Handle with Care

Jill H. Casid

What was so special about this song? Well the thing was, I didn’t used to listen properly to the words; I just waited for that bit that went: “Baby, baby, never let me go...” — Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go ([2005] 2006:70)

Restating the ethically critical gap of empathy in terms of the problems of understanding the qualitative how of the way someone feels, in the language and techniques of the quantitative, Emily Dickinson begins her poem: “I measure every Grief I meet / With narrow probing eyes / I wonder if it weighs like Mine / or has an Easier size” ([1863] 1999:248–49). I begin this essay with some numbers, some quantitative measurements pertaining to the costs of the affective and material labors of care that are at the heart of our compounded condition of precarity and about which I wonder no less. Under a global capitalist system in which the terms of moneti- zation have become the sign of value, how does one measure grief, affective and material labor, or what I call throughout this essay the “labors of care”? One answer has been to measure the labors of care in terms of “cost,” rendering the physical and emotional toll on “unpaid caregiv- ers” (usually family in the enlarged sense or friends) in the quantitative fiscal language of lost

Figure 1. Barbed wire fence in the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2010, directed by Mark Romanek). (©2010 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved)

TDR: The Drama Review 56:4 (T216) Winter 2012. ©2012 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 121

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122 Jill H. Casid Global: Art History’s New Terrains” fortheClark Series at Yale University Press. [email protected] Photography,” “Forms-of-Life: Bioethics andAesthetics,” and,withAruna D’Souza, “The Exploded Press. She iscurrently at work on several new bookprojects: “The Volatile Image: Other Histories of bookShadows(2004) andherforthcoming ofEnlightenment, bothwiththeUniversity ofMinnesota fieldofvisualstudiesincludeSowing Empire:to thetransdisciplinary LandscapeandColonization and directed theCenter for Visual Cultures. hercontributions Ahistorian,theorist,andpracticing artist, Jill H.Casid isProfessor of Visual Studies attheUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison, where shefounded sequence ofsix “scenes” thatpromisenotjustto bringusclosetotheob-sceneofcarefordeath mology tofindwhatisoutsidethesceneofprecarityasweknow it:care. Evenpre-care. Ina depend onawillfulmisrecognitionofthetermprecarity, tracinginitadeliberatelyfalseety- ural,” the “moral,” andeven, indeed, the “human.” Mythoughtssurroundingthesequestions you will, thepossibilitiesforagooddeathatedges of, ifnotcompletelybeyond, the “nat- labor thatarethe(im)materialsupportofcare. Suchclose attentionaffordsameansto “test,” if any way, beassumedtohavesocialvalue, I callforcloseattentiontotheparticularsofaffective ing globalwealthimbalances. At suchamoment inwhichpublicsupportforcarecannot, in eral health care(criticizedas “Obamacare”), towhatonemightcallagecare, educationcare, andgen- support forsomanykindsofcare matter, andwhyshouldwecare ? if theframinglanguageofcrisisdoesnotgivemeaningtosuchnumbers, whatdoes these aspectsofliving,” thejust “getting by, andlivingon,” anddyingslowly(759). But, then, “crisis,” Berlantmaintains, “produces dramasthatobscurethemotivesandtemporalitiesof by theactivityofreproducinglife(2007:758). Instead, theconstructionandmanagementof fail tocapturethesceneof “slow death,” thebanalconditionofbeingwornoutandaway (Sovereignty, Obesity, Lateral Agency)”: “strong data, floridprose, and sensational­ at 43.5million), thenumberssignal “crisis.” But, asBerlantcautionsinheressay “Slow Death issued bytheNational Alliance forCaregiving[2009]putsthenumberofunpaidcaregivers becoming patientsthemselves), andepidemic(thereport “Caregiving intheU.S. in2009” cost employers$33.6billionperyear[Evercare2006]), risk(caregiversareatgreaterof (the MetlifeStudyof2006estimatedthatfull-timeemployeeswithcare­ derived, thereremainstheproblemofwhattheymean. Usingthelanguageofincreasedburden the austeritystateandeconomicprecarity. Besidesthequestionofhowthese­ ical precaritycontinuetomountinthemarginsasedgesoflifeanddeathpressupagainst lines tothelanguageofcuts, thenumbersthatindexescalationand­ for ourlives. labor ortheimmaterialoutcomesofthatlabor. We arenow, itwouldseem, tooexpensiveeven sive foritsownState” (2011a). Precarityisnotjustamatteroftheconditionsunderwhichwe held atBarnardCollegeon12 April 2011: “all overtheworldpublichasbecometooexpen- global situationcondensedinastrikingphrasebyLaurenBerlantatthe “Public FeelingsSalon” sured indollars, italsorecallsthedrasticcost-cuttingmeasuresinUKandelsewherea for itscitizens. While whatIhavesketchedwiththesenumbersmaybean American storymea- lines todebtnumbersandthecoststateofvariousformswhatmightbecalled “care” $350 billiononlytheyearbefore(Greene2008). These statisticshavegivenwayinthehead- $375 billiontofamilyandfriendsin2007, anincrease, the AARP andMetLifecalculated, from Journal reportedthat34millioncaregiversprovidedunpaidhealthcarevaluedatapproximately vided byunpaidcaregiversintheUSgrabbedheadlines2008(Ginzler2010). TheWallStreet findings ofan AARP/Metlifestudyreportonthesharpescalationincostofhealthcarepro- wages tocaregiversandlostlabor(and, byimplication, profit)tocompanies. Forexample, the We liveinamomentofprofoundandcompoundedprecarity, inwhichsocialinfrastructural Meanwhile, nowthattheseeffortstomonetizethevalueofcarehavegivenwayinhead- lifecare (whichhasneverbeenassuredformostoftheglobe) — from theestablishedbutthreatened Welfare systemand — are threatenedbyincreas- intensification ofphys- giving ­ numbers are responsibilities spectacles” make them

Handle with Care 123 - is not the only — be they actors and performers in art and mass media entertainment be they actors and performers in art and —

Framing the problem of care under conditions of precarity as a matter of the “how to” of to” “how of precarity as a matter of the Framing the problem of care under conditions Even the discourses and practices of “public feelings” and “affective labor” may risk bracket- “affective labor” and “public feelings” Even the discourses and practices of empa- Care in the situation of precarity requires an approach that holds open the gap of Pre-carity how to care would us or performatively demonstrating Teaching And artworkers. Enter art. in the post-Fordist global econ- role of a particular class of workers who, seem to be the special or experience capitalism, cognitive, characterized as immaterial, omies of what is variously everyday labor and its ostensi- exemplars of the immaterial character of function as both the the between displaying however, There is a narrow edge, 2011). et al. ble vanguard (Aranda digital television, movies, art, performance enactment of care in theatre, affective drama of the that the vicarities of art and media and outsourcing the labors of care such or visual art media, affective labor where artworkers end up doing the entertainment become substitutions for care, the trouble. performing public feelings so that the public doesn’t have to go to on our behalf, the and for all, once of empathy that would overcome, public feelings is not to demand practices doublings and echoes in the ubiquitous screens, divisions of the bicameral stage and its uncanny exercise of reconsider care in terms of the demanding To of everyday life. both large and small, the barrier or close the distance between spectator public feelings is not to call on us to dissolve The problem of care under conditions of precarity is and outsourced actor in the scene of care. feelings not so easily resolved by the simple obverse of public “how to” a tough matter of the affective and The outsourcing of such of empathy. of outsourced affective labor: the dissolve material labor to proxies and barely paid careworkers or unwaged family members (mostly women) problem in a situation in which economic precarity meets the precarious and vulnerable body problem in a situation in which economic The problem of care in our current conditions of precarity is of others. “care” propped on the actor or spectator or waged or unwaged not just a matter of who does the caring (outsourced crucially a It is also is compensated and supported. caretaker) and whether and how such care terms. matter of how care is enacted and on whose and fears, or otherwise sentimentalizing the desires, patronizing, euphemizing, obscuring, ing, gap of empa- Closing the we may labor to care. agential wishes of those about and for whom bicameral theatre risks colonizing that no less precar thy by leaping across the boundary of the makes room in which to practice the tough labor Such an ethical spacing ious ethical spacing. but, “I know how you feel” of learning to attend to and find ways to support not the empathy of the necessary subjunctive that subtends an ethics of care across the gap of “as if,” the rather, sustaining the conditions for the precious freedom of rad- This is an ethic capable of empathy. as in the pitched battles over end-of-life and end-to-life decisions, ical differences in feeling or, or may want, the ways in which those for whom we may believe we care may not want what we not want what we want for them or for ourselves. Concerned with engaging pub- “as if.” thy for a radically different performance practice of the consensus, lic feelings on terms other than those that would call for reason or reasonable public practices that she Ann Pellegrini turns to the ritual practices of what we do in relation to others, “as if”“the ways in which we act articulates in terms of the subjunctive potential of acting or While Pellegrini stresses the ways in which (2009:1349). that generate a subjunctive universe” but also to suggest props that might enable us to better enact care for death, I move across I move across enact care for death, enable us to better suggest props that might but also to for a grandmother about caregiving to a personal narrative numbers and statistics media from - of a death progno and had no more she was still healthy the decision to die while who made conglomeration of a from the media of mortality we share; precarious condition sis than the to Mona Hatoum’s Let Me Go, all entitled Never and a film, a novel, on cassette tape, torch song these read- distance,” “intimate what I shall call In staging piece. installation Interior Landscape an ethically critical spacing for scenes while nonetheless maintaining ings come close to these in order to reframe the question of deathcare. difference and agency Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02October 2021

124 Jill H. Casid Such scenes something likethegooddeath, thedeathforwhichgriefisnotonlymodeofrecognition. death” inordertoimagine andevenenactotherscenesofcare:affectivematerial carefor ferences mayhelpusmovebeyondthelimitsofwhatisconsidered “livable life” and “grievable pose anewmodeofethicalengagementinwhichcriticalspace forrecognizingpreciousdif- nomics ofsensationsandaffects. problematics ofcareundertheausteritystateandwithinostensibly newimmaterialeco- re-dressed asempatheticperformeralsoworkstokeepoff-scene thelargerandlesseasilysalved suring prospectofthedoctorwithabetterbedsidemanner. Butthistraditionalimageofdoctor scene offeelingpatientand(un)caringdoctor, suchanapproachputsatcenterstagethereas- and Brauner2010). Reducingtheperformative, affective, andmateriallaborsofcaretothe that wouldclosethedistancebetweenphysicianunderstanding andpatientexperience(Case methodologies mightenablephysicianstodevelopcognitiveskillsin “empathetic imagination” tion ofperformancetheorytoclinicalpractice. The studyelaboratedhowperformancestudies the medicalpracticeofcare. A 2010studyinthejournalAcademicMedicineofferedapplica- of death. To besure, thisapproachisatoddswithhowperformancecurrentlyinvokedin life andasacriticaldevicethatmayhelpusradicallyreimaginethepraxisofcareatedge workofperformativepracticeineveryday a between-spaceIwishtoelaborateasthe “as if” interval orintimatedistancethatcertainkindsofimagesmayopenupfortheexercise­ projective identificationandthe “reality” thatremainsbeyondcapturebyrepresentation. an intervalbetweenthespectatorandimage, betweenthereachofempathicimaginationor that doesnotcolonizethe “represented.” To dothisethicalwork, thecriticalimagepreserves Brechtian alienatedactor, promisestomaintainthegroundforanethicalmodeof identification catch itsreferentandmakesashowofthisfailing. Initsfailure, thecriticalimage, muchlikethe enabling identificationatall, itdoessobyfailingdoubly. Thatis, thecriticalimagebothfailsto possible ispulledoutfromunderus. Incontrast, ifthecriticalorLevinasianimagesucceedsin cious anddelicatedifferences, theverygroundthatmakesanethicalrelationofidentification (2004:145–47). Butbythuscollapsingthespaceinwhichtoacknowledgeandnegotiatepre- tial workofenablingustoleapheroicallyoverthehurdlesbetween “me” andthe “not-me” work butnotexplored. According toButler, the “triumphalist image” doestheactiveandagen- taining andsupportinganecessaryintervalofdistance. This distanceisimmanentinButler’s Levinasian imagesontheother, aswellbyherargumentfortheethicalimportance ofmain- myself hauntedbyButler’sparsingof “triumphalist images” ontheonehandand “critical” or its placedona “livable life” anda “grievable death” (2004:xv). Toward thisethicalgoal, Ifind expanded modesofpublicseeingandhearing practices withinandagainsttheubiquitouspubliccirculationofimagesthatmightenable imagery, asking: Whose liveshavevalue? Whose deathisgrievable?Butlereagertoexplore Butler, viaEmmanuelLevinas. InPrecarious LifeButlerconsidersproblemsofempathyand cal, intimatedistancetoholdopenthegapofempathy, IfindmyselfthinkingagainwithJudith subjunctive mood. I ­ that mightalsoenableustorecognizethelaborsandstrainsinbetween. An ethicsofpre-care, be me” comeintoestrangingcontactwiththeirnegations(thenot-you, thenot-me)inaway mightalsobepracticedasabetween-spacewherethe “I couldbeyou”“as if” and “you could bringsthe the practiceof “could be”“as if” intobeing, Iwishtoemphasizethatperforming onstage tofeelinourplace. laborofperformancepracticemovesbeyond This callforan “as if” ground onwhichthefeelingdoctor actsnorthesafebicameraltheatreinwhichwepayactors us tostayandrehearseinthetough intermediaryspacethatisneitherofthepatient-as- suggest, dependsondevelopingourcapacitiesforperformingintheintimatedistanceof In usingperformancenottoclosetheempatheticgapbutenable intimatedistance, Ipro- What Ifindespeciallyimportantandpoignantlyprovocativehereisthespurtothink In developinganapproachtothepre-careofprecaritythatmaintainsandsupportsacriti- — as yetstillsofaroutsidethenorm ofcontemporaryhealthcare — modes thatcanreachbeyondnormativelim- — would require ethics, Handle with Care 125 - - for (2009), is a crucial one. But focusing on the work focusing on the work But a crucial one. is (2009),

I have learned from feminist bioethics that the construction of the “right-to-die exception” “right-to-die exception” I have learned from feminist bioethics that the construction of the Butler writes movingly, “It does not suffice it to say that since life is precarious, it must be since life is precarious, “It does not suffice it to say that Butler writes movingly, ever, that she would never let me go, that, if I cared, I might never have to let her go. Indeed, Indeed, have to let her go. I might never if I cared, that, me go, that she would never let ever, “grand- care center in ways conveyed less by I remain attached to this scene at the hospice always thought I had “care.” than by the etymology of the word “granddaughter” or mother” as But, that care was a matter of cure and curation. , and curare care derived from the Latin cura from the to the OED, according care derives, center, became painfully clear in the hospice care common Germanic and Old English caru kör for trouble and grief as well as the Old Norse other sense my grandmother was not in any Beyond the basic fact of mortality, “bed of trouble.” facilities Hospice care and hospice care indeed. And this made for a bed of trouble “terminal.” but death, that coordinate and administer palliative care are designed to ease the transition to to be only in cases in which that end has been measured by disease prognosis and determined ­inevitably near. At the same sustains an impossible and even lethal fantasy of an isolated sovereign individual. this focus on the indi- passionately and persuasively argues, (2010) Wardlaw as Margaret time, from vidual’s right to die has set the terms for bioethical discourse by stealing the spotlight consideration of the scene of care appears incompat- But the scene of the provision of care. precisely because the artificial ethical limit to die” “right ible with the ethical debate on the US (Oregon Only two states in the “terminal.” remains the “right to die” frame on probing the a reconceptualization with the have legalized physician aid-in-dying (PAD), Washington) and that allows a physician to Act of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) Death with Dignity Oregon Bed of Trouble aes- labors of care and to wonder about the affective, I first came to question the performative while writ- and material support for a good death somewhat by surprise in October 2008 thetic, Models for Abstract Trees: Maps, Moretti’s book Graphs, ing a response to literary scholar Franco - “hospice care cen in what is called a I was working Not at my desk, History (2007). a Literary not quite a year after she came to at the bedside of my centenarian grandmother who, ter” and daughter as husband, She had outlived her sisters, made the decision to die. live near me, It was easy to fantasize that she would live for well as the statistics governing life expectancy. of mourning may unwittingly foreclose consideration of the ways in which a commitment to a commitment to of the ways in which consideration may unwittingly foreclose of mourning envision secure infrastructures for may depend not just on our capacity to minimizing precarity our way toward enacting death as but also on our efforts to rehearse and feel the support of life, more than the negative end of life. something other and There are (2009:33). [...]” are the conditions that render life sustainable At stake preserved. with the precarity of the social body Although reckoning life imperative. indeed dangers to this of the independent and imper triumphant individualism and fantasies is a crucial check against of life resonates dangerously with those of the preservation “must” the imperative vious body, In the absence of precarity. of exacerbated economic and physical other off-scene conditions beyond what is limitedly con- of agency in the situation of mortality any support for a form constitutes a debilitating denial of the pre-care for death death,” “physician-assisted structed as the slow Under such conditions, often in the extreme. possibility of imagining care for death, and grinding labors of care unvalued, the unpaid, death experienced by those who perform of death” “living constant companion to the forced in advance of death is and will remain the cannot contract in which economic crisis will not, those kept barely alive as assurance of a social be the motivation for choosing to die. empathetic imagination and the salve of “feeling as” and toward an approach to care that can approach to care that and toward an as” “feeling salve of imagination and the empathetic “as if” this alters the very fundamentally, Even more death. scenes of life and imagine other the that take as Butler’s, such in works, is currently articulated which precarity terms through life, of a grievable The question and loss. a matter of grief divide as always already life/death of War Frames pursues further in which Butler Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02October 2021

126 Jill H. Casid tical inference(writtenwithstatistics pioneerHelen Walker, thefirstwomanpresidentof the wakeofHolocaust. Mygrandfatherprefacedthe1953introductiontoabook on statis- were statisticianscommittedto findingamorerationalapproachtothecontingenciesoflife in on thesystematic, quantitative processingoflargedatasets(2007:4). Bothofmy grandparents tory,” onethatwouldreplacetherandomnessof “close reading” with “distant reading” based ing itout unthinkable: consideringthekindsofcarethatmightpromise tomakeadeath “good” bycarry- with careinallitssenses. Butthisthinkingaboutandwith theprocessofdyingalsoentails sibility offthestateandmakedifferencebetweenabadend andagooddeath, oratleastone and often unseen economy of private caregiving that is supposed to take the burden and respon- broadening ourunderstandingofthebiopoliticslifeanddeath toencompassthevast, unpaid, death thatcanbemourned, buttheprocessofdyingitself. Thinking theprocessofdyingmeans life dependsonpreparingforandriskingdeath, whatis agooddeath? And Idonotmeanherea psychoanalysis Irelearnedfrommygrandmotherinthehospice centerwouldhaveit, agood the higheststakeingameofliving, mustnotberisked” (2001:290). Butif, asthelessonsof Towards Death” (1915)that “Life becomesimpoverishedandlosesitsinterestwhenlifeitself, grandmother’s negativechallengetomeasavariationonFreud’sexhortationin “Our Attitude of somanydays: “You, withallyoureducation, youdon’tknowhowtovaluelife.” Itakemy mother’s wayofenlistingmycareandsupportincarryingoutherdecisionoverthelonghaul into thematerialandaffectivesupportforagooddeath, Icannothelpbutreturntomygrand- complex nowsaystous: “We’ve madeyourbed, nowlieinit.” astating twistontheoldadageaboutresponsibility, onemightsaythatthebiomedicalandlegal support. Butthisbedoftroublewasalsomadebytheseintertwinedconstraints.- Inaratherdev the entertainmentindustriesandmachineriesofdistractionmonetizedempathy)would vate insurance, andtherelatedindustriesof “care” (notonlythehealthcareindustriesbutalso beyond whatthecurrentlegalandethicalframingof “hospice care,” statemedicalbenefits, pri- the bestconditionsthatprivate-payhospicefacilitiescanprovide)strainedandultimatelywent tled, andpainfullyprotracteddeathIwitnessed(thoughundergoneinwhatonemightsaywere to turnthebedoftroubleintosupportforagooddeath. The unnecessarilyslow, embat- less findsomeballastbutalsopleasurabledissipation such asthespaceoffood(andeatingtoexcess)bywhichthoseworndownlifenonethe- to thegoodlifeorflourishing be careintoadifferentkindofagonizinglyslowdeath. IfBerlantseesslowdeathinopposition to refusefoodthedateofheractualdeathtransformedscenewhatwassupposed supportive treatment(orwhatwouldbecalled “palliative care” incasesofterminalillness)and spare factthatittookthirty-sevendaysfromthedateofmygrandmother’sdecisiontoendall my grandmother’sexpresswishesinthebedoftroublethatwashospicecarecenter. The and waterthroughastrawadministeredto “palliate” (butalsosustainthebarestoflife)against solved intheliteralityoficechips, chocolatemilk(mygrandmotherwaslactoseintolerant), life decision(andperhapsparticularlyforaHolocaustsurvivorlikemygrandmother), itdis- death isdesiredassomethingmorethananegativefantasyoftheendtofearorsuffering. mation oflife, theterminaltermsofrighttodieleavenoroomforascenecareinwhich longs sufferingandturnsthegoodlifeintoaversionofslowdeath. Undertheguiseofaffir it istheveryinsistenceondeathasterminus, asonlythenegativelimitorendoflife, thatpro- the notionthatonlythosewithcompromisedjudgmentelectdeath. Among theparadoxeshere, endeavors toclearthewayfor “rational choice” byremovingthestigmaofmentalillnessand Dignity Act1997). Byturningfrom “suicide” to “death withdignity,” ethicalandlegaldiscourse ­prescribe alethaldoseofmedicationtopatientwithterminalillness(Oregon Deathwith Reading In thinkingwhatsortofperformancethelaborscarecouldturnthisbedtrouble If thereisanyheroicsovereigntyinthedramaofanend-of-lifedecisionor, rather, end-to- — Graphs,Maps, Trees, IwasstruckbyMoretti’scallfor amore “rational literaryhis- even tothepointofhasteningit. — even assheisinsistentonrevaluingthelessagentialmeans — I wonderwhatkindsofcareitwilltake - Handle with Care 127 - in those — — the powers — to rebel. And though art historians going back And though to rebel. — the 10 percent around which homosexual move- the 10 percent around — can live on. Indeed, this is life on repeat. Donors do not die; they “com- Donors do not die; they this is life on repeat. Indeed, can live on. —

Statistical method is one of the devices by which men try to understand the generality of try to understand devices by which men method is one of the Statistical for general trends; seek endlessly human beings events, of the welter of single Out life. search they continually of individual characters, vast and confusing variety out of the to which the individual for some picture of the group characters, for underlying group (1953:1) belongs. The beseeching torch song–grip of “Never Let Me Go” doesn’t let its listener go easily. The doesn’t let its listener go easily. “Never Let Me Go” The beseeching torch song–grip of science fiction novel and the 2010 film adapta- song repeats across Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 Let Me Go and the dystopic marking both versions of Never tion directed by Mark Romanek, This is a future in which technologies film project. future for genetic clones that the novel and of human organ harvesting and transplantation. of genetic cloning meet the everyday realities It is a verdant place-time that promises to sim- it is a world not unlike our present. That is, ethico-political complexities of biopower of the “nots” plify the dense knots and banal instances It is a place-time like ours in which the dire and the to make live and make die. technologies of reproduc- individual and state powers, in which the rights to life and death, the of precarity, and transnational exploitation cross with conditions the global economy, tion, of human, radical inequalities between different classes problematics of sovereignty and choice, and capitaliza- theft, fully human; and the donation, and the somehow not the non-human, the future Arcadia, This is a countryside tion of bodies down to the genes (see Casid 2011a). “could be”) of a green and “as yet” past in the subjunctive mood (the might have been as the to sex- England set in the late-20th century in which genetic human clones without the capacity seemingly ually reproduce themselves are raised from childhood in a specially dedicated and assist at the hospi- who “carers” There they are raised to become idyllic rural boarding school. in the form “care” giving themselves, “donors” and eventually become “donors” tal bedsides of of their internal organs and eventually their lives so that another class of living beings who are not clones of nonsexual reproduction in which their genes and while sustaining life via a version plete” their organs — ever vital — go on. The “As If“As The Labor of Caring into Death ” My coming out as a lesbian had gotten no reaction whatsoever from my grandparents. from my grandparents. lesbian had gotten no reaction whatsoever My coming out as a particularly after the publica- logical within a system of variations, Apparently it was perfectly source of which became the Human Male, Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Alfred tion in 1948 of cathected statistic the dubious but highly and visual studies scholar It took becoming an art historian ments have been organized. of qualitative approaches a lover other words, 2004) have constructed their analytic worlds project (Michaud “Mnemosyne” Warburg’s Aby to I find myself impelled by the ques- I myself cannot let go of close reading. out of large data sets, welter of single “the care would support a good death not to rise above tion of what forms of statistic myself and I am both a as one caregiver among many, And it is not just because, events.” with and remain particular to the protracted have had experiences that are closely enmeshed the process Thinking of the bed of trouble that was my grandmother’s decision to die. “event” an attention to not just the distance and generali- of dying and the dynamics of care demands estranging par the palpably complicating and ties of statistics but also the affective proximities, as I will Such a reading, of the individual case study that emerge through close reading. ticulars, into the does not enact the collapse of empathy (or the dissolve of the particular demonstrate, of intimate distance by reckoning with the bristle general) but cultivates an ethics and practice singular. and the irreducibly particular and even between the general and even the clonal, American Statistical Association) with a claim for the redemptive capacity of statistics to help us of statistics to help the redemptive capacity with a claim for Association) Statistical American events”: “welter of single and the traumatic sink emerge from Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02October 2021

128 Jill H. Casid Twentieth Fox. Century All rights reserved) adaptation of Figure 2. Cassette tape of Judy Bridgewater’s yet ifNever LetMeGo’stransformative repetitionsechothetechnics ofcamp, itisaversionof diated andtransformedbyfeeling. We mightsaythatthesearethefamiliarrulesofcamp, and emotionally dependsontheconversion oftrashtotherefusenotrefused, torubbishnow irra- liked” [69]). The extenttowhichtheoldschoolspoolingtapeofcassette isabletoreelusin tifiably, ornecessarily discarded, ortherefused(“notsortofthingany ofusatHailsham might, intheharshlight ofthemorningafter, reappearasrightlyso, thatis, asthewillfully, jus- Me Go” fromSongsafterDark isalsocaughtbetweenthepathosofthrownawayandwhat impossible love);itcallsouttousforourraptattachment. the mostintimateandpassionateofattachments, thestuff oftorchsongs(lost, unrequited, or an eternalpresence, afeltembracethatisheldandholds. “Never LetMeGo” isnotjustabout and repeatability, grantextendedduration, andmakeakindofspaceintimefortheillusion some beingproppedliterallyontheslowdeathofothers). Yet, thisslowedtime, itsrepetitions is alsotorchedbythetruthsoflossandimpasseneverletting go(theholdonlifefor with thehookoffeeling. While thesongitselfis slow, thewordsstretched, itsdraggedtempo ting roundtheobviousnessofschoolroom), “Never LetMeGo” getsyou, if/asitdoes, go...’” (Ishiguro2006:69). While thishailingisalsoideological anddisciplinary(there’snoget- that keepscomingroundwhenJudysings: ‘Never letmego... Oh, baby, baby... Neverletme not unlikethatofthecassetteitself: “It’s slowandlatenight American, andthere’sabit be workingandinsteadcriedmywayacrossthe Atlantic Oceaninanitineraryoftear-­ certainly gotme. Isawthefilmguiltilyonatransatlanticflightduringwhichwas­ ing school Potter, orSt. Trinians own formsofrepetitionwithadifference)thatcalloutforrecognitionandresponse? obvious formsofrepetitiveaddress, theclichés, stereotypes, doubleentendres, andpuns(their callof thesirensong “Never LetMeGo”? And howcanoneresisttheappealofsuchsimpleand the experimentalboardingschool/breedinggroundforclones. Howcanonenotrespondtothe and cherishedbythenarratorKathyH. intherecollectedchildhoodofherdaysatHailsham, all preciousthingscanberecovered)standsinforthelostcassettefoundataschoolrubbishsale ner” ofEnglandthattheclonechildrenimagineliterallyasa “lost andfound,” theplacewhere is itselfanattemptedreplacement. A dustytapefoundinajunkshopNorfolk(the “lost cor ogy. The old, cast-offcassettetape(alreadyarerecordedversionofanevenolderrecordalbum) “Never LetMeGo” callsoutagainandonrepeatfromawornpieceofdeadtechnol- of thenames, smoke, andfeelingsofJudyGarland, DeeBridgewater, andJulieLondon), by thesultryJudyBridgewater, aphantomlounge-singerof1950svintagewhois a composite Never Let Me Go (2010, directed by Mark Romanek). (©2010 And yet, atthesametime, itsregisterhoversnot justbetweenlostandfound. “Never Let Whether thechildhoodexperiencesfeelsomehowintimatelyyours — Hailsham isuncannilyfamiliar(aschoolalmostliketheothers)andithailsus. It — to nameonlyafewreworkingsoftheruralidyllEnglishboard- Songs after Dark in the film sette crum ofthe “lost” stereocas- materials (includingasimula- film tothefilm’spromotional object. Fromthenovelto and acentralbindingbutlost song bothanimploringtitle tion, andtheircentraltheme the novel, thefilmadapta- The hauntingrefraingives both novelandfilmareset. to therecentpastinwhich far-off science-fictionfuture ent imperativetiesthisnot-so- “Never LetMeGo.” The pres- At thesametime, sodoes viaALittlePrincess, Harry Songs afterDark sung supposed to jerking - Handle with Care 129 - becomes — electrified electrified the electrified and knotted wire of the the electrified and knotted —

plastic sheeting and shopping bags that flap in the wind. It is, at the same time, a kind at the same time, is, It bags that flap in the wind. plastic sheeting and shopping —

Importantly, it is the shot of a barbed wire fence, not the cassette tape reel, that ends the that ends tape reel, not the cassette a barbed wire fence, it is the shot of Importantly, the shore-line of the flapping plastic in the branches, I was thinking about the rubbish, was the and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this odd stuff caught along the fencing, now and I was my childhood had washed up, spot where everything I’d ever lost since a tiny figure would appear on the and if I waited long enough, standing in front of it, maybe and he’d wave, Tommy, I’d see it was horizon across the field and get larger until (Ishiguro 2006:282) even call. that But why should I/we care? It is precisely along our lines of attachment to the promise concentration camp, the detention camp, and the state of exception that is the rule the detention camp, concentration camp, film. A powerfully simple but densely concresced image for charged material, the ­ material, image for charged but densely concresced A powerfully simple film. “stuff” currents through the wire that literally sends - caught up in its metal barbs is an affec its barbs catching up bits of “rubbish,” that rescues or re-cues tive register of the lifeline refuse pull- vista of hope’s horizon, that cuts across the verdant landscape of fishing reel of rescue of reality into the tangible distance point where wishes meet the ground ing the promise of the as the fence works reeling of fantasy, a thought-image and fort-da device for the And as midline. sentence by pulling in and wash- promises to forestall the death nonetheless, a boundary that, The acutely felt line of care. lost along the overdetermined but no less ing up the loved and and con- glimpses the barbed wire of property a genetic clone become carer, narrator Kathy H., in which the barbed wire perimeter a creative misrecognition eyes, “half-closed” trol through (1998) “bare life” diagram of Agamben’s of Giorgio the con- The barbed wire of private property, rescue. the support and vehicle for her fantasy of dredging with transforms into the reel of fantasy, and colonial control West, quest of and by the from the depths of loss to the shoreline of desire: ­fishhook-like barbs loved and lost objects in every one that promises return fantasy of love, The lure of the fence is a call-and-response this fantasy image does not resist but rather pulls in its way, Though painfully beautiful in sense. is the arma- For this barbed wire fence of the trite. and makes itself up out of the refused stuff loses her great the carer, love story in which Kathy H., ture of what is in large part a straight-up among story in which, But it is also an uncannily and queerly haunting the donor. Tommy, love the the donor refuses to allow Kathy H., Tommy other plot twists and devastating impasses, is like to be a to carry him over into death because she cannot really feel what it carer he loves, Kathy H. allowing a last exchanged glance between cut, donor (though the film glosses over this and the in both the novel Even more, through the glass of the operating room). Tommy and of a deferral the would-be couple’s attempt to realize the rumored possibility film adaptation, can demonstrate that they are truly in love is punc- granted to former Hailsham students who The affective heart of the love story is a cloned one and it is on borrowed time. tured as well. of course, The lines between clone and human-recipient and between carer and donor are, eventually blurred and crossed: humans who are not clones become hybrids in order to live (and But it is not love that enables this cross- die) and carers themselves eventually become donors. The love that is supposed to make all the difference supports the cutting pain of the differ ing. emotion but ence it intensifies: clones may be like humans in their demonstrated capacity for and carers cannot cross the line of refused empathy this resemblance does not defer their ends, dividing carer from donor. that Never love makes a difference (even if it does not change the outcome of death and loss) It may well be matters. nonetheless, Let Me Go most piercingly poses the question of how care, Let Me Go derives The poignancy of Never a matter of not just holding on but also letting go. even as the school of melancholy from from its impossibility (we will let go and be let go), camp sincerity that comes closer to the affective strings of melodrama and the weepy. There is the weepy. of melodrama and to the affective strings that comes closer camp sincerity refuse is lit- world in which simplified in its simple, arch or ironic nothing uncannily, strangely, all know discards (“We DNA from social the clones take their novel insinuates that eralized: the [164]). tramps” winos, prostitutes, Junkies, . modeled from trash We’re it. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02October 2021

130 Jill H. Casid resemblance sense. The cruelandbanal “truth” of Kathy’sH.’s case historyisitsveryfamiliarity, itsclose and piercingpunctumheremightbethatthecaseofKathyH. thecarerisacloneinanother your bestforeverydonor, butintheend, itwearsyoudown” (Ishiguro2006:3–4). The uncanny old, andI’vebeenacarernowforoverelevenyears[...] Carersaren’tmachines. You tryanddo yet, asKathyH. saysofherselffromthebeginning, “My nameisKathyH. I’mthirty-oneyears tion thatcaremustorevenshouldbeexercisedinempathy’s terms. Carersmaybeclonesand are thevehiclesofnovel’sexperimentinethicsandIdeeplymistrustongoingassump- which weareenlistedtoparticipate, Iamnotatallconvincedthatidentificationandempathy While IfinditpowerfullyprovocativetopositionNever LetMeGoasanethicalexperimentin us tofeelfromtheplaceofinhumanandnotfullyhumaninothersourselves. (2009:799, 803). ByenablingouridentificationwithKathyH., Blackargues, thenovelteaches aesthetics ofsimulacra” that “generates anewaestheticsofempathyforposthumanistage” Inhuman Aesthetics,” ShameemBlacktakesNever LetMeGoasan “ethical experimentinthe human andtheuntenablespecies-exceptionalismof “humanist valueofart” in “Ishiguro’s tions ofstatisticsbygivingafaceandsoultothenumbers. Callingouttheinhumannessof appeal tohumanistnotionsthatartissomehowredemptivebecauseithumanizestheabstrac- worked outelsewhere. NorshouldthiscloseattentiontoNever LetMeGobemistakenasan close readingofNever LetMeGotoposition “art” asanillustrationoftheoreticalformulations Me Go’spunctureoftheinflatedandfantasy-fictionpromisecare, Ihavenotpursuedthis abandonment, leavingthecareraloneandworn-outonslowroadtodeathjustsame. the rubofcrueloptimismcare:actingonadhesivepromisecareisalsoapractice I’ve beenwatchingyou. It’swearingyouout” (Ishiguro2006:276–77). There, itwouldseem, is responds, “But allthisrushingaboutyoudo. All thisgettingexhaustedandbeingbyyourself. important. A goodcarermakesabigdifferencetowhatdonor’slifeisactuallylike.” And he donate, justthesame, andthenthey’llcomplete.” However, shemaintains, “Of courseit’s it’s reallynicetohaveagoodcarer. Butintheend, isitreallysoimportant? The donorswill good carers. And I’magoodcarer.” Hechallengesher: “But isitreallythatimportant?Okay, cial crossedexchangebetweencareranddonorinNever LetMeGo : “...it’s importantthereare the promiseofourobjectsdesireiswhaterodesus, KathyH. insiststo Tommy inthecru- death byattrition. our flourishingmaybetheveryobjectsthatwearusout, thatbecomethevehiclesforourslow at all. The objectstowhichwemaypreferstayattachedevenwhentheybecomeobstacles horizon ofafuturethatissupposedtogivebackandreturnthegoodlifemaynotbesustaining That is, thepolitics, practices, andfantasiesoffuture-orientedhopetheirattentiontothe ancholy’s attachmenttoapastitwillnotgiveup)butalsoprospective, anddevastatinglyso. as Berlantputsit, makesthedoublebindofobjectattachmentnotjustretrospective(asinmel- indeed, whenasubstituteisalreadybeckoningtothem” (Berlant2006:22). PoliticizingFreud, mism” (2011b)instructsusthat “people neverwillinglyabandonalibidinalposition, noteven, Freud totherepetitionandrevisionofmelancholyinLaurenBerlant’snotion “cruel opti- of color, forexample, aremorelikelytobecome caregiversatayoungerage). And, as Janet of theaveragecaregivershows marked variationsinagewhencorrelatedtoethnicity(women tion (queergranddaughterinher early40scaringforhercentenariangrandmother). The profile Anglo butwasbornintheUS to adiasporicJewishfamilyandmycaregivingskippedgenera - H.be Kathy This casehistorycouldalmostbemine. And itcouldalmostbe yours. spends morethan20hoursaweekprovidingunpaidcaretoher mother. Icouldjustaseasily Journal, thetypicalUScaregiverisa46-year-old woman whoworksoutsidethehomeand in the21st-centuryUS. According tothe AARP studyof2008asreportedinTheWallStreet Despite thisresemblancebetweenBerlant’sformulationof “cruel optimism” andNever Let As iftodemonstratethedynamicsofBerlant’scrueloptimisminwhichattachment But thealmostmarksspaceofimportantdifferences: KathyH. isyounger;Iamnot — especially intermsofgender — to thegeneralstatisticalnormsof­ caregiving Handle with Care 131 - - the is to - — — however powerful — as well as all references to attachments to as well as all references to attachments to — - the slow-dancing fantasy and the later recollec — Berlant fashions a tool “for interfering with the march Berlant fashions a tool —

To take such misfires as mere illustrations of empathy’s failures take such misfires as mere illustrations of empathy’s To But there is also the great gap between these very different calls of love to absent others and great gap between these very different calls But there is also the Spaces of Care and the Spacing of Performance the per the qualitative and the quantitative, Holding in tension the close and the distant, miss the point of the both/and operating along the barbed wire of connectivity that constitutes miss the point of the both/and operating Berlant Thin,” Fat and Girls, “Two In Let Me Go’s fence of and for fantasy and feeling. Never Eve Sedgwick about de-shaming our fantasmatic writes alongside what she’s learned from as objects of knowledge by emphasizing not the attachments so that we might take such feelings “impersonal.” or what she calls the its outsides, private interior lining of the subject but rather the a way to see how “impersonal” Berlant finds in the however, Rather than cause for despair, inti- desire, “organized around the impersonality of the structures that conventionalize world is con- “optimistic” an As what Berlant calls (2002:74). and even one’s own personhood” macy, from the plotted the impersonal pulls the sensations that feel personal cept in the positive sense, Out of the felt blows of the impersonal lines of what might otherwise appear inevitable. social and historical that feels personal thus, for showing that things have been and, (104), of individualities toward liberal freedoms” mean- But my point here is that personal and impersonal derive their could be otherwise. as the individual case history and the generalities of ing when made to bristle in proximity just only start to do their critical work the general principles, the particular deviations and numbers, abstraction. when brought into transforming contact without radical reduction or euphemizing counterintuitive but ethically crucial sonal and the impersonal brings me back to the difficult, “as if”This thought-image proposes an of intimate thought-image of the barbed wire fence. kinds of distance that does not deny or wish away the histories or present realities of various Its sharp but rather holds open the gap of empathy. from physical to psychic, colonization, lines reminder of the unseen and the denied prompts an ethical reckoning with those invisible Let Me Never of power that currently frame the scenes of bare life and of slow and living death. highly Go paradoxically enacts its space of care via the thought-image of the misrecognized, “baby, baby,” were excised for the film.) were excised for baby,” “baby, matively familiar ones because, in relegating healthcare to the “family,” it demands our caregiv- it demands “family,” to the in relegating healthcare ones because, matively familiar ing labor ( palpably via differences emerges space of acknowledged This critical Jakobsen 2007). deliberately Kathy H. to which Let Me Go” “Never of the cassette tape recording a return to never let baby, “Baby, line, and replay the instead to extract choosing listen properly, refuses to for example, not by empathy (feeling, with feeling produced novel presents us The me go....” through creative misrecognition is supposed to feel) but generated rather what and as the singer the objects we encounter into prom- of the optimism that recalibrates writes Berlant, (a version, Such creative misrecognitions give that they might return what we desire). ises of fulfillment, that titles the novel and the in empathy that traverse the central song rise to important gaps Bridgewater’s sultry voice repeating the the distance between Judy for instance, There is, film. slow-dancing with a pillow, while fantasy, to a lover and Kathy H.’s song’s come-hither address would never have. holding the baby that she was told she that the song is about the domes- Madame Marie-Claire, as it is witnessed from the outside. the scene of Kathy H. years later that her slow tells Kathy H. the school’s headmistress, Emily, tic companion to Miss hold- her eyes tightly closed, girl, “a little as a heartbreaking spectacle of dance appeared to her and she one that she knew in her heart could not remain, ing to her breast the kind old world, too, The scene got to me, (Ishiguro 2006:267). never to let her go” was holding it and pleading, recoil at the devastatingly gendered and heteronor but I will go ahead and admit to a rash of (Perhaps I am and the desire for a baby of one’s own. mative reduction of care to maternal love not the only one: both scenes in the novel tion of that scene by the headmistress’s companion Jakobsen strikingly reminds us, the state is more than happy to transform queer bonds into nor queer bonds into than happy to transform the state is more reminds us, Jakobsen strikingly Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02October 2021

132 Jill H. Casid practice ofcarethatisbothclose anddistanttakesmebacktothesceneoffenceits spa- munities wemake), agential anddeeplyinterdependent, aloneandnearby. This both/andofa mate andimpersonal, state-supported, familialandcommunal(includingthefamilies andcom- politics ofcare. workispremised ontheboth/andsofcloseanddistant, Suchtough inti- “as if” oftheverytoughbut necessarypracticeofanethicsand to tryoutthenecessary “as if” across mediathatbringusclose tothesceneofdeathisgiveusaperformancearenainwhich just withKathyH. butalsoandespeciallywiththeprompts andpropsofaestheticexperiments lar, thenumbersregarding thecostsofcaregivingwithwhichIbegan. To thinkandtofeelnot ing,” thatis, totheabstractions, statistics, andchartsofquantitativemethodsand, inparticu- This iswhataformofclosereadingthatpreservesintimatedistance canbringto “distant read- care’s bedoftrouble, makingittheframeandsupport for theenactmentofgooddeath? tion oflifethatdependsonasceneslow, harddeath. the righttodieextendedonlythosewhoarealready “terminal” withthefictionofanaffirma- care isafamilymattertothecharacterizationofasmaternal; andentanglingtheexerciseof nance oflifethatconsignsthosewhoperformittoslowdeath; matingthepresumptionsthat the gendered, classed, andracedformsofunpaid andunderpaidlaborintheenforcedmainte- matter andgeneticinformation;linkingthestate’sdependenceonunpaidcaregivinglaborto ing theconceptofhumansubjectandbodyasprivatepropertytocapitalizationbio- of troublethatiscaregivinginthe21stcenturylinedwithcrossedrowsbarbedwire, chain- would otherwiselayone’sbody(seeCasid2011b). With thispiece, onemightsaythatthebed bare roomfurnishedwithlittlemorethanamattress-lessbedfittedbarbedwirewhereone and whatmightbeanalogizedasitsbarbedwire. Hatoum’s “interior landscape” consistsofa returns ustowhatisinvisibleinthesceneofcareatendlife, thatis, thebedoftrouble personal choicespresentedasprotectedindividualfreedoms. frames ofpowerwemightotherwisemistakeasthefixed, immutable, andevennaturalrealmof already colonized, thenthebarbedwirefenceasfantasyandthought-vehiclemakespalpable the stateandglobalcapitalnolongerneedbarbedwirebecauseithasdoneitsworkspaceis burden justassensedinourfleshthatwhichwewouldcall “personal.” IfNetziscorrectthat barbed fencingalertsustothesegreatershapingforces, andmakestheirpainfulbiteheavy cattle pens(2004). Inconductingpersonalfantasyalongthesehistoricalandpoliticallines, the death camps, detentioncamps, prisons, workgulags, Indianremovalpolicies, reservations, and of Buchenwaldtotheslaughterbisoninconquest American West, thecreationof modernity’s productionofpowerthroughtheterritorializationspacefromconstruction political technology. Itisthefigure, inRevielNetz’sBarbed Wire: ,An EcologyofModernity for And yetthebarbedwirefenceisnotjustavehicleofpersonalfantasy;italsohistoricaland ments suchasthefantasyofreturnandsovereigntypersonalpreferencechoice). (but alsothenot-you)withweightandbiteofintimatelypersonal(thestuffattach- should the traumaticpedagogiesofbeingmadeorshamedchastenedintofeelingaswearetold death, whichstipulatesuchaidasanendtosuffering). Itholdsus, too, justatthethresholdof able tofeelassomeoneelsedoes(asintheframeworkoflawsthatallowforphysician-assisted the ultimatelyunknowableandinaccessible. ences, individualcasestudiesandstatisticaltrends, themeandnot-me, theknowableand to imagineandpracticeadomainof “feeling with” thatholdsintensionsimilaritiesanddiffer ever-receding horizonoftheirretrieval. This thought-imageof “intimate distance” enablesus close enoughtotouch. And yetthefencealsoseparatesbothKathyH. andtheviewerfrom charged, andsharplybarbedfencethatbringssubstitutesforlostdesiredthingsalmost In thismomentofpsychic, economic, physical, andethicalprecarity, howdowereconceive Thinking withMonaHatoum’srecentinstallationonexilecalledInteriorLandscape(2008) As acriticalthought-image, then, thebarbedwirefencealsointrudestogiveusnot-me This spaceofcareholdsusjustattheedgefallingintocolonizingfictionsbeing — that weshould, forexample, desiretoendsufferingbutnotdie. - Handle with Care 133 , 2008. Steel bed, pillow, human hair, table, cardboard cardboard table, hair, human pillow, bed, Steel 2008. Landscape, Interior

I cannot let go of this essay. As I sit typing these final words, I am listening to Schubert’s As I sit typing these final words, I cannot let go of this essay. tray, cut-up map, and wire hanger; dimensions variable. (© Mona Hatoum; courtesy of White Cube courtesy Cube White of Hatoum; Mona (© variable. dimensions hanger; wire and map, cut-up tray, Gallery, London) in terms of my grandmother’s musical tastes, This is exactly right “Death and the Maiden.” sings a struggle in which death finally seduces the but so wrong because narratively the song between such conventional narratives of death and How do we find a place maiden to submit. that reinforce the wish never to let the ones we an opening in the medicalized practices dying, we listen love go and enforce the expectation or demand that we should never have to? Can The scene of care may remain a bed of trou- against the grain for chords of caring unto death? What if the bed of trouble enact it in a different sense. but perhaps we might imagine and ble, “as if”were to call us to its sides to perform the painstaking practices of the that hold in tension including a nearness or proximity that nonethe- what might seem like irreconcilable opposites, What if the bed of trou- less maintains a fragile interval of distance and difference between us? freedom, ble were to provide the affective and material supports that maintain a spacing for What if the just care for life but also care for death? and the precious possibility of not risk, recognizes bed of trouble were to become the mattress and the frame for a practice of care that that supports us even and perhaps espe- the interrelations of the good life and the good death, This is no easy performance cially in caring us into death by enabling us to let go and be let go? tial dynamics of both nearby and faraway: the refuse not refused but caught in the fence, the the refuse not refused but caught in the fence, tial dynamics of both nearby and faraway: The spacings forced by the barbed wire in sight. familiar wave of a lost loved one only barely “as if” also material support for the exercise of the may provide the necessary imaginative but the barbed wire The thought-image of posthuman practice of care. of a radically reimagined, its histories, reminding us that care has its colonial pierces the pieties and euphemisms of care, It reminds us as well that and class politics. race, capitalist social constructions and its gender, And it reminds us that the scene not of many kinds. care also necessarily involves painful losses of letting go the scene of care before and into death, just post-mortem but the situatedness in hurts. And that it also and being let go is hard. Figure 3. Mona Hatoum, Hatoum, Mona 3. Figure Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02October 2021

134 Jill H. Casid for life. A fragileanddauntingburdenindeed. Handlewithcare. for death, andlearningtoletgobewillsurelyalsodemandthereorganizationofcare one reasonoranother, thattheyaretrash. Attending closelytothosewhowishdie, preparing a statesystemthattellsthemtheyaretooexpensivetosupport, orhavebeenmadetofeel, for been thrownawayorconsignedtodeath, orarefearfulofanendlifeastheexiledrubbish yet learnbylisteningtoandfeelingalongsidethosewhowantdienotbecausetheyhave prompt forsomethingasfragilethealienandnecessarilyimpersonalterrainofwhatwemay National Alliance forCaregivingand AARP. 2009. Caregiving intheU.S. 2009. www.caregiving.org/pdf Moretti, Franco. 2007. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models foraLiteraryLondon: Verso. History. Michaud, Philippe-Alain. 2004. Aby Warburg andtheImage in Motion. Trans. Sophie Hawkes. Cambridge, Jakobsen, JanetR. 2007. “Work IsNottheOnlyProblem: HowtheConceptofFamilyContributesto Ishiguro, Kazuo. (2005)2006. Never LetMeGo.London:FaberandFaber. Greene, Kelly. 2008. “Report FindsHeavierCostforCaregivers.” Wall Street Journal, 20November. Ginzler, Elinor. 2010. “The CostofCaregiving.” AARP, January. www.aarp.org/relationships/caregiving Freud, Sigmund. (1915)2001. “Our Attitude Towards Death,” PartIIof “Thoughts forthe Times on War Evercare andtheNational Alliance forCaregiving. 2006. Evercare StudiesofCaregivers inDecline:Findings Dickinson, Emily. (1893)1999. “I measureeveryGriefImeet.” InThePoems ofEmilyDickinson, ed. R.W. Casid, JillH. 2011b. “Landscape in, around, andunderthePerformative.” Women &Performance: A Journal Casid, Jill H. 2011a. “Chimerical Figurations at the Monstrous Edges of Species.” In Environmental Criticism Case, Gretchen A., andDaniel J. Brauner. 2010. “Perspective: The DoctorasPerformer: A Proposalfor Butler, Judith. 2009. Frames of War: London: Verso.When IsLifeGrievable? Butler, Judith. 2004. Precarious Life: The Powers and ofMourning London: Verso.Violence. Black, Shameem. 2009. “Ishiguro’s Inhuman Aesthetics.” Fiction Modern Studies55, 4:785–807. Berlant, Lauren. 2011b. Optimism. Cruel Durham, NC:DukeUniversityPress. Berlant, Lauren. 2011a. Comments atthe “Public FeelingsSalon,” BarnardCollege, 12 April. Berlant, Lauren. 2007. “Slow Death(Sovereignty, Obesity, Lateral Agency).” 33, CriticalInquiry 4:754–80. Berlant, Lauren. 2006. “Cruel Optimism.” differences: A Journal ofFeminist Cultural Studies17, 3:20–36. Berlant, Lauren. 2002. “Two Girls, Fatand Thin.” InRegarding Sedgwick: Essays onQueerCulture andCritical Aranda, Julieta, BrianKuan Wood, and Anton Vidokle, eds. 2011. Are YouWorking TooPost-Fordism,Much?: Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. HomoSacer:Sovereign Power andBare Life. Trans. DanielHeller-Roazen. Palo Alto, References /research/Caregiving_in_the_US_2009_full_report.pdf (1 April 2012). MA: MITPress. Work-Family Dilemma.” Journal ofFeminist StudiesinReligion23, 2:127–31. /info-01-2010/ginzler_impact_of_caregiving.html (1 April 2012). James Strachey. Volume XIV. London: Vintage Books. and Death.” In The Standard EditionoftheCompletePsychological Works ofSigmundFreud, ed. andtrans. /pdf/research/Caregivers%20in%20Decline%20Study-FINAL-lowres.pdf (1 April 2012). from aNationalSurvey. FamilyCaregiver Alliance: NationalCenteronCaregiving, www.caregiving.org Franklin. Cambridge, MA:BelknapPress. Feministof 21, Theory 1:97–116. Routledge. for the Twenty-First, Century eds. StephanieLeMenager, Teresa Shewry, andKenHiltner, 61–83. London: Change BasedonaPerformanceStudiesParadigm.” AcademicMedicine85, 1:159–63. ,Theory eds. StephenM. Barberand DavidL. Clark, 71–108. London:Routledge. Precarity, andtheLaborof Art. E-fluxJournal. Berlin:SternbergPress. CA: StanfordUniversityPress. Handle with Care 135

4:1345–50. International Journal Can Do about It.” We What Discussions of Disability and Impoverishes Bioethical 2:43–62. to Bioethics 3, Approaches of Feminist Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. University Wesleyan CT: Middletown, of Modernity. An Ecology Wire: Barbed 2004. Reviel. Netz, §§ 127.800–897. Stat. Oregon Rev. Act of 1997. 1997. Death with Dignity The Oregon 76, Social Research If.’” ‘As Politics of and a Democratic Secularism, “Religion, 2009. Ann. Pellegrini, 103 min. Pictures. Fox Searchlight Let Me Go. Never 2010. dir. Mark, Romanek, Henry Holt and Co. York: New . Statistical Inference 1953. and Joseph Lev. Helen, Walker, Exception: How the Discourse of Individual Rights “The Right-to-Die 2010. P. Margaret Wardlaw, please visit media related to this article, supplemental view To http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/suppl/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00218 by guest on 02 October 2021