Andrea: In what ways does the object incorporate untimely matter through supercession, explosion, and conjunction? (from Harris' analysis of the Archimedes Palimpsest)
Definition Notes:
Supersession: New layering over old in a palimpsest of progress (21)
Explosion: Old is not lost – it can intervene and affect the present; “antagonistic” (22)
Conjunction: current contains ancient in a way that “literally touches” and engages in “untimely dialogue”
Analysis of Roach:
Roach reads the practice of Mardi Gras krewe parades through a series of
photographs and his memory of the last of the krewe parades. He claims that these
krewes and other social clubs “promote a sense of timelessness based on their
apparently seamless repetition of traditional roles” (Roach 18). Therefore, he
is reading their performances as conjunctive. The costumes, schedule, route,
and even reactions of the audience are scripted by the tradition: “Every year
there is a new Rex and a new King Zulu, and every year they are supposed to
look and act as they always have” (19). To this end, he chooses images from
1991 (19), 1971 (22), and 1940 (23). This implies that the date of the picture
is irrelevant (one isn't even dated at all) – each of the images will be the same. However, they are
conjunctive because they concurrently exist and interact with each other and
the modern world in an “untimely dialogue” about issues of race relations in a contested space (Harris 22).
Roach then reads the specific confrontation of 1991 as a moment
of both supersession and explosion. King Rex represents supersessionary
history, while King Zulu serves as the explosive force. Roach doesn’t describe
the image he provides of the 1991 parade, but the King Rex figure looks
concerned and, by facing slightly askew on his throne, he appears skeptical of
whatever is approaching. Although, his two pages appear unconcerned and/or bored. This is followed by an undated image of King Zulu,
wearing a broad, toothy grimace/smile (20).
Roach’s supersessionary argument is clear: “behind Rex stood
the ambiguous tradition of the European carnivalesque, which might at least at
least appear to overthrow social authority momentarily… but which also might
just as well serve to conceal its ever more powerful reassertion under the mask
of festivity.” Roach goes on to state that Rex also contained, or stood at the
momentary culmination of, generations of “white supremacist entitlement.” Rex serves as the new layering over the
old in a palimpsest of progress, but it is progress that gives a backwards and
sideways glance at its privilege (Harris 22).
In contrast, King Zulu “seizes on the annual occasion of the
great festive holiday of Eurocentric tradition to make ribald fun of white
folks and their jury-rigged constructions of race” (21). Yet, as Roach
explores, this isn’t as simple as undermining a corrupt performance. King Zulu
is whiteface minstrelsy, and he is reinventing an “African cultural pattern” in
a new context, flipping the tables back and forth on the issue of race relations
in the past and present. He doesn’t resolve, he doesn’t disappear, but he does “explode”
the existence of the past in the present (24).
Roach's work isn't as concerned with the objects he's using - photographs - as much as the performance they are documenting. However, this is a weakness in his argument - he easily could have been more specific on that front and tied the evidence presented in these images to his ideas. To that end, I think his casual use of images without
greater context and attention to their dates inadequate, based on the ideas of Hodgdon
and Wexler.
1 comment:
I agree, Jennifer, and think this is an excellent example of making various theorists speak to one another: once you've read Wexler and Hodgdon, taking the photograph as an uncritical archival source becomes impossible. It doesn't mean it's not useful, but some attention should be paid. This is the kind of move one needs to make all the time in writing a dissertation--recognition that this person would say this, that person argues against the archive, etc etc, but that here I am going to do Y.
Post a Comment