Copyright 2015 Claire Barber-Stetson
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Copyright 2015 Claire Barber-Stetson AESTHETICS, POETICS, AND COGNITION: A NEW MINOR LITERATURE BY AUTISTS AND MODERNISTS BY CLAIRE BARBER-STETSON DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Joseph Valente, University at Buffalo, Chair Professor Vicki Mahaffey Associate Professor Samantha Frost Assistant Professor Andrew Gaedtke ii Abstract This dissertation begins by recognizing that many texts written at the end of the twentieth century by individuals with autism spectrum disorders share distinctive aesthetic and poetic characteristics with experimental modernist texts. Despite the literary significance ascribed to modernism, texts in both genres are still characterized in terms of lack—when literature by autists is analyzed at all. They are often treated as incoherent collections of juxtaposed fragments, which depict isolated protagonists struggling to unify their experience. This perspective is reminiscent of Uta Frith’s theory of weak central coherence, which pathologizes autists for the way that they process information. Frith’s theory and the critical maxim that modernist texts are “fragmented” are both revealed as ideologies that flatten the texts and people that they are used to analyze. They restrict the spatial relationships possible among these texts, the elements of which they are composed, and their environments. To reorient such discussions, this dissertation takes a methodological approach grounded in post-structuralism and disability studies. These theoretical areas equip readers to abandon claims of “incoherence” and instead chart multidimensional textual maps, which reveal ever more lines of flight. Specifically, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of a minor literature provides a framework that facilitates the analysis of contact among texts by authors from T.S. Eliot to Tito Mukhopadhyay. Less restricted by temporal boundaries than most, this literary category also depends less on a writer’s identity than a minority literature. Alternatively, a minor literature attends to the way writers subordinate a major language’s communicative function to experiments with the materials of which it is composed. It is from this perspective that authors in a minor literature become “strangers” to language. These authors interrupt cognitive processing through literary style, which is a means of joining disparate elements. iii Rather than juxtaposing texts by modernists and autists, this dissertation considers them adjacently as both contiguous and continuous: “always in contact…but also always repelled.” An adjacent reading gives readers access to new spatial relationships that reveal new possibilities in environments that otherwise appear arid. Overall, this project performs the kind of textual reorganization that Eliot lauds in “The Function of Criticism” (1923) by “review[ing] the past of our literature, and set[ting] the poets and the poems in a new order” to accommodate “new and strange objects in the foreground.” It reassesses the relationship between foreground and background to accommodate texts that give their characters and readers access to spaces in which alternative relationships are possible. iv Acknowledgements Looking back on the time that I have spent at Illinois, it is truly overwhelming to think about the many people who influenced my own development and the development of this project. First, I am grateful to the English Department and the Graduate College for their continued support. I have been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Roxanne Decyk Fellowship and a Dissertation Completion fellowship, all of which made this project what it is. Without this support, I would not have been able to complete the serious critical thought and level of reading necessary for a project of this scope. Both also supported my attendance at numerous national conferences where I presented and received feedback on different parts of this project. Without those opportunities, it certainly would have been the poorer The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory provided additional support for conferences and also to attend the 2011 School of Criticism and Theory, where I participated in Robert Pippin and David Wellbery’s seminar “Theorizing Modernism: Philosophy and Criticism.” In addition to making contacts that I will forever value, this opportunity gave me needed background in aesthetics that helped me to hone many of the questions that this dissertation attempts to answer. Prof. Jim Hansen was one of the first Illinois faculty members who saw promise in me and my work, and he went out of his way to convince me to accept the offer to study in Champaign-Urbana. Stephanie Foote was also a part of this process, for which I am grateful to both of them. Matt Hart also taught two classes on modernism during the end of his time at Illinois to which I continued to return throughout the process of writing this dissertation. I am thankful for the theoretical breadth of these courses and also for the timely topics that he chose. v Later, Vicki Mahaffey became one of the primary influences on my personal, intellectual, and professional development. She constantly amazes me with the extent of her own knowledge and the care that she gives to all of her students, often at the expense of her personal wellbeing and work schedule. Throughout the dissertation process, both Andy Gaedtke and Samantha Frost have been available for guidance and always ready with helpful reading suggestions. Their feedback during the defense profoundly altered course of this dissertation. Though I never took a course with her, Chantal Nadeau is an absent presence in this dissertation, through the many years I spent as her research assistant. From this work, I learned much about the process of developing book projects and continued to explore the connection between queer theory and disability studies. She was always concerned about my workload, consideration that I greatly appreciated. Finally, my advisor Joe Valente has been a force whose influence I cannot quantify. After agreeing to a yearlong independent study with a second year he barely knew, Joe spent hours each week preparing and discussing these texts with me—many of which made their way into the dissertation itself. He introduced me to Agamben, Schmitt, Derrida, Lacan, Zizek, Deleuze, and many other theorists whose work has shaped mine. He also became the wall that I knew I had to scale when making arguments and solidifying my thoughts about a particular topic. If I could convince him, I could convince anyone. His sharp theoretical mind also helped me to first crystalize my discomfort with weak central coherence; I specifically remember one day when he talked about the false distinction between parts and wholes, which has forever stuck with me. Joe has advocated for me and my project with the department, at conferences, and on the job market. He has let me into his life and family in a way that I will never forget. vi When I entered graduate school, I did not realize the profound way in which it would challenge me, both personally and intellectually. Throughout this process, I have been and will be forever grateful to the friends who supported me. They include (among others) Tania Lown- Hecht, Kristin McCann, Julie McCormick Weng, Elaine Wood, Cecily Garber, Ryan Sheets, John Moore, Marilyn Holguin, Wendy Truran, and Kathy Skwarczek. Lastly, my husband, Chris, saw me through the Special Field examination and the entire dissertation process. He has always supported my work, even when it causes me to pull out my hair. He will no doubt be thrilled to see this dissertation deposited because it represents a goal toward which I have striven for so long. Thank you, Chris, for keeping me grounded even when my head is in the clouds. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: A NEW MINOR LITERATURE ………………….………1 CHAPTER 2: THE FLAT THEORY OF WEAK CENTRAL COHERENCE………………...23 CHAPTER 3: REDEFINING MODERNISM: THE FLATTENING POWER OF FRAGMENTATION……………………………………………………………………....……93 CHAPTER 4: FIGURES…………………...…………………………………………………..170 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………………..172 1 Chapter 1 Introduction: A New Minor Literature1 Why read texts written by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first with experimental modernist literature from the interwar period? This is the question on which the next three chapters focus as they lay out convergences in the texts’ aesthetics and poetics, along with the affordances of this particular comparative approach for the study of both genres. Such a comparison is difficult, in part because both “autism” and “modernism” are constantly shifting terms, which is why I lay out the history of both terms at the beginning of chapters two and three, respectively. Before addressing the question with which this paragraph opens, however, it seems necessary to clarify the meaning and relevance of “aesthetics” to this project. First, it is important to distinguish “aesthetics” from both the more general “form” and the more specific “poetics,” as Samuel Otter does. Aesthetics focuses on the value accorded to particular works of art based on the sensory experience (typically, pleasure) that they give the audience. According to Raymond Williams, the term goes back to Alexander Baumgarten’s