The Body in Space: In Search of a Sensuous Dwelling in the Space of Accumulation By Alexandria Elizabeth Wright A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Judith Butler, Chair Professor Trinh, T. Minh-ha Professor Angela Y. Davis Professor Nadia Ellis Summer 2017 The Body in Space: In Search of a Sensuous Dwelling in the Space of Accumulation ©2017 by Alexandria Elizabeth Wright Abstract The Body in Space: In Search of a Sensuous Dwelling in the Space of Accumulation By Alexandria Elizabeth Wright Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Judith Butler, Chair This dissertation asks after the possibility of an unalienated relationship to the aesthetic dimension within the confines of the capitalist space of accumulation, and makes the argument for a conceptual foundation from which to consider living well under conditions of subjection. It does this by considering how aspects of 20 th century French phenomenology – conceptualizations of the body, of the aesthetic, and of space – might be brought to bear on questions that pertain to the dialectics of captivity and freedom under market capitalism. These questions are further opened by the works of bell hooks and Herman Wallace, whose contemporary projects take on a more explicit political urgency. In this way, the dissertation seeks to bring to the fore ways of reimagining the aesthetic through the question of dwelling in ways that are not free from the forms of subjection inherent in capitalism, but that nonetheless remain unassimilable to market logics. The first and second chapters of this work trace the conceptual foundations through which the aesthetic might be approached as a structuring force of lived experience. The first chapter turns to Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space and draws forth a Nietzschean account of the body in space. Reading the image of a tightrope walker that appears early in Lefebvre’s critique , the chapter attends to the conditions under which the body in space is capable of recuperating an aesthetic knowledge from the logics of abstract space. The subsequent chapter turns from Lefebvre’s account of the space of capitalist accumulation to Merleau-Ponty’s concept of flesh in order to foreground the structuring poetics of the body in space. I then turn to Bachelard’s Poetics of Space , opening onto a critical notion of “aesthetic dwelling.” Aesthetic dwelling is the fulcrum of the dissertation project, offering an account of life structured by felicitous experience of aesthetic dialectics. I read his prioritizing of the felicitous as an ontological move towards a space in which living can be taken up as a poetic and free experience; here, being does not find its dwelling in experiences of oppression. The final chapter addresses the question of accessing this lived experience of the aesthetic under the negative pressures of market capitalism. I focus on the aesthetic subject of capitalism as it emerges in rhetorics of ethical consumption and on the notion of luxury as it evokes and distorts the aesthetic’s non-utilitarian function. The dissertation concludes with an engagement of the “dream home,” first as the spatiality of the aesthetic 1 subject, and then as it emerges as a collaborative artwork between Herman Wallace and Jackie Sumell. There, I read Wallace’s dream home as a critical site of disidentification with luxury that opens onto a different, lived sense of the aesthetic. 2 Contents Acknowledgements ii Introduction iv Chapter 1: The Body in Space: Henri Lefebvre’s Tightrope Walker Chapter 2: Aesthetic Dwelling 17 i. Abstract Space and the Space of Accumulation 19 ii. The Body in Space 23 iii. Flesh Over the Abyss 29 iv. A Poetics of Dwelling 39 v. Toward a Consideration of the Space of Accumulation 43 Chapter 3: The Good-Life in the Space of Accumulation 45 i. The Sensuous Non-Real 51 ii. Luxury 54 iii. The Culture Industry 62 iv. The Aesthetic Dimension 72 v. Herman’s House 78 References 85 Bibliography 90 i Acknowledgements I have had the luck of working with a committee that has inspired and shaped me intellectually, creatively, personally and politically in ways that I can only understate in this document. It is impossible to imagine having made it through these eight years of graduate school without the steadfast support of my mentor and advisor Judith Butler. Her seminars on Hegel and Kafka were stunning exemplars of what is possible through critical thought and attention. I learned from these and from her new ways of thinking and was introduced to ways of finding pleasure in a text that have given life to these years of intellectual pursuit. The generosity, encouragement, and humor with which she guided me, time and again, through what I experienced as intellectual, political, and at times existential undoing, gave me the courage and capacity to complete this project. Everything that is worthwhile in it I attribute to her guidance and all that is not yet worthwhile I attribute to the ways that I have yet to catch up with the wisdom of her instruction. I am deeply grateful for the immense generosity and intellectual support I’ve received from Angela Davis. On one afternoon, she traced for me the full trajectory of Kant’s three critiques, in order to help me understand the full impact of his aesthetic theory. On another, she walked me through the politics of writing alongside both cultural objects and philosophical texts. On another, she impressed on me that understanding difficult writing, working to understand it, was a crucial form of intellectual labor. It was in these moments and moments like them that I found myself fully in awe of both the beauty and impact of philosophical thought. Her seminar, Critical Theory in the Marxist Tradition, introduced me to the significant questions of aesthetics with which this project attempts to grapple. Some of my most important learning has come from the questions offered to me by Trinh Minh-ha over the last eight years, through her seminar on the voice, through our individual conversations, and through her films. They are questions about intimacy, about forms of attention, and about my relationship to my own work and writing that my mind still swims around in silent moments. The space between her suggestion that I might know the answers and the ways in which I have yet to articulate them has become one of my most profound. It is a space that is scary and that also feels charged with all the possibilities of creativity. I am energized by what I sense is there to encounter and I am deeply grateful to her for bringing this level of seriousness and depth to my intellectual life. From the earliest moments of my graduate career, I have looked to Nadia Ellis as an intellectual supporter and as a mentor. Her course, Queer of Color Critique, was foundational to my understanding of the political stakes of scholarship and the possibilities for creativity within academic work. Through that course, through her writing, and through her thoughtful encouragement of me and my work, she has offered me a view of inspired intellectual engagement and has taught me how to exist and understand myself as a scholar. Beyond my committee, I am grateful to the many faculty members who have engaged my work and offered me crucial support, including Lucy Corin, Monica Miller, Leigh Raiford, Hsuan Hsu, Christina Hanhardt, Michell Tollinchi-Michel, Michael Mascuch, and Charis Thomson. I am grateful also to the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program and especially to my strong, beautiful, Barnard MMUF family. I am grateful to Rosalind Rosenberg, Vivian Taylor, Christia Mercer, Tim Halpin-Healy, and Cathryn Bailey, for supporting me, for pushing me to think, and for encouraging me to take my own thoughts seriously. I am deeply ii thankful to the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project, and to Madeline Lim, Stephanie Yan, and Kebo Drew for their support of my film work that came to sustain me during this process. To my co-thinkers and conspirators, Althea Wasow, Michelle Ty, Amanda Armstrong- Price, Amira Silmi, Jason Ferguson, Emily O’Rourke, and Maya Kronfeld, thank you for being forceful interlocutors and friends. I am grateful to you also, and to Louise Ly, Cindy Bello, Pascal Emmer, Alana Price, Ianna Hawkins Owens, Chela Delgado, Molly McClure, Munira Lokhandwala, Emi Kane, Jonah Mandis, Maryani Palupy Rasidjan, Hsuan Hsu, Lucy Corin, and Kathleen Frederickson, for your generous hearts, your humor, and your kindness that have mattered immensely and have made this time in graduate school worthwhile. Thank you to Johanna Rothe for your care and for your strong support of me and my work. And thank you especially to Suzanne LiPuma, for your spiritual and intellectual comradery these eight years. Reading together, co-teaching Rhetoric Aesthetics, and our endless writing sessions have shaped my intellectual life in enormous ways. I have learned so much from our conversations and have grown so deeply through our friendship. To Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Nick Mitchell, thank you for leading the way. I look to you fondly as my companions on this journey. Thank you to Patricia Aguilo, Diana Caba, Eustacia Huen, Niki Traci, Adriana Edmond and Andrew Mckay for your deep and indelible friendships over the past twenty years and counting. The bonds I have with you have lifted my spirit tremendously throughout this process. To Michelle, Suzanne, and Pascal, thank you for coaching me over the finish line and for the love and determination with which you held my hand.