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Thoreau's Melancholia, Walden's Friendship, and Queer Agency Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2017 Thoreau's Melancholia, Walden's Friendship, and Queer Agency Julia Morgan Leslie Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Leslie, Julia Morgan, "Thoreau's Melancholia, Walden's Friendship, and Queer Agency" (2017). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4437. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4437 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THOREAU’S MELANCHOLIA, WALDEN’S FRIENDSHIP, AND QUEER AGENCY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Communication Studies by Julia Morgan Leslie B.A., California State University Fullerton, 2007 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2012 August 2017 Acknowledgements First, I thank Dr. Nathan Crick. You revolutionized my research, writing, and thinking. As a student, I have never studied under an educator as committed as you to joining the duties of rhetorical research and pedagogy. I have you to thank for deprogramming me and returning me to Thoreau. Dr. Tracy Stephenson Shaffer, you made me understand how performance inquires. Through your teaching, I came to realize that how and what I perform to others affects what I know about myself. Most of my arguments involving performance studies in this dissertation should be credited to your professorship, performance direction, and festival chaperoning. Had I not been there to experience Petit Jean, I would still be struggling to transition and recover from melancholia. Words cannot eXpress my gratitude for what you have done to me. Dr. Andy King, thank you for bringing me many joyful ideas, a fondness for my graduate years, and a deeper respect for teaching. I particularly appreciate your advice to eXamine Thoreau’s journal for his emotional eXpression. Dr. Bryan McCann, we have not known each other very long, but during our short acquaintance, you have changed my research trajectory considerably by recommending that I read Michael Warner and José Esteban Muñoz. Without your input, Chapter One and the Conclusion chapter would not be what it is. Thank you. Dr. Griffin Campbell, your skill teaching music must be as keen as your way of being included in my committee meetings. Your questions during my comprehensive eXam helped me to remember that I do not know what I cannot teach. Thank you. Dr. Ruth Bowman, thank you for introducing me to performance studies. Before I saw Dr. Dappertutto, I thought that performance was merely nonverbal communication. Before I took your historiography seminar, I thought that genealogy was just for families. Thank you for letting me tend your garden and your menagerie. To Dr. John Protevi, thank you for teaching me Deleuze. Without your instruction, I doubt that I would have enjoyed producing this project. To my friends who I met in Louisiana, we are scattered far and wide now, but our continued friendship is still being felt. To Dr. Ben Haas, thank you for encouraging me to study Deleuze, and for standing up to water balloons and loud men. To Dr. Joe Rhodes, thank you for your counsel. To Dr. Nicole Costantini, thank you for remembering me; I owe you a road trip. To Anna Byars and Emily Graves, thank you for being amazing. To Dr. Stephanie Kilgore Heath, thank you for telling me about Ken Butigan’s article about Mark Jiminez and Beau Chandler’s gay marriage sit-in. As the dissertation’s opening and closing shows, that story is perfect for this project. Let me know when you run out of purple pens. To my endocrinologist, my psychiatrist and my therapist, thank you. Dr. Kristen Vierregger, thank you being there for the trans community and for doing your homework on bioidentical progesterone. Dr. Vitaliy Shaulov, you have changed my life by testing my DNA and uncovering my COMT and MTHFR single nucleotide polymorphisms. More people should test themselves for SNPs. Kim Quickel, you ii have kept me out of some dark spots. Without your care, I probably would have dropped out of grad school. This dissertation is for my mother; the life that produced it is owed to you, Mom. I love you. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements . ..........................................................................................................................ii List of Figures . .............................................................................................................................................vi Abstract . .................................................................................................................................................vii Introduction: Reawakening Desire with Wild Readings . ...................................................1 Exigence . .....................................................................................................................................4 Literature Review . ..................................................................................................................5 Method . .......................................................................................................................................14 Outline . ...........................................................................................................................................15 Coda .................................................................................................................................................15 Chapter One: A Narrative of Melancholia . ....................................................................................17 The Thoreau Family . ............................................................................................................18 Graduating Loss and Blunder . .....................................................................................23 Thoreau’s Heroic Journey into the Ether . ...................................................................36 Coda .................................................................................................................................................38 Chapter Two: Roots of Melancholia . .............................................................................................40 Melancholia . .................................................................................................................................43 Thoreau’s Early Career . .....................................................................................................46 A Week with Irony and Friendship....................................................................................50 Walking to the Crypt of Melancholia.................................................................................69 Coda .................................................................................................................................................73 Chapter Three: Reading Rainbow . ....................................................................................................75 Introducing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek . ...............................................................................79 Befriending Walden and Tinker Creek . ...........................................................................80 Coda .................................................................................................................................................89 Chapter Four: Walden’s Forms . .................................................................................................90 Review of Theory . .............................................................................................................93 Thoreau’s Language of Desire . .........................................................................................103 Thoreau’s Rhetoric of Ascent . ....................................................................................111 Coda . ...........................................................................................................................................124 Chapter Five: Walden’s Queer Agency . .................................................................................126 The Crisis of Agency . .......................................................................................................129 The Polemic’s Queer Rhetoric . .........................................................................................133 Coda . ...........................................................................................................................................147 iv Conclusion . ............................................................................................................................................148 Answering the Research Questions . ............................................................................150 Muñoz . .....................................................................................................................................151 Coda? . ..........................................................................................................................................158
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