Deconstructing Martial Arts
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DECONSTRUCTING MARTIAL ARTS Paul Bowman Deconstructing Martial Arts Paul Bowman Professor of Cultural Studies Cardiff University, UK Published by Cardiff University Press Cardiff University PO Box 430 1st Floor, 30-36 Newport Road Cardiff CF24 0DE https://cardiffuniversitypress.org Text © Paul Bowman 2019 First published 2019 Cover design by Hugh Griffiths Print and digital versions typeset by Siliconchips Services Ltd. ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-911653-00-4 ISBN (PDF): 978-1-911653-03-5 ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-911653-01-1 ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-911653-02-8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.18573/book1 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (unless stated otherwise within the content of the work). To view a copy of this license, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal but not commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated. If the work is remixed, transformed or built upon, the modified material cannot bedistributed. The full text of this book has been peer-reviewed to ensure high academic standards. For full review policies, see https://www.cardiffuniversitypress.org/site/research-integrity/ Suggested citation: Bowman, P. 2019. Deconstructing Martial Arts. Cardiff: Cardiff University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18573/book1. License: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.18573/book1 or scan this QR code with your mobile device: Contents Acknowledgements vii Preface ix Introduction: (De)Constructing Martial Arts (Studies) 1 Deconstructing What? 1 Constructing Martial Arts Studies 9 The Construction of this Book 14 Chapter One: The Triviality of Martial Arts Studies 19 Introduction 19 Triviality Studies 25 Chapter Two: Theory Before Definition in Martial Arts Studies 33 Dealing with Disciplinary Difference 33 Approaching Martial Arts Studies 35 Hoplological Hopes 37 Moving from ‘Thing Itself’ to ‘Field Itself’ 39 The Paradigms of Martial Arts Studies 42 Against Definition 44 For Theory 45 Defining Problems: Relationality before Definition 48 Changing Discourses 51 Optimistic Relations 53 Alternative Discourses 55 The Stabilization of Martial Arts 58 Chapter Three: Martial Arts and Media Supplements 61 Martial Bodies 61 Martial Movements 63 Moving from Primary to Supplementary 65 Disciplined Movements 71 iv Contents Chapter Four: On Embodiment 75 Introduction (Trigger Warning) 75 A Brief History of No Body 76 Being Haunted by The Body 77 In The Beginning Was The Word – and Pictures 79 How To Do Things With Guts 81 Simulacra and Stimulation 84 The Body of Knowledge 84 For Better or for Worse, in Sickness and in Health 88 Chapter Five: Taoism in Bits 91 A Bit of Orientation 91 A Bit of Taoism 92 Taoism’s Travels 93 The Circulation of Yin-Yangs 96 Eurotaoism 97 A Bit of East is East and West is West 98 A Bit of Difference 100 Getting it, a Bit 104 Chapter Six: Mindfulness and Madness in Martial Arts Philosophy 107 Training Rust 110 Zen Again 112 Philosophize-a-babble 113 Madfulness Meditation 114 Philosology and Psychosophy 116 Chapter Seven: Fighting Talk – Martial Arts Discourse in Mainstream Films 125 Introduction 125 Popular Cultural Discourse 126 Methodological Matrix 129 Blurred Lines 129 Liminal Cases 131 Contents v Libidinal Cases 132 From Kinky to Kingly to General 136 Fighting Talk 141 Conclusion 143 Conclusion: Drawing the Line 147 Bibliography 153 Index 165 Acknowledgements This work is the result of preoccupations, reflections, theoretical and analytical explorations and research projects that have been developing and coalescing over several years. It represents a contribution to the current elaboration of the new field of martial arts studies and it also seeks to intervene into the emerging field of physical cultural studies. For its existence I am indebted to a range of individuals. Thanks go first to all at Cardiff University Press for considering this book in the first place. Second, thanks go to the editorial board of thePhysical Cultural Studies book series: David Aldous, Eva Bischcoff, Eric Burkart, Alex Channon, Broderick Chow, Sara Delamont, T.J. Desch-Obi, Daniel Jaquet, George Jennings, Ben Judkins, Royona Mitra, Janet O’Shea, and Ben Spatz. Invitations to speak at fascinating conferences, seminars and events produced the germs and core ideas of several of the chapters, so I owe thanks to several of my hosts. First, for their kind invitation to give a keynote at the conference Martial Arts and Society: On the Societal Relevance of Martial Arts, Combat Sports and Self-Defence (the 5th Annual Meeting of the Committee for Martial Arts Studies in the German Association for Sports Sciences, German Sport University, Cologne, 6-8 October 2016), I thank Prof Dr Swen Körner, Leo Istas, and the DVS committee. The keynote I gave there has been combined with an editorial written for the journal Martial Arts Studies on the same issues and it ultimately became Chapter Two (Judkins and Bowman 2017). Equally, I would like to thank Dr Haili Ma, formerly of the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University, for her kind invitation to me to give a public viii Acknowledgements lecture to mark the Chinese New Year celebrations at Cardiff University in 2017. Chapter Five developed from that original presentation. Similarly, I thank Professor Stéphane Symons for an invitation to speak about the philosophy of Asian martial arts at a public festival of philosophy in Leuven in 2017. The presentation I gave there grew into Chapter Six. Also, I would also like to thank Evelina Kazakevičiūtė for her invitation to present what became Chapter Seven at a conference on film dialogue at Cardiff University in 2017. (A different version of this paper appears in the special themed Issue 13 of JOMEC Journal edited by Kazakevičiūtė.) Others have invited me to write pieces that I have reworked and incorporated here. Olivier Bernard invited me to write a piece on martial arts studies to be translated into French and published in a collection to be published by Université Laval Press. I have adapted and refocused that paper and worked it up as the Introduction to the present book. Similarly, Chapter One was developed from an editorial written for the journal Martial Arts Studies (Bowman and Judkins 2017). Thanks also to Tim Trausch, who invited me to write an afterword to his collection, Chinese Martial Arts and Media Culture. This became the core of Chapter Three. Finally in this category, Chapter Four developed from a work first written for a collection entitledConversations on Embodiment edited by Jennifer Leigh (Leigh 2018). All of the presentations and papers that have been incorporated into the various chapters of Deconstructing Martial Arts have been modified, adapted, refocused, retooled and developed for the present context. I thank everyone who invited me to contribute to their projects for stimulating me to look into matters that I might otherwise have avoided entirely, whether because of their complexity, my lack of expertise, or both. I would also like to thank Kyle Barrowman, who has always proved to be a tireless and invaluable intellectual sparring partner and whose eagle-eyes have improved many manuscripts over recent years. Final thanks are due to the anonymous peer reviewers whose insightful readings offered some extremely valuable comments, criticisms and suggestions. In reworking the final draft of this manuscript, I have attempted to engage with both the letter and the spirit of their comments. Needless to say, all errors are entirely my own. Preface What is the essence of the martial arts? What is their place within or their relationship to culture and society? This book,Deconstructing Martial Arts, analyses issues and debates that arise in scholarly, practitioner and popular cultural discussions and treatments of martial arts, and it argues that martial arts are dynamic and variable constructs whose meanings and values shift, mutate and transform depending on the context. Martial arts serve multiple functions and can be valued and devalued in numerous ways. Furthermore, it argues that the act of deconstructing martial arts can be a valuable approach both in the scholarly study of martial arts in culture and society and in expanding wider understandings of what and why martial arts are. Placing martial arts in relation to key questions and concerns of media and cultural studies around identity, value, imagination and embodiment, Deconstructing Martial Arts seeks to show that the approach known as deconstruction is a uniquely insight- ful method of cultural analysis. To do so, the book deconstructs key aspects of martial arts to reveal the ways that their construction always involves political, ideological and mythological dimensions. Using deconstruction as a method of analysis, Deconstructing Martial Arts contributes both to academic debates and practitioner understandings of martial arts as cultural practices. The Introduction demonstrates that martial arts are variable social constructs and sets out the key concerns of the emergent field of martial arts studies. The work then interrogates the question of whether x Preface martial arts might be regarded as ‘trivial’, as some perspectives and values might suspect (Chapter One). After deconstructing and recasting this debate, Chapter Two explores the problem of definition. Can we define martial arts? Do we need to? The chapter argues that, contrary to many impulses in the study of martial arts, what is required is rigorous theory and analysis before definition in martial arts studies. This is because, asChapter Three clarifies, martial arts are constituted via all manner of supplements, including media supplements. Chapter Four takes this insight into the realm of a key emergent field of study, ‘embodiment’, in order to problematize certain understandings of embodiment.