©2018 Jenna R. Brager ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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©2018 Jenna R. Brager ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BODIES OF EVIDENCE: THE IMAGE, THE FLESH, AND THE MODERN CRISIS OF THE HUMAN by JENNA R. BRAGER A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Women’s & Gender Studies Written under the direction of Judith Gerson And approved by New Brunswick, New Jersey MAY, 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Bodies of Evidence: The Image, the Flesh, and the Modern Crisis of the Human By JENNA R. BRAGER Dissertation Director: Judith Gerson Bodies of Evidence is a study of the transnational optics of anti-blackness across German and U.S. settler colonial projects, with a particular attention to the afterlives of visual discourses in present-day politics and memory. This dissertation analyzes case studies from the U.S., Germany, and German South West Africa, what is present-day Namibia, to track the trace of settler colonial and racial ideologies across seemingly discrete and ruptural violences. Rather than continue to treat these histories and archives as distinct or hierarchical instances of violence, I argue for the importance of interpreting them as part of a broader, uninterrupted narrative. Bodies of Evidence adopts a transnational scope that places settler colonial violence—including the Herero and Nama genocide in German South West Africa—alongside European genocide, framing these events as part of the same ideological and scopic regime. My interdisciplinary analysis builds upon critical race theory, critical visual studies, postcolonial and Black feminist scholarship, museum studies, biological anthropology, among other interdisciplinary and theoretical threads. I critically interpret visual and material evidence with a methodological emphasis on ii framing the positionality of the viewer in relation to questions about the gaze and modes of looking. Thinking through the looped gaze, parallactic witnessing, and the ethics of looking, I argue that we can transform the act of looking if we understand how the circulation and containment of colonial violences continue to shape ways of seeing. iii Acknowledgements and Dedication To my family of origin, especially my parents Jerel and Jacquie Brager, to my tireless mentor and friend Vivianne Salgado, my partner B Dyson, and the pups Cricket and Sadie, who carried me through. Thank you to all my friends, teachers, and interlocutors along the way. My greatest thanks to my dissertation director Judith Gerson, my committee members Sylvia Chan- Malik and Ethel Brooks, and to my outside reader Tina Campt, as well as all the amazing faculty I had the opportunity to work with at Rutgers, particularly Kyla Schuller, Marisa Fuentes, Ed Cohen, Jasbir Puar and Michael Levine. I owe everything to my graduate colleagues and friends at Rutgers University— Katy Gray, Alexandria Smith, Louise Tam, Tim Morris (and Stephanie and Louisa Morris), Lindsey Whitmore, Enmanuel Martinez, Ashleigh Greene Wade, Stina Soderling, Carolina Alonso Bejarano, Dale Booth, Dilara Demir, and many others; and my colleagues at other institutions and beyond the academy, including Max Fox, Malcolm Harris and many others. And so much gratitude to the faculty and instructors at the University of Maryland College Park who set me on this path, especially Psyche Williams-Forson, Christina Hanhardt, Marilee Lindemann, Sangeeta Ray, Damion Clark, and Christopher Perez; and before that, the teachers at Towson High School, especially Bill Jones and Karen Waters. iv Table of Contents Abstract—p. ii Acknowledgements and Dedication—p. iv List of Illustrations—p. vi Chapter 1: Thinking Images in the Flesh—p. 1 Chapter 2: The Incorruptible Kodak: Photography as Trophy and Appeal in German South West Africa, Germany, and the United States—p. 55 Chapter 3: Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones: Returning the Body, the Bones and the Meat—p. 114 Coda: Photographs of Bones—p. 175 Chapter 4: Black Death Spectacle: “Open Casket” and the (Un)Making of the Human—p. 179 Chapter 5: Selfie Possessed: Representational Politics from the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and other sites of Holocaust Memory—p. 231 Conclusion: A Truer Word and Other Marvels—p. 288 v List of Illustrations P. 71—On the Left: Page 35 of the photo album GStA PK, IX. HA, SPAE, IV Nr. 41 Deutsch- Südwestafrika, Enthält u.a.: Otawi; Outjo; Tsu-meb-Mine; Rietfontein; Grootfontein; Namutoni; Waterberg, ca. 1904 – 1909. Prussian Secret State Archives, Berlin, 2015. On the Right: The cover of the album. P. 72—A colonial education in process; photograph from page 27 of of the photo album GStA PK, IX. HA, SPAE, IV Nr. 41 Deutsch-Südwestafrika, Enthält u.a.: Otawi; Outjo; Tsu-meb- Mine; Rietfontein; Grootfontein; Namutoni; Waterberg, ca. 1904 – 1909. Prussian Secret State Archives, Berlin, 2015. P. 76—Photo #56 captioned “[obscured word] Schönheit D.S.W.A.” Prussian Secret State Archives, Berlin, 2015. P. 78—From the album GStA PK, IX. HA, SPAE, IV Nr. 41 Deutsch-Südwestafrika, Enthält u.a.: Otawi; Outjo; Tsu-meb-Mine; Rietfontein; Grootfontein; Namutoni; Waterberg, ca. 1904 – 1909. Prussian Secret State Archives, Berlin, 2015. P. 79—“A German man and a local woman on his (?) bed in the troops’ quarters. (Basler Africa Bibliographien, Photoarchiv, Album unbekannt, 1909-1915).” Published in Wolfram Hartmann, Hues between black and white: historical photography from colonial Namibia 1860s to 1915 (Windhoek: Out of Africa Publishers, 2004) P. 89—The witnesses who look away. From Album 37 (1906). Prussian Secret State Archives, Berlin, 2015. vi P. 103—Bambusen with German soldiers and dogs. Prussian Prussian Secret State Archives, Berlin, 2015. P. 104—Album 39, pages 6 and 7—a photo captioned “Kettengefangnge,” in which a white soldier stands next to three Black men in loinclothes with shackles on. This photo faces one of a group of Black school children and and Black teacher. Prussian Secret State Archives, Berlin, 2015. P. 112—On the left: Eugen Fischer in South West Africa. Photograph from the Archiv der Max- Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem. On the right: Eugen Fischer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Photograph from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. P. 114—“Thousands flocked to Namibias Hosea Kutako International Airport Tuesday, praying, singing, and chanting as the 20 skulls were returned to the country.” CNN, 2011. P. 139—A Namibian delegate takes a photograph of one of the 20 skulls repatriated from Germany in 2011. Associated Press. P. 157—“Imagine Strength” at the Penn Museum. Photograph by the author, 2017. P. 159—Two radii, from the “Imagine Strength” exhibit at Penn Museum. Photograph by the author, 2017. P. 161—African skulls from the Morton Collection, Penn Museum. Photograph by the author, 2017. P. 165—Kerry James Marshall, “Portrait of Nat Turner With the Head of His Master” (2011) P. 180—Dana Schutz, “Open Casket” (2016) vii P. 186—“Black Death Spectacle” protest by Parker Bright. Photo by Scott W. H. Young, via Twitter. P. 196—Dana Schutz, “The Autopsy of Michael Jackson” (2005) P. 222—Still from Coco Fusco, “Words May Not Be Found” (2017) P. 231—Selfie, taken by the author at the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, 2015. P. 241—“Joy Buolamwini found her computer system recognized the white mask, but not her face.” From the Algorithmic Justice League. P. 250—“Selfie in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp” by Breanna Mitchell, via Twitter. P. 255—Screenshot of the Instagram geotag page for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. P. 259—Selfies from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, assembled by the author. P. 261—Selfie by sophalvt at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, January 26, 2018. P. 264—Selfie by andreaaguirre93 at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, January 28, 2018. P. 266—Image from the “Yolocaust” project. P. 268—Installation image from Stelen (Columns), 2007-2011, Marc Adelman (2011) P. 270—Screenshot of the Instagram geotag for the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism. viii P. 271—Screenshot of a mirror selfie Instagram post by prepare4landing, taken at the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted Under National Socialism, December 4, 2017. P. 272 —Image 1: Screenshot of a mirror selfie Instagram post by lesjs1031, taken at the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted Under National Socialism, October 11, 2017. Image 2: Screenshot of a selfie Instagram post by samucogno, taken at the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted Under National Socialism, November 27, 2017. P. 279—2016 Cologne police tweet “Hundred of Nafris screened at main railway station.” ix !1 Bodies of Evidence: The Image, the Flesh, and the Modern Crisis of the Human JB Brager; Department of Women’s & Gender Studies; Rutgers University New Brunswick Thinking Images in the Flesh “However the image enters/ its force remains within/ my eyes” —Audre Lorde, “Afterimages” “This is Black life in the wake; this is the flesh, these are the bodies, to which anything and everything can be and is done.” —Christina Sharpe, In the Wake “’But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?’ Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!” —W.E.B. Du Bois Bodies of Evidence is a transnational study of how racial optics circulated through visual and material evidence across German and U.S. settler colonial projects, with a particular attention to the afterlives of these visual discourses in present-day politics and memory. Bodies of Evidence applies interdisciplinary visual studies approaches to research on the Herero and Nama genocide—the visual archive of which is understudied —and adopts a transnational scope, which places settler colonial violence alongside European genocide, rather than viewing these histories and archives as distinct or hierarchical.