Tremblay Dissertation We Dont Breathe Alone
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WE DON’T BREATHE ALONE: FORMS OF ENCOUNTER IN ANGLOPHONE NORTH AMERICA SINCE THE 1970S A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE BY JEAN-THOMAS TREMBLAY CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2018 Copyright 2018 by Jean-Thomas Tremblay. All rights reserved. I think of a wonderful philosophy teacher who had emphysema. In his first semester of retirement, he decided to teach in Switzerland, after years in New York. He died soon after arriving in Switzerland. I imagined his lungs could not take fresh air, after years of adaptation to toxins. —Michael Eigen, Toxic Nourishment, 3 Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... vi Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ viii Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 1 I. We Don’t Breathe Alone ...................................................................................................................... 1 II. Breathing Now ...................................................................................................................................... 4 III. Breathing Inequalities ...................................................................................................................... 14 IV. The Aesthetics of Breathing ........................................................................................................... 24 V. Breathing Criticism ............................................................................................................................ 31 VI. Chapter Overview ............................................................................................................................ 35 Chapter 1 Encountering Oneself: Conscious Breathing as Aesthetic Self-Medication in Queer Life Writing 38 I. Writing Breathing ................................................................................................................................ 38 II. Dodie Bellamy’s Banal Sutras .......................................................................................................... 46 III. CA Conrad’s Ecodeviant Rituals and Poems .............................................................................. 55 IV. Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose’s Sick Journals and Performances ......................................... 67 Chapter 2 Encountering the World: Feminist Breathing After the Loss of Political Momentum ................... 85 I. In and Out of Feminist Breathing Rooms ...................................................................................... 85 II. “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”: Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters ................................................................................................................................................................... 99 III. “Who will make houses of air with their words?”: Linda Hogan’s Poetry ........................... 110 IV. Coda: “And do you belong? I do”: Solange Knowles’ A Seat at the Table ............................. 118 Chapter 3 Encountering Alterity: Symptomatic Breathing and Racial Opacity in Speculative Fiction ......... 124 I. Diffuse Race ...................................................................................................................................... 124 II. Respiratory Tourism: Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren ......................................................................... 131 III. Breathing Architectures: Renee Gladman’s Ravicka Series ..................................................... 140 IV. Alterity and Singularity .................................................................................................................. 152 Chapter 4 Encountering Finitude: The Last Breath in End-of-Life Documentaries ........................................ 154 I. Death in the Form of Life ............................................................................................................... 154 II. Producing the Last Breath: Frederick Wiseman’s Near Death .................................................. 163 III. Leaving Peacefully: Allan King’s Dying at Grace ........................................................................ 171 IV. Coda: Television and the Comic Last Breath ............................................................................ 181 Conclusion Disaster Relief ............................................................................................................................................ 187 References .................................................................................................................................................. 194 iv List of Figures Fig. 1 Pepper Spraying Cop in Un dimanche après-midi à l’île de la Grande Jatte (2011) 8 Fig. 2 Kate Millett inhales in Some American Feminists (1977), directed by Luce Guilbeault, Nicole Brossard, and Margaret Wescott 89 Fig. 3 Kate Millett exhales in Some American Feminists (1977), directed by Luce Guilbeault, Nicole Brossard, and Margaret Wescott 89 Fig. 4 Kate Millett smiles in Some American Feminists (1977), directed by Luce Guilbeault, Nicole Brossard, and Margaret Wescott 89 Fig. 5 Solange Knowles and her dancers in the video for “Cranes in the Sky” (2016), directed by Solange Knowles and Alan Ferguson 119 Fig. 6 Solange Knowles and her backup singers and dancers amplify breathing in a performance of “Weary” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2016) 120 Fig. 7 Solange Knowles and her backup singers and dancers amplify breathing in a performance of “Weary” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2016) 120 Fig. 8 A healthcare worker asks, “Do you understand what intubation means?” in Near Death (1989), directed by Frederick Wiseman 165 Fig. 9 A patient orders, “Shut it,” in Near Death (1989), directed by Frederick Wiseman 167 Fig. 10 A doctor exclaims, “Big day, today!” in Near Death (1989), directed by Frederick Wiseman 167 Fig. 11 Carmela stares blankly in Dying at Grace (2003), directed by Allan King 174 Fig. 12 Carmela gasps for air in Dying at Grace (2003), directed by Allan King 174 Fig. 13 Joyce’s scream in Dying at Grace (2003), directed by Allan King 175 Fig. 14 Two nurses administer Lloyd medication in Dying at Grace (2003), directed by Allan King 176 Fig. 15 Eda after her last breath in Dying at Grace (2003), directed by Allan King 177 v Acknowledgements We don’t breathe alone. We don’t speculate, investigate, write, rewrite alone. This dissertation has been shaped by exchanges with interlocutors whose insight and support I value. I wish to thank them—even though I owe them more than just thanks. My dissertation committee has created a milieu in which this project could exist. Lauren Berlant, the committee’s indefatigable chair, has helped unknot and stitch together ideas. Interrogating, reformulating, and reshuffling, she has moved with virtuosity between the broadest existential concerns and the minutest aspects of case studies. Studying with Lauren has been a unique privilege; I will never stop learning from her. Patrick Jagoda, a dear ally, has identified and amplified the project’s resonance. Switching between disciplinary idioms with the rapidity and precision of an athlete, he has helped me figure out what I had to say. Jennifer Scappettone, who expertly occupies the intersection zone of a Venn diagram of scholarly, poetic, and performance circles, has played a critical role in the composition of this dissertation’s archive. This dissertation is the fruit of countless conversations with University of Chicago faculty members and affiliates. I thank, especially, Adrienne Brown, Rachel Galvin, Tim Harrison, Jessica Hurley, Alison James, Debbie Nelson, Sianne Ngai, Julie Orlemanski, Zach Samalin, Sarah Pierce Taylor, Chris Taylor, and Jennifer Wild. Scholars beyond this institution have generously engaged with my research and shared theirs. Among them are Sarah Jane Cervenak, Pete Coviello, Ashon Crawley, Merve Emre, Stefanie Heine, Arthur James, Susie O’Brien, and Kyle Stevens. I thank the 20th/21st Century Workshop, especially Michael Dango, Steven Maye, Peter McDonald, and Nell Pach, and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Working Group, particularly Katie vi Hendricks and Omie Hsu, for building homes for rigorous, and often pleasantly sinuous and tangential, intellectual conversation. In and beyond the University of Chicago, I thank friends and colleagues who have taught me more than I can report here: Daniel Benjamin, Madison Chapman, Bill Hutchison, Lauren Jackson, Chase Joynt, Jackson McKeehan, Carmen Merport, Rivky Mondal, Katie Nolan, Evan Pensis, Ethan Philbrick, Amanda Shubert, Ricky Varghese, Rebeca Velasquez, and Christopher Walker. I thank the archivists who have facilitated and enriched this research: Loni A. Shibuyama of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California, Rebecca Jewett of the Thompson Special Collections at the Ohio State University,