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"It was the circus, and I was the clown": Emma Goldman, Popular and Avant-Garde Cultures of American Modernity, and the Politics of (Self-) Performance by Esther Post, B.A. (Hons.), MA Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture Submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario August 2008 © Esther Post 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47488-4 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47488-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Abstract My doctoral dissertation examines the plurality of cultural roles performed by American anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman (1869- 1940), and focuses upon how she established her iconic position within modern American popular and avant-garde cultures through specific and political strategies of self-representation. Goldman's forceful and unique personality has been the subject of dozens of critical studies, films, novels, and plays. Nevertheless, the full range of her public personae has not been adequately represented in critical studies, which typically focus solely upon the anarchist and feminist aspects of her life and politics. Furthermore, despite Goldman's direct statements concerning the personal politics of subjectivity, especially her controversial assertion that "it is more important to do political work with one's personality than with propaganda," most scholarship virtually ignores the broad range of political ideologies informing her public self-construction (qtd. in Wexler, 1984: 198).1 Directly engaged with Goldman's critical analysis of the politics of subjectivity, my project examines the myriad of political, artistic, intellectual, and other public roles embodied by Goldman, as well as the various cultural stages upon which they were performed. In particular, I concentrate upon her most prominent roles within modern avant-garde and popular American cultures and consider the political and cultural work performed by her public and highly publicized acts of self-dramatization. Situating her theatrical self-performances within a European anarchist 1 Emma Goldman, in a letter to Leon Maimed, April 7, 1906. ii tradition of "propaganda by the deed," I argue that her rhetorical and embodied self-stagings, while grounded in anarchist ideologies and practices, were also directly inspired and influenced by avant-garde theories of self-production as well as by popular practices of (self-) performance within modern America. I consider the political functions and cultural implications of her theatrical self-performances in terms of avant- garde aesthetic, popular, feminist and legal contexts of modern American subjectivity, and assess her contributions to modern American cultures of the spectacle, performance, avant-gardism, and the popular. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to several individuals who contributed, in a variety of ways, to the successful completion of this project. I am incredibly thankful for my supervisors, Brian Greenspan and Jodie Medd, for their patience, advice, friendship and unwavering support over the past several years. I also wish to thank my reader, Robert Barsky, whose own work and teachings on anarchism and Noam Chomsky first inspired this project years before I began writing, for his constant encouragement and words of wisdom from hundreds of miles away. This project would never have been completed without the administrative help and friendship of Lori Dearman and Karen McKinnon, as well as many others from Carleton's English Department. The friends and other loved ones who have supported me are too numerous to name individually, but I am especially grateful to Frankie, Janne, Chris, Jordan, all of my Ottawa girls - especially Chelsea, Caleigh, Cait and Lauren, and my best friend and baby sister Emily. Mark has also been a source of emotional and intellectual support, inspiration, and love. I'm also thankful for a small group of EURUS graduate students who kept me sane in the final weeks of this project by feeding me pickles and vodka. Above all, I thank my family and especially my parents for their love and never-ending faith in me. I dedicate this to my mother and to the memory of my father. IV Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v Introduction 1 Chapter One: Radical Modern Quests for "perfect individual liberty:" Emma Goldman and Ideologies of the Self in Popular and Avant-Garde American Cultures 35 Chapter Two: Emma Goldman and the Anarcha-Feminist Politics of the Modern Avant-Garde 83 Chapter Three: The Feminist Politics of Self-Performance by Iconic "New Women:" Emma Goldman, Sarah Bernhardt and Mina Loy 134 Chapter Four; "Circuses," "spectacles," and "staged judicial farces": The Spectacle and Trials of Emma Goldman and Political Radicalism in Modern American Popular Culture 214 Works Cited 262 V "It was the circus, and I was the clown": Emma Goldman, Popular and Avant-Garde Cultures of American Modernity, and the Politics of (Self-) Performance Introduction My doctoral dissertation examines the plurality of cultural roles performed by American anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman (1869- 1940), and focuses upon how she established her iconic position within modern American popular and avant-garde cultures through specific and political strategies of self-representation. Goldman's forceful and unique personality has been the subject of dozens of critical studies, films, novels, and plays. Nevertheless, the full range of her public personae has not been adequately represented in critical studies, which typically focus solely upon the anarchist and feminist aspects of her life and politics. Furthermore, despite Goldman's direct statements concerning the personal politics of subjectivity, especially her controversial assertion that "it is more important to do political work with one's personality than with propaganda," most scholarship virtually ignores the broad range of political ideologies informing her public self-construction (qtd. In Wexler, 1984: 198).1 Directly engaged with Goldman's critical analysis of the politics of subjectivity, my project examines the myriad of political, artistic, intellectual, and other public roles embodied by Goldman, as well as the 1 Emma Goldman, in a letter to Leon Maimed, April 7, 1906. 1 2 various cultural stages upon which they were performed. In particular, I concentrate upon her most prominent roles within avant-garde and popular American cultures of modernity, and consider the political and cultural work performed by her public and highly publicized acts of self- dramatization. Situating her theatrical self-performances within a European anarchist tradition of "propaganda by the deed," I argue that her rhetorical and embodied self-stagings, while grounded in anarchist ideologies and practices, were also directly inspired and influenced by avant-garde theories of self-production as well as by popular practices of (self-) performance within modern America. Thus, my dissertation draws attention to and critically interprets Goldman's cultural relevance beyond anarchist and feminist studies, particularly in terms of her significant contributions to modern American aesthetic and popular cultures. Goldman is perhaps best known for her public roles within anarchist and feminist cultures, but she also occupied noticeably visible positions within the pages of popular and avant-garde literary and print cultures and upon the stages of popular audio-visual spectacular cultures of modernity. So much more than "the most dangerous woman in America" and the "red rebel" to which she is frequently reduced in critical studies, Goldman actively