Suspended Between Forms Either Disused Or As Yet Unknown, The
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Suspended between forms either disused or as yet unknown, the writer’s language is not so much a fund to be drawn on as an extreme limit; it is the geometrical locus of all that he could not say without, like Orpheus looking back, losing the stable meaning of his enterprise and his essential gesture as a social being. Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero University of Alberta Cutting out one’s tongue – The Red Army Faction and the aesthetics of body (anti)language by Kimberly Marie Mair A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology ©Kimberly Marie Mair Fall, 2009 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. 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Examining Committee Derek Sayer, Sociology (Co-supervisor) Charles Barbour, Sociology (Co-supervisor) Leo Mos, Psychology Dennis Sweeney, History and Classics Christian Andersen, Native Studies William Ramp, Sociology, University of Lethbridge Patricia Clough, The Graduate Center, City University of New York George Pavlich, Sociology (Committee Chair) Abstract Drawing from my archival research on the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and the urban guerrilla movement active in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland from the 1970s, my dissertation works through the RAF to speculate about the compulsion towards self-representation inherent to subjectivity. Such compulsion proffers an urgent and recurrent imperative to speak what cannot be said or to conjure what does not exist. This work argues that the perils and the failures of such enunciation, in the face of its compulsory demand, are felt not only in speech but in choreographies of subjectivity performed in aesthetic convolutions of space, gesture, and intonation. These convolutions are subject-forming material productions, rather than reflections or echoes of a pre-existing coherent subject, and trouble the notion of self- representation to the extent that they produce and re-produce the self. While the body is formed by culture, it consistently circumvents the limits of the genres that govern speech communication, therefore, my work is concerned with tracing a mise en scène of self-production by emphasizing non-textual elements. The forms that this circumvention can take exceed the involuntary cry, gesture, uneven breath, or facial expression to include uses of space – space that is implicated in the body’s formation – but the public legibility of such circumventions is not guaranteed. This work aims to refunction the RAF's declaration of the body as a weapon to the body as a medium for communication and to approach the aesthetics of a body (anti)language that extends beyond the particularities of the urban guerrilla project to the situation of mundane subjectivity that repeatedly calls for enunciation. My dissertation is a performative text that deploys formal interventions – such as collage, assemblage, photography, and interleaved texts meant to intrude upon the reader – that target instrumental language use. To illustrate that the ongoing production of subjectivity of the urban guerrilla is not alien to that of the politically recognizable citizen, my work contemplates practices of contemporary art and the production of material objects of signification that engage in practices of citation and disguise the incoherence of our acts. Acknowledgements This dissertation did not write itself –– more accurately, I did not write it by myself. Countless people and institutions sustained me in significant ways over the duration of this work. I would like to mention only a few of those for whom I have a very special gratitude. Many institutions gave material support for this work. The following institutions and programs generously funded this research through fellowships and grants: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair Program and Professor Derek Sayer, CRC in Theory and Culture; Province of Alberta; Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research; and the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. The following institutions provided access to archival materials: Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Deutsches Zentralinstitüt für soziale Fragen Berlin, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and Zur Vorstellung des Terrors: RAF Ausstellung (Regarding Terror: The RAF Exhibition) organized by the Berlin Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art. I am grateful to the extraordinary members of my doctoral committee: Christian Andersen, Charles Barbour, Leo Mos, George Pavlich (committee chair), William Ramp (University of Lethbridge), Derek Sayer (Lancaster University), Dennis Sweeney, and my external reader Patricia Ticineto Clough (City University of New York). I am struck by how lucky I have been to have such people around me. The thoughtful reading that each person gave to my work leaves me greatly touched and provokes me to contemplate things I had not seen in it before. In particular, to my co-supervisors: Charles, thank you for always saying the right thing. You don’t know this, but your words were really important to me. Derek, I know, following L.W., I should not even attempt this. Despite the woeful lack of words for what I would want to convey, your unwavering belief in me has been vital to this process and it gave me the confidence to write this in the way I wanted to –– in the way it had to be written. Thank you for always knowing –– without me needing to explain –– what it was that was necessary to me about this work and for defending that. Thank you to William Johnston for sitting on my candidacy examination on short notice and for helping to set up my defense. Thank you to Douglas Aoki for participating in my candidacy and specialization examinations, but, above all, for being a great and courageous teacher always. I am grateful to Gerhard Richter and to the staff at Richter’s studio for giving permission for the reproduction of several paintings from the October 18, 1977 cycle in my dissertation. Thank you to Allen Ball for collaborating with me on several works, particularly for the German Autumn in Minor Spaces – Heckmeck! My deep appreciation goes to Lynn Van Reede not only for her consistent support throughout the duration of my program of study but for her warmth, kindness, and care. I am especially grateful to T.J. for supporting me in the work that I wanted to do, and for doing so with much good humour along the way. This work would not have been possible otherwise. I have much to be grateful and happy for, particularly for the gift of good friends: Greg Bowden, Craig Campbell, Mark Jackson, Stephen Liley, Rebecca Lock, Jones Mitchell, Ondine Park, Sohrab Shiravand, Amy Swiffen, Matt Unger, and Anne Winkler. Shane Gannon for reading so many texts with me, for conversation, and for particular instances of interpellation that served as a life-raft. Sandra Le Blanc for so many coffees, dinners, and laughter and for being a great listener and offering such good friendship over many years. Yoke Sum Wong for always provoking me in exactly the way that I need, exactly when I need it, and for always being present for me –– even across the Atlantic, for all this time. Kara Granzow for excess, for always eschewing doubt about preposterous plots and adventures in the face of better judgment, and for an unlikely but crucial balance of chaotic respite –– and, of course, for friendship, unlike any other.