RULING AESTHETICS: INTERMEDIALITY, MEDIA MODERNITY AND EARLY THAI CINEMA (1868-1942) by PALITA CHUNSAENGCHAN A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Comparative Literature and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2020 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Palita Chunsaengchan Title: “Ruling Aesthetics: Intermediality, Media Modernity and Early Thai Cinema (1868- 1942)” This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Comparative Literature by: Sangita Gopal Chairperson Michael Allan Core Member Tze Yin Teo Core Member Dong Hoon Kim Core Member Alison Groppe Institutional Representative and Kate Mondloch Interim Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2020 II © 2020 Palita Chunsaengchan III DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Palita Chunsaengchan Doctor of Philosophy Department of Comparative Literature June 2020 Title: “Ruling Aesthetics: Intermediality, Media Modernity and Early Thai Cinema (1868-1942)” My dissertation investigates the unexplored connections among cinema, prose and poetry in Thai history, extending from the period of the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910) through the decade following the Siamese Revolution of 1932. Across the various chapters, I expand the archives both of early Thai cinema and Thai literary history. I draw together readings of Sanookneuk (1886), the first fictional work of Thai prose, film reviews written as Thai poetry (1922), governmental letters calling for censorship of the purportedly first Thai film (1923), as well as promotional essays in English on the state-sponsored film, The King of the White Elephant (1941). I consider how early cinema not only destabilizes a rigid structure of a national historiography, but also shapes interactions between different social classes. The dissertation traces three pivotal conceptions of cinema: first as a disciplinary technology, then as popular culture, and finally as a nationalized mass medium. My dissertation accounts for cinema’s entanglements with other media, for how these entanglements profess aesthetic instructions that become a dispositif of the modernizing Thai state as well as for how cultures of cinema and media in Siam manifest and respond to the national project of modernization. The negotiation between cinema, media and modernity reveals natures of IV different sovereign powers as well as complexities of the institutional politics in staging and managing the formation of Thai modernity. I, therefore, deploy the term “media modernity,” in my dissertation to capture such problematics and discussions of the intertwinement of early cinema, media and modernization and, yet, to also complicate some hegemonic accounts in Thai history that often isolate cinema from the epistemological constructions and sensibilities of modernity as well as separate aesthetic regimes from the politics of the nation. V CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Palita Chunsaengchan GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Comparative Literature, 2020 University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, French and Comparative Literature, 2013 Chulalongkorn University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Film Theory Film Historiography Early Thai Cinema Southeast Asian Cinema PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Employee, University of Oregon, 2014-2020 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Graduate Studies Scholarship, Anandamahidol Foundation, 2014-2020 Dissertation Research Fellowship, Early Thai Prose and Censorship, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 2019 International Research Fund, Archival Research, Global Oregon International Institute, University of Oregon, 2019 Southeast Asian Studies Award, Graduate School, University of Oregon, 2017 Educational Opportunity Award, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 2016-2018 VI Graduate Summer Scholarship, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 2015 Villard Scholar, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 2014-2015 PUBLICATIONS: Chunsaengchan, Palita. “The Critique of Anti-Communist State Violence in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.” Asian Cinema, edited by Gary Bettinson and See Kam Tan. Bristol: Intellect, forthcoming. Chunsaengchan, Palita. “Less About and Beyond Digital Culture: Reflections on Barthes’ Camera Lucida, Galloway’s The Interface Effect and Some Concerns in Media Studies in Thailand,” Journal of MADs 1, no.1 (September 2016): 86- 98. Chunsaengchan, Palita. “Plaeng reung hai pen reung: pasasart rabop natee kap kwam talok nai bot lakorn farangset reung De quoi s’agit-il?” (“Translation or Adaptaion?: Systemic Functional Linguistic and Humor in Jean Tardieu’s comedy De quoi s’agit-il?”), Warasan Aksornsart (Journal of Letters) 43, no. 2 (February 2016): 61-104. Chunsaengchan, Palita and Supachai Supaphol, co-transl. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Kwam riang wa duay setthakit karn meung (Discours sur l’économie politique), Victory Press, 2015. Chunsaengchan, Palita. “Nangsao Suwanna [Miss Suwanna of Siam], A Complete Guide to Thai Cinema, eds. Mary J. Ainslie and Katarzyna Ancuta, London: I.B. Tauris, 2018. Chunsaengchan, Palita. “Choke Sorng Chan [Double Luck], A Complete Guide to Thai Cinema, eds. Mary J. Ainslie and Katarzyna Ancuta, London: I.B. Tauris, 2018. Chunsaengchan, Palita. Nitarn Kong Loong Reung Wanwiset [A Fable from an Uncle: The Magical Ring], A Complete Guide to Thai Cinema, eds. Mary J. Ainslie and Katarzyna Ancuta, London: I.B. Tauris, 2018. VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Since I walked into her office in the Spring term of 2016, Sangita Gopal has invested in me her utmost confidence in what I believe and wish to pursue. Her sustained commitment in this project and in the well-being of all her students have transformed the way I understand not only my research but also the commitment one has toward teaching, advising and the academic institution. I thank her for her sharp readings and incisive critiques. But beyond the completion of this dissertation, I also owe so much to her unwavering support and kindest guidance. I thank her every day for her warm delightful presence in my life and I am always grateful that she leads the way with her immeasurable wisdom and her inimitable caring heart. It is also a great pleasure and honor to be able to thank my committee members: Michael Allan, Dong Hoon Kim, Tze Yin Teo and Alison Groppe, for forming an incredibly supportive committee. I thank Michael Allan, for all the courses we taught together and for his engagement with my project from the beginning; Dong Hoon Kim, for inspiring me with his scholarship in film historiography and his devotion to archival research and for pushing me to believe in possibilities rather than limitations; Tze Yin Teo, for the way in which she could combine her astute advice with her friendliness; Alison Groppe, for agreeing to be part of this project and for her engaged readership. I have been fortunate with regard to those whom I call friends. I want to first express my humble gratitude to Baran Germen for he worked tirelessly with me and Sangita with utmost joy and dedication. I thank him for his avid readings and perceptive critiques and for always being there throughout the whole process. Noppawan Lerttharakul, Nakrob Moonmanas, Varistha Nakornthap are the other three special pillars VIII that continue to ground and support me. I thank them for their unconditional love and unyielding belief in our friendship, both of which exceed the painful inevitability of distance and mediocracy of life. As an international student whose perceptions of home and belonging is always already fragmented, I would not have been able to make it in Eugene without support from my friends at the University of Oregon. I thank Iida Pollänen, Zack Hicks, Rachel Branson, Sunayani Bhattacharya, Martha Ndakalako-Bannikov, Jean-Baptiste Simonnet and Yei Won Lim for their love, generosity and kindness. I also want to thank the community of friends both in Thailand and in the States. I might not be able to name everyone here due to page restrictions. But I do remember very clearly every act of care, loving conversations and all the positive memories that they have shared with me. At the University of Oregon, I am grateful for the support that I received from the Department of Comparative Literature. I want to thank all core faculty members, Cynthia Stockwell and all my cohorts in the program who have immensely contributed to my academic experiences. In Bangkok, I have been fortunate to receive tremendous support from the people who work at the Thai Film Archive. I thank Khun Dome Sukkhawong, former director of the institution, P’Chalida Uabumrungjit and P’Sanchai Chotirosseranee. P’Kantaphol Sangroong and P’Wimalin Meesiri. I also want to express my most humble gratitude to the Anandamahidol Foundation and all the staffs for taking care of my scholarship and for enabling a sense of security in these past six years. Lastly and most importantly, I thank Mae (my mom), Jantrakran Sianglerse, Yai (my late grandmom) Monta Pattawaro, Pa (my dad), Tananant Chunsaengchan, for making me who I am today. The completion of this project is their dream as well as mine. IX To mae, yai and pa X TABLE OF CONTENTS