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Queer Representation, Early Photography and Feeling

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Queer Representation, Early Photography and Feeling WITHOUT WORDS YOU SPOKE: QUEER REPRESENTATION, EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY AND FEELING By Steph Schem Rogerson Master of Fine Arts, The School of Visual Arts, New York, New York, U.S.A,1999 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1996 Dissertation presented to Ryerson University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at Ryerson University and York University. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2015 ©Steph Rogerson 2015 Author’s Declaration for Submission of a Dissertation I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this dissertation. This is a true copy of the dissertation, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I authorize Ryerson University to lend this dissertation to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research I further authorize Ryerson University to reproduce this dissertation by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I understand that my dissertation may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract By examining historical queerness through the lens of photography, this dissertation examines how the past contributes valuable knowledge about where we have been and where we are going. The history of queer representation is laden with violence, erasure and shame, as well as survival and persistence. I approach this legacy by bringing together three principal topics that I argue are closely related: queer photographic practices, the politics of the archive, and affect theory. Through the analysis of social conditions that formed discourses of homosexuality and industrialism’s development of photography in the late nineteenth century, the tension between oppressive laws and social change becomes clear: it reveals a cultural crisis of taxonomy and representation in queer visual history. The slippages between cultural economy and representation are exemplified in nineteenth century visual culture as political economy was increasingly entwined with the individual and the state. Out of this matrix comes the advent of photography. Inexpensive and accessible mechanical reproduction made it possible for the apparatus of photography to be both complicit in the categorization and repression of homosexuality, as well as a site of subversion of the status quo. Conventions in portraiture photography inscribed the construction of normativity through ‘the cult of the empire,’ yet queer subjectivities challenged these standards. A number of specific case studies involving women photographers and photographic subjects – such as Mabel Hampton, Bonnie and Semoura Clark, Alice Austen, and found photographs from my personal collection illustrate a symbolic defiance to hegemonic structures. By investigating archival material with a specific focus on queer history and photography, the case studies illustrate how our affective lives are saturated with political meaning. Photography wields unusual power when examining the relationship between affect and feeling. The affect of photography derives from its insistence on the past. Yet, photography produces a here and now that can resist strictures of heteronormativity and patriarchy through politicized feelings. The approach to queer historization is firmly rooted in notions of social justice imperatives and anti-oppressive political strategies that include racism, gender inequality and classism. Queer archives evoke cultural persistence and knowledge through the affective context of remembering. Keywords: Archives, Photography, Queer History, Affect Theory, and Phenomenology. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Communication and Culture as the program that allowed me to follow my heart, and Paul Moore, Graduate Program Director (Ryerson), Interim GPD Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof and program administrator Jo Ann Mackie for all your support and assistance. My committee, Dr. Steve Bailey and Dr. Kate Eichhorn provided invaluable feedback that made for clearer writing and stronger analysis. Without my supervisor Dr. Sophie Thomas, I could not have done this. Sophie’s kindness, wisdom and uncanny ability to bring out the best in me, not only provided me access to knowledge, but perhaps even more importantly, she supported and believed in me in times when I felt lost. For that, I am forever grateful. Sophie, you are a mensch. My community of family and friends who had my back through thick and thin prove just how powerful love can be. Thank you, Mom for your unwavering belief in me. My sister Rebecca and her children Maia, Eve and Eli who bring immense joy in my life and make me a better a person. Dad, you are no longer here but thank you for making me a fighter. Thank you Ximena Griscti for afternoons in the park with lively debates on topics ranging from Adorno to Teen Mom, you are kick ass. Kelly McCray, my brother from another mother, thank you for listening and your boyish giggles. Cecilia Berkovic, thank you for soulful dog walks in every weather condition and your good cooking. Sarena Sairan, thank you for swims in a beautiful lake and intense squash games. Liz Fitting, you are a powerhouse, thank you for our 30 years of friendship. Keith Cole, thank you for always being inappropriate. Liss Platt, thank you for ‘getting it.’ Izida Zorde for being weird at the exact right time, and Catherine Clark for creating space to blow off stream. Thank you Anna Hoffmann for every glittery kiss sent from Berlin. Talia Mae Bettcher, thank you for a magical friendship of deep love and fiery debates. Ken Moffatt, thank you for your support during my Comprehensive Exams. Graduate Program Director (York) Anne MacLennan, thank you for listening that time when it felt as though my life fell apart. Thank you to my external Dr. Jonathan David Katz, whose work I have long admired. Lychee Fan, Nathanial Wiener, Guy Hoskins, Joey Jacob and Lauren Divine for great discussions over food and drinks. iv Thank you Summer School for Sexualities, Cultures and Politics at IPAK in Serbia for creating a broader context to my work, this includes but is not limited to: Tomasz Sikora, Monica Guerreiro, Claire Finch, France Rose, Olga Kasyanova, Slavčo Dimitrov, Stanimir Panayotov, Jelisaveta Blagojević, Eszter Timár, Bracha L. Ettinger, Lazara Marinkovic and Jack Halberstam.Thank you Emma Ward for helping gain access to vital photographs in this dissertation, and the wild nights with Chris Lynch and Anne Moore. Thank you Dissertation Boot Camp and Natalya Androsova at the Student Learning Support at Ryerson University for creating a safe space to write. Lastly, thank you to all the warriors and rebels who inspire me to live life to its fullest, and for the battles you continue to fight. This dissertation is dedicated to you. v Table of Contents Abstract and Keywords iii Acknowledgements iv List of Figures vii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Political Power and the Archive………………………42 ◊ Archive Fever …………………………………………………………47 ◊ The Body and the Archive…………………………………………...55 ◊ Reverse Discourse……………………………………………………60 ◊ Queer Archives…………………………………………………….....65 A Poem With Purpose………………………………………………….84 Chapter Two: Early Photography and Queerness………………….85 ◊ Industrialization and Photography………………………………….89 ◊ Queering Conventions………………………………………………100 ◊ Representing Politically…………………………………………......110 Chapter Three: Political Emotions and Feeling…………………......125 ◊ Episteme of Queer and its Discourses………………………........129 ◊ Orientation, Affect and Misalignment….………………………......148 ◊ Queer Punctum…………………………………………………........154 Conclusion………………………………………………………………168 Notes…………………………………………………………………….182 Works Cited……………………………………………………………..197 vi List of Figures Introduction 0.1 Lena Valin and unknown subject. Toronto, Canada. 1920s. Personal Collection. Political Power and The Archive 1.1. ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries. Los Angeles, CA. 2013. Personal Collection. 1.2 Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), French criminologist. Sourced from Allan Sekula’s, The Body and The Archive. 1.3 Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893). The Waring Historical Library’s Caricature Collection, US. 1.4 British half-penny, 1874. Coins of Great Britain. http://www.coins-of-the- uk.co.uk/values/halfp.html 1.5 Francis Galton (1822-1911), Illustrations of Composite Portraiture, “The Jewish Type.” University College, London, UK. From The Body and The Archive. 1.6 Alphonse Bertillon. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/biographies/bertillon.html 1.7 Oscar Wilde’s Cell #33, C Wing, Reading Prison, where Oscar Wilde spent the majority of his two year sentence after being found guilty of gross indecency. Sourced from Solitary Watch. http://solitarywatch.com 1.8 The door of Oscar Wilde's cell at Reading Gaol, displayed at Nottingham's Galleries of Justice Image from Voices from Solitary: Oscar Wilde’s Cry from the Depths by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway. Sourced from Solitary Watch. http://solitarywatch.com 1.9 The official seal for the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice who burned A Well of Loneliness in the 1920s. Jake Ptacek http://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/content/visualizing-censorship-seals-symbols-and- visual-rhetoric-vice vii 1.10 Magnus Hirschfeld Archive in the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin (1925). Sourced from the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. 1.11 Nazis in Berlin burn
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