DOCSLIB.ORG

Geniza: an Annotated An/Archive of a Discarded Life Volume 1

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Geniza: an Annotated An/Archive of a Discarded Life Volume 1 1 GENIZA: AN ANNOTATED AN/ARCHIVE OF A DISCARDED LIFE VOLUME 1 RODNEY LOVE A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy UNSW ART & DESIGN 2021 2 Geniza: An Annotated An/Archive of a Discarded Life Thesis Abstract: Geniza: An Annotated An/Archive of a Discarded Life is a research project which combines autoethnographic and narrative methods within a practice-based and archival methodological framework to investigate means of materialising and preserving memories of a life for future use when the traces of that life are discarded or dispersed. A geniza is a space in a synagogue used to temporarily store materials written in Hebrew (which, as a sacred language, cannot just be thrown out) until they can be buried or otherwise ritually discarded. It is a fundamentally anarchival space; that is, it is not an archive, does not use archival practices for storage, and is not intended to be retained for future uses. This research, through the creation of an anarchival art installation, and a personal archive, explores the tension between the desire to discard, and the desire to preserve. By materialising memories, narratives, and histories of objects intended for disposal, and collecting discarded materials not just in the installation, but also in the dissertation, this research has resulted in an autobiographical representation of the artist/researcher, as well as a biography of the archive and installation produced, and a biography of the research process itself. The methods explored through this research can be used to enhance the information retained in an archive, preserve memories that would otherwise be lost, transmit narratives of a life to future, unknown others, and prompt viewers of the installation to think about the material culture of their own lives, and how they will deal with the memories, and stories behind the items that they themselves will discard at some point. Inclusion of Publications Statement UNSW is supportive of candidates publishing their research results during their candidature as detailed in the UNSWThesis Examination Procedure. Publications can be used in the candidate's thesis in lieu of a Chapter provided: • The candidate contributed greater than 50% of the content in t,he publication and aire the "primary author", i.e. they were responsible primarily for the planning, execution and preparation of the work for publication. • The candidate has obtained approval to include the publication in their thesis in lieu of a Chapter from their Supervisor and Postgraduate Coordinator. • The publication is not subject to any obligations or contractual agreements with a third party that would constrain its inclusion in the thesis. 3 Contents FINDING AID 6 ‘A’ IS FOR ALPHABETICAL 37 GENIZA 120 ENDPAPERS 151 4 5 FINDING AID 6 Finding Aids 9 Content 14 Structure 19 Past Research 29 Biographical Note 35 7 8 Finding Aids Melquíades had not put events in the order of a man’s conventional time, but had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant. Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1972, p. 446) It is said that these pupils have to memorise a great number of verses – so many, that some of them spend twenty years at their studies. The Druids believe that their religion forbids them to commit their teachings to writing, although for most other purposes, such as public and private accounts, the Gauls use the Greek alphabet. But I imagine that this rule was originally established for other reasons – because they did not want their doctrine to become public property, and in order to prevent their pupils from relying on the written word and neglecting to train their memories; for it is usually found that when people have the help of texts, they are less diligent in learning by heart, and let their memories rust. Julius Caesar, The Conquest of Gaul (1982, p. 141) We are not about to deny scientific rationalism. Nor do we aspire to some clumsy popularization. What we do hope to achieve is a more direct and practical means of communication, and to reconcile pleasure with knowledge. Ariel Dorfman & Armand Mattelart, How to Read Donald Duck (1975, p. 25) Before starting this research, archival theory was a new discipline for me, despite having worked in a library, and studied an Information Management degree. I soon found numerous analogies between different aspects of my research, and noted the similarities between archives and such areas as installation, narrative, auto/biography, and even PhD research and its presentation in written or artistic form. I discovered the concept of the finding aid, which is a means of conveying information about an archive’s contents and context to researchers; it seemed to serve the same purpose as the introduction of a thesis, so I thought it appropriate to begin this dissertation with information about finding aids as a means of introducing my research, and as a way for readers to get acquainted with the architecture of this document. In the seminal archival theory text of the nineteenth century known as the Dutch Manual, the authors suggest that the “uninitiated” need a “guide” to find their way around an archival collection (Muller, Feith & Fruin 1968 (1898), p. 100); archivists must therefore “create a representation of the archives – an explanation of the content, structure and context” of the collection (Millar 2010, p. 157; I have made use of two of these three terms as the titles of chapters in this section of the dissertation in order to further the connection to archives). Laura Millar explains further: The process of archival description involves three steps. The first is to research and write an account of the nature and scope of the archives and the life and 9 work of the person, family, organization or business responsible for their creation. The second step is to present that information in various descriptive tools – finding aids – that allow users to understand the content and nature of the archives. The third step is to create access points or intellectual points of entry into the archives, such as names, subjects, dates or events, to help researchers determine which archives are relevant to their research (2010, p. 157). A finding aid can encompass many forms of “descriptive media (such as registers, guides, inventories and indexes)” (Oakes & McCausland 1987, p. 159), as well as “[a]bstracts, calendars…, repository guides, accession records, biographical sketches, [and] authority records…” (Duff & Harris 2002, p. 266). The information provided in these different texts is often disparate and unconnected, and it is the role of the archivist – to highlight another analogy, between my artistic method and research – “to weave those fragments together to create an integrated, coherent narrative. In so doing [however] we may be creating a misleading impression of completeness” (MacNeil 2005, p. 273). Any text, whether a finding aid, or PhD thesis, reflects the biases of the creator of that text, and the finding aid should provide information about its construction, as it is “a representation not just of the records by the archivist but also of the archivist and the archives profession” (Cox 2008, p. 26). A finding aid is not an apolitical document; it has been compiled by an individual with not just possible personal biases, but also institutional constraints and guidelines. The context of an archival collection includes not just the creation and accumulation of the records, but the selection and discarding of some of those records by the archivist; “[for] archivists it means surrendering our role as invisible and omniscient narrators and accepting that we are among the characters in the story told through our descriptions” (MacNeil 2005, p. 272). Transparency, then, is key, and one suggestion for this contextual information in a finding aid is through the use of colophons: “Stated succinctly, colophons are statements regarding the creation of a work, written or printed after the main text has concluded” (Light & Hyry 2002, p. 223). Such statements “identify the archivist’s role in representation and interpretation of a collection” (Yakel 2003, p. 20). This can include “appraisal, arrangement, description, preservation, and other decisions they made while working on a collection” (Light & Hyry 2002, p. 224). This dissertation serves as a guide to my research, a justification and explanation of the choices I have made in the course of that research, and a history of the process of creating the artwork that constitutes the thesis for the research. 10 The research itself focuses on the creation of an installation of weavings of items which I have discarded, while creating an archive of the narratives and histories of those objects and documents. I have therefore tried to emulate that process by also including in this dissertation discarded items from my research, and giving the reader an understanding of the tangents and tributaries along which my research might have proceeded. This may be an unconventional approach to a PhD thesis, but as archive theorists have noted about the finding aid, standardisation of texts and methods is not necessarily in the best interests of archives or researchers: “The wider the span, the greater the distance, the more heterogeneous the modes [of a standard], then the greater the violence done to the local, the individual, the eccentric, the small, the weak, the unusual, the other, the case which does not fit the conceptual boxes that are unavoidable in any form of standardization” (Duff & Harris 2002, p. 281). In archival finding aids – or in PhD theses – “no one method is adequate and therefore no one finding aid is the optimum, diversity not standardization, variety not consensus, is the ideal” (Condren 1995, p. 175; italics in original).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Are They Family?: Queer Parents and Queer Pasts In
    ARE THEY FAMILY?: QUEER PARENTS AND QUEER PASTS IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTURE BY MICHAEL SHETINA DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Siobhan Somerville, Chair Professor Chantal Nadeau Associate Professor Julie Turnock Associate Professor Richard T. Rodríguez, University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT The early twenty-first century saw a marked increase in depictions of LGBTQ people and communities in American popular culture occurring alongside political activism that culminated in the repeal of the Pentagon's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (2010) and the Supreme Court's overturning of same-sex marriage bans in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Even as these events fueled a triumphant progressive narrative in which social and political representation moved LGBTQ people into a better future, a significant strain of LGBTQ-focused popular culture drew its attention to the past. My dissertation, Are They Family?: Queer Parents and Queer Pasts in Popular Culture, examines how American film, television, and literature between 2005 and 2016 construct relationships among LGBTQ people across recent history in generational and familial terms. These works queer the concept of the family by deploying parents and parental figures to examine the role of families in the transmission of queer knowledges, practices, and identities, countering notions of families as mere precursors to queer identity—“families of origin”—or as the agential creations of out LGBTQ people—“families of choice.” These works demonstrate how such dichotomous conceptions of family limit the people, experiences, and forms of affect that are legible within the category of LGBTQ history.
    [Show full text]
  • UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Reading RuPaul's Drag Race: Queer Memory, Camp Capitalism, and RuPaul's Drag Empire Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0245q9h9 Author Schottmiller, Carl Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Reading RuPaul’s Drag Race: Queer Memory, Camp Capitalism, and RuPaul’s Drag Empire A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance by Carl Douglas Schottmiller 2017 © Copyright by Carl Douglas Schottmiller 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Reading RuPaul’s Drag Race: Queer Memory, Camp Capitalism, and RuPaul’s Drag Empire by Carl Douglas Schottmiller Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor David H Gere, Chair This dissertation undertakes an interdisciplinary study of the competitive reality television show RuPaul’s Drag Race, drawing upon approaches and perspectives from LGBT Studies, Media Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, and Performance Studies. Hosted by veteran drag performer RuPaul, Drag Race features drag queen entertainers vying for the title of “America’s Next Drag Superstar.” Since premiering in 2009, the show has become a queer cultural phenomenon that successfully commodifies and markets Camp and drag performance to television audiences at heretofore unprecedented levels. Over its nine seasons, the show has provided more than 100 drag queen artists with a platform to showcase their talents, and the Drag Race franchise has expanded to include multiple television series and interactive live events. The RuPaul’s Drag Race phenomenon provides researchers with invaluable opportunities not only to consider the function of drag in the 21st Century, but also to explore the cultural and economic ramifications of this reality television franchise.
    [Show full text]
  • A Drag Queen Como Cobaia Mainstream Do Parque Farmacopornográfico
    ENSAIO O EMPALHAMENTO DA PERFORMANCE: A DRAG QUEEN COMO COBAIA MAINSTREAM DO PARQUE FARMACOPORNOGRÁFICO Ribamar José de Oliveira Junior1 190 Resumo: O presente trabalho tem como objetivo discutir a dimensão aurática da performance drag queen nas dinâmicas do tecnocapitalismo. Ao levar em consideração as contribuições de Preciado (2018) sobre a biopolítica e o regime farmacopornográfico diante dos processos de tecnificação gestionados pelo corpo, pretende-se perceber como o capitalismo artista (LIPOVETSKY; SERROY, 2015) através do poder performativo de produzir artefatos empalha a performance do fenômeno drag queen como forma de controle da subjetividade na era transestética. Nesse sentido, vale considerar a dimensão semiótica-técnica da produção performativa de gênero, no sentido de perceber que a performance drag no circuito de consumo da indústria cultural se aproxima da produção de subjetividades tóxicas-pornográficas. Portanto, tendo em vista o trabalho dentro do circuito fechado da excitação-capital-frustração-excitação-capital, a drag queen parece cada vez mais distante da dimensão artivista da emergência política e cada vez mais próxima do tecnogozo que o verniz plástico do consumo desenha como mais valia do proletariado farmacopornográfico. Palavras-Chave: Drag Queen; Farmacopornografia; Capitalismo. Introdução “Todos nós nascemos nus e o resto é drag”, diz o trecho da canção Born Naked, lançada em 2014, em que RuPaul canta em parceria com Clairy Browne. No 12º episódio2 da sétima temporada de RuPaul Drag Race, durante a fase de eliminação da competição entre Kennedy, Violet e Ginger, a música foi performada pelas drags queens. Nessa fase, 1 Mestrando da linha de Dinâmicas e Práticas Sociais do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Sociais da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) e especializando em Gênero e Sexualidade na Educação pela Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA).
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Reading Rupaul's Drag Race
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Reading RuPaul’s Drag Race: Queer Memory, Camp Capitalism, and RuPaul’s Drag Empire A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance by Carl Douglas Schottmiller 2017 © Copyright by Carl Douglas Schottmiller 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Reading RuPaul’s Drag Race: Queer Memory, Camp Capitalism, and RuPaul’s Drag Empire by Carl Douglas Schottmiller Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor David H Gere, Chair This dissertation undertakes an interdisciplinary study of the competitive reality television show RuPaul’s Drag Race, drawing upon approaches and perspectives from LGBT Studies, Media Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, and Performance Studies. Hosted by veteran drag performer RuPaul, Drag Race features drag queen entertainers vying for the title of “America’s Next Drag Superstar.” Since premiering in 2009, the show has become a queer cultural phenomenon that successfully commodifies and markets Camp and drag performance to television audiences at heretofore unprecedented levels. Over its nine seasons, the show has provided more than 100 drag queen artists with a platform to showcase their talents, and the Drag Race franchise has expanded to include multiple television series and interactive live events. The RuPaul’s Drag Race phenomenon provides researchers with invaluable opportunities not only to consider the function of drag in the 21st Century, but also to explore the cultural and economic ramifications of this reality television franchise. ii While most scholars analyze RuPaul’s Drag Race primarily through content analysis of the aired television episodes, this dissertation combines content analysis with ethnography in order to connect the television show to tangible practices among fans and effects within drag communities.
    [Show full text]
  • The Queer Economy of Rupaul's Drag Race by Ted
    MOTHER OF THE HOUSE OF NO SHAME: THE QUEER ECONOMY OF RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE BY TED FAUST DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communications & Media in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor James Hay, Chair Professor CL Cole Associate Professor Richard T. Rodriguez, UC Riverside Assistant Professor Amanda Ciafone i ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I consider the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race and the vast web of digital and broadcast media productions it has spawned, as a means to explore the changing cultural, technological, and economic conditions that have allowed for the emergence of a widespread queer media economy in which it is currently positioned as a central touchstone and engine of production and productivity. I seek to understand the history and evolution of the changing economics and production practices of the reality television genre that led to the emergence of (and have been deployed, tweaked, and recirculated by) the semi-satirical Drag Race; to better understand its position, as a “broadcast” cable television show, in a wider network of “new” and “spreadable” social media enterprises flowing into and out of it; to analyze the artistic, aesthetic, ethical and ascetic technologies of the self practiced by the contestants on the show, alongside a genealogical account of their origins in queer spaces and subcultures; and to explore the show’s position in a wider television landscape, asking how it is related to other programs of the current conjuncture, its technologization and commodification of a queer mode of belonging, and its relationships to virtual and material queer spaces as a globalized cultural technology.
    [Show full text]
  • Dé/Construction De L'identité De Genre Et De Sexe Dans Les Styles
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by HAL-Paris1 Queering clothes, clothing queers : d´e/constructionde l'identit´ede genre et de sexe dans les styles vestimentaires gays britanniques et am´ericains (1969-1999) Katja Taylor To cite this version: Katja Taylor. Queering clothes, clothing queers : d´e/constructionde l'identit´ede genre et de sexe dans les styles vestimentaires gays britanniques et am´ericains(1969-1999). Art et histoire de l'art. 2013. <dumas-00942657> HAL Id: dumas-00942657 https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00942657 Submitted on 6 Feb 2014 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destin´eeau d´ep^otet `ala diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publi´esou non, lished or not. The documents may come from ´emanant des ´etablissements d'enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche fran¸caisou ´etrangers,des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou priv´es. UNIVERSITE PARIS 1 SORBONNE PANTHEON UFR 4 ARTS PLASTIQUES ET SCIENCES DE L’ART Master 2 recherche Etudes culturelles KATJA TAYLOR Queering clothes, clothing queers Dé/construction de l’identité de genre et de sexe dans les styles vestimentaires gays britanniques et américains (1969-1999) Mémoire dirigé par Christophe Genin Professeur à l’université de Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne 1 « Glitter hides a multitude of sins » (John Flowers, The Cockettes) 2 Remerciements La réalisation de ce mémoire a été possible grâce au concours de plusieurs personnes à qui je voudrais témoigner toute ma reconnaissance.
    [Show full text]
  • Signing Times
    bluebay700.com DragCon 2016 Lookup Signing Times Table Saturday Sunday Booth Locations AB Soto 1034 4pm-6pm 1pm-3pm Acid Betty 843 Mimi Imfurst 741 Amber Rose 1019 3pm-5pm Adore Delano 1039 Miss Fame 1039 Ashley Nell Tipton 1002 2pm-4pm 2pm-4pm Alaska 5000 1039 Monica Beverly Hillz DAE 17 Big Dipper 1007 3pm-5pm 10am-12pm Alexis Mateo DAE 1 Morgan McMichaels DAD 4 Big Freedia 1001 2pm-4pm 1pm-3pm Alisa Summers DAE 9 Mrs. Kasha Davis 641 Boulet Brothers 1023 All Day bet. Lounge hosting Alyssa Edwards 642 Mystique Summers Madison DAD 6 Brendan Jordan 1035 1p-3p April Carrion DAB 16 Naomi Smalls 940 Brittney Guzman 1004 1pm-3pm 11am-1pm Bob the Drag Queen 943 Naysha Lopez DAC 81 Bryce Eilenberg 1010 12pm-2pm 12pm-2pm Chad Michaels DAE 11 Nicole Paige Brooks 941 Calpernia Addams 1011 1pm-3pm 10am-12pm Chi Chi Devayne DAC 71 Ongina x Adriana Clitaria DAB 42 Christy McGinity 1014 1pm-3pm Coco Montrese DAE 19 Pandora Boxx 540 Coco Peru 1007 12pm-2pm Courtney Act 1039 Pearl 1039 Damiana Garcia 1009 10pm-12pm 11am-1pm Cynthia Lee Fontaine DAC 73 Phi Phi O’Hara 415 David Yost 1037 ALL DAY ALL DAY Darienne Lake 1039 Phoenix DAE 7 Dianna Williams (Coach D) 1022 2pm-4pm Dax Exclamation Point DAC 75 Raja 541 Drew Droege 1006 11am-1pm Delta Work DAA 3 Raven DAD 8 Eden The Doll 1012 10am-12pm 10am-12pm Derrick Barry DAC 77 Robbie Turner 1042 Elana Genevinne 1015 10am-12pm 10am-12pm Detox 442 Shangela 443 Frank Decaro 1036 2pm-4pm 2pm-4pm Gia Gunn 542 Stacy Layne Matthews DAA 69 Heklina 1014 12pm-3pm Ginger Minj 1039 Tammie Brown DAA 27 Jason Carter 1000 12pm-2pm 12pm-2pm Honey Mahogany DAE 21 Tatianna DAD 10 Jim Colucci 1002 11am-1pm India Ferrah DAE 5 Tempest Dujour DAC 67 Johnny McGovern 1032 12pm-2pm 12pm-2pm Ivy Winters DAB 46 Thorgy Thor 942 Judy Tenuta 1033 11am-1pm 11am-1:30pm Jade Jolie DAE 23 Trinity K.
    [Show full text]
  • Pontificia Universidad Católica Del Perú
    PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DEL PERÚ FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS Y ARTES DE LA COMUNICACIÓN Reality show y discurso de género: una mirada a la teoría de la performatividad de género en el reality show Rupaul’s Drag Race TESIS PARA OPTAR EL TÍTULO PROFESIONAL DE LICENCIADA EN COMUNICACIÓN AUDIOVISUAL AUTORA JIMENA ALEJANDRA MENDEZU ROSAS ASESOR GUILLERMO VASQUEZ FERMI Lima, Junio, 2020 Resumen Esta investigación tiene como objeto de estudio al reality show Rupaul’s Drag Race, el cual es analizado a partir de la teoría de la performatividad de género de la filósofa estadounidense Judith Butler, donde la autora toma como ejemplo a la performance drag para mostrar que el género es se performa, es decir, que se construye y da la ilusión de ser una esencia a través de los actos performativos. Para Butler, las drag queens imitan y actúan el género para hacer su performance, por lo que evidencian esta performatividad. Mediante el análisis del discurso, analizaremos bajo una mirada cualitativa-deductiva siete capítulos del reality show para reconocer si se cumple o no la performatividad del género en ellos; además de identificar en qué segmento de la estructura narrativa del programa se muestran más y quiénes son los personajes dentro del reality que más se acercan a este concepto. Finalmente, como conclusión principal hallamos que la teoría de la performatividad se cumple, en su mayoría, en el reality show Rupaul’s Drag Race y que son las drag queens que se acercan más a este concepto a través de lo expresado verbalmente por ellas en la ejecución de los desafíos principales del programa y la presentación de sus personajes en la pasarela.
    [Show full text]