Of Opaque Bodies and Transparent Eyeballs Democracy as Rhizomatic Panopticism in Paine’s The Age of Reason and Emerson’s Nature Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktorin/Doktor der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) eingereicht an der Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin von M. A. Aleksandra Boss Prof. Dr. -Ing. Dr. Sabine Kunst Prof. Dr. Ulrike Vedder Präsidentin Dekanin der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin der Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät Gutachterinnen und Gutachter: 1. Prof. Dr. Martin Klepper 2. PD Dr. Reinhard Isensee Datum der Disputation: 04. Mai 2018 2 Abstract The present dissertation introduces an interpretation of Thomas Paine’s THE AGE OF REASON (1794) and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s NATURE (1836) as politico-theoretical tracts that develop normative constructions of democracy. At the core of the analysis lies a comparative and historicist reading of the parameters of these constructions. The thesis informing the analysis posits that both normative constructions of democracy can be made explicit with the aid of the concept of a rhizomatic panopticism. The dissertation develops this concept on the basis of French poststructuralist texts and with theoretical approaches from the sociological field of Surveillance Studies in mind, explaining its relevance for the understanding of democracy during the Early-Republic and Antebellum periods in the USA. Furthermore, the discursive mediation of the introduced concept through the religious vocabularies of Deism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism in both tracts receives attention. Finally, a close reading puts forward how the distinct parameters of a rhizomatic panopticism are developed, represented, and discussed in both texts. Die vorliegende Dissertation stellt eine Interpretation von Thomas Paines THE AGE OF REASON (1794) und Ralph Waldo Emersons NATURE (1836) als politiktheoretische Traktate vor, die normative Demokratiekonstrukte entwickeln. Diese Demokratiekonstrukte werden anhand ihrer Parameter vergleichend und historisierend gelesen. Die Annahme ist hierbei, dass sich die normativen Demokratieentwürfe beider Autoren mithilfe der Denkfigur des rhizomatischen Panoptizismus explizieren lassen. Die Dissertation leitet diese Denkfigur anhand von Texten des französischen Poststrukturalismus und auf Grundlage des soziologischen Ansatzes der Surveillance Studies her und erläutert seine Relevanz für das Verständnis und die Verhandlung von Demokratie in den Epochen der frühen Republik und des Antebellum in den USA. Ebenso findet eine Analyse der diskursiven Vermittlung dieser Denkfigur durch das religiöse Vokabular von Deismus, Unitarismus und Transzendentalismus in beiden Traktaten statt. Ein ausführliches close reading legt schließlich dar, wie einzelne Parameter eines rhizomatischen Panoptizismus in den Texten entwickelt, repräsentiert und diskutiert werden. 3 Acknowledgements For their counsel, direction, and guidance I would like to express my gratitude to my doctoral supervisors, Prof. Dr. Martin Klepper and PD Dr. Reinhard Isensee. Their discipline and their commitment to research interests continuously prove to be invaluable inspirational examples. Further, I would like to thank all of my colleagues at the American Studies section of the Department of English and American Studies at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for creating a productive and interesting working environment on a daily basis. Finally, I thank my parents. Their optimistic support has encouraged me to pursue my interest in research and writing and to focus on the joys of both processes, wherefore this volume is inscribed to them. 4 To Mom and Dad 5 Contents 1. Introduction 6 2. From the “Surveillant Assemblage” to Rhizomatic Panopticism 23 3. Concepts in Normative Outlines of Democracy 36 4. Historical Contexts 63 THE EARLY REPUBLIC 64 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 85 JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 106 5. The Deism and Unitarianism of The Age of Reason and Nature 121 6. The Gaze 156 CONNECTIVITY 156 RECIPROCITY 167 EQUALITY AND EXCLUSIONS 182 7. Transparence 199 LANGUAGE 199 INTERFACES 214 HISTORIES 222 8. Normative Society 244 MULTIPLICITY 245 MOVEMENT 260 MATERIAL CONDITIONS 272 9. The Normative Citizen 285 THE CITIZEN AS INTEGRATING OBSERVER 285 THE CITIZEN AS SCIENTIFIC OBSERVER 293 THE CITIZEN AS RECIPIENT OF HEGEMONIC TEXTS 300 THE CITIZEN AS BODY WITHOUT ORGANS 308 THE CITIZEN AS SIGHTED WHITE MALE 318 10. Conclusion 329 Bibliography 336 6 1. Introduction The present thesis investigates two texts by two authors who have each significantly impacted the perception of language and literature during their lifetimes: Thomas Paine and Ralph Waldo Emerson. While the latter is credited with having written “the manifesto of Transcendentalism” (Marx 12) and thereby shaped one of the most notable streams in American antebellum literature, the former is sometimes extolled as “perhaps the most effective writer of persuasive literature in the history of the English language” (Ricketson and Wilson vii). The present investigation examines Emerson’s most famous treatise, Nature (1836), and Paine’s most infamous one, The Age of Reason (1794). These two texts, thus the argument here, warrant an analysis as imbued with a specific political meaning that exceeds their generally assumed suffusion with ideologically charged discourses and implicit alliances, commonly postulated to determine all texts to some extent. The analysis suggested here defines both texts as political, rather than religious or spiritual, manifestos of sorts – manifestos that contain propositions for the normative outline of a democratic sociopolitical structure. In both texts, I suggest, this democratic sociopolitical structure is marked by a high degree of connectivity between its participating elements, by the fundamental reciprocity of power relations between them, by a concomitant conscious negotiation of equality, multiplicity, and heterogeneity, as well as by a negotiation of transparence and direct access to power. Furthermore, both texts construct prescriptive features for both, the material conditions in which such a sociopolitical structure would thrive, and the normative citizen who is envisioned as the inhabitant of such an idealized democratic space. While there are differences between the specific features of Paine’s and Emerson’s respective outlines, I suggest that they do utilize one discourse to express their prescriptive, normative democratic visions. This discourse employs vocabularies pertaining to the semantic field of visual perception, which both authors vest in chiefly religious, spiritual, and more generally metaphysical terms. On account of its reliance on the semantic field of visual perception and because of the specific structural characteristics it privileges, I propose to refer to this discourse as ‘rhizomatic panopticism.’ With this reading, I contribute to those interpretations of Paine’s and Emerson’s work that attribute to them political significance specific to their respective historical contexts and the corresponding negotiations of democracy in projects of nation building. 7 When it comes to the research available on Paine, a chief interest in the connection of his writings with the various phases of his biography has to be noted. In fact, his biography is chiefly conceptualized in terms of his texts and vice versa. Therefore, Paine’s biographies do often comprise a detailed discussion of his pamphlets and tracts, while scholars purporting to analyze mainly Paine’s texts will often do so in connection with a discussion of his biography. Reading W. E. Speck’s Political Biography of Thomas Paine, one may conjecture that this approach derives from the necessity to compensate for the relative scarcity of documents or personal correspondences that could be used as “reliable documentary evidence” when composing an account of Paine’s life (xii). In the face of this shortage of documents, Speck goes on to note, “a story of Paine’s life has to be pieced together from a variety of sources, many being partial in both senses of the word” (ibid.). Edward D. Davison and William J. Scheick agree that “[w]hatever the detail and wealth of biographical information on Paine throughout his career, and especially in the dramatic times of his American and French experience, there is almost nothing about him as a living person” (26). Biographers’ paramount focus on his writings and their analysis may thus have originated in the necessity to compensate for the insufficiency of other suitable sources on which to base a narrative about Paine. In line with these observations regarding the intertwined nature of biographical background and textual production in scholarship on Paine, A. J. Ayers, for instance, sets out “to combine a sketch of his life and character with a critical examination of his political and religious standpoints” (xi). Gregory Claeys, in a similar vein, wants to amend what he evaluates as a “bifurcation in Paine studies” (3) characterized by previous scholarship’s failure to foster a convergence of Paine’s writings and expressed ideas produced in both the American and the European context (ibid.). He thus aims to be “integrating debates about Paine’s American and European works” (ibid.). In so doing, Claeys consciously tries to not merely recreate Paine’s biography, but to conceive of Paine as a political thinker. Using Paine’s biography as their chief orientation, William F. Ricketson and Jerome D. Wilson propose to view Paine “as a writer” (vii) who needs