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Tidskrift för forskning om svensk och annan nordisk litteratur Årgång 138 2017

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Printed in Lithuania by Balto print, Vilnius 2018 156 · Recensioner av doktorsavhandlingar hemma, men också om att synliggöra relevanta trå- valet av anakronismen som historiografisk utgångs- dar bakåt. Holmqvist skriver alltså in sin undersök- punkt hade kunnat problematiseras ytterligare er- ning i litteraturvetenskap och transstudier, ställer bjuder förhållningssättet unika möjligheter att tala transläsningen i relation till queerstudier och ar- om historiska företeelser på ett språk som nutiden betar intersektionellt. Men hur är det med andra förstår och att sätta ord på praktiker som funnits linjer, till exempelvis feministisk litteraturkritik men ännu inte benämnts. Holmqvists ”historie- och Gay and Lesbian Studies? Det förblir en smula nära anakronism” har potential att fungera fortsatt oklart hur Holmqvist placerar sin egen forskning produktiv just för den normkritiska forskning som vetenskapshistoriskt i relation till tidigare identi- både vill undersöka gårdagen och påverka morgon- tetspolitiska och identitetshistoriska projekt. dagen. Transformationer rymmer två stora avslöjanden; Trots att Sam Holmqvists avhandling ingalunda för det första att det fortfarande finns så mycket är invändningsfri förtjänar den verkligen epitetet ogjort kring 1800-talslitteraturen, och för det pionjärarbete. Det här är en studie som öppnar ett andra att litteraturen på avgörande sätt kan bidra nytt perspektiv i svensk litteraturhistorisk forsk- till att stärka levande, verkliga personer i deras iden- ning; som synliggör en tidigare undanskymd tra- titetsskapande och frigörelse. Avhandlingen utgör dition och insisterar inte bara på litteraturens sam- därmed ytterligare ett tungt vägande bevis för att hällspolitiska roll, utan även på dess avgörande be- relationen mellan litteratur, liv och samhälle stän- tydelse i enskilda människors liv. Ur det tidigare digt behöver undersökas på nytt och att litteratur- osedda skriver Holmqvist fram en berättelse om historisk forskning, för att förbli relevant, måste transgörande som också visar sig rymma identitets- laddas med de nya frågor och perspektiv som till- skapande och emancipatoriska möjligheter. Däri- varons föränderlighet väcker. genom lyckas hen säga någonting väsentligt nytt även om ett så väl genomforskat verk som Drott- Åsa Arping ningens juvelsmycke. I växelverkan mellan skönlitteratur, vetenskap och självbiografiska berättelser synliggör Holm- Per Israelson. Ecologies of the Imagination: Theo- qvist också nya kretslopp och påverkansvägar, dia- rizing the Participatory Aesthetics of the Fantastic. loger mellan genrer och konstarter. Dessutom på- Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm börjar hen en de marginaliserades läsarhistoria, University. Stockholm 2017. som i många fall handlar om att finna möjlighe- ter till spegling och identifikation, varhelst sådan Ecologies of the Imagination, as Per Israelson tells står till buds. us in the introduction, argues that “an ecological Holmqvist skriver vidare inom en emancipa- function of media, genres and texts is necessary torisk tradition men går emot den gren som häv- to the world building of the fantastic. As the fan- dar att bara det förebildliga och subversiva är värt tastic focuses on the creation of other worlds, it is uppmärksamhet. Även i texter präglade av en kon- an aesthetics of coming into being, of ontogene- servativ samhällssyn finns sprickor och identifika- sis” (11). This wordontogenesis is a key word in the tionsmöjligheter. Genom ett brett transbegrepp dissertation, indicating the author’s focus on be- och skönlitterära texter som spänner över genre- coming rather than being, which follows a tradi- gränser och mellan radikalt och reaktionärt und- tion that can be traced through avant-garde art, viker Holmqvist både idealisering och stigmatise- postmodernism, deconstruction, and finally post- ring, samtidigt som maktperspektivet är ständigt humanism. Posthumanism, in fact, is the guiding närvarande. philosophy of this dissertation, which might ulti- Holmqvists avhandling problematiserar hur lit- mately be described as a posthumanist approach to teraturvetare vanligen närmar sig skönlitterära tex- understanding the genre of fantasy. Conversely, the ter, med misstänksamhet, och hur litteraturhistoria author seems to suggest that fantasy has as much brukar skrivas, som hjälteberättelser. Med ett stort to teach us about posthumanism as posthumanism mått av pragmatism navigerar hen i en rik flora av teaches us about fantasy. I will note here that the au- tidigare forskning och stundtals svårförenliga teo- thor is careful to distinguish posthumanism from retiska perspektiv, med inställningen att utgångs- transhumanism, noting that transhumanism is ulti- punkterna och frågorna är det som styr. Även om mately a humanist and anthropocentric enterprise, Recensioner av doktorsavhandlingar · 157 while posthumanism is a philosophy that seeks to argument is that the fantastic is a special genre, if unseat humanism from its position of privilege. it is indeed a genre at all. Why is it special? Not Beginning with the introduction, much of this only does the fantastic, like all fiction in general, work is guided by Tzvetan Todorov’s influential provide a site for investigating the idea of “distrib- book, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Lit- uted agency,” but the genre of fantasy itself “explic- erary Genre (1973). What Israelson finds most use- itly highlights and … operationalizes the ontogen- ful in Todorov’s work is the description of fantasy esis of media, genres and texts” (14). This is the key as “a hesitation,” a hermeneutic uncertainty that argument of the dissertation, which is borne out occurs in the face of the unexplainable. This hesi- in four chapters that investigate an eclectic mix of tation is evident when faced with Don Francisco media objects. Goya’s strange collection of etchings called Los Ca- The first chapter takes on the comic book series prichos, which inhabit a liminal world between The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, sleep and waking, image and text. Los Caprichos published between 2009 and 2015. The Unwritten provokes and embodies hermeneutic hesitation. serves as a test case of sorts, to demonstrate how As this example demonstrates, the dissertation media can act as an ecosystem, how genre can be aims to extend Todorov’s conception of “hesita- conceived as part of an ecological framework, and tion” beyond nineteenth-century literature, and in- how text can be conceived as a participatory eco- deed beyond the confines of the fantasy story itself. system. In all of this, the whale – yes, the whale – It also aims to expand Iser’s reader-response theory looms large. – which is central to Todorov’s approach – well To make the argument about media functioning beyond the reader. In Israelson’s terms, “Todorov’s as an ecosystem, Israelson delves deeper into the cy- definition can then explain how texts, as well as me- bernetic and neo-cybernetic theories mentioned dia and genres, also always involve material partic- already. Here, the The Unwritten comic book se- ipation” (12). It is this move from the body of the ries in both form and content serves as a conspic- text to the body of the reader, and then a leap to uous example of how this ecosystem manifests it- other bodies in the environment – or as Bruno La- self. The ecosystem in question is not just an inter- tour would call them, agential actors – that charac- play of form and content, but a distributed, partic- terizes Israelson’s theory of media ecology. ipatory emergence of text and body. This is where Another way of describing this network of par- Mark Hansen’s concept of System-Environment- ticipation is by means of cybernetic or neo-cyber- Hybrids, or SEH, comes into play. SEH reworks netic theorization. Hence, creeping secretly be- cybernetic theory to suggest an ecology in which neath this dissertation are the relentless, non-hi- closed systems interact within open environments erarchical rhizomes of Gilles Deleuze and Félix through a creative process of ontogenesis. Guattari, who also offer their concept of assem- This ecology is illustrated, suggests Israelson, in blage to this project, which helps define the scene the characters of Tommy Taylor, Pullman, and per- of reading as a network and environment rather haps most importantly, the Leviathan from The Un- than as a closed, liberal-humanist system. As Israel- written comic series. Israelson narrates the situation son notes, this idea owes some debt to Gilbert Si- as follows, “Pullman claims to be immortal, and mondon’s notion of technical individuation. And states that his sole purpose in life now is to die. But from here we can trace a long genealogy: Elizabeth in order to do so, the Leviathan feeds on his story – Grosz refers to this complex milieu of interacting as it feeds on Tommy Taylor’s story – and therefore bodies as the site of “environmental ontogenesis.” makes sure to cultivate and reproduce it, thus keep- Jane Bennett prefers the similar concept of “distrib- ing Pullman, and now Tommy Taylor, alive as fod- uted agency.” Katherine Hayles, in a related vein, es- der” (47). Hence, the rhetorical figure of metalep- tablishes a model of subjectivity as “environmental sis, as elaborated by Gérard Genette, is introduced feedback” (15). Finally, Donna Haraway has given in the dissertation as an example of structural cou- us the word “sympoesis,” borrowed from biologi- pling, a concept familiar to neo-cyberneticists. cal science, to describe a complex “becoming-with” Key to understanding the concept of structural that has broad ethical implications. I will return to coupling in the context of media systems are the this point in my conclusion. notions of affect and sensory perception. Drawing These theories all come together in Israelson’s on Brian Massumi, Israelson notes that “sensation “media-ecological definition of the fantastic.” His is always a process, temporal and spatial, in which 158 · Recensioner av doktorsavhandlingar different senses participate” (54). The comic book leaves us with the thought that The Unwritten folds then entails a distribution of the sensual, a synaes- us into a world with “two types of narrative and thetic experience of vision, touch, and movement. two versions of subjectivity.” One is archival, or To repeat Israelson’s argument in his own terms, archontic, and it is authoritarian and hierarchical. “While all media function as system-environment The other is anarchic and participatory, embody- hybrids, accordingly making an environmental het- ing the notion of sympoeisis. Israelson presents this erogeneity an integral part of its operation and en- is a battle between the archontic and the ecologi- gaging a distribution of the senses, it is nevertheless cal. While we would like to cheer for the ecological the case that the aesthetics of the fantastic opera- to smash the archontic, the author makes it clear tionalizes this heterogeneity” (55). In particular, the this is not a Manichean binary. Even the operation- world of Tommy Taylor presents us with a sensual ally ajar closure of an ecosystem “involves a selec- environment that is “organizationally ajar,” not just tion, and in this sense organization always means a a product of human subjectivity, but a process of limitation and a reduction of heterogeneity” (110). worlding that in Jane Bennett’s configuration, in- This is the problem of “open closure.” So in the volves “words on the page, words in the reader’s im- end of The Unwritten, the whale devours narrative aginations, sounds of words, sounds and smells in whole, and provides closure. But of course, the clo- the reading room, and so on, and so on – all these sure is not absolute, and The Unwritten concludes bodies co-acting are what do the job” (59). This is with a remainder, as Wilson Taylor descends once the vibrant text-body at work. again into the underworld. Ultimately, I could have Israelson is careful to distinguish this text-body reduced my entire summary of this chapter to a from the reader response theory of Wolfgang Iser, simple aphorism: The Unwritten is a “Moby-us the co-created text of Umberto Eco, and the writ- strip.” erly text of Roland Barthes. For each of these theo- Chapter two takes us from the sea of the Levia- rists there is still a closed system of reader and text, than to the Middle-Earth of hobbits. Here, the au- and there is still a hierarchy in which human sub- thor, having firmly established his concept of me- jectivity reigns supreme. In the media ecosystem, dia ecology, applies it toward a reading of J.R.R. there is no hierarchy. We are dealing instead with Tolkien’s work, life, and after-life. Put simply, this a flat ontology. chapter places Tolkien within a quantum universe From here, Israelson makes the suggestion that of vibrant matter in which discrete objects – in- genre itself acts as an ecosystem. In his words, “gen- cluding hobbits, wizards, and elves – express their res organize their environment, and in this sense agency in a media ecological environment that also function as a theoretical deduction, while at the includes books, movies, games, toys, and illustra- same time being organized by the environments to tions. Ultimately, the author depicts Tolkien’s pro- which they are coupled.” This chapter explores the tean oeuvre as an epic battle between archontic and work of several genre theories before landing on the ecological impulses. work of Lucy Armitt’s postmodernist conception This chapter looks at the production history of of the fantastic as a “transgressive mode, crossing Tolkien’s fantastic work, from his rise in popularity borders and challenging boundaries” (87). Still, Is- that came with the introduction of the paperback, raelson suggests that Armitt’s radically embodied to the role-playing games that struggled with the and distributed conception of fantasy is not radical archival impulse of copyright protection. But most enough, and that he is searching for an approach of this chapter is concerned with phenomenologi- in which “the postmodernist critique of the criti- cal and ontological aspects of Middle Earth as they cal categories of enlightened humanism is taken to relate to the genre of fantasy. Tolkien’s concept of its conclusion” (88). “Secondary Belief ” plays a central role in this chap- The more radical approach might be described ter. Not to be confused with the willing suspension as a theory of emergent textual bodies. This ap- of disbelief, Secondary Belief, as put forth by Tolk- proach is played out in Israelson’s discussion of The ien himself, seems to describe a heightened state of Unwritten, which, as a fantastic body, operational- participation and immersion, which Tolkien asso- izes the concept of “configurative textuality.” Af- ciates with Magic. The dissertation then sets out, ter demonstrating how The Unwritten embodies carefully, to test if Secondary Belief might fit the the concepts of cybertext, ergodic literature, unit model of participatory action that characterizes on- operations, and hypericon, chapter one ultimately togenesis and sympoeisis. Recensioner av doktorsavhandlingar · 159

As Israelson argues, the radical variability of par excellence. Not only do superheroes summon Tolkien’s texts, the versions and adaptations, which the transhumanist connotations of the word post- are coupled in systems of emergence with an active human, but they also serve to unseat the seem- readership might serve to “criticize a modernist, ing autonomy and stability of the liberal human- liberal humanist notion of literature” (135). Tolk- ist subject, a goal central to posthumanist philos- ien’s method of myth-making calls to mind the ac- ophy. Miracleman, the character, the comic book tivity of play brought on by “hermeneutic ambigu- series, and more, was chosen primarily because of ity in the text” (137). Not only are Tolkien’s main its conspicuous genesis, its storied past, its shift- texts riddled with unanswered secrets and shape- ing identity, and as Israelson puts it, its effective- shifting monsters twined in a feedback loop with ness as a “site and vehicle for investigating the func- the readership, but his mythology has generated an tion of cultural memory” (203). Miracleman, notes entire ecosystem of characters, things, and worlds Israelson, “probes the ethical and political func- far beyond Tolkien’s imagination. The discussion tion of narration, calling attention, by the elabo- comes to a head in Tolkien’s posthumously pub- rate folding of different layers of narration, to the lished book, The Children of Hurin, the last edi- intricate relation of storytelling and history, fiction tion of which was overseen by his son Christopher. and world building” (205). In Israelson’s words, “Every new version of the text This chapter pays specific attention to the de- – whether in manuscript or printed form – estab- sign of comic narrative itself, its panels, frames, lishes itself as the archontic version, as the ultimate pages, word balloons, and so on, which come to implementation of the official archive, while re- form what Israelson calls a “configurative textual- taining, by virtue of the configurative textuality ity.” It is clear, however, that the configuration is of the archontic, the impetus for new sympoeitic fluid. Here, the concepts ofarthrology and braid- configurations” (145). What the author does not ing are mobilized. Arthrology, which can be re- consider are the paternalistic implications of these strained or general, refers to both the sequenced configurations. layout of pages and the emergence of the comic The final section of chapter two moves from the book as a network. This latter meaning of arthrol- ecosystem of fan fiction, RPGs and parodies to the ogy, elaborated by Thierry Groensteen is enacted in parliament of things, including swords, rings, mir- an operation called “braiding” (215). The concept rors, and of course, secret books. It is through the of “braiding” puts comics in the world of machinic agency of such things, Israelson tells us, that “nar- assemblages, as things participating in a translin- rative becomes world” (166). He returns to the vi- ear ecology of readers, comics, and other things. In brant matter of Jane Bennett, supplementing it chapter three this ecology is punctuated by a play with Timothy Morton’s ethical notion of “ecolog- of identity between Miracleman, Captain Marvel, ical thought,” and perhaps most importantly, Em- and Marvelman. manuel Levinas’ ethics of asymmetrical responsi- The chapter moves from a consideration of the bility. Through Levinas, Middle Earth becomes genealogy of Miraclemen to a discussion of both a primer in the “non-reducible strangeness of the the form and content of individual issues, pages, other” (186), whether that other is an Orc, a sword, and panes of the comic, including a number of close a ring, or the 1969 paperback copy of the parody, readings. Responding to a two-page spread from Bored of the Rings. The chapter concludes with a Miracleman #14, in which Huey Moon’s danc- consideration of how radical otherness can pro- ing body merges with the white background of voke horror. The discussion is mediated primarily a complex page, Israelson provides the following through the enigmatic figure of Tom Bombadil, description: “Instead of offering an interpretation mysterious forest-dweller excommunicated from of the represented dance, the many different uni- the Peter Jackson movies because, perhaps, he is ties of representation involved in the page make simply too un-representable. Too other. Tom is, af- clear how meaning emerges as a momentary dis- ter all, “a thing that merely is.” tribution of positions, trajectories and movements. Chapter three reveals that Middle Earth is part Rather than reading the dance, reading becomes of a comic book sandwich in the dissertation, of the dance” (248). This is a good example of how which the second piece of bread is Miracleman. Is- comics, in Israelson’s terms, don’t just mean, they raelson uses this chapter as a medium for explor- also do something to their readers (267). To view ing the superhero as posthumanist configuration comics otherwise is to banish them to the world of 160 · Recensioner av doktorsavhandlingar

“capital L” Literature, with its authorial or archon- ear temporality. Central to this discussion is the in- tic view of subjectivity. terplay between autonomous subjectivity and eco- Chapter four focuses on William Blake’s work as logically distributed subjectivity. These two models an emergent media ecosystem that includes birds of subjectivity are not meant to be mutually exclu- and tygers, copper plates and acid, schizophrenic sive in The Invisibles, but form a dynamic structural demi-gods, and Rockefeller Center in New York coupling. To make his argument, Israelson exam- City. In fact, the chapter begins and ends at Rock- ines both the abstract cosmology of The Invisbles as efeller Center, with a meditation on Lee Lawrie’s well as specific frames of the comic, which are given Blake-inspired sculpture over the main entrance of close readings. A salient part of this close reading is the building. Immediately, this intrusion of pub- a discussion of the mythical, orb-like figure Barbe- lic art into the dissertation demonstrates the capa- lith, a figure that Israelson traces back to the globe ciousness of this Israelson’ conception of “media of blood in Blake’s Urizen, to the vortex in Blake’s systems.” Drawing heavily on the work of Roger composite design schema, and ultimately to the pe- Whitson and Jason Whittaker (perhaps too heav- riod at the end of the last sentence in the final issue ily), the dissertation adopts the term Zoamor- of The Invisibles. phosis to describe the participatory ontogenesis The chapter on Blake also includes a discussion of Blake’s work, which can be traced across a net- of Blake’s sublime aesthetics in his illustrations for work of contemporary cultural objects, from fan Dante’s Divine Comedy, and a lengthy examination art and comics to monumental sculpture. of Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy for children, His This chapter provides a brief overview of Blake’s Dark Materials, published between 1995 and 2000. method of illuminated printing, which W.J.T. The particular focus of this latter text is on the mys- Mitchell famously described as a composite art terious figure of Dust, which plays a complex agen- form that challenges modernist aesthetics. The tial role in Pullman’s book series and related me- radical variability that characterizes Blakean aes- dia, ultimately serving as a reminder that interpre- thetics embodies both Blake’s cosmological con- tation also entails participation. Eventually, this ception of “contraries” and also the conception of chapter comes to rest on a Lego block version of the fantastic as “hermeneutical ambiguity” (282). the Rockefeller Center Urizen, calling into ques- Israelson investigates two of Blake’s most ardent tion the role of commodification and consump- critics, Harold Bloom and Northrop Frye, both tion in the entire dissertation, topics that warrant of whom attempt to define Blake’s mythology as further investigation. a “structure of coherent meaning” (283). As Israel- With this in mind, I will note that there is an son notes, such attempts at systematizing Blake are underlying biopolitics that the author does not ad- doomed to failure, in part because of Blake’s radi- dress adequately in this study of mostly male art- cal aesthetics and cosmology, but also because both ists and audiences. This becomes painfully evident Bloom and Frye worked from an almost purely tex- in Israelson’s discussion of Haraway’s re-appropri- tual conception of Blake’s work, ignoring the com- ation of the word Cthulhu from H.P. Lovecraft, plexity of his printing methods, which produced a whom she accuses of misogyny and racism. As the vortex of images and texts. It is only by acknowl- author criticizes Haraway for respelling the word edging the complex materiality of Blake’s work – as Chthulu (thus reclaiming it by moving the letter in what Jerome McGann has called “media-specific ‘h’), he misses an opportunity to develop a politics analysis” – that one can ascertain their participa- for his ecology of the imagination, perhaps even tory aesthetics and approach Blake within a sym- an ecological ethics. This missing piece would cer- poeitic media ecology. That said, the dissertation tainly benefit the project’s evolution from disser- smartly considers what it means to study Blake’s tation to book, a development that I heartily en- work in digital form, thanks to the tremendous re- courage. sources of the Blake Archive. To demonstrate the extent of Blake’s media ecol- Marcel O’Gorman ogy, Israelson examines the comic book series The Invisibles, written by Grant Morrison. The Invisi- bles seems Blakean for a number of reasons, in part because it, like Blake’s cosmology, challenges West- ern metaphysics and conventional notions of lin-