the body. There are several degrees of separation, due to a societal system of semiotics and iconographic figures, so it is not surprising to see that tattooing and ethnoastronomy are related on this level. Both are used to assert the identity of the group and the individual.

New Zealand: Aotearoa TƗ moko is the tattooing art form of the MƗori peoples of Aotearoa (the MƗori name for New Zealand). It encompasses facial markings, as well as puhoro markings on the thighs and buttocks, which comprise intricate spiral designs. In such tattoos, deep incisions create a relief pattern. Traditionally, tƗ moko required a he maoe (mallet), which was used with an uhi (chisel) made of bone, stone, or wood. The he maoe was used with the uhi to create deep incisions in the skin, while flax dipped in pigment was used to colour and create the markings. There are cases of incisions that run so deep as to penetrate the cheek of the subject.31 The tohunga tƗ moko is the MƗori tattooist, who is elevated to the level of a priest, due to his embodiment of the inherent tapu (sacredness) of the ritual. TƗ moko is distinctive in that the incisions created in the skin are thick and create a rough surface. The earliest European recording of the MƗori was by Abel Tasman in December 1642; however, there is no mention of tƗ moko in his account.32 The first record of this came from Captain Cook’s expedition in 1769;33 Sydney Parkinson was the ship’s artist, and his illustrations were the first images of tƗ moko to be disseminated among Europeans. The traditional tattooing process is arduous and takes place over many years, signifying life experience and age. TƗ moko is a living connection that relates people to their cultural and genealogical ancestors.34 Prior to the first MƗori encounter with Europeans, it was “part of an expression of a unified world view of life”, and post-European tattooing “grew out of a new awareness of the MƗori as a threatened minority group that needed to assert its identity.”35 Bearing facial tƗ moko also revealed one’s position in society: on men, these markings indicated social rank, age, accomplishments, traits and (prior to European contact) specified tribe. No two tƗ moko are the same, and they are a marker of identification. The MƗori kept no written history regarding the practice of tattooing; the only records

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available are mythological oral history, and archaeological findings of tattooing tools. The MƗori delineated eight levels of rank. The highest four rankings were attained through birth, while the others were appointed or earned. One of the most famous tohunga tƗ moko [master of tattooing] was Rangi, a former slave, who earned high status through his tattooing skills, and rose up the social ranks.36 Mana, a spiritual closeness to the gods, was directly related to rank in society, with the Taiopuru possessing the most, while slaves had none at all. Those with mana became increasingly more tapu, in that the general population’s view of them became more particular and restricted. This created a special kind of relationship between people, which was expressed through appropriate behaviour, and which “arose from the belief that the persons or things in that relationship were [tapu] because of their contact with the supernatural.”37 Tapu created a divide between the individual and the supernatural, and was acknowledged through special behaviour.38 The MƗori valued telling stories over “facts”, because the core meaning passed down through storytelling is carried more effectively by metaphor.39 The MƗori give tƗ moko mythological origins, which infuse the practice with spiritualism: the story explains that Mataora, a mortal man, beats his wife Niwareka, a demigod. She leaves him and returns to her home in the underworld. He follows her, and in order to woo her back, paints his face and dresses finely. However, upon reaching Niwareka and her family, Mataora’s face paint is smeared. Her family, bearing full facial tƗ moko, ridicule him, because their facial markings are permanent. Mataora is then humbled and decides to learn the tƗ moko art form, and he and Nikwareka eventually return to the world with knowledge of the practice.40 Mataora realizes how crucial tattooing is to human relations, to a community, and to connection with the universe. The names of specific nga wheta (stars)41 and the configuration of certain asterisms changes depending on the time of year.42 Categorization of the stars mirrors the hierarchical system of the MƗori; stars have their own hierarchy and levels of tapu. They are believed to be the eyes of ancestors,43 and are also referred to as ra ririki (little suns).44 Atutahi (Canopus) is believed to possess so much tapu that it was moved to the sky in its own kete (basket), to prevent its power killing stars of lesser importance.45 The collective name for the celestial bodies is te apa whatu a Te Ahuru, meaning “eye-like company of Te Ahuru” (star mother).46 Both tƗ moko and sky lore serve as venues for cosmological ideologies. There are ten myth-cycles explaining the cosmogony of the MƗori.47 The fourth cycle describes the separation of Rangi (the sky) and Papa (the

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Earth), which forms the basis of MƗori ethnoastronomy. These primordial parents are separated by their offspring to create space. Rangi’s body is projected to create the celestial motion of the sun, stars, and moon; four posts used to keep Rangi in place become the cardinal points. Te Ra (the sun) moves laterally along Rangi’s body, creating what we refer to as the ecliptic. The MƗori thus conceptualize outer space as emerging from a single body separated in two. They are bodies separated from each other to create space. This reveals a worldview which sees outer space as derived from inner space. All that exists outside of ourselves is simultaneously being pulled towards and away from the body. The cosmogenic beliefs of the MƗori are manifested in their categorization of dualities when dealing with the sky. Two major constellations divide the seasons into two and are opposed to each other: these separate schemes represent dualities, such as night/day, death/life, and female/male.48 The MƗori hold an animistic worldview regarding nature. They consider the fundamental aspects of life to be inseparably coupled (in pairings of love/hate, light/dark, above/below, and so on).49 These dualities place everything on an equal basis, in which the concepts of collaboration, association, and interconnection trump those of opposition and hierarchy. The components of dualities support one another, and as Graham Harvey explains, “without a partner neither member of a pair exist[s].”50

Conclusion Our perception of order is reflected in the universes we conceive,51 and the sky and skin are blank slates upon which groups and individuals can inscribe fundamental ideologies. Many societies utilize body modification and ethnoastronomy as significant means of depicting the relationships between personal and communal worldviews. Where tattooing is a cosmology of the body, patterning constellations is another form of celestial order; both are means of making sense of chaos and ordering the world. We project onto these surfaces what it means to be human, and the act of creating imagery upon the flesh has permanent results. What varies from culture to culture are the specific ideologies that are inlaid within these two fields; patterns manifested within tattoos and constellations are expressive of modes of locality. The iconographic and semiological connection between these two modes is not necessarily always clear-cut. As Edmund Leach explains, “[i]n every myth system we will find a persistent sequence of binary discriminations as between human/superhuman, mortal/immortal,” and so on.52 Methodologies of body adornment and star grouping also represent binary modes of expression, which John Middleton

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argues are essential to human thought.53 Tattooing is visible and impermanent marking (lasting only the life of the bearer), while patterns projected onto the sky are invisible but permanent (they are transmitted through mythic traditions). The human eye will always try to make sense of visual chaos, and once a pattern is derived from these random star-points, seeing other figures is difficult and highly unlikely.54 These two image fields are filtered through social values and pragmatic realities (seasonal change, agriculture, and navigation). Astronomical discoveries made in the last century have allowed humanity to see further into the cosmos. As Ed Krupp argues, “[o]bservatories, planetaria, space probes, and arbitrary telescopes are now the shrines and temples and palaces where celestial power presides [...] [it] has been dispersed and democratized.”55 Astronomical information is easily available to many people, yet vernacular discussion of the sky and its workings is limited. A whole host of developing technologies used to discover new celestial entities, as well as a Westernization of methodology in astronomy, has resulted in a very particular way of relating to celestial bodies. Body modification strives to do the same for the individual. Moreover, by changing the body we come closer to the ideals of the individual as situated within a group; these are attempts to bring heaven down to Earth. The push-and-pull that takes place between the body and the sky is such that tattooing elevates the “natural” state of the body, in order to more easily fit personal worldviews within societal ones. Moreover, asterisms are a means of bringing the heavens to us, by making them more relatable: this is evident in both irezumi, in which the person being ceremoniously tattooed becomes the motif incised upon their flesh, and among the MƗori, for whom tƗ moko is indicative of a person’s tapu and mana. Tattoos and asterisms make both fields more recognizably “human”. They represent varying methods of exemplifying a common worldview, and express communal stories—projected onto the stars for general recognition, and onto the body to show either personal identification with a particular attribute (in Japan), or status (among the MƗori).

Notes 1

Campbell, Joseph, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 28. 2 Rush, John A., Spiritual Tattoo: A Cultural History of Tattooing, Piercing, Scarification, Branding, and Implants (Berkeley: Frog, Ltd., 2005), 5 (emphasis in original).

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André Virel, Charles Lenars, and Josette Lenars, Decorated Man: The Human Body as Art (New York: Abrams, 1980), 12. 4 Virel, Lenars C., and Lenars J., Decorated Man, 11. 5 Ibid. 6 Ellis, Juniper, Tattooing the World: Pacific Designs in Print and Skin (New York: Columbia UP, 2008), 69. 7 Mascia-Lees, Frances E., A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), 102. 8 Krupp, E.C., Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings: Astronomy and the Archaeology of Power (New York: Wiley, 1997), 80. 9 Virel, Lenars C., and Lenars J., Decorated Man, 11. 10 Thévoz, Michel, The Painted Body (New York: Skira/Rizzoli, 1984), 8. 11 Fabian, Stephen Michael, Patterns in the Sky: An Introduction to Ethnoastronomy (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 2001), 3. 12 Nakayama, Shigeru, A History of Japanese Astronomy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1969), 2. 13 Krupp, Skywatchers, Shamans, and Kings, 17. 14 Ibid., 20. 15 Ibid., 13. 16 Kanas, Nick, Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography (Berlin: Springer, 2007), 10. 17 Ruggles, C.L.N. Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy: Building Bridges between Cultures: Proceedings of the 278th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union and ‘Oxford IX’ International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy, Lima, Peru, January 5-14, 2011, ed. C.L.N. Ruggles (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011), 397. 18 Middleton, John, Myth and Cosmos: Readings in Mythology and Symbolism (Garden City, NY: American Museum of Natural History, 1967), x. 19 Bol, Marsha, Stars Above, Earth Below: American Indians and Nature (Niwot, CO: Roberts Rinehart for Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 1998), 66. 20 Kitamura, Takahiro, Tattoos of the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Motifs in the Japanese Tattoo (Amsterdam: Hotei Pub., 2003), 24. 21 Gulik, Willem R. Van, Irezumi: The Pattern of Dermatography in Japan (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982), 71. 22 Kitamura, Tattoos of the Floating World, 25. 23 Ibid., 25. 24 Gulik, 45. 25 Kitamura, Tattoos of the Floating World, 25. 26 Andrews, Munya, The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades: Stories from around the World (North Melbourne, Vic.: Spinifex, 2004), 292. 27 Nakayama, Shigeru, A History of Japanese Astronomy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1969), 2. 28 Renshaw, Steve, and Saori Ihara, “Yowatashi Boshi: Stars That Pass in the Night”, Japanese Lore Associated with Orion, October 1999, http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/orion.htm (accessed February 19,2012).

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Renshaw, Steve, and Saori Ihara. Nakayama, 2. 31 Robley, H.G., TƗ Moko (Courier Dover Publications, 1896), 49. 32 Ibid., 2. 33 Ibid., 3. 34 Ellis, 65. 35 Simmons, D. R., TƗ Moko: The Art of MƗori Tattoo (Auckland N.Z.: Reed, 1999), 23. 36 Te, Awekotuku Ngahuia, Waimarie, Linda, Nikora, Mohi Robert, Rua, Rolinda Karapu, and Becky Nunes, Mau TƗ Moko: The World of MƗori Tattoo (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i, 2007), 26. 37 Oppenheim, Roger S., MƗori Death Customs (Wellington: Reed, 1973), 75. 38 Ibid., 76. 39 Kay Leather and Richard Hall, Work of the Gods: TƗtai Arorangi: MƗori Astronomy (Paraparaumu, N.Z.: Viking Sevenseas, 2004), 14. 40 Te, Awekotuku Ngahuia et al., 21. 41 Best, Elsdon, The Astronomical Knowledge of the MƗori: The MƗori Division of Time (New York: AMS, 1978), 11. 42 Hall and Leather, 15. 43 Ibid., 30. 44 Best, 5. 45 Hall and Leather, 31. 46 Best, 12. 47 Hall and Leather, 44. 48 Ibid., 30. 49 Harvey, Graham, Animism: Respecting the Living World (New York: Columbia UP, 2006), 52. 50 Ibid., 52. 51 Krupp, E. C., Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations (New York: Harper and Row, 1983), 315. 52 Edmund Leach, quoted in Middleton, 3. 53 Middleton, 3. 54 Elkins, James, The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 126. 55 Krupp, Skywatchers, Shamans, and Kings, 13. 30

CHAPTER SIXTEEN AVIATION AND ALIENATION IN JOHN DOS PASSOS’ AIRWAYS, INC. AND THE BIG MONEY RINNI HAJI AMRAN

This paper argues that John Dos Passos’ first experience of flight in 1926 played an instrumental role in the writing of his works immediately after, namely the play Airways, Inc. (1928) and the novel The Big Money (1936). It is my contention that flight—at least in Dos Passos’ experience—made clear to him the vast changes to one’s perceptions of everyday life brought about by technological progress, which precipitated a necessary change in his literary technique in order to better portray the experience of twentiethcentury America. Added to this is the aviation industry boom in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which made this shift urgent to Dos Passos. I therefore also attempt to shed new light on the innovative modernist form of the U.S.A. trilogy, which uses “Newsreel”, “Camera Eye” and “Biography” sections alongside conventional narrative modes to convey America in the twentieth century: just as the aeroplane flies Dos Passos swiftly over a blur of cities, “Tangier, Malaga, Alicante, Barcelona…” so do his readers experience twentieth-century America through technologically-captured snippets (print media, cameras, etcetera). Reading the trilogy is consequently just as disorienting as his flight would have been, encapsulating perfectly the contemporary experience of America in the 1920s and 1930s. This paper forms part of a broader argument that seeks to outline a more complex history of aviation that goes beyond the oftdiscussed contexts of nationalism and militarism, focusing instead on how aviation can change and shape individual perceptions. For a lover of travel and adventure like Dos Passos, flying would have certainly made a significant impression. Travelling to and within foreign lands always seemed exciting to him, as is evidenced by his frequent travels throughout his lifetime. Even a “third-class passage” on an ocean

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steamship towards Leningrad appeared to him to be “the grandest thing in the world.”1 Dos Passos also had a penchant for natural landscapes, and the aeroplane would have granted him abundant aerial views of these. Trekking through Asolo during his time in Italy as an ambulance driver, for example, he marvels at the “hills & valleys with the changing colors of the mountains,” declaring that “[e]very glimpse of Asolo composes into a view of full delight […] the whole world seems to open up.”2 However, the only written recollections that can be found of his first flight (in 1926) are a brief passage in the travel book Orient Express (1927), and a single paragraph in his memoir The Best Times (1968), written more than forty years later: I sat on the mailbags facing the begoggled pilot, sheltered only by a canvas flap. God what a cold ride. The plane bucked like a bronco. Rain clouds lashed us. We flew through sleet. Tangier, Malaga, Alicante, Barcelona… somehow I managed to reach Cette without throwing up on the mailbags. From then on to Paris by the night train.3

There is a stark contrast between this brief, unadorned description of the trip, and the poetic, colourful, and generous prose usually found in Dos Passos’ travel writing. The plain, descriptive, staccato sentences make it clear that he did not take to flying, and at a later point Dos Passos even “spurned the obvious, a hop in a British army plane to Marseille,”4 in favour of a long, arduous camel ride. But this is not to say that the experience did not make an impression on him. The fact that he could still remember the cold, the forceful rain—highlighted with the onomatopoeic word “lash”—and the jerky movement of the aeroplane more than forty years later indicates that it was certainly a memorable experience. Interestingly, the negative impression that this first flight made upon him can be seen to have emerged in his writing as well: flights often injure and kill his characters, while the aviators in his stories tend to be greedy and immoral (like Charley Anderson in The Big Money), or become failures, downtrodden by the profiteers of the aviation industry (like Elmer Turner in Airways, Inc., who tragically ends up a paraplegic). But why was it important for Dos Passos to write about aviation when it was clear that he was not fond of flying? One reason appears to be the rapid expansion of the aviation industry in the 1920s, which may have prompted Dos Passos to write about his own perception of it. As new developments proved the practicality of flight, the outlook for the aviation industry in the late 1920s became very positive. This was reflected on the front page of the first volume of Wings of Industry (a weekly publication which reported on the aeronautical industry for investors), in 1928: it

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declared that the aviation industry’s “romantic and mechanical progress has captured the imagination of people everywhere […] those who invest in the aviation industry today should reap greater profits than ever were possible in any other industry because the future of aviation is practically unlimited”.5 This emerging industry was predominantly capitalized by bankers and investors, who can also be credited with bringing about the ensuing industry boom. Anna Rochester, in Rules of America: A Study of Financial Capital (1936), refers to the late 1920s as a time that “was ripe for the bankers” to make aviation-related investments,6 and cites the examples of the Aviation Corporation (formed under Lehman Brothers), and the merger of United Aircraft and the Transport Corporation (arranged by the National City Bank, whose “transaction brought in $6,000,000 of profit to something like $18,000,000”).7 The aeronautical industry’s swift progress was so remarkable that, according to a 1929 article published in Automotive Industries, it seemed to have undergone a “financial readjustment […] almost overnight”; its presence in the investment sector “began developing with such rapidity that the mind hardly could grasp the significance.”8 This is the unique aspect of the aviation industry that has for the most part been overlooked by previous critics. Flight was a resource that, once practical, swiftly became in demand by various other industries that were looking to expand across the nation. There was a huge market for aircraft speed, so it is unsurprising that investors were earning several times more than they put in. A 1927 summary by George B. Post, Naval Air Reserve Lieutenant, lists several departments that have thrived in their use of the aeroplane: besides air mail, aerial photography has helped “city planning and the study of congested traffic points,” aerial dusting of pesticide has helped cotton cultivation, and commercial and private flights have increased as more goods and travellers are transported by air.9 In The Big Money, Charley Anderson anticipates this industry growth, saying, “I tell you, Jim, things are hummin’ in the air… mail subsidies… airports… all these new airlines… we’ll be the foundin’ fathers on all that.”10 It seems that everyone in business was realizing what W.H. Berry emphasizes: “Nothing can compete with the aeroplane for those […] in need of the greatest speed possible,” and “[f]rom a business point of view it must be remembered that speed is everything.”11 It can be said with much certainty that Dos Passos was aware of these developments, as reflected in both Airways Inc. and The Big Money. In the former, Elmer Turner meets with two real-estate promoters and a representative from a brokerage firm to form All-American Airways, an instance of a merger between a real-estate company and an aircraft

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company. In The Big Money, the value of aviation stocks figures much more prominently, reflecting the great deal of progress the aviation industry has made between 1928 and 1935. Charley Anderson easily makes a fortune in one day as “airplane stocks bounced when the news came over the wires of a bill introduced to subsidize airlines,” and after he sells all of his shares, he is “sitting pretty when the afternoon papers killed the story.”12 But these are just the external circumstances of the period in which Dos Passos wrote Airways, Inc. and The Big Money. While they may have clarified for him the urgency of portraying the increasingly fast pace of the newly interconnected world in his “contemporary chronicles,”13 it is his first-hand experience of flight that would reveal to him specifically how one’s perception of the world would change. Over Christmas in 1925 he went to Morocco, visiting Marrakech and other towns in the region before arriving in Tangier; here he went on his first flight, on a mail plane to Cette. He records this experience in the final section of Orient Express, “Mail Plane.” Notably, his description of this first flight forms a stark contrast with the rest of the book, which describes in lavish detail his encounters whilst travelling on land—especially the train and camel rides filled with conversations, and “kifs” shared with random strangers. On a stopover at Alicante, the giggling veiled women of Morocco are replaced with “stout ladies.”14 Instead of being treated to majestic scenery against the backdrop of “a sky so intense that you seemed to see through the blue light of the world into the black of infinite space,”15 Dos Passos merely “circle[s] the bull ring and it’s Malaga.”16 Comparing it to the more comfortable and luxurious train journeys he is used to, he writes: No more restaurants, steamheated seats in trains, election parades, red fire, beefsteaks. Nothing but the speed of whirling cold over an imaginary sphere marked with continents, canals, roadribbons, real estate lots. An earth weird as Mars, dead cold as the moon, distant as Uranus, where speed snaps at last like a rubber band. Huddled in a knot, hard and cold, pitched like a baseball round the world… Until you meet yourself coming back and are very sick into your old black hat.17

Dos Passos seems to be suggesting that while gaining speed may be beneficial for business, there is also an unpleasant side to it. As the world contracts into “continents, canals, roadribbons, real estate lots,” it also becomes “weird,” “dead,” and “cold.” So, if flight was to become the norm (which all indications in the stock market and the rapid expansion of the aviation industry suggested), it may have seemed to Dos Passos that America would be experienced in a completely different way, much like

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the experience of his flight. Before, he suggests, “restaurants” and “steamheated seats in trains” allowed him to witness the “picturebook landscape,”18 but as they are replaced by “nothing but the speed of whirling cold,” he can only witness “an earth weird as Mars.” As I will demonstrate, Airways Inc. and The Big Money reflect these changes in an attempt to highlight what is lost when speed takes first priority. In Airways, Inc., Dos Passos makes a point of abolishing “the pictureframe stage that tricked [the audience] into imagining they were seeing a slice of life.”19 For a writer who was deeply moved by his own interactions and experiences while travelling, Dos Passos was perhaps beginning to appreciate the importance of face-to-face encounters; and theatre, which he refers to as being “among the last survivors of what might be called the arts of direct contact,”20 was the perfect medium for him to show in the most sensory way—particularly visually and aurally— the effects of an increasingly interconnected world. It can also be seen as a step further from Manhattan Transfer (1925), and one towards the development of the multi-modal style of narration in U.S.A., which seeks to show the changes America was going through (due to the aviation industry boom) from various angles, including newspapers and cameras. The set-up of the stage itself, for instance, is a near-assault to the visual senses: upstage, the front of one house and halves of two others are shown—one with scaffolding and a promotional sign attached to it. Then, “beyond the houses is the suggestion of an empty lot and at the end of it the tall windows and chimneys of a powerhouse and endless factory buildings.”21 Apart from the suggestion of an empty lot, the stage is crowded with the effects of modernization, particularly the proximity of the suburb in development to the industrial factories. This is the first indication of a world contracted as a result of aviation, as Davis, an “oily” realtor and promoter, enthusiastically points out at the beginning of Act One: “Airplane transportation is going to revolutionize land values.”22 In doing so, it utilizes all available land for modern use, effectively annihilating the seeming vastness of the world. This is expressed in the Professor’s words when he reminisces about the time before flight was possible: “The world was a huge ball then, the universe a mighty harmony of ellipses, everything moved mysteriously, incalculable distances through the ether. We used to feel the awe of the distant stars upon us.”23 Notable is the difference between the way he speaks of the past and the matter-of-fact way the businessmen now discuss distance: “New York to Chi in eight hours, rain or shine, isn’t that so?”, Davis prompts Klein, who responds simply with “[m]ere commuting.”24 Compared to the time that the Professor speaks of, distance is now no

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longer “incalculable,” but is within the grasp of men, and the world no longer appears vast and mysterious, as Davis’s reference to Chicago as merely “Chi” suggests. Here, Dos Passos hints at the danger behind the aeroplane’s ability to conquer distance and time: it has the potential to foster the kind of thinking that not only simplifies large ideas and concepts, but also reduces or devalues them, just as the Professor’s romantic notion of the world becomes degraded when Davis and Klein think of the distance between New York and Chicago as merely “eight hours.” This way of thinking can be seen to extend to their perception of the workers as dehumanized “hands”25 instead of people or individuals, causing the factory workers to protest against their low wages. Dos Passos uses not only the visual to construct a world confined by aviation, but also the auditory. As the first act begins, “a sound of sawing and hammering”26 is heard from the carpenters working on the houses in the development. Then comes the “crash tinkle of a brick thrown through a window,”27 which is perhaps intended to shock the audience to attention, thus “moulding” them and disrupting their complacency. Dos Passos utilizes these different disruptive noises to demonstrate that in an interconnected world, where every space of land is accessible and being used, it becomes almost impossible to find peace and quiet. In addition to this is the sound of the factory workers, who protest for better wages throughout the play. Offstage, children’s voices are heard singing: “Oh if you’re up, you’re up / And if you’re down, you’re down / But if you’re against the strikers / You’re upside down.”28 The incongruence between the rhythmic sing-song of the children’s voices and the violent, disruptive noises hints at the larger tension at play between those, like Davis, whose only concern is profit, and those like the disgruntled factory workers, who are treated like mere cogs in a machine. In this play, Dos Passos moves on from writing from a single point of view (like that of the soldiers in One Man’s Initiation—1917 (1920) and the following year’s Three Soldiers) to writing from various angles, producing a fuller picture of current events. Here, Dos Passos includes characters in the highest positions of the socio-economic hierarchy, such as the realtors Davis and Bloomstein, and in the lowest, like the factory worker Amari—not forgetting those in the middle, like the young Elmer Turner, trying to secure a well-paid occupation. This is certainly necessary, given the far-reaching effects of air transportation and the aviation industry, and this need to include the various facets of its impact is perhaps what critics at the time failed to understand. As Virginia Carr’s summary of the reviews shows, many criticized the play for having “too many themes,” resulting in a “lack of unity.”29 The New York Times

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review called it “noisy, incoherent, undisciplined,” and declared it “sadly in need of cutting—whole scenes, large patches of dialogue.”30 But this is precisely the point that Dos Passos tries to make in the play—as the aeroplane makes accessible different places in a short period of time, the world will become noisy, incoherent, and undisciplined, as he emphasizes with the different noises and sounds in the play. It will be a place where we cannot escape from scenes like these, where they cannot be “cut.” The “slice of life” that Airways, Inc. presents is, however, not yet the “earth weird as Mars” that Dos Passos encounters on his first flight, and it is not until he writes The Big Money that this image of earth will be depicted. In order to create the “dead,” “cold,” and “distant” world that he had seen on his first flight, it was imperative that he incorporate an obscure and alienating style into his writing. This results in the development of the multi-modal narrative technique initially employed in Manhattan Transfer, which aptly conveys the intensifying distance between individuals and the world around them via technological mediation. The distinct Camera Eye, Newsreel, Biography and narrative sections in the U.S.A. books collectively mimic the alienating sensation that Dos Passos describes in Orient Express. Readers are never given the chance to be familiar with or settle down into any particular story, as the novel swiftly goes (for example) from a section on Charley Anderson to Newsreel LVI to Camera Eye 48, thus imitating the movements and sensations produced by the aeroplane. There are merely fragments upon fragments of different narratives and modes mixed among one another, with no apparent order other than chronological. Dos Passos was not alone in feeling a sense of apprehension about the distance between traveller and land in flight. Charles Lindbergh himself acknowledged the “environmental danger of a people too far separated from the soil and from the sea—the danger of that physical decline which so often goes with a high intellectual development, of that spiritual decline which seems invariably to accompany an industrial life.”31 His thoughts notably bear resemblance to ideas expressed in Airways, Inc., where the modern, simplified perception of distance shown by Davis and Klein, influenced by the aeroplane’s ability to traverse great distances, can be related to the devaluing of the factory workers. By disorienting the reader, Dos Passos shows how distance breeds unfamiliarity and disconnect between people and the world around them. The Newsreel and Camera Eye sections intensify this disorienting experience. The former only provide snippets of stories and advertisements that have no connection to each other. As an example, Newsreel LVI includes “Pearly early in the mornin’”,32 which presumably is an

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advertisement for toothpaste, yet there is no mention of which toothpaste it is referring to. A few lines down is the headline “POSSE CLOSING IN ON AIRMAIL BANDITS,”33 but no mention of who is being referred to, or where this occurred. The arrangement of the lines of news headlines, snippets of reporting and advertisements mimics poetry, and on first glance it seems as if they are arranged into stanzas; this suggests that Dos Passos is highlighting the form and writing style of news, which takes precedence over the content. The rhyme of the toothpaste advertisement and the exaggerated, dramatic tone of the report on the posse “closing in” on the bandits suggest that newspapers’ priorities are on catching readers’ attentions and boosting sales, rather than actually giving information. As a result, the information becomes distorted and strange, thus distancing readers from reality and contributing to their disconnect from the world. The Camera Eye sections, on the other hand, are saturated with details, yet lack contextual information. In contrast to the Newsreels, the writing is richer with description and much more intimate. For example, in Camera Eye 48, we are presented with a vivid description of “the dinnertable westbound in the broadlit saloon the amply-bosomed broadbeamed la bella cubana in a yellow lowcut dress archly with the sharp rosy nail of her littlest finger points.”34 The fused words, lack of punctuation marks and capitalized letters mimic the unstructured vision that the camera provides, and the close details indicate the focusing capabilities of the lenses. When the view cuts to “la bella cubana,” this shift is merely indicated by the larger space between the words “broadbeamed” and “la”. The empty space emphasizes the image’s lack of core information about who is doing the viewing. When the Newsreel and Camera Eye sections are juxtaposed, as Newsreel LVI and Camera Eye 48 are, they highlight each other’s weaknesses: the former places more emphasis on form, while the latter places more importance on content. As the words appear futile without one or the other, they highlight the downside to technological mediation which distorts information and estranges people from what is in front of them, just as the bird’s-eye view from the aeroplane distances the passenger from his or her world below. Dos Passos’ interest in aerial views can also be seen in his sketches and watercolours, particularly Aerial View of City Traffic and Buildings, which he painted in the 1920s. In this particular painting, the buildings and traffic appear to diverge from the centre and disappear into the edges of the canvas, mimicking a view in motion, like that from an aeroplane. The spectator, then, is distanced from the objects in the painting. Even the name of a building is only half in view, so the letters “SIKF” become incomprehensible, and thus futile. So, while the stories are conveyed through different media, which

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should provide a wider scope of vision to the reader regarding what is happening in twentieth-century America, the technological mediation nevertheless distances the reader from the subjects, thus producing a feeling of estrangement. Added to this is the unique pacing of the stories, which further disorients the reader. In the Newsreel sections particularly, the pace is very swift, as reports of events become condensed into single lines such as “Geologist Lost In Cave Six Days,”35 which even leave out prepositions where possible. As indicated by the reduction of “six days” into merely six words in a newspaper, even the sense of time becomes distorted in an age where speed reigns. The biographies condense whole lives into a few pages, and even the characters’ storylines themselves pass quickly. This is especially true for Charley, who marries different girls, gets injured several times, gains and loses fortunes in mere days, and makes a name for himself as the “boy wizard of aviation financing”.36 Dos Passos also fuses words together, such as “flyingmachine,” which forces readers to speed up as they go through the text. In addition to this, by breaking up and distributing the narratives among the other sections, the novel makes the reader experience different paces (such as the summarizing of a lifetime in a few pages of a biography, or the various durations condensed in newspaper reports), unsettling the sense of time. What The Big Money makes clear is that the world the characters are living in is moving at a quicker pace, evolving into a stranger, unfamiliar place, and that much of this is due to the emergence of aviation, which progressed at an “unparalleled”37 speed—shown most prominently in Charley’s fluctuating fortune tied to “bouncing” aviation stocks.38 This leaves the characters even more disconnected, which Richard Ellsworth Savage shows he is aware of when he says, “[t]he trouble with us is we are in the distant future and don’t know it.”39 Charley himself states that “[t]hings happen fast.”40 The headlines in the Newsreels at the beginning of the novel indicate this increasing demand for speed, stating people’s wishes “TO CONQUER SPACE AND SEE DISTANCES,”41 and note how the modern family will have a “son [who] wants travel, speed, get-upand-go.”42 Even notions of romance have changed in this technological age: when Charley asks Doris to wait to marry him, she responds “[w]ait for you ten years, my, that’s a romantic notion… my grandmother would have thought it was lovely.”43 Critics were quick to notice the fast pace of the novel when it was published. One, for example, notes that “[t]he stories of Charley Anderson, Margo Dowling, Mary French and Richard Ellsworth Savage move with Dos Passos’ usual acceleration,” and that the novel’s “locale shifts rapidly from one to another.”44

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If alienation is the consequence of the rise of aviation, Dos Passos seems to ask, is all the money—the “big money”—poured into the industry worth it? Portrayals of flight itself are never pleasant in the novel. For instance, communication during flights always fails. When Charley and his mechanic, Bill Cermak, go on a test flight, the “roar of the motor” overpowers all other sounds, thus keeping “them from saying any more.”45 The flight itself ultimately crashes, killing Bill and crippling Charley. Prior to their flight, the aircraft is described alliteratively to have “glistened in the sun out on the green grass like something in a jeweler’s window,” prompting Bill to remark, “Jesus, she’s pretty.”46 The simile used emphasizes the outward appeal of the aeroplane, yet it belies the danger it holds; just as the attraction of the aviation industry, built on promises of a faster, more efficient life, disguises the losses it causes to interpersonal relationships and one’s connection with the world. In The Orient Express, Dos Passos reflects on the impact of increased usage of modern transport technologies: So we must run across the continents always deafened by the grind of wheels, by the roar of the airplane motors, wallow in all the seas with the smell of hot oil in our nostrils and the throb of the engines in our blood. Out of the Babel of city piled on city, continent on continent, the world squeezed small and pulled out long, bouncing like a new rubber ball, we get what? Certainly not peace.47

This is the sentiment that comes across in both Airways, Inc. and The Big Money. The feeling of confinement, of being “squeezed small” by noise, movement, and various other sensations, features prominently in Dos Passos’ works after his first experience of flight. Just as aircraft speed piles the cities and continents on top of one another, so does Dos Passos pile his characters and stories over each other, thus producing a chaotic, alienating world in which there is “certainly [no] peace.”

Notes 1

John Dos Passos, The Best Times: An Informal Memoir (London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1968), 174. 2 John Dos Passos, Travel Books and Other Writings 1916-1941 (New York: Library of America, 2003), 707. 3 Dos Passos, The Best Times, 163. 4 Virginia Carr, Dos Passos: A Life (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2004), 183. 5 Wings of Industry 1, 1928.

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Anna Rochester, Rulers of America: A Study of Financial Capital (New York: International Publishers, 1936), 201. 7 Ibid. 8 A.B. Crofoot, “‘Big Business’ Takes a Hand in Aeronautic Development”, Automotive Industries (January, 1929), 84-85, 84. 9 George B. Post, “Aspects of Commercial Aviation in the U.S.A.”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 131 (1927), 71-78. 10 John Dos Passos, The Big Money (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), 301. 11 W.H. Berry, Aircraft in War and Commerce (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1918), 245. 12 Dos Passos, The Big Money, 289. 13 John Dos Passos, The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos, ed. by Townsend Ludington (Boston: Gambit Inc., 1973), v. 14 Dos Passos, Travel Books and Other Writings, 266. 15 Ibid., 233. 16 Ibid., 266. 17 Ibid., 267. 18 Ibid.,256. 19 John Dos Passos, “Did the New Playwrights Theatre Fail?”, New Masses 5 (1929), 13. 20 Dos Passos, Travel Books and Other Writings, 591. 21 John Dos Passos, Airways Inc. (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1928), 9. 22 Ibid., 28. 23 Ibid., 31. 24 Ibid. 25 In one of the factory worker Amari’s speeches, he states: “Company think to own mills, think to own our hands.” Ibid., 91. 26 Ibid., 9. 27 Ibid., 10. 28 Ibid., 31. 29 Carr, 251. 30 “Airways Inc. Has Periods of Interest”, New York Times, February 21, 1929. 31 Charles Lindbergh, “Aviation, Geography, and Race”, Reader’s Digest (November 1939), 64-67. 32 Dos Passos, The Big Money, 189. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 189. 35 Ibid., 371. 36 Ibid., 276. 37 Ibid., 284. 38 Ibid., 289. 39 Ibid., 171. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 7.

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Ibid., 14. Ibid., 59. 44 “Dos Passos Reviews the Boom Twenties”, Kansas City Star, August 8, 1936. 45 Dos Passos, The Big Money, 249. 46 Ibid., 248. 47 Dos Passos, Travel Books and Other Writings, 256. 43

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Chapter Six Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Baker, Stephen. “Early Doors and the Working Class Idyll”, Journal of British Cinema and Television 10.1 (2013). Bevan, Nathan. “Glossy drama follows hectic social lives of young professionals.” The Western Mail, April 22, 2008, www.walesonline.co.uk/ (accessed February 14, 2014). Blandford, Steve. “Dramatic Fictions in a Postcolonial Wales.” In Postcolonial Wales, edited by Jane Aaron and Chris Williams. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005. —. Film, Drama and the Break-up of Britain. Bristol: Intellect, 2007. —. Editor. Wales on Screen. Bridgend: Seren, 2000. Dewdney, Richard. “Results of Devolution Referendums” (1979 and 1997), Research Paper No 97/113, October 11, 1997. Dodd, Kathryn, and Dodd, Philip. “From the East End to Eastenders: Representations of the Working Class, 1890-1990.” In Come on Down? Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain. Edited by Dominic Strinati and Stephen Wagg. London: Routledge, 1992. Green, Ian. “In the Comedy Frame.” In British Cinema History, edited by James Curran and Vincent Porter. London: Barnes and Noble, 1983. Higson, John. “Space, Place, Spectacle”, in John Higson (editor), Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema. Continuation International Publishing: 1996. Hill, John. Sex, Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956-1963. BFI: 1986. Jewell, John. “Character, Region and Welsh Identity in Series One.” Cyfrwng Wales Media Journal 6 (April 2008).

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Langford, Barry. “‘Our Usual Impasse’: the Episodic Situation Comedy Revisited.” In Popular Television Drama Critical Perspectives, edited by Jonathan Bignell and Stephen Lacey. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005. Leach, Jim. British Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. McLean, Pauline. “Joining in with the Celtic Joke.” The Western Mail, October 4, 1996. Mills, Brett. “Welsh/From Wales: Representations of the Welsh in Contemporary British Sitcom.” Cyfrwng: Media Wales Journal 6 (April 2008). Neale, Steve, and Krutnik, Frank. Popular Film and Television Comedy. London: Routledge, 1990. Office for National Statistics. “2011 Census: Key Statistics for Wales, March 2011”, www.ons.gov.uk/census (accessed February 14, 2014). Office for National Statistics. “Report on the Welsh Language”, www.ons.gov.uk/census2001 (accessed February 3, 2014). On Show: the Boyd Clack Documentary. BBC2 Wales, transmitted October 2, 2006. Osmond, John. The Divided Kingdom. London: Constable, 1988. —. Editor. The National Question Again: Welsh Political Identity in the 1980s. Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1985. Owen, Roger. “The Play of History: The Performance of Identity in Welsh Historiography and Theater.” North American Journal of Welsh Studies 1.2 (Summer 2001). Rowland, Paul. “Storm over S4C’s controversial new show.” The Western Mail, January 4, 2006, www.walesonline.co.uk/ (accessed February 12, 2014). Trezise, Rachel. “Blue Books for the Twenty-First Century.” Planet: The Welsh Internationalist 209 (Spring 2013). Williams, Gwyn Alf. “When Was Wales?”, transcript of BBC Wales Annual Radio Lecture, November 12, 1979. —. When Was Wales? London: Black Raven Press, 1985. Williams, Kevin. “Whose Life is it Anyway? Representations and Welsh Television.” In Planet: the Welsh Internationalist 108, December/ January 1994-5. Williams, Raymond. Who Speaks for Wales? Nation, Culture, Identity, edited by Daniel Williams. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003.

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Chapter Seven Primary sources Commission for Racial Equality. Teaching English as a Second Language: Report of a Formal Investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality into the Teaching of English as a Second Language in Calderdale Local Education Authority. London: CRE, 1986. Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups. Education for All. London: HMSO, 1985. Department of Education and Science. The Education of Immigrants. London: HMSO, 1971. Greater London Council. The GLC’s Work to Assist Ethnic Minorities. London: GLC, 1983. The Guardian. Home Office, Immigration from the Commonwealth. London: HMSO, 1965. Local Government Association. Guidance on Community Cohesion. London: LGA, 2002. London Metropolitan Archives. London, UK. GLC Ethnic Minorities Unit presented papers. London Metropolitan Archives. London, UK. London Council of Social Services papers. London Metropolitan Archives. London, UK. ILEA Equal Opportunities Unit papers. London Metropolitan Archives. London, UK. ILEA Policy Coordinating Committee presented papers. London School of Economics Library. London, UK. Peter Shore papers. Macdonald, Ian. Murder in the Playground: Report of the Macdonald Inquiry into Racism and Racial Violence in Manchester Schools. London: Longsight, 1989. Manchester City Library. Manchester, UK. Manchester Medical Officer of Health annual reports. Modern Records Centre. Coventry, UK. Trades Union Congress papers. People’s History Museum, Manchester, UK. 331.6 race relations files. People’s History Museum. Manchester, UK. Labour Party Research Department memoranda. Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. Education. London: HMSO, 1973. Spitalfields Neighbourhood News.

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Secondary sources Anwar, Muhammad. The Myth of Return: Pakistanis in Britain. London: Heinemann, 1979. Carter, Bob and Williams, Jenny. “Attacking Racism in Education.” In Racial Equality in Education, edited by Barry Troyna. 170-83. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Cross, Malcolm, Brah, Harbhajan, and McLeod, Mike. Racial Equality and the Local State: an Evaluation of Policy Implementation in the London Borough of Brent. Coventry: Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, 1991. Hall, Peter A. Governing the Economy: the Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Hill, Michael J., and Isaacharoff, Ruth M. Community Action and Race Relations. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Hiro, Dilip. Black British, White British: a History of Race Relations in Britain. London: Grafton, 1991. Jacobs, Brian, Black Politics and the Urban Crisis in Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Levi, Margaret. “A Model, a Method, and a Map: Rational Choice in Comparative and Historical Analysis.” In Comparative Politics: Rationality, Choice and Structure, edited by M.I. Lichbach and A.S. Zuckerman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. MacEwan, Martin. Housing, Race and Law: the British Experience. London: Routledge, 1991. Malik, Kenan. From Fatwa to Jihad: the Rushdie Affair and its Legacy. London: Atlantic, 2009. Mullins, David. “Housing and Urban Policy.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 17.1 (1989): 475-82. Kirp, David L. “The Vagaries of Discrimination: Bussing, Policy and Law in Britain.” The School Review 87.3 (1979): 269-94. Layton-Henry, Zig. “Race and the Thatcher Government.” In Race, Government & Politics in Britain, edited by Zig Layton-Henry and Rich, Paul B. 73-99. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Parekh, Bhikhu. Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

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Patel, Pragna. “Rana or Rambo? The Rise of Hindu Fundamentalism.” In From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters, edited by Rahila Gupta. 212-34. London: Zed Books, 2003. Pierson, Paul. “When Effect Becomes Cause.” World Politics 54.4 (1993): 595-628. Pitcher, Ben. The Politics of Multiculturalism: Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Prashar, Usha and Shan Nicholas, Routes or Roadblocks? Consulting Minority Communities in London Boroughs (London: Runnymede Trust, 1986). Rao, Nirmala and Young, Ken. Local Government since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Solomos, John and Back, Les. Race, Politics and Social Change. London: Routledge, 1995. Vertovec, Steven. “Super-diversity and its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.6 (2007): 1024-54.

Chapter Eight Scholarly books and articles Balibar, Etienne. “Is there a ‘Neo-Racism’?” In Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, edited by Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein. 17-28. London: Verso, 1991. Barker, Martin. The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe. Frederick: University Publications of America, 1981. Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Gest, Justin. Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West. New York, Columbia University Press, 2010. Grillo, Ralph. “Cultural Essentialism and Cultural Anxiety.” Anthropological Theory 3.2 (2003): 157-173. —. “British and Others: From ‘Race’ to ‘Faith’.” In The Multiculturalism Backlash, edited by Steven Vertovec and Susanne Wessendorf. 50-71. New York: Routledge, 2010. —. “An Excess of Alterity? Debating Difference in a Multicultural Society.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.6 (2007): 979-998. Sriskandarajah, Dhananjayan and Laurence Cooley. “Stemming the Flow? The Causes and Consequences of the UK’s ‘Closed Door’ Policy towards Romanians and Bulgarians.” In Accession and Migration:

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Changing Policy, Society, and Culture in an Enlarged Europe, edited by John Eade and Yordanka Valkanova. Surrey: Ashgate, 2009. Stolcke, Verena. “Talking Culture: New Boundaries, New Rhetorics of Exclusion in Europe.” Current Anthropology 36.1 (1995): 1-24. Vertovec, Steven and Wessendorf, Susanne (editors). The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Newspaper articles, reports and other sources Cameron, David. “Free Movement within Europe Needs to be Less Free”, Financial Times, November 26, 2013, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/add36222-56be-11e3-ab12-00144feabdc0. html#axzz2s01x8TSk (accessed January 30, 2014). Dustmann, Christian and Tommaso Frattini. “The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK” (Discussion Paper Series 22/13, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, University College London, UK, 2013). Kirkup, James. “Immigration has Positive Impact, Says Office for Budget Responsibility Head”, The Telegraph, January 14, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10570839/Immi gration-has-a-positive-impact-says-Office-for-Budget-Responsibilityhead.html (accessed January 30, 2010). Little, Alison and Martyn Brown. “Join Our Crusade Today... Stop New EU Migrants Flooding into Britain”, Daily Express, October 31, 2013, http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/440206/Join-our-Crusade-todaystop-new-EU-migrants-flooding-in-to-Britain (accessed January 30, 2014). Merrick, Jane and John Rentoul. “Ukip Tops Independent on Sunday Poll as the Nation’s Favourite Party”, The Independent, January 19, 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-tops-independenton-sunday-poll-as-the-nations-favourite-party-9069625.html (accessed January 30, 2014). Murphy, Simon and Maria Avramova. “Exposed: Bulgarian Fixers Tell New Arrivals to UK... We will Fake Documents so You Can Claim Benefits”, Mail Online, January 4, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2533889/Exposed-Bulgarianfixers-tell-new-arrivals-UK-We-fake-documents-claim-benefits.html (accessed January 30, 2014). NatCen Social Research, “Attitudes to Immigration”, in British Social Attitudes 30 Report (London, UK: NatCen Social Research, 2013),

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http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/205569/immigration-bsa31.pdf. Prynne, Myranda. “Cameron to Clamp Down on Migrants’ Rights to Benefits”, The Telegraph, November, 23, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10469625/Cam eron-to-clamp-down-on-migrants-rights-to-benefits.html (accessed January 30, 2014). Rigby, Elizabeth. “Ukip More Popular than the Tories, Shows Poll”, Financial Times, January 19, 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30bc428e-80f0-11e3-95aa00144feab7de.html#axzz2qqQ9n0J1 (accessed, January 30, 2014). Rugman, Jonathan. “Immigration Nation: Nigel Farage’s Bulgaria Trip— Video,” Channel Four News, April 23, 2013, http://www.channel4.com/news/nigel-farage-ukip-immigrationbulgaria-romania-video (accessed January 30, 2014). Sheldrick, Giles. “Nigel Farage Praises the Daily Express for Highlighting Britain’s Immigration Problem”, Daily Express, January 12, 2014, http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/453474/Nigel-Farage-praises-theDaily-Express-for-highlighting-Britain-s-immigration-crisis?utm_ source =feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailyexpress-uk-news+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+UK+Feed%29 (accessed January 30, 2014). Swinford, Steven. “Bulgarians and Romanians will Pay More Tax than British ‘Natives’”, The Telegraph, January 7, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10557284/Bulg arians-and-Romanians-will-pay-more-tax-than-British-natives.html (accessed January 30, 2014). Waterfield, Bruno and Matthew Holehouse. “David Cameron ‘Lying to British Voters’ about the EU and Immigration, Viviane Reading Claims”, The Telegraph, January 10, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10562740/Dav id-Cameron-lying-to-British-voters-about-the-EU-and-immigrationViviane-Reding-claims.html (accessed January 30, 2014). Wintour, Patrick. “Nigel Farage: Ukip Wants Five-Year Ban on Immigrants Settling in the UK”, The Guardian, January 7, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/07/ukip-banimmigrants-nigel-farage (accessed January 30, 2014). “Hughes Resigns over Visa Scam Row”, BBC News, April 1, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3589131.stm (accessed January 30, 2014).

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“Farage: Romanian Crime Epidemic in London and UK Cities,” BBC News, April 24, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics22280749 (accessed January 30, 2014). “Open Borders: British voters will deliver verdict next May— @GerardBattenMEP @UKIP,” Youtube video, 1:06, from an intervention of Gerard Batten in the European Parliament, posted by “UKIP MEPs”, January 15, 2014, http://youtu.be/uolKMc2Ie1o (accessed February 20, 2014). “Nigel Farage and Peter Oborne Discuss the Roma Threat”, Nigel Farage Blog, http://nigel-farage.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/nigel-farage-peteroborne-discuss-roma.html (accessed January 30, 2014). “Ukip Leader Condemns Council’s Foster Care Decision”, Youtube video, 5:09, posted by “Channel Four News”, November 24, 2012, http://youtu.be/wUwbFr4-WaE (accessed February 20, 2014). “David Blunkett Riot Fear over Roma Migrant Tensions”, BBC News, November 12, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24909979 (accessed January 30, 2014). “Roma Immigrants Must Behave Sensitively, Says Nick Clegg,” BBC News, November 14, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics24944572 (accessed January 30, 2014). “UKIP Backs Daily Express Petition on EU Migration”, UK Independence Party, http://www.ukip.org/newsroom/news/979-ukip-backs-dailyexpress-petition-on-eu-migration (accessed January 30, 2014). “David Cameron Defiant over Tougher EU Benefit Plans”, BBC News, November 27, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25114890 (accessed January 30, 2014). “UKIP Concerned over Youth Unemployment”, UK Independence Party, http://www.ukip.org/newsroom/news/760-ukip-concerned-aboutrising-youth-unemployment (accessed January 30, 2014). Nigel Farage: Interview by John Humphrys. Today, BBC Radio Four, January 7, 2014.

Chapter Nine Avakian, Monique. Atlas of Asian American History. New York: Checkmark Books, 2002. Anonymous, “John Chinaman.” In The California Songster 1855, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/baker/w3630/edit/chinpoem.html (accessed February 23, 2014). Barnes, Alan. “British Icons: Dr. Fu-Manchu, Big Trouble in Little China.” Judge Dredd Magazine 243, April 2006.

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Blue, Gregory. “Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the ‘Yellow Peril,’ and the Critique of Modernity.” Journal of World History 10.3 (1999): 93139. Cohen, Paul, A. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Conner, J.W. “John Chinaman My Jo.” In Conner’s Irish Songbook, 1868, http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiJOHNAND7;ttJOHNAND.html (accessed February 23, 2014). —. “Marriage of John Chinaman.” In Conner’s Irish Songbook, www.sniffnumachi.com/pages/tiHOHNAND7.html (accessed May 9, 2014). Diamond, Michael. “Lesser Breeds”: Racial Attitudes in Popular British Culture, 1890-1940. London: Anthem Press, 2006. Dirlik, Arif. “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism.” History and Theory 35.4 (December 1996): 96–118. Hevia, James, L. “The Archive State and the Fear of Pollution: From the Opium Wars to Fu-Manchu”. Cultural Studies 12.2 (1998): 235. Klapp, Orrin E. “Villains and fools as Agents of Social Control.” American Sociological Review 19.1 (1954): 55-62. Knapp, Adeline. “The Ways That Are Dark.” San Francisco Sunday Call, August 18, 1895. Lee, Robert, G. Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Leersen, Joep. “The Rhetoric of National Character: A Programmatic Survey.” Poetics Today 21.2 (2000). Metzger, Sean. “Charles Parsloe’s Chinese Fetish: An Example of Yellow Face Performance in Nineteenth-Century American Melodrama.” Theatre Journal 56 (2004). Prasso, Sheridan. The Asian Mystique Dragon Ladies: Geisha Girls and Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient. New York: Public Affairs, 2005. Preston, Diana. The Boxer Rebellion: China’s War on Foreigners, 1900. London, Constable and Robinson Ltd, 1999. Pickering, Michael. Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Rohmer, Sax. The Fu-Manchu Omnibus Volume I. King’s Cross Road: Allison and Busby, 1995. Said, Edward, W. Orientalism. London: Clay Ltd, 1978. Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 2000.

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—. “‘Ways That Are Dark’: Appropriations of Bret Harte’s ‘Plain Language From Truthful James.’” Nineteenth-Century Literature 51.3 (1996): 377-399. Seed, John. “Limehouse Blues: Looking for Chinatown in the London Docks, 1900-40.” History Workshop Journal 62 (2006): 58-85. Seshagiri, Urmila. “Modernity’s (Yellow) Perils: Dr. Fu-Manchu and English Race Paranoia.” Cultural Critique 62 (Winter 2006): 162-194. Shih, David. “The Color of Fu-Manchu: Orientalist Method in the Novels of Sax Rohmer.” The Journal of Popular Culture 42.2 (2009): 304316. Shim, Doobo. “From Yellow Peril Through Model Minority to Renewed Yellow Peril.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 22 (1998): 385-409. Stone, John A. “The National Miner.” Put’s Original California Songster, 1854, www.manifest-history.org/californiacolumnResearch/music/The NationalMiner (accessed November 10, 2010). Tchen, John Kuo Wei. New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture 1776–1882. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Van Ash, Cay and Rohmer, Elizabeth. Master of Villainy: A Biography of Sax Rohmer. London and Presscot: Tingling and Co., 1972. Wu, Cheng-Tsu. “Chink!” New York: World Publishing Company, 1972. Wu, William F. The Yellow Peril: Chinese Americans in American Fiction, 1850-1940. Connecticut: Archon, 1982.

Chapter Ten Angelo, Bonnie. “The Pain of Being Black: An Interview with Toni Morrison.” Time, 22 May, 1989. Barrett, Lindon. “African-American Slave Narratives: Literacy, the Body, Authority”. American Literary History 7.3 (Autumn 1995): 415-442. Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979. Donadey, Anne. “African American and Francophone Postcolonial Memory: Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Assia Djebar’s La Femme Sans Sepulture.” Research in African Literatures 39.3 (2008): 65-81. Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Terri Hume Oliver. New York: Norton, 1999. DuCille, Ann. “Phallus(ies) of Interpretation: Toward Engendering the Black Critical ‘I’.” In African-American Literary Theory: A Reader. Edited by Winston Napier. 443-459. New York: New York UP, 2000. Ellison, Ralph. The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison. Edited by John F. Callahan. New York: Modern Library, 1994.

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Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Guerrero, Ed. “Tracking ‘the Look’ in the Novels of Toni Morrison.” In Toni Morrison’s Fiction: Contemporary Criticism. Edited by David Middleton. 27-41. New York: Garland, 2000. Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which is Not One. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1985. Kenan, Randall. “An Interview with Octavia E. Butler.” Callaloo 14.2 (1991): 495-504. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia UP, 1988. Jones, Bessie W. and Vinson, Audrey. “An Interview with Toni Morrison.” In Conversations with Toni Morrison. Edited by Danille Taylor-Guthrie.171-86. Jackson, Mississippi: UP of Mississippi, 1994. Long, Lisa A. “A Relative Pain: The Rape of History in Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Phyllis Alesia Perry’s Stigmata.” College English 64.4 (March 2002): 459-483. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Vintage, 1999. Otten, Terry. The Crime of Innocence in the Fiction of Toni Morrison. Columbia, Missouri: U of Missouri P, 1989. Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and the Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1982. Rainwater, Lee and William L. Yancey. The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1967. Rushdy, Ashraf, H.A. “Families of Orphans: Relation and Disrelation in Octavia Butler’s Kindred.” College English 55.2 (February 1993): 135157. —. Remembering Generations: Race and Family in Contemporary African American Fiction. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Quayson, Ato. Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Humanism. Translated and introduced by Philip Mairet. Methuen: London, 1973. Spillers, Hortense J. “‘The Permanent Obliquity of an In(pha)lliby Straight’: In the Time of the Daughters and the Fathers.” In Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women. Edited by Cheryl A. Wall. 127-49. London: Routledge, 1990.

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Tate, Claudia. “Toni Morrison.” In Conversations with Toni Morrison. Edited by Danille Taylor-Guthrie. Jackson, Mississippi: UP of Mississippi, 1994. Woolfork, Lisa. Embodying American Slavery in Contemporary Culture. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Chapter Eleven Bowers, Jane Palatini. Gertrude Stein. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993. Bridgman, Richard. Gertrude Stein in Pieces. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Doane, Janice L. Silence and Narrative: The Early Novels of Gertrude Stein. Westport: Greenwood, 1986. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Edited by Jeri Johnson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Katz, Leon. Introduction to Ferhurst, Q. E. D., and Other Early Writings, by Gertrude Stein, i-xxxiv. London: Peter Owen, 1972. —. “Weininger and The Making of Americans.” Twentieth-Century Literature 24.1 (1978): 8-26. Malcolm, Janet. Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible. Edited by Claude Lefort. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968. Retallack, Joan. Introduction to Gertrude Stein: Selections, edited by Joan Retallack. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Stein, Gertrude. Look at Me Now and Here I Am: Writings and Lectures, 1909-45. Edited by Patricia Meyerowitz. London: Penguin, 1990. —. The Making of Americans. Normal: Dalkey, 1995. Walker, Jayne L. The Making of a Modernist: Gertrude Stein from Three Lives to Tender Buttons. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.

Chapter Twelve Augustine of Hippo. “Contra Faustum.” Book XIX.4, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/140619.htm (accessed December 27, 2013). Beeching, Vicky. “Christian, Feminist and Conservative on Sexuality?”, Faith in Feminism, http://faithinfeminism.com/feminist-conservativeon-sexuality-2/ (accessed January 10, 2014).

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Ganzevoort, R. R., van der Laan, M. and Olsman, E. “Growing Up Gay and Religious: Conflict, Dialogue and Religious Identity Strategies.” Mental Health, Religion and Culture 14.3 (2011): 209-222. Grant, Fiona, and Hogg, Michael A. “Self-uncertainty, Social Identity Prominence and Group Identification.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012): 538-542. Hansen, Bruce. “All of You Are One”: The Social Vision of Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:3 and Col 3:11. London and New York: Continuum, 2010. Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1997. Justin Martyr. “Dialogue with Trypho” 46. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01283.htm (accessed December 27, 2013). Lieu, Judith. Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Metropolitan Community Church. “History of MCC.” http://mccchurch.org/overview/history-of-mcc/ (accessed December 27, 2013). Moberly, Walter. “The Use of Scripture in Contemporary Debate about Homosexuality.” Theology 103 (2000): 251-258. The NRSV Bible (1989). O’Brien, Jodi. “Wrestling the Angel of Contradiction: Queer Christian Identities.” Culture and Religion 5.2 (2004): 179-202. O’Donovan, Oliver. “Homosexuality in the Church: Can There Be a Fruitful Theological Debate?” In The Way Forward? Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church, 2ndedn., edited by Timothy Bradshaw. 20-36. London: SCM Press, 2003. Pritz, Ray A. Nazarene Jewish Christianity: From the End of the New Testament Period Until its Disappearance in the Fourth Century. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988. Roccas, Sonia, and Brewer, Marilynn B. “Social Identity Complexity.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 6.2 (2002): 88-106. Rowland, Christopher. Christian Origins: The Setting and Character of the Most Important Messianic Sect of Judaism, 2nd edn. London: SPCK, 2002. Sullivan, Andrew. “The End of Gay Culture: Assimilation and its Meaning.” New Republic (2005), http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/the-end-gay-culture (accessed December 30, 2013).

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Von Harnack, Adolf. A History of Dogma, Vol. I, translated by Neil Buchanan. Boston: Little Brown & Co. 1901. Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal. Cambridge, MA; UK: Harvard University Press, 2000. Yip, Andrew Kam-Tuck, et al. Religion, Youth and Sexuality: Selected Key Findings from a Multi-faith Exploration. Online: University of Nottingham, 2011. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sociology/pdfs/rysresearch-report.pdf (accessed December 27, 2013).

Chapter Thirteen Albert, David Z. Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. “Avatar.” Collins English Dictionary – CollinsDictionary.com, HarperCollins Publishers, http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/avatar (accessed February 5, 2013). Bard, Alexander and Söderqvist, Jan. The Futurica Trilogy, translated by Neil Smith. Stockholm: Stockholm Text, 2012 (kindle edition). Bohm, David. Thought as a System. London: Routledge, 1994. —. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge, 2002. Caldwell, Luke. “Schizophrenizing Lacan: Deleuze, [Guattari], and AntiOedipus.” Intersections 10.3 (2009): 18-27. Deleuze, Gilles. The Logic of Sense, translated by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, 1990. London: Continuum, 2004. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix. A Thousand Plateaus, translated by Brian Massumi, 1988. London: Continuum, 2004. Dick, Philip K. The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings, edited by Philip K. Dick and Lawrence Sutin. New York: Vintage, 1996. Dinnen, Zara. “Pictures of Self-Portraits: Eva and Franco Mattes’ Avatar Portraits” http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2012/05/01/picturesself-portraits-eva-and-franco-mattes-avatar-portraits, May 1, 2012, (accessed February 22, 2013). Egan, Greg. Permutation City. London: Gollancz, 2010 (kindle edition). Gunkel, David J. “We Are Borg.” In Communication Theory 10.3 (2000): 332-357. —. “The Real Problem: Avatars, Metaphysics and Online Social Interaction.” In New Media and Society 12 (2010): 127-141.

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Heisenberg, Werner. In Nobel Lectures, Physics 1922-1941, Nobel Foundation. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1965. —. Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. London: Penguin, 2000. Hill, David. “The Ethical Dimensions of a New Media Age: A Study in Contemporary Responsibility.” PhD Thesis, University of York, 2011. Jameson, Fredric. “The End of Temporality.” In Critical Inquiry 29.4 (2003): 695-718. Jung, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, translated by R.F.C. Hull, 1959. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968. Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. London: The Hogarth Press, 1997. Ramirez, Francisco Gerardo Toledo. “Because I am Not Here. Selected Second Life-Based Art Case Studies: Subjectivity, Autoempathy and Virtual World Aesthetics.” Doctor of Arts Thesis, University of Western Ontario, 2012. Rancière, Jacques. The Future of the Image, translated by Gregory Elliott. London: Verso, 2009. Shostakovich, Dividni. “Bryn Oh’s Identity Discovered!” http://dividni.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/bryn-ohs-identitydiscovered.html, August 11, 2010 (accessed February 21, 2013). Smith, Daniel W. “Conditions of the New.” In Deleuze Studies 1 (2007): 1-21. Žižek, Slavoj. The Indivisible Remainder. London: Verso, 2007. —. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso, 2009. —. The Parallax View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. —. Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences. London: Routledge, 2012.

Chapter Fourteen Primary sources Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Perf. Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter. Tristar, 1994. DVD. “The Rebel Flesh.” Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One, UK. 21 May 2011. Television. “The Almost People.” Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One, UK. 28 May 2011, Television.

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Secondary works Baudrillard, Jean. “The Precession of Simulacra.” In Simulacra and Simulation, translated by Sheila Faria Glaser, 1-28. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1994. —. The Vital Illusion. Edited by Julia Witwer. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Bruner, Jerome. “The Narrative Construction of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 18 (1991): 1-21. Fuller, Gavin, “Doctor Who, Episode Six: ‘The Almost People’”, The Telegraph, May 28 2011. Heffernan, J. A. W. “Looking at the Monster.” Critical Inquiry 24.1 (Autumn, 1997): 133-158. Hirsch, Marianne. “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photography and the Work of Postmemory.” The Yale Journal of Criticism 14.1 (Spring 2001): 5-37. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge,1988. —. The Politics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1989. “Identity, n.”. OED. November 2010. Oxford University Press, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/91004?redirectedFrom=identity& (accessed December 26, 2012). Martin, Dan. “Doctor Who: which is the best episode of this series?”, The Guardian, September 30, 2011. Meyer, Richard. “Identity.” In Critical Terms for Art History. Edited by R.S. Nelson and R. Shiff. 345-357. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. Mitchell, W.J.T. Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Olin, Margaret. “Gaze.” In Critical Terms for Art History. Edited by R.S. Nelson and R. Shiff. 318-329. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. Prendergast, Christopher. The Triangle of Representation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

Chapter Fifteen André Virel, Charles Lenars, and Josette Lenars. Decorated Man: The Human Body as Art. New York: Abrams, 1980. Andrews, Munya. The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades: Stories from Around the World. North Melbourne, Vic.: Spinifex, 2004.

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Best, Elsdon. The Astronomical Knowledge of the MƗori: The MƗori Division of Time. New York: AMS, 1978. Bol, Marsha. Stars Above, Earth Below: American Indians and Nature. Niwot, CO: Roberts Rinehart for Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 1998. Campbell, Joseph. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1988. Elkins, James. The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. Ellis, Juniper. Tattooing the World: Pacific Designs in Print and Skin. New York: Columbia UP, 2008. Fabian, Stephen Michael. Patterns in the Sky: An Introduction to Ethnoastronomy. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 2001. Gulik, Willem R. Van. Irezumi: The Pattern of Dermatography in Japan. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982. Harvey, Graham. Animism: Respecting the Living World. New York: Columbia UP, 2006. Kanas, Nick. Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography. Berlin: Springer, 2007. Kay Leather and Richard Hall. Work of the Gods: TƗtai Arorangi: MƗori Astronomy. Paraparaumu, N.Z.: Viking Sevenseas, 2004. Kitamura, Takahiro. Tattoos of the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Motifs in the Japanese Tattoo. Amsterdam: Hotei Pub., 2003. Krupp, E.C. Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations. New York: Harper and Row, 1983. —. Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings: Astronomy and the Archaeology of Power. New York: Wiley, 1997. Mascia-Lees, Frances E. A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. Middleton, John. Myth and Cosmos: Readings in Mythology and Symbolism. Garden City, NY: American Museum of Natural History, 1967. Nakayama, Shigeru. A History of Japanese Astronomy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1969. Oppenheim, Roger S. MƗori Death Customs. Wellington: Reed, 1973. Renshaw, Steve, and Saori Ihara. “Yowatashi Boshi: Stars That Pass in the Night”, Japanese Lore Associated with Orion, October 1999, http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/orion.htm (accessed February 19,2012). Robley, H.G. TƗ Moko. Courier Dover Publications, 1896.

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Ruggles, C.L.N. Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy: Building Bridges between Cultures: Proceedings of the 278th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union and “Oxford IX” International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy, Lima, Peru, January 5-14, 2011, ed. C.L.N. Ruggles. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Rush, John A. Spiritual Tattoo: A Cultural History of Tattooing, Piercing, Scarification, Branding, and Implants. Berkeley: Frog, Ltd., 2005. Simmons, D. R. TƗ Moko: The Art of MƗori Tattoo. Auckland N.Z.: Reed, 1999. Te, Awekotuku Ngahuia, Waimarie, Linda, Nikora, Mohi Robert, Rua, Rolinda Karapu, and Becky Nunes. Mau TƗ Moko: The World of MƗori Tattoo. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i, 2007. Thévoz, Michel. The Painted Body. New York: Skira/Rizzoli, 1984.

Chapter Sixteen “Airways Inc. Has Periods of Interest”, New York Times, February 21, 1929. Berry, W.H. Aircraft in War and Commerce. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1918. Carr, Virginia. Dos Passos: A Life. Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2004. Crofoot, A.B. “‘Big Business’ Takes a Hand in Aeronautic Development.” Automotive Industries (January, 1929): 84-85. Dos Passos, Passos. Airways Inc. New York: The Macaulay Company, 1928. —. “Did the New Playwrights Theatre Fail?”, New Masses 5 (1929). —. “Dos Passos Reviews the Boom Twenties”, Kansas City Star, August 8, 1936. —. The Best Times: An Informal Memoir. London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1968. —. The Big Money. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. —. The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos, edited by Townsend Ludington. Boston: Gambit Inc., 1973. —. Travel Books and Other Writings 1916-1941. New York: Library of America, 2003. Lindbergh, Charles. “Aviation, Geography, and Race”, Reader’s Digest (November 1939). Post, George B. “Aspects of Commercial Aviation in the U.S.A.”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 131 (1927): 71-78.

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Rochester, Anna. Rulers of America: A Study of Financial Capital. New York: International Publishers, 1936. Wings of Industry 1, 1928.

CONTRIBUTORS

Garfield Benjamin is a digital artist and cultural theorist concerned with new philosophies of digital technology and its relation to the human mind. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation at the University of Wolverhampton. He previously studied electroacoustic composition and multi-media art at the University of Birmingham. His has published on topics including psychoanalysis of computer games, radical digital art, and critical theory. His digital art work has been shown across the UK and internationally. His doctoral thesis, The Cyborg Subject, focuses on the construction of the contemporary human, split between physical and digital modes of consciousness in a technologically mediated parallax of subjective realities. Defne Çizakça is a creative writing PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, where she is writing a historical novel about nineteenth-century Istanbul. Her accompanying critical work focuses on storytelling in the Ottoman Empire. Defne is the fiction editor of Unsettling Wonder: A Journal of Folk and Fairy Tales, and the co-editor of three books, Tip Tap Flat: A View from Glasgow (Freight, 2012), New Fairy Tales: Essays and Stories (Unlocking Press, 2013) and Miscellaneous: Writing Inspired by the Hunterian (The Hunterian, 2014). Her creative work has appeared in New Writing Scotland, DECOMP, Fractured West, Spilling Ink Review, Sein und Werden, and Time Out Istanbul. She was Writer in Residence at the Hunterian Museums in Glasgow from 2012 to 2013. Jed Fazakarley recently submitted a D.Phil thesis in History at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where he was elected as Jowett Senior Scholar for 2011-3. He has a BA in History and an MA in Modern History from the University of York. In the past, he has written about racist ideologies in trans-historical perspective, with a focus on modern Britain. His most recent work concerns the mobilization and integration of Muslim communities in England since the 1960s and multiculturalism in post-war Britain. He has also published an article on the Handsworth riots of 1985. James Félix is a PhD candidate in the School of Music at the University of Leeds. He obtained his MMus in Musicology at Birmingham Conservatoire, with a particular research focus on Zoltán Kodály’s use of

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Contributors

folk music in his large-scale orchestral and choral works. He has previously presented conference papers on the notions and nature of tradition, identity and authenticity in folk music. His doctoral research is an ethnomusicological and anthropological study of Portuguese fado music, with a particular focus on the notion and value of authenticity and tradition. Liza Futerman is a PhD student at the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, where she researches representations of memory and memory loss through photographs, life writings and documentaries. She holds two Masters degrees: one in History of Art and Visual Culture (Oxford University), and another in Foreign Literatures and Linguistics (Ben-Gurion University, Israel). Futerman is the first recipient of the Rivka Carmi scholarship, and the winner of the Young Poets’ Foundation award. Regenia Gagnier is the author of Subjectivities: A History of SelfRepresentation in Britain 1832-1920, The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market Society, Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public, and Individualism, Decadence and Globalization: on the Relationship of Part to Whole 1859-1920, among other books and collections on the relation of literary and cultural forms to social formations. She is Professor of English at the University of Exeter; Senior Research Fellow at Egenis, Centre for the Study of Life Sciences; and Editor of the Global Circulation Project of Literature Compass. Andrew Grey completed an MPhil in Theology (Christian Ethics) at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, following a BA in Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford. His dissertation focused on the interpretation of Scripture as a source of moral authority, in relation to the ethics of wealth and poverty. He is also the Opinions Editor of On Religion magazine, where he frequently comments on the relationships between Christianity and sexuality, among other topics. Rinni Haji Amran is a PhD candidate in the College of Humanities at the University of Exeter. She obtained her MA in Literatures of Modernity at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her doctoral research focuses on modern, literary perspectives of aviation from 1890-1945, with particular focus on the works of H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and John Dos Passos. She is funded by the Ministry of Education, Brunei.

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Anna-Leena Korpijärvi is a Doctoral candidate at the University of Helsinki Faculty of Arts. Her major is in North American Studies, at the Department of Area and Culture Studies. She received her Masters Degree from the University of Helsinki in June 2012. Her major was in English Philology, with minors in East Asian Studies and Asia Pacific Studies. Her dissertation is entitled A Chinaman’s Chance: Fiction, Reality and the “Chinese Character”. It examines the development of the “Chinese character”, a general use stereotype, in nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury American popular literature. David Linton is a theatre practitioner and lecturer at Kingston University. His research interests include multidisciplinary participatory arts practice, popular performance and the formation and representation of national and cultural identities. His publications include “New Insecurities, New Form, New Identity: National Identity and Raciologies in Eightpence a Mile”, in Studies in Musical Theatre 7.1 (2013), and Popular Musical Theatre in London and Berlin (Cambridge University Press, 2014), co-edited with Len Platt and Tobias Becker. Maja Milatovic currently teaches at the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University (NSW, Australia). She completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2014. Her thesis explored the ancestor figure in African American women writers’ neo-slave narratives. Maja’s research interests include Indigenous Studies, social justice movements and education, and more broadly, critical race and whiteness studies, postcolonial, feminist and trauma theory. She has published on African American women’s literature, feminism, postcolonial trauma theory, critical pedagogy and politics. Nikolay Mintchev is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University. He previously studied psychoanalysis at the University of Essex. His work deals with psychosocial approaches in the social sciences and the use of psychoanalytic concepts in anthropology. His doctoral research examines the numerous transformations that ethnic and gender identities in Bulgaria have undergone since the 1970s, and the ways in which social and political changes have facilitated new forms of subjectivity. Daryl Perrins is a PhD candidate in the School of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. His doctoral research is a study of both outsider and insider constructions of the Welsh working class in film and

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Contributors

television from the mid-twentieth century onwards. He is particularly interested in the representation of the South Wales valleys and its people, and the anomaly of an industrial society and culture in an upland and often sublime environment. He is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of South Wales, and has previously published on youth culture and Welsh cinema, and on Welsh characters in Ealing comedies. Aretha Phiri completed her PhD at Edinburgh University in 2014; her thesis involved a comparative, transnational and transatlantic reading of violence and subjectivity in selected fiction of Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, J.M. Coetzee, and Yvonne Vera. Currently a postdoctoral fellow at Rhodes University, South Africa, her research interests include issues of race, gender and sexuality in comparative, transnational considerations of identity and subjectivity. She has published in various journals including English Studies in Africa, Safundi and the Journal of American Studies. Megan Ratliff graduated in 2012 from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelors of Humanities and Arts in Fine Art and Cultural Anthropology. She is planning to pursue visual culture postgraduate study in the UK. Her current work is focused on the relationship between traditional and digital photographic processes in producing astrophotography, as well as continuing independent research regarding indigenous ethnoastronomy. Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland graduated with first-class honours from the University of Glasgow in her Bachelor of Music degree. She was granted the Edward Caird Award to allow her to continue her studies in a joint degree course between the Royal Conservatoire of Glasgow and the University of Glasgow, studying for a Masters in Historically Informed Performance. She has previously published on Bel Canto. She is currently undertaking her doctoral research, on the late eighteenth-century castrato singer Venanzio Rauzzzini and his students. Ery Shin is a part-time lecturer in Writing at Rutgers University. Among her areas of interest are modernism, queer theory, and phenomenology. Her current book project, Gertrude Stein and the American Avant-Garde, interweaves all three in its attempt to trace Stein’s ongoing literary influence in the United States. Vivien Estelle Williams obtained her BA and MA at the University of Bari, where she studied Foreign Languages and Cultures. She completed

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her PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow in December 2013, on “The Cultural History of the Bagpipe in Britain, 1680-1840.” She is currently a Research Assistant at the Centre for Robert Burns Studies working on the project “Editing Robert Burns for the Twenty-First Century”, as well as a Project Assistant for “The Cullen Project: The Consultation Letters of Dr William Cullen (1710-1790)”, both at the University of Glasgow. She is co-author of Access to Great Britain and the English-speaking World (Naples: Loffredo Editore, 2007), and she has published in journals including The Bottle Imp. Sam Wiseman completed his PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow in 2013; his thesis focused upon Mary Butts, D.H. Lawrence, John Cowper Powys and Virginia Woolf, and was entitled Transience, Technology and Cosmopolitanism: the Reimagining of Place in English Modernism. He has published articles on Virginia Woolf and Mary Butts, and is planning to pursue postdoctoral research investigating the relationships between literature, culture and place in postwar welfarecapitalist Britain.