Representations of Hybridity: Science, Techne and the Human in the Works of Alberto Savinio By Nicole Torian Gercke B.A., Dartmouth College, 1998 M.A., Middlebury College, 2008 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Italian Studies at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2015 © Copyright 2015 by Nicole Torian Gercke ii This dissertation by Nicole Gercke is accepted in its present form by the Department of Italian Studies as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date ___________ ______________________________________ Massimo Riva, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date ____________ ______________________________________ Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, Reader Date ____________ ______________________________________ Keala Jewell, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date ____________ ______________________________________ Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii CURRICULUM VITAE Nicole Gercke was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 17, 1976. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Classics, with a minor in Studio Art from Dartmouth College in 1998. She taught English in Italy for four years before returning to pursue a Masters of Arts in Italian Studies from Middlebury College, which was awarded in 2008. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank wholeheartedly all of the faculty and my colleagues in the Italian Studies department and those friends and family, near and far, who through all these years have supported me, believed in me, challenged me to think critically, inspired me with their creativity and dedication, made me laugh and kept my eyes open to the world around me. My deepest love and gratitude to you all. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Curriculum Vitae iv Acknowledgements v Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Vita di Mercurio Project: Electricity, the Body and the Human 1. Introduction 12 2. Electricity and Modernity 15 3. A Different Metaphysics 21 4. Electricity in Popular Culture and Literature 24 5. Life of Mercury 29 6. Life of Mercury: a Genealogy 34 7. Alternative Versions 41 8. Electricity, Magnetism, Hysteria 51 9. Conclusion 66 Chapter 2: The Hybrid Psyche of Savinio’s La nostra anima 1. Introduction 69 2. The Retelling of the Myth 78 3. Electricity and Psychoanalysis 94 4. Human-Machine 117 5. Conclusion 134 Chapter 3: Petrified Bodies: A New Earthly Immortality 1. Introduction 143 2. History and Techniques of Mummification, Embalming and Petrification and the Intersection of Art and Science 152 3. Museo di Famiglia 171 4. Paradiso Terrestre 179 5. Conclusion 186 Conclusion 195 Bibliography 201 Abbreviations 206 vi Introduction A me non importa la ‘forma’ della teoria scientifica e che la teoria sia vera. (Attraverso quante verità è passata la storia del mondo?). Importa che la teoria scientifica sia tale di forma da ispirare idee di movimento e di libertà.1 As a glance though the catalog of his personal library held in the Fondo Savinio at the Archivio Contemporaneo of the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence can attest, Savinio indeed looked to science in the late 1930s until his death in 1952 as yet another source of inspiration for his creative projects. In these projects, as he clearly states, the purpose of his inclusion of scientific theories (and technologies) is not focused on faithfully representing these theories, but rather on using them as a starting point for elaborating ideas. Savinio’s style of self-defined “dilettantismo” or “stendhalismo” celebrates precisely this freedom and movement of thought, one that mirrors the Presocratic concept of panta rei: Abbiamo veduto riaccendersi lo spirito greco nell'Umanesimo, ma ora i vincoli di parentela diventano più stretti; e nello stendhalismo vediamo riaccendersi lo spirito della Grecia presocratica, ossia della Grecia più greca, più libera. (Dobbiamo abituarci a considerare la Grecia socratica e scopritrice della coscienza come una Grecia “decadente”.) La Grecia presocratica è dilettantesca e stendhaliana. Il suo dilettantismo, cioè a dire il suo disinteresse, la sua purezza di vita, la sua mancanza di finalismo si esprimono particolarmente nel panta rei di Eraclito, questo precursore di Enrico Beyle. Tutto è stendhaliano nella Grecia presocratica, tutto è dilettantesco, tutto è asimbolico e fine a se stesso; quelle varie e contraddittorie spiegazioni della natura, sono la prima forma dei giochi speculativi che dilettano noi. Non lo spiegare la natura ferma la mente dell'uomo, la polarizza, l'abbrutisce: ma lo spiegarla "in un modo solo".2 This free movement of thought doesn’t exclude the development of ideas – in fact, Savinio defines his own form of “surrealismo mio” as “dar forma all’informe, 1 “Navighiamo sopra un mare di fuoco,” SD 964; orig. in “Il Corriere della Sera,” Nov 27, 1948. 2 “[Tomasso Campanella],” SD 61-62 fn; orig. Prefazione a Tommaso Campanella, La città del sole, Colombo, Roma, 1944. 1 coscienza all’inconscio,”3 pointedly distinguishing it from the efforts to merely register the unconscious of the Surrealist automatic writing –, rather, it vehemently resists the limiting, immobilizing attempt to explain nature in one way only, to create and reinforce the concept of an idealized One. As Savinio explains it, the role of the artist is, instead, to “aumentare il numero delle verità, fino a rendere impossibile la ricostituzione della Verità,”4 and, in so doing, to contribute to the reconceptualization of the universe as ‘horizontal.’5 For Savinio, there is not a single truth, “ci sono le verità”, there are truths (in the plural), and it is imperative not only to recognize this multiplicity, but also to protect against forces or mentalities that would exalt instead a One, a centralized power, a definitive model. He avowedly opposes every form of Idealism, Authority, unifying principle, single God – any structure that offers a vision of the world and of nature as immutable and fixed, and which subjects us, even enslaves us, to an external power. In his works, and through his hybrid forms, Savinio demonstrates a reluctance to conform to fixed or predetermined criteria and ideologies (or to any linguistic, stylistic or 3 Preface to Tutta la vita, 1945. 4 “[Gigiotti Zanini]” Scritti Dispersi 582; orig. “Il montanismo di Zanini” in “L’Illustrazione Italiana,” Nov 2 1947. 5 In an essay from 1946, Savinio elaborates on this concept of ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ universes, connecting the idea of ‘horizontality’ back to Heraclitus, and suggesting the elimination of all of the vertical authority figures that inhibit the free flow of life with their immobilizing Ideals: “Prima riforma da fare: eliminare i modelli che riflettono il concetto dell'universo; e dunque anche lo Stato. Con quali nuovi modelli sostituirli? Vizio della simmetria! Non è detto che tutto che finisce, debba essere sostituito. Impariamo ad apprezzare la felicità del libero spazio. La libertà è fatta anche di vuoto. Pensare soprattutto al mutamento «geometrico» dell'universo. L'universo era verticale, e tutto ne suoi derivati era verticale, fino nelle infime istituzioni. L'universo copernicano invece è orizzontale, e tutto ne suoi derivati dev'essere orizzontale, fino nelle infime istituzioni. Panta rei disse un uomo della «parentesi», e con venticinque secoli di anticipo Eraclito ci dà l'immagine del «nostro» universo. Eliminare d'in mezzo a questa «orizzontalità» tutto quanto è verticale – Dio, re, dittatura, Stato, punti fermi della cultura, – e ostacola il libero fluire della vita.” “Lo stato” in Sorte 106. This essay is included an anthology with writings from various authors entitled Dopo il diluvio. Sommario dell’Italia contemporanea, a cura di Dino Terra, Garzanti, Milano, 1947. 2 contextual homogeneity), in favor rather of shattering conventional models, bending or deforming accepted paradigms, and blurring the lines between established categories. Exploring the theme of hybridity, I would argue, is a useful starting point for understanding Savinio’s approach to and view of the world, art, life in general. Certainly, for Savinio, the idea of hybridity is closely associated with the representation of multiple perspectives and is often interwoven with the concepts of metamorphosis, of the monster, of the fantastic, of the marvelous, of synthesis and fragmentation, of composition and decomposition (construction and deconstruction) and of the interchangeability of parts, features, even of experiences. To a large degree, these hybrid representations undermine or challenge notions of identity or subjectivity as pure, stable, indivisible, unitary concepts and question the idea of the Human as fixed and self-contained. In his artistic and literary works, Savinio creates worlds that provide alternate visions or perceptions of the ‘reality’ around him and that contest the fixed, conditioned or conventional manners of perceiving nature and the environments through which we move. The classical, Christian-humanistic notion of the human as a privileged being, wholly distinct from other species and, by and large, superior over them, had been increasingly called into question, turned upside down and inside out: from Copernicus, who disputed the Ptolemaic vision of the cosmos and the belief system constructed around it (prompting a reevaluation of the human relation to God and to the universe)6; to Darwin, who blurred the lines of distinction between species (prompting a reevaluation of the human relation to animal); to Freud, who in describing