Performance: Crit Concepts

LA ~ 'lCfOb

PERF OR MANCE Critical Concepts in Literary

and Cultural Studies

Edited by Philip A uslander

Volume III

I~ ~~_~~t!;,~R:ul'

I (IN l ldN liNO NI W VORK

cLLl

CO N TENTS

YOLUME 111

A ckl10wledgemenls

tX

I'ART I

First publishcd 200.1

by Routledgc

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1.1 Pel/orming sciellce

45 From science to theatre: dramas of spcculative thought

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3

GAUTAM ))"SGUI'TA

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Science and social science

46 Performance and production: the relatioD between science as inquiry and science as cultural practice

11

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1.2 Socia! he!1al';or as perj{¡r/1/al1ce

IUCII A RD IlAUMAN

-IX A performance-centered approach to gossip

61

){()(j J: R D. AB R A IIAMS

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-Il) ISBN 0-415-25511-2 (Set)

ISBN 0-4 15-255 14-7 ( Volumc 111)

32

-17 Yerbal art as performance

nccoming other-wise: conversalional performance and Ihe politics of cxperience

75

I.J-:( )NARI) 1'. I IAWI S J>lIblr.ln:r·~ Rd~ ' n'IIuke Un ivcrsity Press for permission to reprint Joscph Roach , "The future Ihal workcd ", Thealer 8(2) (1998): 19- 26. © 1998 b y D uk e University Press , Thc National Communication !\ssociation (formerly known as the Speech ( 'ol11l11unicatio\1 Assoeiation) 1'01' permission to reprint R ichard A . Rogers, " Rhythm and the performance of organ ization " . Texl al1d Per/ormance ()¡llIrlerly 14(3) (1994): 222 ·237. © 1994 by the Speeeh Commllnication Associatiol1. 1)ukc University Press for permission to reprint Miranda Joseph , 'The per­

rormance 01' prod uction and consumption", Social T ex! 16( 1) (1998): 25- 62. ,,') 1998 by Duke University Press, Thc Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press for pcrmission to rcprint Philip Auslander, " Lcgally live", TDR: The Joul'na! o/Per/órnlClllcc Sludies 41(2) (1997): 9- 29. © 1997 New York University and the Massachusetts 1nstitute of Technology Press,

Oisclaimer The publishers have made every effort to contact authors/copyright holders IIrworks reprintcd in Per/ol'mal1ce: Critical COl1cepts in Lilerary ami Cultural ,'l/lldies. This has not been possible in evcry case, howevcr, and we would wdcome corresponden ce from those individuals/companies who \Ve have heen unable to trace.

Note I'holographs included in the original books I artic1es have not been reprinled here.

Duke University Press for pcrmission to reprint Una Chaudhuri , " There must be a 101 offish in that lake': toward an ecological theater", Thealel' 25(1) (1995): 23 - 31. © 1994 Thealer. The Massachusctts Institllle 01' Technology Press for permission to reprint Flin IJ iamond, " Brechtian lheory/remini:.;t theory : toward a gestic ferninist crit icism ", r DR: nI/' ./0111'/1(/1 of' Per/ (¡ I'I/wnt'c S (ud¡e.\, 32( 1) (1988): 82--94. IC" 19HI-i Ncw York I Jllivcrsil y und lhe M 'I~ sachllsetls InstitU!e ofTechnology. .~

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45 FR()M SCIENCE TO THEAT R E

Dramas of speculative thought

Gautam Dasgupta :;""."": f'( 'rfiJrll/ing Arl.l' JOU/'/llIf 9(2 3) (1985 ): 2:\7 246 ,

:\llistic practice and scientific inquiry are commonly pen:eived as distinctly op­ 1" l:;cd modes 01' thoughí. 1'he underlying assumption is that art- specifically IlIé:! tre in this case- eoncerns itself with human amI social relations, while :.rlc nce purvcys the domain of physical reality. Sinee at Ieast the early nine­ h.'l'nth century, however, such divergences have on occasion been breached . 1'111: incursions 01' newer forms 01' investigative disciplines- Darwinism, h c udianism, behaviorism, social scicnecs- have all made their mark on the ,11 a lila and theatre 01' recent times. lt can be argued. though. that as the abovc disciplines are not rigidly seientific in approach. their usurpatí on by thc .Irlislic mind has been made that much easier. 1'heir referent is the human IlIind. not formulations about the nature 01' reality. (>1' course. aligning such humanistic disciplines with artistie practice be­ 11 .l ys a myopic view 01' how ideas in various spheres 01' activity interpenetrate IIl1 e anolher. 1'0 take just one instance from an earlier century , did not I krbcrt Spencer, precursor of Darwin amI theorist of social evolution , sup­ 1'1111 his c1aims by acknowledging the physical principIes 01' the conservation '1Il:llergy? Could we noL then , resurrect this missing scientific link in discuss­ IIl t' Ihe dramatic works 01' 701a, Hauptmann and Strindberg, for example, as I n~ lanccs 01' a dcterministic dramaturgy where aesthetic and structurallaws ,h-rivc I'rom an accepted scicntific paradigm? 1'he prel'erred methodology has ¡'l'~'n lo sludy thcir plays as expressive ol' evolu[,Íonary processes that have h ~'C n "llInnanizcd." í,c. , fol' theír residual implications in the realm of human ;IL"Iivil y. What I 1" COllrsc, Forcman's theatre is not all an extension of the mind. The mind­ "ody dualism 01' Descartes is implied in the lIysteric hall' 01' his theatre . Ilyslcria (dcrivcd from the Greek hyslera, meaning uterus) suggests a neu[­ ,,1 ic condition stemming from somatic traits and assuming strange mental l"llllligurations. Again , in an equationary mode, i1' ontology rartakes of the pn~Sl~T1ce of" being, hysteria subsumes both body and mental sta tes. In addi­ I iOIl, frolll the semantic point of view, the utcrllS, souce 01' the becoming of hcing, joins torces with the ontological quest. The nakcd body (more often 1l:lIlalc Ihan male), a quintessential part 01' the 0-11 Theatre, points to this 11I1\!lTclalionship bctwecn the mind-body, ontology-hysteria dualism . Is body 41 " maller a further exlension to be attributed to pure reason? Or does the "ud y gellerate thought ami actions of thc mind? These are questions for 11l"lIn' biohlgisls (an d lha t d iscirlinc may well be one 01' lhe last fro ntiers 01' ~l' ie l1l"e lod uy ), bul thcy lIl'\: also ljuestions wit h wh ich R o bert Wilson has 1"I'lI cc nll~d hilllsd r wilh Ihese r asl k~w years .

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Rohlll W lhtlll 11:11> ¡'Cl' f\ hll llW II 1., lla ve \V\ II k..:d wlllI Illclllally illlpaired d ll Id n':lI illlll ~ pa~H Irallli h llli,: sllrspaeealld lim¡; a mgc lIl'rall:d rmm rcason ill the Ihca lrc 01' I;nro/llan, io W ilsll n':; work they are gcne raled rmm how the braill Illlt only pl'lu:ivcs lhese parametcrs bllt how it gocs about creating 1hem. Ifmatter is extenuateu in Foreman's theatrc, time unuergoes a similar shift in Wilson ' s vast spectacles. Time is now atomizcd into uiscrete units. Percep­ tion is what interests both these practitioncrs of stagecraft, although in the former spatiaJ perception becomes paramount. while in Wilson to perceive in time does so. For him , to pcrccive in timeis to see how the very act of perceiv­ ing and what is being perceiveu undergo a change. In this respect, of course, Wilson's enterprise belongs to the natme of quantum mechanics where the very act of observation changes the reality of that which is bcing observeu. lt may seem ouu that in Wilson time is atomized , since what we experience in his stagings is the elongation 01' time stretcheu out over an infinitely long continuum. In essence, what seems paradoxical is not the case, beca use by extenuating time we become conscious ofeach passing moment oftime. Per­ ception in time, with a nod to the nature oflight, is what resulted in Einstein 's theories of relativity , with his famous example of clocks that slow down , and other bewildering parauoxes. In Wilson's use of time dilation one suspects a certain coming to terms with a similar relative nature of time. Once the relative natme of time is positeu in the Wilsonian theatre , simul­ taneity of experience also enters the theatrical matrix. While there are always crucial densities of experience concentrateu in space in Foreman 's theatre , with action contemplated at a uistance anu movement transposeu from one area of the space to another, in Wilson's theatre spaee is not so uistinctly demarcateu. The relative nature of time allows Wilson to portray uifferent actions at different places that may not be visible from either location anu yet taking place at the same time and within the same structure of theatrical experience (as he uiu in Jran with a week-Iong production spreau out over vast distances or as he continues to do in the vast confines 01' his stagings). AI1 ofthis begins to look very much like the uiscontinuous nature ofreality that q uantum mechanics revealed to physicists in the first half ofthis century. Observations on the path of atomic particles uisplayeu strange wave func­ tions that, in their motion , uemolisheu trauitional theories of continuity in the llniverse. So extreme were the mathematical formulations to uescribe the aberrant aod chaotic behavior offunuamental particles that causal principies had to be abandoneu in uealing with the precise location or momentum of these microscopic constituents of matter. The present could not be preuicteu on the basis of the past, and knowleuge orthe present was of no help in ueter­ l1lining lhe fllture direction a particle might lake. Loss of continuity in terms 01' 1cmporality a ml Jircctio na lily openeu up visions of a fluid, changing anu inlcJ'c hangea blc(;()nstrllc t or n:u lily. 1t is Ihe rea lily o r a Wil son spectaele, where hisllll·ic ll su hjcc ls, ¡')criods :1 11 ilila k alld ina nimah.: li li.: mcld inlll onc ¡(Ilolher.

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Ptlh:, ing al"lilllls lake place (1 11 a WiI:-,ol\ stagc, l~ach lolally separa le fmm ,lIl' olller a lld llllilCd onl y by lh e passage ortilllc, which in tllrn is different for I".ldl (lhsl'rvér . This Icads to the slIbjectivity (as opposeu to the Foremanesque , ,, Iipsislll) Ihal is al lhe hearl 01' Wilson 's project. He uoes not aim for a 1'\"ln: plion lllal is elear and distinct; in fae!, to daydream al his theatre is .,'\.'11 as an assd by Wi1so11 himsc1f. This again has bearing 00 the nature , ,1 sl1l1uJtancily. Ilow can it be possiblc, he seems to be asking, that while per­ 1,·lvil1g a given material stimuli our minus eontinue to urirt onto visualizing IIlw ~mlly other images of reality? Js there a surreal rea1ity of which we are \uhlil11inally awarc even when confronteu with objective reality'? Taken to its n ln'l11c, what is questioneu here is the smallest unit of time in which a IhllUI',lIt ¡¡rises in our mind in pure isolation , without further eontamination ,,1 otllcr lcvc1s 01' thought-experience anu simultaneity. Th ese qllcstions are II11W being increasingly posed by brain researchers through stuuies in Neuro­ IlIl't ries, evokeu response patterns, and the fascinating stuuy of P300 (or P3) \\la ves, lhc last a time-baseu stuuy of neural firing that attempts to ueterminc lite prccise moment at which a thought is formeu anu cmanateu. In adJition , the very tenuous nature oftime and the consequent simultane­ 1I y (Ir spatial configurations leau to the amorphous q uality of Wilson 's stage I'iclllre in contrauistinction to the angularity of Foreman's stagings. One '\l uId cven say that circularity is what further uefines Wilson 's stagc experi­ IIIL'nls. (In fact , it is no coineiuence that he collaborateu with Philip Glass, \IIJy de Groat, anu the repetitive, albeit angular, dancc structure of Lucinua ( 'ltilds, each of whom uisplays a concern for fluidity through repeatedly "' I1l11css gestures in time of unitizeu spatial movement.) Each repeateu move­ IIlcnl is seen anew at a uifferent time scheme, perceiveu accoruing to patterns, Iltl' rccognition 01' which is increasingly being auvanceu as the means whereby WI.: gain know1euge of the \Vorlu arounu US o Pattern recognition , with its ', pa lial and temporal attributes, has longattracteu stuuies in brain formation. J;rom an alternative viewpoint, Wilson 's blurring 01' space anu time is 1';[J'allc1eu in the sciences where space itself is cndowed with time attributes .llld vice-versa . J ust as the geometric mouel of the atom has given way to an ,1I11orphous cJouu picture vieweu more in terms of energy anu its spatial­ 11'11I)10ral ueflnitions, so too have Wilson 's spectac1es, whieh appear in our P"'lcl!plual mechanisllls with as much consistency as that 01' a uream or vlsion. ;\nd final1y , if space and time can so easily be interchangeu (not unlike IlIl' rael that 1ight also can be both a wave anu a partic1c). then is it not ppssihlt for alternative rca1ities to co-exist? TI1\': plura1ity and simultancity of rca1ities is what, I believe. continues to t,lsCin¡llt.: Wilson wilh the workings of physieally anu mental1y-impaireu drildrcn. IJi-- wi,) rk wi lh deaf a mI n sistently. Rontgcn 's efforts (and I: ¡

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!lh)"~' 1I 1 hi s Clll\h: mpIlrilrics) IOIlIl J \.' I/;tll lld whal \Vas ma king h is scilltill"lion r.¡: I l'l.' lI p,low is all CX il lllp1c (, !'thilo l-.inJ 01 resc.arch programo In such research, ""'PI isls :II C looking to writc thc thcory l' r ~cript, as it werc, for a series 01' PI" IO IIlI:IIICl'S that have becn consistcntly executed. A successful writing 01' 11\1' S l ' l ipt pn,:sllll1ably would show the possibility 01' perfo rmances in other I 1ll' llIlIslam;cs, and possibly 1ead to their standardization. S\'l'IlIld, scientilic rescarch may be directed to preparing a performance for 1I Il' lirsl timc. In more traditional language, this would be "discovering" a 1'1 1l.' II!IIllCnOn predicted by theory . Seeking a subatomic particle predicted by 1hl'o ry is an example of this kind of research. liere, ex perimenters are lookin g lo I'>CC whcther a certain performance can be achieved , so to speak, on the 11oI~¡s 01' VtI\t1J he a mistakc to rcd u l.'~ the production to an antifascist diatribe . Some , 111 ics d iú so, 01' COl\ I"'C. nul Wc lks's J I/liu.\' ('ac',I'a/' was a play, anJ not only a '.Ii l t 01' 111l.:a tri.:a l np-cd pie\.'\: n.: ,~ p\llldill g. to lhe spccifi c po1ilical context: 1'.1

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indcéd, il \Va s IlIc .\'(////(' play IlIal hall appeared in many other political con­ lexls ami beclI spokt:n in a difieren! way in each. Silllilarly, sciencc is not just Iheory, for theories are fragile ; they are theor­ ies ojperformances and the aim is lo represent the phenomenon that puts in an appearance in performance. Nor is science only data , for data are fluid ; data are descriptions of the way something appears in a particular context, and science is interested in the phenomenon that appears rather than merely how it appeared. Science is not just the production of literar1' texts, as " laborator1' studies" peoplc often would have it, for these texts are aecounts of pcrformances or the preparation for such performances, Science is not j ust about the domination and control of nature, for performances ínvolve not mastery or control but play, Nature is no! infinitely plia ble, not a11 perform­ ances are possible. and one must engage Nature to " play along" in order to discover the rules of that play. Science is not just about economic or polit­ ical praxes, as social studies of science scholars occasionally imply, nor is il about the c1ash of ambítiou$ personalities, as some journalism would have it, because these relate only to the social dimension involved in the prepara­ tion of performances; experimentation is a fJoiesis , or a bringing-forth of some phenomenon through praxes, One could just as legitimately c1aim that theatre is about box office, or the clash of ambitious personalities, or the desire for fame or power, and so forth, Social forces have theír place in the appearing of phenomena in performance, but if human beings were not interested, fascinated , and preoccupied by the perforlllances, they would not happen. If we víew scientific activity without the productive aspect , as pos­ itivism attempted to do , then we have no understanding of the role of social and historical forces al work in it. If, on the other hand, we view science without the performance aspect ami concentrate wholly on the productive aspect, as the social studies ol' science scholars often do, then we are ín danger of seeing in science onl1' the arbitrary clash of forces, I t would be Iike flying over a soccer game in an airplane sufficiently high up so that one can see the compctitors but not the ball; the players will seem to ebb and flow in a series of interesting beh aviors exhibiting many difterent patterns--patterns that could be described empirically in great detail--but the key element thal would allow us to grasp the real meaning of the game would be invisible, Consider, as ao example, the light that Ihe performance-production model sheds on the controversy over the nature, desirability, and dangers of " Big Science," which involves scientific production, Alvin Weinberg, then director ofOak Ridge National Laborator1', coined the phrase in a 1961 article entitled " lmpact of Large-Scale Science on the United States."s Ever since, "Big Science" has been a stanJ a rd term in the lexicon of those who write a bout scicnce, Iho ugh no t ulways with Ihe sume connotations. W hile Wcinberg, for instant e, was call1ionary ahoul Ihe prospecl anJ strcssed the da ngcrs ofl arge ~c i en l ilic prujecls. othcrs wele clIl h usiaslk; and elllph a~ i7.cd 1I1l' o pporllln­ il i\:s . T\lday, " lJ ig Sck'llc\'!" is f.l'll cra lly lJscd as a tcrm (Ir o ppl\lhd1lJ II ,

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I,alge scicntilic projecls pose cerlain dangcrs , Weinbcrg wrote, including '1lIOm:1'ilis" (cxpending mone1' not thought), "jo urnalitis" (public rather litan scicntilic debate on plojects), and "administratitis" (an overabllndance IIf ad1l1inistrators), He criticized the 1l1anned space program for "hazard, ex pense, and rclevance," and was unenthusiasüc about large accelerators, which werc more scientifically valid but equally remote from human con­ l'lTns. Ile wondered whether such projects would sap reso urces of seienee and ~;()cicty, and proposed redirecting money to "scie ntific issues which bear more directly on human well-being. " Weinberg's aim, however, was not to cast IlIdglllent but to inaugurate "philosophic debate on the problems of scientific \"Iloice."r, Big Science, he felt, introduces new issues into science policy that Illllst be exposed and addressed lcst they be settled by default at the expense ..1' scientiflc "productivity" (note that this word has a different Illeaning from \Vllat I have called " production ," but the use 01' both terllls in this chapter is IIl1avoidable), But additional issues have appeared in the intervening years ;lIId Ihe debate over the value of Big Science and its impact on productivity has continued unabated ,7 Productivity is notoriously difficult to measure and even define, regardless •lf the field. Consider agriculture, for instance, where the definition and dl'tcrmination ofproductivity might seem, erroneously, to be re1atively straight­ l. llward.' To take a simplistic exalllple, a farmer faced with a choice 01' wha.t 1.. plant on a particular plot of land could decide to maximize Illonetary JlI olit, number of calories per acre, amount of protein per acre, sccurity of the harvest, number of calories per Illan-hour 01' labor, prestige of tlle farm , and ',11 I"orth , There is, in short, no single index 01' productivit1', Each option Illl'nlioned is guided by a difTerent set of possible values which puts into play ;1 dilTerent index ofproductivity and suggests a different crop, In practice, of .'I)1lrSe, no sole value would likel1' be given entire priority and the actual 1 IIllcome would be some compromise. 111 science, the matter is further complicated beca use, Weinberg says, the product," the understanding of and ability to manipulate nature, can be ~'v: lll1aled by two differeut kinds of measures which he called "i nternal" ami \'.\ll.'l'I1al" criteria . lnternal criteria "arise from within the science itself, or 11I11Il its social structure and organization," while external criteria "stem from I hl' social or other setting in which the science is embedded. "9 Neither kind, in 111111, involves a single index of productivity; within each set different possible l':rllIl:S can be identified implying different indices. 111 practicc, as the working scicntist knows only too \Vell, the decision of wllidl scientiric projccts to support is the outcome of a highly political pl OIXSS gcnc rally invol ving compromises between a number of different Inle rnal anJ exlern al values, Moreover, the social neg()tation involved takes 1,1 :r ~' e 011 :J l1 ulllhcr 01" di lTcrcll1 leveh, Science, for insta nce, competes \Vith a Illllllhl.: r 01' olller acl ivi lies Ilt at ;rlso are pcnJeived lo be 01' SOJ1)e economic, IlIili!;II>,. l"IllllIraL 111 pl1l llk: rI V;rlIIC Withill :\cicncc. in turn, a competition '1

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...,i!-:Is 101 ~"IPlll'll :JIIH'lIg its dil le lcllt hr;l lI dll:~ , slId l ;1:; p;lIlldl' physics, ()I,;Can llg l:J (lll y, aslfOllonl y, l'lIenll sl ry . lll olccuJa r biology, anJ gcu log)' , alllong olhcrs. caeh wilh ils own pc rccivcJ value . "nlC com pt!titiun continues within cal,;h braneh. \Vhere dilTcrent projects are rivals for available resources. The Big vs. Littlc Scienee debate, \Vhich is alI about that aspect of scientific activity that I have ealIed production. \Vas spawned by the fear that the emergence of large scientific projects threatens to skew an otherwise healtby competition on alI levels and to distort the \Vay values are applied to evaluate projects. A large project in one branch, it \Vas feIt, could soak up money that might be shared by several smaller but equalIy valuable projects. M oreover, a large project in one branch might get out of hand and wind up unfairly expropl'iating resollrees otherwise destined for other branches- or even for \Vorthy nonscientific activities. In recent years, the percentage of the total re­ search and development budget consullled by largest projects has increased. 'o It is lIndeniable, as Weinberg foresaw, that this development has changed the way scientific experiments are condllcted, and the conventional wisdom is that it has brought about the impact of what Weinberg calIed external values on their planning and execution. '1 But the matter can be elaborated in a clearer way , I think, by reforlllulating Weinberg's distinction as that between science as perfórmance and as pro­ dUCfion. An experiment, 1 have argued , is a kind of performance, lInderstood in the broadest sense of an action executed to see what happens in order to satisfy an interest. In science, the actions are those of instrllments interacting with nature. and the interest is connected with a specific inquiry into natural strllctures. The performance values of scienee are those that promote the skilled execution 01' experiments, and include how welI an experiment is thought out, the quality of the investigators, and the relcvance of the experi­ ment to the principal direetion s 01' the f1eld . Prodllction, on the other hand, refers to the interaction between planners and the particular social, political , technological, and economic context required that a performance may take place. Production values 01' science can inelude social and economic returns for society, improved instrumentation, international cooperation, and national prestige. The distinction between performance and production values in science is crucial and must be born in mind at a time when so much of science threatens to dissolve into politics. But it is misleading to imply, as Weinberg does, that productioll is "extelllal " to science, givcn the essential place 01' production in scientific activity. More­ over, more performance values exist than the t\\fO (" ripeness for exploitation" amI "caliber 01' the practitioners") Weinberg mentions as internaL and a wider range 01' possible production values than the three external species he idcn tifies (technological merit, social merit, and scientific merit). O ne issue high lightcJ by the pe rfo rm a nce-prodllction distinction is the cxiSl l1nce (jf dil"IC rc nt models fór Big Scicncc in va rio w; arcas inv olvi ng dra l1 lL11il,;illl y dil"li.:re l1 l n.:IUli"ll s hctwcclI prOl.h lcti o"n and pc ri"olfll ancc. The 11

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SlI pl'll'o ndlll'tillg S \l pcre~)II¡d c l . 111 1 IlIslallce. is a large instnll1l\:nl serving a II 'blivdy sll1all nUl11h0l- of cxperilllenls with low divcrsity; synchrotron radia­ 11 11 11 f:.lci lilies providc centraliz eJ staging areas for n lImerous small maximally d lVl.' rsc l'xpc riments; the genome project is a noncentralized coordination of .lIl:1 l1n elTorts. Optical teIescopes are another special case, due to the avail­ 1IlIIity ofprivalc money. The community spectrum served, the kinds ofrisks, ,lIul Ihc potential returns are so varied as to involve in each case a different ~ ¡nd uf productivity- and a dilTerent meaning 1'01' " Big Science." A second issue highlighted by this distinction involves risks that accrue t 111111 the ract that the time it takes to complete present-day productions can he so extended ·-over a decade- that interim changes in the seientiflc world l':1I1 alter the productivity 01' the eventual ex periments. Tbe speed, quality, ,llId rdcvanee 01' a certain k ind 01' experimental production may change in the 11I11e it takes to complete one, possibly rendering it obsolete. The factors IIIvulved may be 01' three sorts: technologieal breakthroughs, eompletion 01' "Ihel' projects, and new information. In the years since construction bcgan on Ihe Ilubble Space Telescope, for instance, developments in auaptive optics IIIC-reased the resolution 01' ground-based observatories, other " windows" have been opened in the electromagnetie spectrllm, and the general body of aslronomical knowledge have aIl changed, forcing changes in the original "slimations of the produetivity of the deviee. "l"hird , the increased size 01" productions means increased government illvolvement not merely beca use the more resources a society has to sheIl out l"nr them means a grea ter expectation 01' return, but beca use of a greater social ¡Illerest in the way the interac.tions are handled. Larger productions attract IIIMe attention to the potential impact on the environment, considerations Ilf national security and industrial competitiveness, accountability and the IIllportance 01' guarding again st sueh things as fraud, collusi on , inefficieney. alld so forth. M oreover, the larger the scale of a production the greater the klllptation to use it as a vehicle for advaneing social ends; governmental illslitutions may insist, for instancc, that scientific projects follow "Buy Amer­ kan" and minority business provisions. 12 Fourth , the realization ofa production might have social spinoffs that must he distinguished from the spinoffs 01' scientific knowledge itself. Technologies lIlay have to be developed 01' crea ted in the construction 01' a production that CIIl be successfully transferred out of the laboratory. Constructing a state-of­ Iht~-art particlc detector, for instanee, is an immense production that forces ddcctor physieists, in order to create an instrument that \\fould be at the cutting edgc for the maximum period of time, to develop new technologies. In the l'll\lrse 01' the eonstruction of one particle detector a number of years ago , st:icntists taught a company that made, among other things, teddy bear whiskers IImv to make high-precision plastics needed for the detector in exchange for an l"l'ollomical mte ; the prod uclivc skills acq uired b y lha t cOlllpany in the process Ihen ¡¡11!lwed il lo COlllpct C sUliccssflllly for militar)' contracts. So rne attempts q

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IlIlVC h l'l' lI 1 1I; ,d ~' IIJ 11 Y 111 \)1I:llIliry spillolTs a tislll ~ 111 111 1 ,ll l' n ," ~ lllIl'IiOI1 01' hig lH': IlCIgy ph Y:l k ... \.:1>111 HICls, 1\ This k illd 01' prod ucllo ll n:I "I ~d spilloll is lo be clJlltrastcd wil h pcrlú rlllancc-rdatcd spino lls lha l are a n ollll:ollle 01' the knowlcdge gaincd -- forcxamplc , thc discovcry orthc X ray, lascr, and 11ssion_ I:inally, thc aims ora production may not be fulfillcd by the performances_ It has oftcn been the case that the technological implications 01' the most important and far-reaching discoveries, most no toriously those ofthe X ray, nuclear fission , and lascr, have had nothing to do with the aims ofthe research programs in which they were first encountered. A similar comment cOllld be made regarding scientiflc merit ; while in some cases discoveries and devel­ opments in one field do Ilnd immediate use in neighboring branches, in other instances the applications come lInexpeütedly from far afield. The same is even true 01' the social va Iue of a project; many of the breakthrollghs in the ',",.velr on cancer" came not from projccts targeted specifically ror that purpose by President Richard Nixon 's legislation, but from various and apparently unrelated work , including research on yeast , Xenopus, Drosophila , and Caenorhahdilis elegans. In retrospect. it is fortunate that funds for such projects had not been diverted to the \Var on cancer effort. U ndertaking a production --e.g., a \Var on cancer, on AIDS, on high-tech space defenses­ does not g uarantee that the ambition will be fulfilled. Oeveloping the concept of production may thus help to c1arify many issues involved in Weinberg's " philosophic debate on the problems 01' scientific choice" by allowing us to recognize more features of the process of preparing and executing an experiment than emerge in most discussions of the iss ue . Like the general analogy between the sciences and the theatrical arts of which it is a part, the analogy with production helps guide development 01' a language with which to speak about experimental activity that enables one to assign a place both to the cultural and historical contexts that influence experimental activity (and which, for instance, are stlldied by social con­ structivists) and at the same time to the invariants that show through such contexts in that activity (on which postivists and scientists themselves rightly place so much emphasis). The analogy helps to sho\V how scientifk activity can both exhibit the presence of social factors without being reducible to it. The result is to c1arify the much-misunderstood relation between science as inquiry and science as cultural practice. Thus, the benefit of replacing Weinberg's distinction between "internal" and "external" criteria with that between performance and production is not merely that a fe\\' nuances are added, but that the new distinction brings lhe problem in q uestion ""ithin the purview 01' a more comprehcnsive picture of science itself.

Tmplications for narratives about science Phil os()phcrs have tended lo hold slory tclling, or Ihe organizalion 01' ma­ telÍal aholll ;¡ s ll h j~ct illlo a sill )!ltc! dcscriptiv\! crisode l"oll( )willg I"OlIghly '1'1

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ll'u hlY thl!}' un: rcllccting. Moreovcr, in il1litatin g one must heed appearance III t"~'1 than substancc a nd cater to one's audience, so that the product is not ,·Vl' lI all adcquatc imitation but a distortion rather than truth. Plato 's argu­ 1III'IIt stiIJ excrts force today, cspecially among so-called " new hi storians" who .lIdlllk Marxists. practitioncrs 01' the American c1iometric methodology, and IlIl'lIlhns 01' lhe french Annales school. Th ese groups disown storytelling, ·\llII lIlIillg descriptions of the particular and concrete in favor 01' "scientific" 14 111\'1 hods allegeuly able to yield more universal and eternal truths. The activity .11 Ihe storytellcr scems in contrast to be but a pale echo of truth rather than .1 discllvery or crcation of it. The storyteller appears to be in the position of p\¡ly ill).!, I\aron to Moses, passing on an already disclosed truth albeit in a /t' "1I more readily comprchensible to the public. Like M oses , the subject of the lalc told by the storyteller (who could be a primary lawgiver, explorer, Il'Iigious figure , artist , or scientist) has one fo ot in the sphere 01' the divine , Il.II licipating in primordial disclosure , bringing to ordinary mortals in the w"rld some previously undi sclosed know1cdge from the beyond. The story­ ,,·Ilcr. like I\aron, seems rel egated to the role of amanuen sis or mouthpiece, Ihe pcrson \Vho Iives Ilrst of all in the mundane world and who interprets 1'1 illlllrdial activity so as to make it accessible to the public, but is able to do ... unly by using distortion s, mediations, corruptions, descriptive meta phors , 1" IIHllar language. This attitude among historian s has its counterpart in a particular brced 01' IInv science histo ry practiced by social eonstructivists . .1 ust as advocates of Ihe "scientific" methods mentioned aboye, which are ultimately of posit ivist IIlspiration , tend towa rd a determinist view of history with an emphasis on ""l'ial and institutional factors, on the impersonal forces 01" demography, on Ih(' kading role of economics and politics, and so forth , while underplay­ lit!' the role of the culture of the group and of the wills of the group and IlIlhviduals, so these ne\V approaches to scicnce history also tend toward ,k h'nninism. emphasizing the role of technology , c1ass, social, political , and \ I"ollomic fadors \Vhile underplayi ng the role of individuals, the contribu­ 111 IIlS uf nature, and the impact of character and chance o Recently a renewed appreciation for the value 01' narrati ve among his­ 1,,, ialls has appeared. 15The new appreciation \Vas prompted by the awareness ,11 ;. t lIarrative is a tool able to disclose the "event-character" of human lite i" " way available to no other mode of presentation. As the organization of 11I1"nllation into a roughly sequcntial order exhibiting the decision s affecting .1 pll lh-dcpcnuent phenomcnon, a narrative is able to relate the contingent set loll h:l:isioIlS aclll all y made in él production with the appearance ofa phenom­ l'III .1I that appc ar~ ill a nd thwlI gh that prodllclion. A narrative is ideal for l \ "ihili n ~, in lllhcl'word s. ¡¡ rul h..d cpclldc lll Il ondassica l phcnomenon because ! 1 pll:Sllfl Is tIn: evollll io n \11 i1" " 1'1 .\:a I ;11 1t:\! aIOllg wi 1h t he CLlnt ine.cnt dccisions )~

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Ih al !l'IVl' IIse lo tll a l l'vllllll lO lI. 1111: prcvioll s rcl k l't ll ' IH, 1111 Ih l' lIalme 01' !X pl.:ri lll CIl la I10 11 ~lJ ggcs l l hc rrllillúltH':SS llrll1l' nanal ivc tCchlliqllc rOl" ullder­ standillg 11. A fully told slory oran experimenl, ror instance, might illVOlvc lhe weaving together of several different story Iines. 16 These incl ude: (1) a story of science itself, and why certain areas of science (weak interaction physics or nuclear cross sections, for instance) were seen as more crucial to pursue, more author­ itative, than others; (2) a story 01' the instruments used in this pursuil , each 01' whieh having its own story 0 1' development and produetion; and (3) a story 01' individuals who conceived , produeed, and executed the experiment, and how each 01' them carne to Jea rn what the important problems were and how they carne to anticipate the solutions they did. These are only the principal story lines; others inc1ude the stories 01' the various experimental tec1miques involved (bubb1e chambers, neutron scattering, etc,) and the stories of the laboratories where the experiment is conducted. One can pursue separately one or more 01' these story lines, of course. But a true narrative attempts to incorporate each , for as each evolved so did thc experiment. A narrative about a discovery made with a c10ud chamber- ofthe meson, say-might focus on technieal details ofthe apparatus used by the three teams that discovered it almost simultaneously. Or it might focus on production­ related factors such as the cultural and historical forces which led to the development of c10ud chambers, the institutions whose researchers were given the freedom to pursue such studies, or the journals whose different publication demands detennined the order of publication 01' the discovery papers. Or it might focus on the persona"lities and actions of the individual researchers. Each 01' these provides a legitimate perspeetive for writing a dis­ covery account, for any discovery made with a c10ud chamber is intelligible only as disc10sive 01' nature, within eomplex historical spaee, and as the aet of human beings. But it would be a mistake to limit the possibility of an account to one 01' these perspeetives: the "event-character" of the discovery process emerges only when each of these perspeetives are preserved. I t would be as if (me tried to tell the story of the assassination of Francis Ferdinand of11y in terms ofthe detonation 01' a charge in Gavrilo Princip's gun, the trajectory of the bullet, and its interference with vital life processes inside the archduke; or (mly in terms of Serbian nationalism ; or ol11y in terms of Princip's personal motives. narratives about scienee is A first implication of the previous ehapters thus that while narratives can be told about science that are located in one or more particular perspectives, such as individuals, science, institutions, equip­ men t, and production, science itse1f transpires tbrough the intertwining 01' al1 ofthell1. But t here is a deepe r implical ion, I think , having to d o nol with the conten! lowarJ s wh ich lhe a lten Lion 01" lhe scicllce historian is drawn b ut with the 1l1~l l1ner 0 1' cxcc uli~l l1 01' lile lIaná livc ilse l!". T hc conslrudioll oC a narrative is

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11.,1'1 1 all lIl"Il'arried 0111 ror Ihe p urposc o r disc10sing something about sciencc, ,dl"will g il In he witnessed ror il:; own sake. This suggests one further argu­ 1I1I'lllali wan a logy lhat narralives are yet another kind of performance. Ir 11. l1cey call be co nsidered to sharc many of the features about which I have .c1 I.... ady spllken . They are undertaken for the purpose of rendering present .lllI h:l1cillg bygone, and aim to tell notj ust any old story, but to disc10se some­ ¡ III II ).! abolll a phenomenon: science. They put on display that phenomenon 111 slIí:h a way that certain 01' its aspects, though possibly already familia.r \11 liS, sland out and can be contemplated, lingered over, pondered. Nar­ 1.llivcs are holistic in that a history is not a catalogue or compendium of one ,Ielu il arter another (which would overwhelm the narrative) , but a judicious ';I'k cl illn and interweaving 01' details rOl" the sake of disc1osure. Narratives ,IIL' prnhative (exploratory) in that one knows no! beforehand exactly what ,vi II he disclosed when one sets out to construct a narrative, and one allows IIl1l'sclr to be surprised: one is not constructing a narrative when one sets out tU lind confirming illustrations of a predetermined thesis. Narratives are IlIllvisory in that they are pcrpetually open to being revised; there is no final lIillTalivc about any episode any more than there is a final performance 01' a play llf final experiment in a certain area. Narratives are autboritative in that IIH'y demand acknowledgment by those engaged in inquiry into the event 111 question. They are situational in that they are re1ative to a certain state ,,( know\cdge and perspective: as the perspective or available information I'Ilanges, a ne\\' narrative m ay be called fo ro There is a primaey 01' perfOlm­ ,lIlce in narrative; one is not in full control of it, and must put oneself in the (', vice of the narrative. rhe holism of narrative is especially significant. Every detail is potentially II'vealing. I was once involved , for instance, in a heated discussion about the disdosive value of eandied Mexican hats. In a previous book, my coauthor ,lIId 1 had rclated a story of a bet made by a physicist tha t a eertain partic\e \\!o uld be discovered or he \\'ould eat his hat. The discovery was duly made, ;11111 al a subscquent conferenee candied Mexican hats were passed out for 1!l.'lIeral consumption. A historian 01' science reproached me at a confcrence l. Ir dcvoting space to this episode. What did it contribute to knowledge a bOLlt ::I'ielll:e? Shouldn ' t 1 have devoted the space to scientific information'? Hadn't I cOllll1litted the sin of popularizaliol1; to fOCLlS on extraneous matters because III\'Y would be interesting to and comprehensib\e by the layperson? !'he Mexican hats turned out to be but one instance 01' a dass of details in IlIy hOllk to which the historian objected. Others inc1uded a description ofthe halldkerchief that students recall Emmy Nocther kcpt in her blouse and ho w ',Ice waved il when illLlstrating a point: the flash 01' an emincnt physicist's 11 01 id silk tic as he vanished from studcnts' sight arter teaehing a c1ass; the fish Ihal rClI1ailled llncaten whcn a brilliant I"uture Nobelist met his mentor in a Il'stiluran l a nu ueJ'eren l ia l1 y a ll owcd lhe men tor to Qn.ler ror both of them a "i~1c Ihal Ih\! prod igy loatl ll.:d: th,: way an Italian physicisl crushed out his l,/

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cigaretle ill a lilm dish; alld Ihe Clllllfurta hle sl lprc rs which a Pakistani physicisl wor king in the Wesl kept IIlldernealh his desk . A proressional , so the historian infonned me, would have stuck to the esscntials. I argued in reply that such details propcrly handled did disdose essential aspccts 01' science. The bet revealed the game-Iike q uality theoretical physics has for many practitioners. It showed an irreverence 1'01' final answers and rational solutions and a wiIJin gness to put oneself on the line; lhis quality. in turn, had everything to do with the eharacter of the person who made the bet and the kind 01' \l,iork that he did. The episode thus served as an antidote lO the view of theorists as solemn fabricators ofthe gro und plan 01' the Universe. (The role 01' comedy and humor in the activity 01' science cleserves more attention than it has so far received.) Likewise for th e other episodes. The fact that students found Noether's ha ndkerchier behavior unfeminine indieated the presence of gender stereotypes. T he flash 01' the tie was emblema tic 01' the obsessive secrecy 01' the person who wore it, which in tum was emblema tic of the hermetic nature of his work, which in turn had much to do with the eventual reception of that work in the scientific community and how httle of it was eventuaIJy incorporated into the standard formulations despite the immense achievement it represented . The uneaten fish revea led a mixture of respect and iconodasm ; that the prodigy was reverential enough to agree to order it on the advice of the mentor but stubborn enough to trust his own taste and refuse to consume it. The film canister/ashtray bespoke the tradi­ tional informality and economy of a certain g roup of Italian scientists. And the slippers were mule testimony of the lonely efforts 01' a person from the third world to make a home in an unfamiliar environment. Far from serving as mere entertainment, such details were in the service of the disdosure effected by the narrative, and one cannot draw a lin e between what kinds 01' details are disdosive and what are not. It is true that each such detail was inessential in that another, similar one could have been substituted. But that ofwhich the details were disdosive was significant and could not have been omitted; the details were thus symbols. What each dctail disdoscd could have been made the subject 01' ao explicit study··- jokes and gambling in science, sexism , idiosyncracy, mentoring, informality, the anxieties 01' third-world participants in the international sci­ entific community. Such stuoies are 01' course important , but a narrative serves a different function, oisclosing él different kíno ofphenomenon. To object to the indusion of such oetails in a narratíve has as little justice as to object to the lighting, props, cost umes, etc., of a playas having merely entertaínment value instead of belongin g intrinsically to the performance itself. Indeed , to pass over th is kind 01' detail in narratives about science contributes to the im pressioll tha t sciem:c is a privileged act ivi ty unlike other kinds 01' hum an aClivily . T hin kíng., cvcn scientilk thinking, is never conducled in apure, ra relied ~l1viml1Jl1en t. Th ink ill g a lways bdongs lo lile wo rlJ 01' :lpp~ara I1ces , u f n H\Cn: h.: hisl nril:ul cnV lr()t1Illt: lIl s. O J1 \! m ll~l hcw:lI'l' , I IIl'rtl Ill'I:. u f Ihe

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IIII(1uISI: lo decide beforehalld what is irrcJevant and what not for a narrat­ I\il.'. !\ny altcmpt lo make such a decision beforehand wil! be guioed by an .llIlicipalion ofwhat to expect , by an ioea ofwhat the privilegeo slory lille is, 1;llhl:r than by the performance itself. To construct a narrati ve is a process 01' iI hack and forth relation between one's ioeas abollt the subject. ano what one dí ~t.: overs about it. New anticipations allow LIS to discover new profiles 01' the "lIhiect, whieh in tllrn force us tD revise our anticipations. If Ilarratives about science are akin to perform ances, then the philosophy .,1' science is akin to lhe "theory " of the perforrnances, Philosophy 01' science Idi~s explicitly or implicity on narratives or accounts of scientific activity, whdher extended treatments or anecootal, ano can be thought 01' as attempt­ IIIg lo provioe the " theory" of such narrative perforlllances. Too frequently, Iladitional philosophers of science have relied on mythic or "fictionalized " .1l'Cllunts of science history to support their views. 17 Yet, philosophy 01' science .roes not aim to describe an essellce aboye human time alld history that works " hchind the scenes" of scientific phcnomcna. but rather to construct a repres­ l'nlalion of how its characteristic worldly profiles emerge fro m the processes hy which it is produced . The dialcctic between the philosophy of science and narratives about it can hl: c:onsioered analogously to the dialectic between theoretical scripting ano ¡'x perimental performances. Philosophy of science, like theory , allows one to Il'l lIrn to the phenomenon- science ilself- lo look for new profiles and aspects :lml how they fulfill anticipations. The theatrical analogy, for instance, helps liS appreciate aspects that we had not looked at careful!y enough before , such as proouction , recognition, ano skil!. In highlighting the creative aspeet 01' "icicllce, for instance, it might Icao onc lo look for and appreciate expressions 01 Ihe joy 01' creation among seientists. The expressions of beallty in M illikan 's lIolebooks, lhe orunken symposillm at the Cosmotron deoicatíon party , the ¡lIy ofthe chase in the Douhle Helíx, the satisfaction at knowing about atomic parily violation-·all these would then not be particular psyehological expres­ ~.iolls of inoividuals but aspects of the pradice 01' science itself insofar as it is .1 creative ano productive worldly activity. True philosophy of science asks Ijllestions about science rather than oictates to it , ano if things are disdosed aholll the activity of science it is to allow for new questioning, not to provide Ihings lo put up on the shelf as trophies . Other a rea s that the theatrical allalogy opens up for questioning indude proouction , the effect of scale on pl'oduction , skill, the role 01' management contracts, the nature of rehearsal! l'a lihralion , the nature and character orthe laboratory , and the way one can ¡',d "swept up" by the thcatricality of it all in cases of self-oeception. Morcovcr. like other kinos 01' performances, narratives are " produced. " I hal rncans that someone uecides to carry them o ut. makes necessary decisions 111 advance. and a ims Ihe na rrative at a certain comm unity- al! of which ·.lIape ils I,;Q 11 L'rcle rorm , Narrali vc~, lOO, have ma ny di lTcrcllI kinds of research pIPl.! laIlIS. Onc ca ll I, )¡lk ill IhclIl rol' a COlll lTlon Iheme he hinJ a series of ti)

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Notes See, for instance. Robert P. Crease, " rm ages of C onflict: ME G vs. [EG ," S cience 253 (1991): 374-·75 . 2 My attention was drawn to the importa nce of this concept by Ze v T rachtenberg, "A Thr.:ory of Drama," (M.Phi!. thesis, University College, London . 1980). 3 See Crease, "History of Brookhavcn Natiollal Laboratory. Par! One," 4 As is evident. for instance. from thc ncws ,wd research news stories abol!lt this process in Science: Robert R. Crease. "Choosing Detectors for the SSC," Science 250 (1990): 1648- 50: David P. Hamilton , " Showdown at thc Waxahachie C orral ," Science 252 (1991): 908 iJOl0; David 1'. Hamilton , " Ad Hoc Team Revives SSC Competition ." Scien ce 252 (1991): 1610; David P. Hamiltoll , " A New Round of Backbiting over the Cancellation of L *," Sciellce 252 (1991): 1775. 5 "lmpact 01' Largc-Sea le Science on the LJ nited Sta tes ," Sciellce 134 (196,J): 16 J- 64. Yale historian Derek de Solla Price adopted the phrase in a 1962 lecture series at Brookhaven N a tional Laboratory. " Little Scie)lce, Big Science," subsequently published as a book, Unle Science, Big Science (Ne\\' York: Columbia LJniversity Prcss, 1963). 6 Alvin Weinberg, Reflectiol1s 011 Big Sciel1 ce (Cambridge: M lT Press. 1967), p. 67. 7 Weinberg had before him only t\Vo models of Big Science , large particle acceler­ ators and the manned spaee programo neithcr ofwhieh had really matured. Fore­ front particle aecelerators could still be built at universities and Project rv1'ercury \Vas in its infancy ; Weinberg's artiele \Vas based on an address given before a meeting ofthe American Rocket Soeiety in Gatlinburg, Tenn., on May 4. 1961, the day before Alan Shephcrd became the flrst American astronaut to be launched into space. 8 The examplc is from Michael Joehim, SlrCilegiesjór Surviw¡/ (New York: Aca­ demic Press, 1981), p. 11. 1 am indebted to Marshall Spector for drawing my attention to this n::ference. 9 Alvin Weinberg. 'The Axiology of Science," Aml'rican SciertliSI 58 (November­ Deeember 1990): 612- 17. 10 Large NOlld( f'ense R ami D Projecl.\· i// Ihe Bl/dgel: J 980 1996 by Da vid Moore and Philip Webre (Washi ngton , D .C. : U.S . Congress. U.S. Ho use of Representatives, Congressional BlIdgel O ffl ce, Ju ly 19(1). 11 T h is, rol' inslance. is l he po int Illade by .1 01111 A. Relllin gton in " Beyond Big S~: i \!lIcl! ¡Il Amer i \;~t: T he BimJing ll l' In qu iry." Social SIl/dic.\' o( SI'i¡'//('(' 1RR (1988) :

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pt.' rll lIll l,/1/,"/ Vl.'r y deal'l y J ll\.':-:. Q IIIIII>C/{ftlll is "anrlll , witty. c ltarlllillg ," " a Ia llg uagc 01' displa y, rl~rl Ú l'lllaltL"\! , pose" (Rosaldo 1973: 197­ 19X). Wha t is espedally no leworlhy about speaking amon g the Ilongot, within our presenl conlext, is lha! the tclling 01' tales, always included in (f priori tcxH.:entercd dcfinitions of verbal art, is c1assified as a kind of "straight spcech. " That is, storytelling for the /lo ngot is not a form of performance, thus in culture-specific communicative terms, not a form of verbal art. The domain ofspeaking among the Ilongot is to this extent, among many others, organized differently from that of the many cultures in which storytelli.ng does involve performance. Japanese profession" 1storytellers. for example, as described by Ilrdlicková, "re certainly performers in our sense 01' the termo For their audiences, " it is not seldom more importanl hOlv a story is told than wha{ rhe story relates. ... Storytellers regard the mastery of [storytelling] elements as a neccssary preliminary stage prior to II.:II p:II 111 q ',lrrh 111 Ilre l:ollgress hOIl Sl' by spl!C la I spokcl'ilJle ll (tlr" arj . wllOsc s pca k ing (S/II/III1/1.Á 1') a Iso involvcs perrmllla ncc, though d irkrclIl rro rn that or lhc chid·s. In curillg rituals, a special ikar-knowcr (ikar lI'isil) speaks (.\lII1/1wkkf') lhe particular curing chant (each a type 01' ¡/((Ir) for which he is a specialist and w hich is ealled for by the ailrnent frorn which the patient is sufrering. In the third type 01' event, the girls' puberty ceremony, the specialist (kamllle) in girls ' puberty chants (kantur ¡kar) shouts (konnakke) the eha))ts for the participants. The three perform­ ance traditions mal' be summarized in tabular form thus:

1( 1 ,\S I'I ' IU 'O R MAN I ' I':

For each ceremony or ritual to count as a valid instance of its class, the appropriate foml must be rendered in the appropriate way by the appropri­ ate functionary. That namakke, the Slll1l11akke 01' the arkar's interpretation and the sl/l1n/(/kke of the medicine chants, and kor!11akke all represent ways of performing for the Cuna is dear from Sherzer's description . Al! four roles, salela, arkar, ¡¡wr lVisit , and /wl1/ule , are defined in essential part in terms of com petence in tbese specific ways 01' performing their respective genres. There is thus, in these ceremonial traditions, a close and integral relationship between performance and specific events, acts, roles, and genres, and the configuration creatcd by the interrelationships among these factors must be close to the center 01' an ethnography of performa nce among the Cuna . Constellations such as Sherzer describes, involving events, acts. gcnres, and roles in highly structured and predictable combinations, constitute the nucleus of an ethnography of performance among the Cuna, and are aptly made the focus ofSherzer's paper. However. it is crucial to cstablish that not all performance related to thc system Sherzer dcscribes is captured within the framewo rk 01' conventional interrelationships outlined above. We have noted , for examplc, that lhe performance of curing i/((tr by the ilear-lVisil has its convcnlion a l loc us in the curing ritual ; such pcrfü rmance is obligatory lor lh e i/({Ir It'i.l'if lO fulfi ll the d cma nds 01' his role a nd for lhe ~. uring ritual to be conduc led al all. Agains ll his bac.kg ro und, Ihen , il is nnll'wllnhy Ilrallhe i!,II /'- It'i.l'il Illay abo he as kcu h, pl.'r f'\,rm his ¡kilI' lIlI l ír!)'. I1 d lll"l l;1 I\-slival

1·.S.l('lI lled wilh Ihe gi rl s' r "h~ ll y 1itl.!s, Plln;ly rOl' l~nlertainn1cnl. That is. the p"l llIlllIancc th¡¡t has its primal y place in a particular context, in which it is .,¡'Iigalory. llIay be an o pliollal f'calure 01' anolhcr kind of event. extended to Iltl.' Iatll~r because 01' the csthetic enjoyment to be derivcd from it. The associ­ " lI ln bclween performcr and genre is maintaincd , but the contexto and of l "III"SC Ihe I'unction, are different. I'lrollgh optional. the performancc of curing ¡/((Ir at puberty rite festivities ", liD k~ss institutionalized than the obligatory performance of these chants in ( 111 illg rituals. There is no surprise or novelty in the performance of curing ti. tlr al lhe chicha festivals. Beyond the institu tio nalized system , ho wever, lies 11111.' ol'lhe most important outlets for creative vitality within the perfo rmance d lllllain. Consider the follo wing circumsta nce, involving a group of small '" Is whom Shcrzer wa s using as linguisti c informants. On one occasion , I. lIll\ving that he was interested in the performance forms of the community, 1"," liulc girls launched spontaneously into a rendition of an arkar' s perform­ ,IIIl.'l; as they were being recorded (Sherzer, personal communication). The 1I' I1Iarkableness of this is apparent when one considers that the role of arkar '" rl1strieled to adult men , and performances of the k.i nd the girls imilaled Itl'longed. in conventional terll1s, to the congress and the congress house. lli n llgh lhe httle girls' rendition was framed as imitation, a reframing of lit,' ((r/(((r's performance, it eonstituted performance in its own right as \Vell , 111 which the girls assllmed resronsibility to an audience for a display of , ,lIllpetence. ( 'onsider one further observation made by Sherzer in his study of the ( ·""a. The congresses (omekan pela) discussed above. in which the chiefs , Irallt their pap ¡kar and the arkar.l· interpret them to the audience, are held in IIIl' congress house during the eveniog. During the daytimc, however, when I "ng resses are not in session , individuals \vho find themselves in the congress Ir""sc may occasionally sit in a chief's hammock and launch into an attempt .1 1 ;r chief's chant, just for lhe fun of it (Sherzer, personal communieation). l!ere we have what is a eonventional performance doubly reframed as ""ilalion and more importantly as play. in whieh there is no assumplion of I I~S P()IISibility for a display of communicative competenee, nor any assump­ lr"ll 01' responsibility ror or susceptibility to evaluation for the \Vay in which Iltt.' ael of expression is done. What are the implications of these two circumstances? The Jittle girls' 1'\'lforl11ance 01' an arkar's interpretalion represents a striking instance of the II';~' or !{w"aru argll lllcnl derives from conll ic li ng pressures PII 1ho boy 's spcedlllHll..c r, wllo is oh ligcd lo uu mit 10 a cc rt ai n range o f nrnrs, PIII u l coufh.:sy lo II I ~ ¡! iJl \ !;¡llI lly, h lll \Vilo is al Ihe sa ll l~' lill'" ild ll;llI'd hy ,11

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¡llr 1IlIlli vc:; nI' gooJ pcrfollllaIlCl.:, i.c .. lo cslablish his virtuosity as a per­ ",' 11 1\'1'. Thc girl's spccchlllakl:r, desirous of rcpresenÜng the family to best ulvalll agl.:. is likewise concerned to display his own skil1 as speechmakcr. rile a rgllmenb, as noted , concern the ground rules for the k.abary with , . .1\ h parly illsisling on the obligatoriness of particular rules and features by ,IJlIWallo various standards, drawn from pre-kahary negotiation, gcnerational , Il~J' i \ lIlal , and other stylistic differences. 01' particular interest is the fact that Ihe 'i lrength 01' the partieipants' insistenee on the rightness of their o\Vn way , IIll'il strudural rigidity , is a function ofthe mood ofthe encounter , inereasing 1" I he lension mounts, deereasing as a settlement is approached. Ultimately , IIIIwcver, the practical goal of establishing an allianee between the t\Vo fam­ t11 ~'o; involved takes precedence over al1 lhe speechmakers' insistence upon IlIl' wllventions 01' /((fhary performance and their desirc to display lbeir per­ l"nll
Whal is ll1isslng flllnl I: inh \ f'll ll nt tlali ~) II I~ r h~' ~ l' II I I;l l j l y ,,1 sllll:\led social inlcracl io n as lhe C{lI1t~X I ill which s,)cial orgtllli í'a llt>lI . a... ¡lI ll'IIICl'gcnl, lakes formo The currenl rócus on the;; emergence 01" liOl;ill l slrm;turcs in socia'l in teraction is principally the conlribution 01' cthno-lllelhoJology, lhe work 01' Garfinkel, Cicou rel, Sacks, ano olhers. For these sociologists, " the lIcIo of sociological analysis is anywhere the sociologist can obtain access and can examine tbe way the 'social structurc' is a meaningful ongoing aecomplish­ ment of members" (Phillipson 1972: 162). To these scholars too is oweo , in large part, lhe recognition that language is a basic means through which social realities are inte;;rsubjectively conslituted and communicated (PhilIipson 1972: 140). From th is perspective, insofa r as performance is conceived of as communicative interaction , one woulo expect aspects of the social structure of the interaction to be emergent from the interaction itself, as in a ny otber such situation. Rosaldo's explication of the strategic ro1e-taking and role­ making she observeo in the course of a meeting to settIe a oispute over brioeprice among the Hongot ill umjnates quite clearly the emergent aspect of social structure in that event (R osaldo 1973). The conventions of such meelings ano the oratorical performances of the interaetants endow the interaction with a special oegree of formalization and intensity , but the faet that artistic verbal performance is involveo is not functionally relateo to the negotiation of social structure on the leve] Rosaldo is concerneo with . Rather she focllses on such matters as the rhetorical strategies ano consequenccs of taking the role 01' father in a particular event, thus placing your interlocutor in the role of son , with its attendant obligations. There is, however, a distinctive potential in performance which has impli­ cations for the creation 01' social structure in performance. It is part 01' the essence of performance that it offcrs to the participants a special enhance­ ment of experience, bringing with it a heighteneo intensity 01' communicative interaction which binos the audience to the performer in a way that is speeifie to performance as a mode of communic.ation. Through his performance, the performer elicits the participative attention and energy 01' hls audience, ano to the extent that they value his performance, they will allow themselves to be caught up in it. When this happens, the performer gains a mcasure ofprestige ano control over the audience- prestige beca use ofthe demonstrateo compet­ ence he had displayeo, control becallse the oetermination 01' the flow of the interaction is in his hands. When the perfoTmer gains control in this way, the potential for transformation of the social structure may become availabk to him as \Vell (Burke 1969[1950]: 58-59). The process is manifest in the follow­ ing passage from [)ick Gregory's autobiography: I gol pickeo on a 101 uro und tJ1C ncighbo rhood . .. I guess lhat's whe n I li rst bCg~1 1l lo Icarn abo ul hUl1wr, lhe power 01' a j\lkc Alllrst ... r d j usI gel rilad :lnd nlll home a ntl ay whl.!lI IIH' k iJs sl a ll ~d . !\ Ild Ih':lI . I don ', k ll \l\V jusI wlll~n , 1 slar' ed lo IiJ 'III~' il 11111.

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Tll l!y \Vcrc going lo lallgll allyway, bul il' I made the j Okes lhey'o la 11gb lI'i¡h l11e inslead 01' al llle. ro gel Ihe kios off my back, on my side. So ('d COllle off lhal porch talking aboul myself. .. . Be!"ore they cOLlld get going, ro knock il out f1rsl, fast , knock out those jokes so they wouldn't have time to sel and climb all o ver me. . .. And they started to come over and listen to me, they' d see rne coming and crowd around me on the corner. .. . Everything began to change then .. .. The kids began to expect to hear funny things from me, and after a while 1 could say anything I wanted. I got a reputation as a fllnny man oAno then I starteo to turn lhe jokes on them . [Gregory 1964: 54- 55; italics in original] rhrough performance, Gregory is able to take control of the situation , lTcaling a social strllcture with himself at the center. A t first he gains control hy lhe artful use of the oeprecatory humor that the other boys had formerly direcled at him. The joking is still al his own expense, b ut he has transformed lite situalion, lhrough performance, inlo one in which he gains admiralion 101' his performance skills. Then, building on the control he gains tluollgh performance, he is able, by strategic use of his performance skills, to trans1III"In the situation still further , turning the humor aggressively against those \Vho had earlier victimized him. In a very real sense, Gregory emerges from 1he performance encounters in él oifferent social position vis-el-vis the other hllyS from the one he occllpied before he began to perform, ano Ihe change is ;1 consequence of his performance in those encounters. The consioeration ofthe power inherent in performance to transform social ~;I ruclures opens the way lo a range 01' aooitional eonsiderations concerning I he role of the performer in sociely. Perhaps lhere is a key here to the persist­ "lIlly oocumented tendency for performers lo be both admired ano feared­ .tdlllireo for their artistic skil\ and power ano for lhe e.nhanccment 01' expcr,ience IIley provide, fea red beca use ofthe potential they represent fo1' subverting and 11 ansforming the status q uO. Bere too may lie a reason for the equally persistent a'lliociation between performers ano marginality 01' oevi ~tnce, for in the special "llll'l"gent quality ofperformance the capacity for change may be;; high-lighteo i1nd maoe manifest to the community (sec, e.g., Abrahams and Bauman 1971 , Il.d.; !\zaoovskii 1926: 23 - 25: Glassie 1971: 42- 52; Szweo 1971: 157- 165). If ¡'hange is concciveo of in opposition to the conventionality of the community ;11 large, then it is only appropriate that the agents 01' that change be placed :Iway froJ1l the center 01' that conventionality, on the margins of society.

Conclusion 111\': Ji scip linc o rro ll..Jnre (:l IIl! 1\) " n ex lenl. anlhro po logy a~ weJl), has lenoed 1IIII1IIgho lll it~ his'\llY In d l"li ll\! il s\.! 11' in Icnn:) (')1' a principal fouls on Ih\.! .,1

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l nu.1 íl lullal r~'Il1I1 ,IIj( '4 11 1 l':III".: r p\' lllIlI -; , slíll lu I¡l 1III IIId 11, 1III l~~' .~L'L'tllrs 01' snt: ic ty that h u\'\.' h~c Jl llllldis l ilJ1t:cd hy the UUl lllll illl 1 nlll lllc 111 lhis cxtent. lo lklorc has bcc l1 largd y lhe :-;tlldy n I' wha t R a yJ1lo nu Wlll iullts has recently tcrmcd "residual l'UltIHl' ." thOSl: " cxpcricnccs. mcaniJlgs ami values which cannot be verified or cannot be cxprcssed in terms of thc dominant culture, [but] are nevcrthcless lived and practised on the basis of the residue-cultural as wcl1 as social of some previous social formation " (Wil1iams 1973: 10 - 11). If the subject matter of the discipline is restricted to the residue of a specific cultural or historical period, then folklore anticipates its own demise. for when the traditions are fully gone, the discipline loses its raisol1 d'elre (cf. H ymes 1962: 678; Ben-Amos 1972: 14). This need not be the case, however, for as W il1iams defines the concept. c ultural clements may become part of residual culture as part of a contin ual social proce ss, a nd parts of resid ual culture may be incorporatcd into the dominant culture in a complemen tary process. At best, though , folklore as the discipline of residual culture looks backward to the past for its frame of reference. disqualifying i!self from the study of the creations of contemporary culture until they too may become residual. Contrasted with residual culture in Williams' provoca ti ve formulation is "emergent culture, " in which " new meanings and values, new practices, new sig­ nificances and cxperiences are continual1y being created" (Wil1iams 1973: 11). This is a further extension of the concept of emergence, as employed in the preceding pages of this artide, but interestingly compatible with it , for the emergent quality of experiencc is a vital factor in the generation of emergent culture. Emergent culture. though a basic eIement in human social life, has always lain outside the charter of folklore , perhaps in part for lack of a unified point of depárture or frume of reference able to comprehend residual forms and items, contemporary practice, and emergent structures. Performance, we would offer, constitutes just such a point of departure, the nexus of traditi on, practice, and emergencc in verbal art. Performance may thus be the corner­ stone of a new folkloristics, libcrated from its backward-facing perspective, and able to comprehend much more of the totality of human experience .

Notes In thc development ofthe ideas presented in this essay J have profited greatly from discussions with mally colleagues amI students over the past several years, élmong whom Barbara Babeock-Abrahams. Dan Ben-Amos, Marcia Herndon , Barbara K.irshcnblall-Gimblctt, 10hn McDo\\'ell , Norma McLeod, Américo Paredes, Dina Sherzer. amI Bc"crly Stocltje deserve special mention and thanks. My greatest debe howe"cr, is lo the three individuals who have slimulated amI int1uenccd my Ihink ing lIloSl pro ro lllldly: Dell I-I ymes. ror imparting to me the ethnographic ~ rsrct,;1 iw on vUfh,,) arl ami for his ide,ls 011 Ihe na ture 01" performance; Roger D. I\ hm hallls, rpr fnc lIsi ng my allenli o ll lI n performance a~ an or~al1 i7.i l1f principie 1,,1 Ihe sllldy of'fp lklore; il u d Jocl Sherzer rol' sharing in Ihe illl c llc~ III ;¡ 1 ]1I'1lWSS all :¡]oll u.lhl' W:I V

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, 1'undes, Alan 1966. Metafolklore and Oral Literary Criticismo The Monist 50: 505 ­ 516. J)urbin , M ridula 1971. Transformational M odels Applied 10 Musical Analysis: The­ oretical Possibilities. Elhnomusicology 15: 353 - 362. Finnegan. Ruth 1967. Limba Stories and Storytelling. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1:irth. Raymond 1961. Elements ofSocial Organization. Third editiol1. Boston: Beacon Press (paperback 1963). i'ish , Stanley E. 1973. Ho\\' Ordinary ls Ordinary Language'! New Literary History

5: 40 - 54. I:úmtgy , Ivan 1965. Form alld Function ofPoetie Language. Diogenes 51: 72 110. I:ox . .lames 1974. Our Ancestors Spoke in Pairs. In Explorations in the Ethnograph y 01' Speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, Eds. Ncw York: Cambridge University Press. I'ricdman , Albert 1961. The Formulaic lmprovisalion Theory ofRallad Tradition­ A Counterstatement. Journal of American F olklore 74: 113 ·115. ('corgcs. Robert 1969. Toward an Understanding ofStorytelling Events. Journal of Amcrican Folklore 82: 313 - 328: ( i lassie. Hcnry 1971. T ake th a t N ighl T ra in to Selma : an Exc ursion to the O utskirts oí' :-Il'ho larship. In Folkson )!s and their Makers. b y Henry Glassie. Edward D. (ves, all e! Jo hn r . S/wed. O.l\vlin p, G r\;;en, OH : Bow ling G rcen Po pular Press.

(;.,11111:111 . hrv inll 1'/7y lltll1yll lO lIS wilh 'ca lli ng Sllnwnnl.l'S lIaml.: in a l:el'C llOI.l l'e ú lfll c\ 1. Bul on unll llH': 1 leve!. ir a pcrsnn wtl nls lo point out wl1ll has UlII ll' lhe tll lki ll g about Wh OIll, ti dislilll:lion is m ude betwecn crJnmU!s.I' ami ' nigger husinl.lss ' , In this l'ontcx l. cúm/lwss Illcans talk aboLlt sOllleone e1se whilc they arc not present, whilc 'niggcr busincss' rcl'crs to talk about someone's business which has been institutcd by themselves, but which is on the samc subjects and in the same terms as crJmmess. 'Nigger business' is discussed abstractly, as is crJmmess, as a weakness 01' the commun ity. One informant, for instanee, explains, 'Yo u know we Negroes are "broadminded " [talkative] people, "bla'guard" [bad because of talking too much): \Ve just feel that if we have any worry on our mind . we couldn ' t keep without explaining somet' ing' [talking about it]." This rationalisation is exactly the same as the one given ror 'ca lling out a name ' and for c6mmes.I'. They are grouped together as ex amples of 'non­ sense', 'ignoram:e', inability to organise one's thoughts ami present them in effective language. One often hears remarks that Negroes are 'a ignorant people- we have no sense atall, atall, atall'. One of the reasons why there is sllch a strong feeling that both ciJmmess and 'nigger business' are wrong is that privacy, especially in family affairs , is highly valued, The quiet person , who keeps most of his communications within the family is someone who, in principIe, is admired. But in actual interpersonal relations, he may be reacted to as an unfriendly person and his reticence may be held against him. This attitude may be shown by members of his own family; he will then be termed a 'ga rden man ' (one who keeps to himself in the fields) . Not only will this lack of communieativeness be held against him , but imputations of greed and lack of co-operativeness may also be voiced, for these traits are those which are associated with this widely recognised Vincentian social type. A similar attitude is maintained in regard to another social type, the bashful person (the Vineentian term is ' selfish' , meaning not covetous but inward-Iooking). The shy individual is regarded as a somewhat undesirable type, especially beca use he is said to have no sense, of humour and to becol1le easily irritated by those who make fun 01' him,

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1 .Il1~ 1 h: lp pclled. But ir in a l:o nvcl':';u livnal contexl, it l11usl rreSlTve lhe appearance 01 Ihe :,plHllalleous ullerance. hlrl.hermore, ('(Jlllnle.I·.\' \Viii be rcjected ir lhe illilialOl' collvey~ lhc inl'o rm alion in too bcated a \Vay, thus belrayinga coerci ve 01 siue- tal ki ng purposc in an on-going argumenl. The communication is then a pol.elllial ' mole::;" (libe!) and thercfore is ofa different intensity amI involves a dillcn:nl slrategy from crJl1une.\'.\'. '/'0 view (,¡¡/IImcs.\' in this way is to see it as contributing to both a sensc of l'OIlIIllUllily (by articulaling ideals and by providing a patterned and expected s:lnclioning procedure) and to an individua!'s sense ofesteem. Bu! to argue that il should be judged in tcrms of one or the other is to ignore lhe way gossip aClually opcrates. Like so many such expressive devices, comme.l's is a pro­ l'C:;slIal !Calure of interpcr:;o nal beha vi our which media tes betwcen conflicting principies. This suggesls, then, that one of the keys to understanding gossip, alleast on St Vincent, is to understand the nature ofthe internal conflicts, and lo see how expressive devices of all sorts, induding gossip, are used to mediate Ihe contradictions which arise in the form 01' public probJem situations. ' lI l'W"

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As noted aboye, perhaps the greatest source of intra-cultural ' rub' is the way in which the family system ofideals conflicts \Vith the friendship networks ccnl ral to the maintenance of esteem , especially among males. Recurrent pro­ hlclll situations arise in those activities where the t\Vo systems ofvalues conftict. The yard and the house of the family are regarded as inviolable, and are Ihe domain of the maler familias . Conseq uently, she is the guardian of the .vard and is judgcd in terms of how effectively she runs her household. Male I'ricndships are carried on in the streets and rumshops, for the most part, l~xcept during specia'l family-centred occasions like \Vcdding fétes and wakes. What fcw friendships the women engage in within the community are carried !Jn in Ihe yard , but these are discouraged by the meno The Vin ccntian family is a unit composcd of those living in one yard . This cOllllllonly means a nuclear family of father, mother a nd their children, and Icss c!Jlllmonly grandparents and grandchildren. Matrifocal households are 1101 unusLlal, but far from the rule (as in some other West Indian commun­ ilies). C10sc relations tend to live near each other and to regard each others' yards as their own. The extended family ideal persists and is aeted upon, C~ pecially during ceremonial occaskms, by the sharing and helping principie. 'Fricnding' is regarded as thrcatening to family loyalties. rol' a numbcr 01' reasum. O ne's loyalt ies a rc slI pposed to be primarily tu onc's ramily. cspccially in sllaring, 011 1 I'ric llush ip olso calls rOl' Ihe Sil111l: kinu o f sharing prtll:Css . Fu rllH.: rlllorc, n1 alc 1'1 il.:ndsh irs earry o lle üway f'n) lll lIl e Ilh.'II S o r lhe la ll ll ly, allo whilc 0 111.' i, away. Ullc is 110 longc l so scvcrclv II II" l' (' Ihe cOll tro l o!' lI le fa llli l" cell lre n i 1I11 11111/ II V I 'in. lll v. r,il'nd shlrs nllly ¡'(!ll le 111 10 L'on lllcl 11)

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wilh ramilial "alues beca use Ihe IaUcr emphasise co-opt!ral ion and an orderly houschold. The greatcsl enemy 01' order is seen to be words out of control­ in argumcnts cspecially. It is regardcd as very important to keep one 's family affa irs to oncsclf. Because of the high value plaeed on staying out of public notice, ciJmmes.\' is feared cspeeial!y when it is ' melée' . But this isjust the kind 01' malicious talk which is commonly canied on between friends . Contrari wise, it is regarded as unnatural , ano es pecially as urnnanly. to stay in the yard and the garoen and not to ha ve friends. Aman earns respect by the number of friends he can count on . On a day-to-day basis, conflict s between family and friendship roles do not arise beca uSe the ideal s of fri end­ ship grow out offamily ideals: trust, privacy , sharing. However, a frien dship must be a rcciproca Larrangement, and reciprocity (not primarily economic) exists on the social leve!. Consequently, to demonstrate friendship (with one orthe same 01' opposite sex) one must talk with the other. and the friendship is potentially threatening 10 the family since one must tel! the other some­ thing, and that something may come from withi n the family. One must answer trust wi th trust- - but one also does not expect that trust to be kept as wel! by friends as by family. The family is also a circumscribed social group­ ing, while the friendship network is no\. ThllS, there is a feeling 01' constraint and restriction within the family group, and contrarily there is a sensc of freedom felt in developing friendships. This has a physical concomitant, since family affairs must be pursued primarily in the house and yaro, while friend ­ ships are canied on in the streets. Becallse of this psychological opposition between freedom and constraint, those \Vho break away from the household especial!y strongly are the young meno This is regarded as natural. on the one hand, and yet also as leading inev.itably to a loss 01' 'sense' and to 'rudeness', for the family is regarded as the locus 01' 'sense', it being the centre 01' the social ordering system of the community_This is reOected in the drinking of rum o' the nonsense-maker', on friendship occasions. Naturally enough , it is the young men who are regarded as the centre 01' ' rude' activities in the community _ From this ambience ariscs a felt (and often expressed) relationship between friendship , gregariousness, ' rudeness' and 'nonsense', and by extension, also between family and order, 'acting sensible' and ' behaved '. This has its ramifi­ cations in performances 01' al! sorts , especially in ceremonial occasions. Those festivities which go on in the yard emphasise bringing Criends and family togeth er by an aesthetic stylisation of oecorum , and those carried on in the streets styli se ' nonsense ', or licensing bchaviour. Natural!y , these latter occur only at very special times.

* * * * * This survt:y 01' Ihe u.sc 01' t ha vc rnade hislol icall y ¡¡lid l'l l\ ll rUIIC lo rnake in a var icl y ol'wa ys inl hc ollgulIlgct> lI lcstalion :4 w ilh úornin¡tII l unu dominating p,llr ian:ha l a llllw ritics . Wl wlI rwt spcaking, it js vitally im po rtant to listcn or \llhl.!r-w isc In a llc nd \Vd l cnough to follow along. Knowing one 's place as a n inl c rJ oclili vc s ubjcct- staying in jt ami keeping track 01' it- has undeniably rl.!a l political and personal conscqucnccs. [11 thcir perfonnanees, conVersations are non-linear phenomena; they rcse mblc rhi zo/l1es /l1l1ch more than hierarchies. 7

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lile disc urs iw l'ormu lauoll prw.:lkal consciousness, in what Mikhail Bakhtin calls a dialog ue 01' IIIt('ral1(,(,,\'.~ Michol de C erteau locates distinctions between speech and language in Ihe problematics 01' enunciation, which he characterizes in tenns of its four propenies. First, language takes place by means 01' speaking; speech realizes languagc by actualizing portions 01" it as potential ami possibility. Second, speaking uppropriates language in the very act 01' speaki ng it. Third, speech presupposes a particular re!atiOl1a! conlract with an "other" -real or fictive. i\nd fourth. spcech instantiates a presen/ as the time for an ''1'' to speak. (33) In these ways, conversational micropractices produce and reproduce socio­ cultural structures and formations by means of binding time an d space. They are more or less transparent mediational practices of and l'or structuration. The question I set for rnyself in this essay is: How do these conversationa l micropractices~so seemingly innocllous and innocent of power- produce and consume ideoJogies of everyday living? Conversa/ion is a term designating a large but finite assemblage 01' dis­ course micropractices that produce and rep roduce wltures a.ml their social rormations. How is this performed conversationally? 80th ethnomethodology generally, ami conversation analysis particularly, have invested heavily in the finely grained descri ptions 01' the indexicality ami reflexivity of everyday life. 9 There are growing research literatures that describe arrays 01' interactional sociolinguistic ami ethnomethodolgical devices and procedures instrumental in the co-production 01' conversation. Sociolinguistic variation, ethnomethod­ ological conversational analysis , extended standard theory, and ethnography ofcommunication share several theoretical and methodological assumptions. Ilowever, situating any of this work in the intimately political worlds 01' the conversants thernselvcs is still relatively rareo Conversational moves , devices and properties (e.g. , greetings, repetitions, questions and answers, accounts, correction invitations, address terms, stories, paraphrasing, quoting, pronouns, gossiping, visiting, politeness, hosting, telephone talking. among others) me seldom explored as modes of consciousness, structures 01' feeling, shapes of experience; nor are they often fitted into the domÍllant, residual, and emer­ gent features 01' their sociocultural traditions, institution s and formations . lu 1 want to take a difl'erent course ami follow several lines of cultural studies, performance theory . ami conversational studies to forcground some pivota.1 differences distinguishing these traditions. Everyday conversations are identified, reified , described, and analyzed , but rarely arc they abstracted back into the material and spiritual relations of the political-economics ofthe daily lives ofits interloclltors. One is left with little scnse ofhow thesc conversational micropractices produce and reproduce the si r\lctural amI post-st ructural eonditi o m; 0[" the expe rience ol' postmodem life. V. N . Volosin ov's IIJ('orctical ano cri tical \Vork in the philosophy o flan­ gUi.lgL·, M ikhuil Bakhl in 's WPl'k in spcech gcnrcs, poctics a no dia logics, Michol h .luca ull 's W ¡)!' ]" 011 Ih¡; I'l'J\C ;i!()!'il:s of pmvcr/k nuwlcd gc, and Ihe dh ics.

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That 's il. a rhizome . Embryos, trces. develop according lo their gene tic perfonnation or their structural reorgani za tions. But the weed overftows by virtl1e of being restrained. It grows between. It is the path itsclf. The English ami Ameriean s, \Vho are the least " autho[-like" 01' writers, have t\Vo particularly sharp directions whieh connect: that 01' the road and of the path, that oí' the grass and 01" the rhi zome.... /-Ienry Miller: " Grass only exists between the great non-cultivated spaces. It fills in the voids. 1/ grows he/wecn­ C/mong o/her /hings. The f10wer is beautiful , the cabbage is Llseful , the poppy makes yOl1 erazy. But the grass is overflowing, it is a lesson in 1Il0rality. The walk as act, as politics , as experimentation, as life: " 1 spread myself out like a fog BETWE EN t he people th at I know the best" says V irginia Woolf in her walk a mon g the ta xis.

(30) Like rhizomcs, conversations grow from the middle, gi ve n that there are beginnings and endings, other than those imposed from the outside. (;ralltcd. wnversational micropractices are ideologically formatted and hcgel1l onically circumscribed; nevertheless, conversations wander down bli nd ;Ilkys, slam into dead-ends, topple off sheer cliffs, get turned arollnd, beeome asphyxiated. repeat aimlessly, and suddenly break off. They circle a round al\(l fold back onto themselves; they retricve and recreate , recall ami adum­ IlIalc in ways that elude the ass umptive foundations 01' formal logics and dialcctics . IVllIch of the theoretical ami cultural significance of conversational ll1i crupradices are their performative locations along the seams 01' speech/ lall g uagc. On the one hand, conversations partake of both speech ami lan­ ~ t1 :t gc; ü n the other, thcy havc little to do with cither. lnsofar as language is IlIal which il.s (collllsional) mCfllbers aSSllfllC they know in common--that which !'PI'S wilhout say ing- Ia ngu age is a practical conseiousness, an implicjtly held CO IIII\lOIl sen sc. Spl:cch . on Ih\.! olhcr hand. is a discursive eo nsciollsness­ ,11 1 il1 divjdlr:.tlcd, .:xpliLil purlorllla livc sCll se- inso far a s ji i.~ lllal which mol.[ hl: sa id hl:l';JlISl' II ¡'(l IIII O!I he W;su rl ll.:d lo p as!; in );iIL' lIl.:l· Spwd l 1 :111 bc 110

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)' IIlIIl1t IIlIl:I) II ~ly 1< )w¡ lrd 11ll' ¡¡dd l CSKC I :tnd Inw:1I d I hl: , Itl d ""':-;I:~:. Tht: I W Il skk, 1;"I I, litIl IC Ih~' I \VO P\ ) k:~ n I" a co ntill uulIl W,)lIg whid l ~" I1l''¡ c nl:c can be aPP\'I.:Il\.:rH.bl ami stlllctur¡;U I\ kulogica lly. Thc " 1-cxpcricllI.:c," a l its extremc, l usc~ ils ideological strlll.:t urcJness and with it, its apprehcnJability. It appro­ ¡¡ches Ihc physiolngical reaction of animality in losing its verbal delineation. !\t the other extrcme is what Volosinov calls the "we-experience," character­ izcd by él high degree of differentiation , the mark of a change/expansion of consciOLlsness. The more differentiated the collcctive in which an individual orients hcrselC the more vivid and complex her conscioLlsness. For Bakhtin 's essay, "The Problem of Speech Gcnres," the editors write:

Idcology should not be confuscd with the politically oriented English word. Ideology as it is used here is essentially an y system of ideas . But ideology is semiotic in the sense that it involves the concrete cxchange of signs in society and history. Every word/discourse betrays the ideology of ils speaker; every speaker is thus an ideologue and every utterance an ideologeme. (101)

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handed t! ()w n it CIldll ll.:S, hlll ilcl\dllrC~ as a continllOlls rroccss ~)r bccolllillg. IlIdividllals do no t rl'ccive a ready-made langllage at all, rathcr they enter llpon the stream of verbal comlllunication; indced , only in this stream does their consciousness first bcgin to operatc.

(8 1) Bakhtin works from the theory and history of literature to develop the concept of dia/ofiica/ C0l1sciousness. 11 In hi s study of Dostoev sky's poetics, hero (subject) is neither character nor personality ; it is rather discourse about itself and its world. Dostoevsky's hcro is not an objectified image but an autonomous discourse, pure voice; \Ve do not see him, we hear him ; everythlng that we see and know apart from his disco urse is nonessential and is swallowed up by disco~lrse as its own material, or else remains outside it as something that st imulates and provokcs. (53)

In actual fact, howcver, 1:.l1Ig lla g..: moves together with that stream and is inseparable rmm il. 1 :J lI ll.u age üun not properly be sa id to hc

Dostoevsky 's heroe.1 speak themselves into consciousness in the process of experiencing living. Rather th an creating a finali zed and complete monologist, Dostoevsky writes hemes who speak themsclves into at least partial conscious­ ness in a world inhabited by others in the process of becoming conscious -heco/11ing-olher-wi.l'e- in the ongoing stream of speech-communicatio n. Subjects speak utterances structured by their material circumstances, which then structure and flesh out their experience. Speaking dialogically, for Bakhtin , is speaking lI'ilh a multiplicity of other voiees rather than speakingjo,. othcrs and ahoul lhei,. experience. Dialogical discoursc is speech that is open and on the threshold of elisis and possibil­ ity at evcry moment. Its speaker is not a finali zed and determinable subject but an interlocutor in process, a subject coming to partiaJ consciousness in a world of other unfinished subjects, working to spcak the truth ol' their experience. From such a theorctical vantage point, speaking dialogically is consciousness-beeoming. Speaking dialogically c1arifies events and experi­ ence for a subject such that the trulh at which a conversing subject is arriving is the truth of its own partial consciousness. 1t is self-reflexivc specch coming lo consciousness.12 Conversation , in short, is inherently ideological. It is into and against this ideological world that speaking subjects come to partial consciousncss. Realized utterances, as gesturc and spcech, influence experience by tying inner lite together and sharpening difl'erentiations. Volosinov uses the term " behavioral ideology" to delineate our unsystematized speeeh , which en­ uo ws every acC a nd thcrct"orc o ur every con scious sta te, with meaning.'1 F or Volosinov:

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Native language learning is an infan!'s gradual immersion into verbal com­ munication , and very quickly, if not immediately, conversation , which per­ forms intersubjectivity, in etTect. Volosinov argues that experience and its outward objectifications are articulated in embodied signs. !\gain, expcrience does not exist indcpendent, somehow, of its embodiment as signs. It 's not a matter of experience organizing utterances; rather, the reverse. Utterances organize experience. And it is the immediate social situation and its broader sociocultural milieux that determine, from within themselves. the structure of each utterance. U tterances then form up and orient to experiences of its speaker's partial consciousness. Coward and Ellis define ideology as representational practices that c10se off meanings and produce subjects as th e supports and supporters 01' mcan­ illgs. It is mealling as dosure that delimits and {hes the subject as an individual in discourse- an interlocutor. The work of ideology is the production of lhe (,llntinuity of the unitary ego as subject. By closing off the inherent open­ Ill'SS 01' discourse and its contradictions, ideology produces the appearance of Ihe unity of the subject and of world. But the sllbject, as sign , is in process. Ilkology works, then , to punctuate the being of becoming, producing the r,mll of an auton omous subject speaking with a unitary voice. Similarly, for Vu losinov , discou rse is not reified language conceptualized synchronically, but rather it is th c stream of verbal communication:

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Rccal1 Ihal I"or BOllrd l\'II , dl ~ p\lsiliul1s are leamed withoul bcil1~ expli­ eilly Illoddkd, tau!dlt , or inslmcled in and throllgh daily participation in Iln: pl"actices 01" evcryday Iifc. Thcy are the matcrial embod.imcnts of every­ day pracliccs. A complimcntary notion is Hall's formulation of the " doub1c articulation" of str ucturc and practice:

('on -:C4 11cntly. "Marxist philosophy of langllage shollld and must stand sq lIa n!ly on thL: lIttcrance as the rcal phenomenon of language-speech and as I hc s()c,ioidcological structure." (97) I ,el mc now turn to the sociologieal side of diseourse a nd the matter of id co logy. Complemellting the conception of con sciousness as d ialogical is hnmpson's conception of ideology as the th ought o f lhe other, the though l nI" sorneonc other than onesclf, thought that serves to sustaio relations and slructurcs 01" domination :

By "double articulation " 1 mean Lha t the structure- the given condi­ tions 01' existence , the structure of determinations in any situation­ can also be understood, from another point ofview, as simply the result 01' previous praetices. We may say that a structure is what p reviously strllctllred practices have produced as a result. These then constitute the " given conditions," the necessary starting point for new genera­ tions of practice. (93)

To characterizc a view as " ideological" is alrea(zv to criticize it, ror ideology is not a neutral tenn. Hence, the study of ideology is a controversial, confiict-laden activity . It is an aetivity which plunges the analyst into a realm of daim and eounter-c1ai lll . of a llegation , accusation and riposte. ( 14)

As discursive practices, conversation articulates the experiencc 01' sllbjects' consciousness with the meanings of sociohistorical conditions. And it is the articulation of meaning with experience, and thereby the c10sing off 01' lllean­ ing, that constitutes the ideological nature of dialogical conversation. Insofar as ideology consists in the ways ami means by which meaning and significa­ tion serve to sustain relations and structures of domination, conversing arti­ culates meaning with experience. which produces consciousness as cmbodied subjects at the same time it produces history and reproduces sociocultural formations. Dialogical conversation is a double articulation; it media tes consciollsness and ideology . Conversational micropractices art'i culate meaning and signification not in any determinate sense but rather in the sense of momentarily arresting the slippage of the field of signifiers. According to Hall's reading of Althusser's formulation ofideology, it is ideology's fllnction to fix llleanjng a lld signi.fica­ tion by establishing a chain of eqllivalcnces in the field of pe rpetuaIly slipping and shifting signifiers.34 Insofar as ideologies are maps of worlds , their formats are discursive, read as the strategies of common sense regarding a material and spiritual world. Discourse, as the semiotic domain 01' llleaning aad repres­ entation , then, is the material lllodality of the functioning 01' ideology- as formatted common sense-·and conversational micropracticcs are the material devices for plltting the practical consciousness of ideology into the material practices of everyday living. Hall writes:

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To characterize conversation as ideological is to grant it its own agency and autonollly. Conversation is no more neutral than is ideology. Utter­ ¡mces of lhe ongoing stream of conversation are, by their very existence , idcological , and whcn conversation is dialogical and more truly heterg­ lossic, as it is for Dostoevsky's heroes, then it Slll1lmOnS a response. An utterance stands as a summons or challenge to preceden!; it sumlllons a response from an other interlocutor giving voice to partial consciousness. Behavioral ideology entails the speaking of experience into autonomous self-consciousness, and sllch se1f-conscioLlsness rests on a foundation of opposition . difference, contradiction , c1ailll and counter-c1aim . rn these ways, Thompson and Volosinov concur on the rclations between conversation and idcology: To explore the interrelations between language éLnd ideology is to turn away frolll the analysis of well-formed sentences or systems of signs, focusing instead on the ways in which expressions serve as a means 01' action and interaetion, a mediulll through which history is produced and society reproduced. The theory of ideology invites us to see that lan guage i~ IIllt sim pl y a li tructure which can be employed fU I" corlll11l1l1icalhm 01 lJll lc' rl.u il1l11cnt but a sociohi storicul pl h.: no m­ ellOI1 wh ich is \'l11h , oi ln l in h ll li1~ 1I1 c0 l10 ict.

Language and behavior are the media , so to speak , 01' the material registration 01' ideology , the moda1ity of its functioning. That is \Vhy we have to anal yze o r deconstruct language and behavior in order to dcciphcr the patterns of ideological thinking which are inscribed in t!telll . (99, I nO)

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Il ,tll Pdl,lp l ll ¡¡~('" I\Ir ""!o"'lI " Ill llllll hll lun .. 1 u Il'I .' liI¡' , ,1',sys lt'IllS or rqlll'"cll lll llulI l'\ II I1 P"Sl'd., 1 l- 1I11(T pls. id\!as, IlIy lh., 111 II IHI~'CS 111 wllil:h 1IIl' I! ,11Il1 WOl lIl'1I ... 1iVl' IhelJ illl a!lillary rcla lil)/ls 11> the lea lconJ ilions 01" C\ I.,It'Ill't', .. " SySll:lIIS \)r represental ion a re codcs ~ ,r inl cll igihilily , the form ats 11\1 n l't' IICIIl'in g lhe lI1alerial l:llllllilions 01' cveryday lire. Thesc systems Il'Pll''ó\'1I1 alld rncu i;lle lhe imll1ediate or real l:onditions ol' existenee. 1t is III IJ1\Issi bk III cx perience lhe reall:ollllitions immediately; thus all practiees 01' rv pl csl' lIla lillll are ideologieal, whieh does not neeessarily imply that all Il' llI c:-.cn lalional practices sUl:h as l:ol1versational praetices - a re nOlhing hut idl'" lol'lV- ('lIIwersalional micropractil:es are formats or l:odes shaping our V\ IWI ICIIl'e Ill' lhe reall:onditions 01' existenl:e , b llt as mediated experience, it '.I,llI ds in an imaginary re1ation to the real. SUl:h pradices put into play the ~y~ ll l11 oruJlles and presentations, and are in that sense inherently ideological. ( '1I l1 wrsational nlil:ropractices mediale lhe immediate vertical circumstances by IlI yillg lhel1l down and building them up into horizontal differenees, 1I ,II1 o.; hHllli ng Illeaning into signifieation, and producing their interlocutors ,I ~ hIiC\ '!c llrs taking what they find and mediating, styling, and fashioning 11 Ihl' way a lurn takes what it finds- and what it finds are the imaginary ICll l110llS lo lhe real conditions of existence and interpellated subjects as IIILCIl ,)cu lors, subjeds cul out as conversants and i/1l'erled as authoritie 11I1Idlil~CS an utteranl:e that ofnecessity rearranges those conoitions, which are li s Ia w llIaterials. Once the analogic relations 01' practicall:onsl:iousness are d l!, II ,dil.l'd as the disl:ursive practices of conversation, gaps and absences ¡lI l' pl'lldlll:ed: the l:ontinuity of practical consl:iousness becomes the disl:on­ 1IIIII il y 01' disl:ursive pradices. The turning and reversing of conversing break IIp illla lngical experienee into digital , circumstantial experience, the formats ,,1 which are the performative structures of l:onversation. ( 'onwrsations, as both memory ano pradice, de Certcau ealls the narrafil'e ,,1'111('/ . ll e charaderizes an "art" as a practice for which there is not enuncia­ 11,11 1; il is practil:al know1edge that has yet to be diseursivised ; it is use-value wilholll lhe eommodifying algorithm that produl:es exchange-value. For de ('cr leall , conversing is such an art, an art 01' doing and of thinking constitut­ i fl~' Ihcory and practice simllltaneously. In shor!, it is the genius of praxis a rliclIlakd with the art ofstoryte11ing. 1ú As an art ofconversing, storytelling pIl)dllCCS effects, not objects- narratioll, not description. As the narraJive o/ 1(/, '1, ClJnvcrsations are the ways tactical turn-taking enal:ts memory and prodllces sllbjective experience; to develop the multiple relations bctween \'Illl vcrsing and narrating is beyond the seope of this essay.

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an: autOl:th llog rar lllc sc lI 1l·llcX lvc, sdl -illlpl ical ive illwsligaliolls 01' Ihe cOl1wrsatiollal polil ics nI' cxpc riellec." It's work prediea ted (lll the aSSlll11p­ li(lJl that olhcr is inlerior (1m! exlerior; here (fl1d there: now (fnd then . Trinh T. M in h-Ila addresscs this self-rellexive turn: critique from the interior always helps to sow ooubts in a way that cannot be I1lcrely oiscaroeo as "other" .... To l1lake things even more complex and prone to critical investigation, " westcrn " and "nonwestern" must be unoerstood not mcrely in tcrms 01' opposi­ tions ano separations bul rat her in terms ofoifferences. This irn plies a constant to-a nd-fro movement between the sa me and the o ther. ( 138)

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Thc search for thc exotil: other is futile . Histories are projections of the unwanted and the unforgiven onto other, then a1ienating- or worse- other only to be dceply disturbeo by the disquiet, thc longings, the absences , the violences.'x Separating, evaluating, rejecting and projecting masculi nity onto other, for examp1e, perpetuates a more or 1css open state 01' conflict. Alienation and fragmentation are all but inevitable. My critical ano tneoretical intercsts are to show how conversations map the lano sca pes of practical consciOllsness as oiscursive eonsciousness: how conversations separate possibility from impossibi1ity; how they articulate subject ano objecL Ano other is doin g some version 01' the same, cvcn though both may assume that self is, in fact, adoressing other. Ano at the same time, there are the abject fears 01' nihilismo of oissolving. w Each wnversational study based o n these interests involves a subject alldiotaping a convcrsation with an other. O nce audiotaped, authors listen, transcribe, edit , re-transcribe, analyze , critique and implicatc their discursive selves. This critical sc1f-reflexivity is a double-reflcction: it is the oialectical partner of narcissisl1l; il is a hecoming-olher-lVise. The anal ytic prol:edures involveo in eaeh stLloy are analogolls to watching a film or vioeo 01' one's self, repeateoly , in slow-motion. with stop-adion , ano pause. Subjects begin to hear conversational octails, often for the tirst time . As 1 become inl:reasingly involveo in the micropractices oftranscribing, I come to questions oC the dialogics and dialectics of the more or less con­ ventional configurations of conversalion , consl:Íousness, experience and mcaning. Mikhail Bakhtin's various treatments 01' U/lerance, creafiFe under­ standing, hero, carniva/', helerog/ossia, po!yvocalily, centripetal and cel1trijúga! forces, ol(lsidedness and superaddressee are the conceptual thematics through which 1 come to understand these conversations.41l This progrcssi o n aeross analytic ano perlormative bounoaries is a strip­ ping a way of fam ili arity, a setting aside of lhe ord inary, a sel f-refl exive movC lll at accomplishes Ihe cxpcricncc 01' \Vhat Bakhlin calls oUlsidedness. 4' FOllcalllt spccifics CXP('/'ÍCI/U in 11!1 'H s nI" thrce moóes 01" o bjeclilka tio n in a nd t hrough

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\vllll: h Il1d ivuIIl UI ' , hu U1 11~ .IIIWlllah:d with k nllW lcd l''''I'Ii\Vl'I 11'. SlIhjl'd.s: IlI'lds (J I' k n mvlcd ,·ll' \IIllh l: OII1:~ p I S ; rules or di viding p l lld ll T1-I . , 11111 Ihe rcla­ III1Ilship tu OJl cscW I ! !'l lIs lX1Jlh.:xtualising is an cxplicil ulfirnllllg (JI' lIIultiple VOl I.:CS tha! cons litulc c~)nversational sclves. Outsidedncss o issol vcs into inter­ 'tuhjectivily as ulllhors hear the vo ices of sclves in the llttera nces of others. In Ihe process oftranseribing, authors atteno to conversational taeties for invert­ Ilg l'xpectations, questioning oppositions, refusing troubles, resisting labds, \p icing mcanings, laughing, crying, shouting, and perhaps even listening in , ,!cuce. Transeribing conversations ano identifying diseursive taeties ereate I'.ó' ps between subjeet and object, self and othe!'. These gaps are the tadical Ip: lces ol' and for critical self-reflexi vity, J\uthors recogni ze selves' voices on I.Jpe, and yet the experience of listening repeatedly to short bits and bursts of Ihl'ir audiotaped conversations, and seeing what transcribed conversation Itloks like, is a sometimes surprisingly destabilizing process. Richard Schechncr writes of the liminoid space 01' the no/(me) . , . l7ol(no/ 1/1/') produeed during a performance following workshop and rehearsal pre­ l'i1ration.43 Authors get senses of this liminoid spacc as they experience being ,llodds with their recorded voices. 44 One begins to hcar and to recognize the mices that articulate self with other, voiees that speak presumptions of a Jlllitary, univoeal , singular identity. Bakhtin 's treatments of [Jo/yl'ocalily and 1he inherenl unfinalizahili/y 4/he subjec/ can be understood this way. J\ uthors hcgin to realize these multiplicities and this destabilizing, decentering experi­ ('!Ice is both unnerving and empowering. Schechner claims that restored hehavior is not a discovery proeess, but rather a proeess of research and field­ work, and of rehearsals in the most profound sense. Theater, for him, is the :trt of specializing in the concrete techniques of restoring behavior. Critica! lllltology and conversation dialogics also aim at produeing conversational dialogues that restore behavior, and create differenccs and possibilities. 45

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varidy uf rossihle sr"ces. POPIJ!;1I clJlture increasingly requires each nI' us lO live taelieally in the forms uf cOl1temporancity and lO cullivale alternative aeslhelics Cllld spiri l uali lies filted lo such conditions. Conversations are lhe malerial media through \vhich much 01' this gets worked out, even if never finally accomplished.

Notes

One of the objectives of this work is to politicize details and featmes of cveryday discursive practices, and thereby politicize the eonsciollsnesses tha! are partially reproduced and imperfectly evidenced conversationally.46 Stra­ legic ingenuity evidences ilselfin the polítical economies ofspace, in the ways space is acquired, defended, traded, and used to enhance the control of scarce resources. Tactieal ingenuity evidenccs itself in the political economies of time, in ways to live temporarily, in the timing of interventions into space, in the styles of making lime stand still, accelerate, and decelcrale . The ~I)I ' I"I

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alc d\.:lI vcU 1'1'11111 Ihli dislim;li o n lIIadl.: hy linguisls bl;lwccn "phoncm ic" an u " phOIlClil', " Ihe l'orlller heing Ihe sllIdy 01' sounds rccogni í'.cd as dislill\;t lVilhin a spccilic la llgllage, Ihe la ller bcing the cross-lingual sluuy of distinguishablc human soumJ unils . Ken neth Pike, who propounded this dichotomy, should be allowed to formulate, it: " Descriptions of analyses from the etic stand­ poinl are 'alien .' with criteri a external to the system. Emic descriptions pro­ vide an intcrnal view [or an " inside view" in H ockett's tcm ls], with criteria chosen from within the systelll . They represent to us the view 01' one familiar with th is system and who knows how to function within it hi mself. "5 F rolll this standpoint all t'our of the stra tegies of explanation proposed by White dr a wing on Pepper- formism , organicism, Illechanjsm . a nd context ualism­ would produce etic narratives if they were uscd to provide accounts of societies outside that Western cultun Il t radi tion gcnerativel y lriang ulated by the Ihinking of Jerusalcm , Athens , and Rome and eontinued in the phiJo­ sophical , literary, and soeialscientific traditions of E urope , North America, and their cultural offshoots. Indeed, members of such societies (the so-called Third World) have protcsted, as recently as 1973/' that Western attempts to "explain " their cultures amount to no more than "cognitive cthnocentrism," dimini shing thcir contribution to the global human reHexivity which mod­ em communicational and informational systems are now making possiblc, if hardly casy. In other words. what we in the West consider etic, that is, " nolllothetic," " non-culture-bound ," "scientific," " objective," they are com­ in g to regard as emic. There are then hOlh etie and emic ways 01' regarding narralive. An anthro­ pologist, embedded in the life 01' an at-first-wholly-othcr culture and separ­ ated, save in memory , from his own, has lo come to terms with that which invests and invades him. The situation is odd enough. He is tossed into the ongoinglife 01' a parce! of people who not on 1)' speak él di fferent language but also classify what we wOllld caJl "social reality " in ways that are at first quite un expected. He is compelJed to learn , however haltingly , the criteria which provide the " inside view." l am aware of W hite's "t heory 01' the historical work " and that it bears importantly upon how to write ethnographies as well as histories; but I am also aware that any discussion of lhe role of narrative in other cultures requires that an emic description of narrative be made. For the anthropo­ logist's work is deeply involved in what l ile might calJ " tales." "stories," "folktales," "histories." "gossip:' and " inrormants' accounts"--types of nar­ rative for which there may be many native names , not all of which coincide with our terms. Indeed , M ax Gluckman has commentcd that Ihe very lerm " anthropologist" means in G reek "onc who talks abo ul men ," in other words, a "gossip. " In our cult ure \Ve havc many way:; or lal ki ng abolll mcn , descri ptivc ém d a nalYl ica l, f(lrImll an u illrorl11 ... l, tradi tiona l an u \l pcn-e nucu. Sincc o urs is el Iilera lc cu lture, chanu.:lcl il.cu by ti rdincd div lSill1l n I' cu lt ura l labor, we have ucv iscd f1 UI11Cl'lll IS spt d a li/.cd gcnrcs by II K'a !! '! ,,1' whic h we 11')

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scal1 , uc:;cribc, alld ill lc rprcllllll hch ... vior to\Vard onC anolher. But lhe impulse lo lalk aboLlI one anothcr in dilTercnt ways, in terms 01' different qualities and Icvcls or mutual consciousness, precedes literacy in all human communities. 1\11 human acts and in stitulions a re enveloped, as C lifrord Geertz might say, in \Vebs 01" interpretive words. Also, of course, we mime and dance with one another- we ha ve webs or interpretive nonverbal symbols. A nd we play one anothe r- beginning as children- a nd continue through life to learn new ro les and the subcultures of highe r statuses to which we aspire, partly seriously, partly ironically. Ndcmbu make a distinction, akin to White' s divisi o n be lween " chron icle" and " story" as levels of conceptuu liza tioo in Western culture, between nsang'u and kaheka Nsang'u, chronicle, may refer, for exam ple, to a purportedly factual record of Úle migration 01' the L unda chiefs amI their followers from the K atanga region of Zaire on Ihe Nkalanyi River, to Ih eir encounter with the autochthonous Mbwela or Lukolwe peoples in Mwinilunga District, to battles and marriages between Lunda and Mbwela .. to the establishment of Ndembu-Lunda chiefdom s, to the order o f chietIy incumbents down to lhe present, to the raids of Luvale and Tchokwc in the nincteenth century to secure indentured labor for the Portuguese in San Tome lon g after the fomlal abolition orthe slave trade, to the coming ofthe missionaries, foJlowed by Ihe British South Africa Company, and finally to British colonial rule . Nsang'u may also denote an autobiographical account , a personal reminisccnce, or an eyewitness report of yesterday's interesting happening, N.\·an/(u, like chron­ ieJe, in White's words, arranges " the events to be dealt with in the temporal order of their oecurrence" (p. 5). Just as a chronieJe becomes a "story," in White's usage, " by the rurther arrangement of the events into the cornpon­ ents 01' a 'spectacle' or process 01' happenin g, which is thought to possess a discernible beginnin g, middle, and end .. . in terms 01' inaugural motifs . .. terminating motifs ... and transitional motifs," so 11,1'{¡ng'u becomes /whe/w. The term kaheka covers a range 01' tales which ollr folklorists \Vollld no doubt sort out into a number or etic typcs : myth , folktal e, marchen , legend , bailad , folk epic, and the Iike. Their distinctive fealure is thal they arc partl y told. partly sung. At key points in thc narration th e audience joins in a sung refrain, brea king the spoken scq lIcnce. It depend s on the context of the situation and Ihe mod e of framing whether a given set of events is regardcd as Ilsan/(u 01' kahe/w . Take, for example, the series of tales about the ancicnt Lunda chiefY a la Mwaku , his dallghter Lweji Ankonde , her lover the LlIban hunter-prince C hibinda Ilung'a , and her broth ers Ching'uli and Chinyama : their loves, hates, l:Onflicts, and reconciliations Jed, on the one hand, to the establishment of the Lunda nation and , on th e other, to the secession and d iaspo ra of d issident Lunda groups, thereby spreading knowledge of central­ izeo polil ic-..t l organi zal ion over a wide territory. This sequence may be told by a chicr 01' puta ti ve Lunua 0rigin to pol iticaJl y in flue ntia l visitors as a I/Sl/IIg '/1, a ch rollide, pc rhaps tu justi ry his ti tic lO hi-; a rrice, Bul epi sodes rrolll 1I \

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lit is dllll llit.:l\: 111;1 )' h.: Ilall ~ I ~ II"II'd i"!l' Sllll ll'. 111.11 ,', 11,11,/" , Ipllllal 01' /\(/11,,1\11), allu luid hy old WOlIll~1l lo grou ps o l' ~ h" d l l:1 1 II " "!IItd 1I~'. \1 I hr "ildwll (ire during Ihe ~old seasoll. A particular favorite story , analyzed recently by tlw dislinguishcd Bclgian structuralist Luc de Hcusch .7 relates how the drunken king Yala M waku was derided and beaten by his sons but cared for tenderly by his daughter Lweji A nkonde, whom he rewarded by passing on to her, on his death . the royal bracelet, the /u/wnll (made 01' human genitalia for the magical maintenanee of the fertility of humans, animals, and crops in the whole kingdom) , thus rendering her the legitimate Illonarch of the Lunda. Another story tells how the young queen is informed by her maidens that a handsome young hunter, Chibinda, having slain a waterbuck, had camped with his companions on the far sioe of the Nkalanye River. She Sllmmons him to her presence, and tbe two fall in love at once amI talk for many hOllrs in a grove of trees (where tooaya sacreo fire, lhe center of an extensive pilgrimage, burns constantly). She Iearns that he is the youngest son of a great Luba chief but that he prefers the free life of a forest huntcr to the court. Nevertheless, he marries Lweji out of love and, in time, receives from her the lukul1l1- she has to go into sedusion ouring menstruation and hands Chibinda the bracelet lest it become polluteo--·making him the ruJcr ofthe Lunda nation. Lweji's turbulent brothers refuse lo recognize him ano lead their people away to carve out new king­ ooms for themselves and consequentIy spread the format 01' political central­ ization among stateless societies. Jan Vansina, the noted Belgian ethnohistorian, has discusseo the relation­ ship between this foundation narrative ano the political structures ofthe many central African societies who c1aim that they "came from Mwantiyanvwa ," as the new oynasty carne to call itself. ~ He finos in this corpus of stories more than myth, although Heusch has iJluminatingly treated it as such; Vansina finds c1ues to historical affinities between the scattered societies who assert Lunoa origin-- indications corroborated by other types of evidence, lin­ guistic, archaeological, ano cultural. As in other cultures, the same events may be framed as I1SCll1g'U or kaheka. chronicJe or story, oftcn accoroing to their nooal location in the tife prolJess of the group or community that recounts thcm. It all oepenos where and when ano by whom they are told. Thus, for some purposes the fOLlndation tales ofYala Mwaku ano Lweji are treatcd as chroniclc to aovance él political cJaim. for example. a c1aim to " Lundahooo, " as lan Cunnison calls their assertion of descent from prestigio LIS migrants. f"or the purpose of entertainment, the same tales are defi ned as stories, with many rhetorical touches and tlourishes as wel! as songs inserted as evoca ti ve embellishment. Incidents may even be ci teu during pro~esses 01' Iitigation to legitima te or rein fo rce Ihe cJaims or a rlai nl ilTin él dispute over boundarics or sLJccession lo Orfil:C. For I he a nlhro pologisl. h OWCVé t . wll o is cOllccrm:u wi Ih t he sluoy 01' social i1di oll ami :-:ocia l procCl,S, il is 1101 thcsc 1'olll1ul gC'rm!s ul" lakldl i [1~ and

laldll';\l'in¡; tllal lllOst glil' IIi~; al 11'111"'11 hll!, rall1\.'I', as wc have secll, \Vhal we wOllld l'all gossip, tal" alld 1'lllllOl'S ahollt Ihe privale arrairs 01' othcrs, what lite Ndcl1lbll alld their neighbors. the Luvalc, call kudiyong'o/a, relatcd to the vcrb kllyll/lg'(/, "lo cf()wd together," for much gossip takes place in the central, unwalled shelter of traditional villages. where the circumcised, hence socially " mature," males gather to discuss community affairs and hear the "news" from wayfarers 01" other commun ities. Frank Kerm ode once defined the novel as consisting 01" two components: scandal and myth. Certainly gossip, which incJuoes scandal , is one of the peren nial sources of cul t ural genres. Gossip ooes not occur in a vacuum among the Ndembu; it is almost always "plugged in" to social orama. Although it might be argued that the social drama is a story in White's sense, In that it has oiscernible inaugural, transitiona l. amI terminal moti fs, that ¡s. a beginning, a miodle, ano an end, my observations convinee me that it is, illdeed, a spontaneous unit of social process and a fad 01' everyone' s experiellce in every human society. My hypothesis, based on repeated observa­ tions of such processual units in a range 01' sociocultural systems ano on my read ing in ethnography ano history , is th a t social dramas, "dramas ofli ving," as Kenneth Burke calls them , can be aptly stuJied as having four phases. These Ilabel breach , crisis, redress, and eithel' reintegration 01' recognition of schism. Social oramas occur within groups of persons who share values ano interests ano who have a real or alleged common history. The main actors are persons for whom the group has a h igh value priority , Most of LIS ha ve what 1 call our " star" group or groups to which we owe our deepest loyalty ano whose fate is for us of the greatest personal coocern. It is the one with which a person identifies most deeply ano in which he finds fulfillment ofhis major social and personal desires. We are all members of many groups, formal or informal , from the family to the nation or sorne international religious or political institution, Each person makes his/hcr own subjective evaluation of the group 's respective worth: some are "dear" to one, others it is one's "duty to oefend," and so on. Some tragic situations arise frolll conflicts ofloyalty to different star groups. There is no ohjeclil'e rank order in any culture for sllch groups. I have known academic colleagues whose supreme star group, believe it or not, was a particular faculty administrative committee and whose families and rccrc­ ational groups rankeo IllLlch lower, others whose love and loyalty were towaro the local philatelic society, In every culture one is ohliged to be10ng to certain grollps, usually institutionalizeo ones- family. age-set, school, firm. professional association , ano the like, But such groups are not necessaril y one's bcloved star groups. It is in one's star group that one looks most for love, recognition, prestige, office. and ol her tangible ano intangible benefits and rewarJs. In it one achieves self-respect and a sense ofbelonging with others rol' whom o nc has r~s pccl. Now every objective grOllp has some melll bers wlto sce il as lhc ir Slll l )'I(IIIP, while olhers may regaro it with inoifference,

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rCOI.h.: l's thl' m i n \:Vl'I'lh l¡ th~il :>\:qllencc is no illusi'lIl I h~ lIll1dill:cli onal mOVCIIICnl is tl'a lls lú lI ll.rllw. I ha y\: wriltt:n at sorne Icngth abtH lt 1h~ thresh­ hJ or liminal plw s~ 0 1 ,i lual amI found it rruitful to cxtenu th ~ Ilution 01' li nti n¡rlity as meta phnr bcyond ritual to other domains 01' expressi vc c ultural adio ll . But limin al ity Illust be ta ken into account in any serioLls formulation of ntual as performa nce, for it is in connection \Vith this phase that emic folk ch ar\l cterizations ol' ri tual lay strongest stress on the transformative action ( I r " invisible or supernatural beings 01' powers regarued as the first anu final causes 01' all effects." Without taking liminality into account , r itua l becomes illdistinguishable from "cerem ony," " tormality," or what Myerh o ff and M oore, in their introductinn to S ecular Ritual, indeed call " secular ritual. " The liminal phase is the essenti al., ([nl/secular component in true ritual, whcther it be labcled "religiolls" or " magical. " Ceremony indica/es, ritual transform.\', and transformation occurs most radically in the ritual "pupation" oC limi nal seclusion-at least in Iife-crisis rituals. T he public liminality of great seasonal feasts exhibits its fantasies and "transforms"19 to the eyes of all-- and so does postmodern theater, but that is a matter for a different essay. 1have also argued that ritual in its performative plenitude in tribal and many post-tribal cultures is a matrix from which several other genres of cultural pertormance, induding most ofthose we tend to think 01' as "aesthetic," have been derived. It is a late modern Western m yth, encouraged perhaps by depth psychologists and , lately , by ethologists, that ritual has the rigid precision characteristics of the " ritualized " behavior of an obsessive neurotic or a territory-marking animal or bird, and it is also eneouraged by an early modern Puritan myth that ritual is " mere empty form without true religious content. " 11 is true that rituals may become mere shells or husks at certain historical junctures, but this state of affairs belongs to the senescence or pathology of the ritual process, not to its "normal working." Living ritual may be better likened to artwork than to neurosis . Ritual is, in its most typical cross­ cultural expressions, a synchronization of many performative genres and is orten ordercd by a drarna/ic strudure. a plOL frequently involving an ad of sacriflcc or self-sacrifice, which encrgizes and gives emotional coloring to the interdepcndent communicative codes which express in manifold ways the ll1eanings inherent in the dramatic leitmotiv. Insofar as it is "dramatic," ritual contains a distanced and generalized reduplication of the agonistic process of lhe social drama. Ritual, therefore, is not "threadbare" but "richly textured " hy virtue of its varied interweavings of the productions of mind and senses. Participants in the major rituals of vital religions, whether tribal or post­ trihal, may be passive and active in turn with regard to the ritual movement, wbich , as van Ciennep and, more recently, Roland Delattre have shown, draws o n hio logical , di ma tic, and ccological rhythms, as well as on social rhythms, as nHII.lcl s rol' the proccss lIal rOf1l1S it seq uentially em rlo ys in its e pisodie Mructlln.:, AlIlhl! SC Il 'iCS 01' pall iópan ts 'l2) , pp . 272- 73. 1) S;tlly ""tlk M oore, I ,III\' 11.1' /'1'11('(',1'.1' (London , 197X), j). 4~. 16 Inlrodul.:li on lo Sccular Rilual. ed. Moore and MyerhoO' (J\msterdam, 1977), p. 17: all further references lo this work will be ciled in the text. 17 J\rnold van (¡ennep, The Riles oj' p(J,I'.\'age (190X: Londoll, 1%0), p. 13. 18 Nil.:ole Belmon t, Arnold v(/n Gennep: 711e Crealor 01' Frencll Etl1l1ography , transo Derck Coltman (Chil.:ago. 1979), p. 64. 19 J\k in here lo the linguistic sellse of"transform:' thal is, (a) , any 01' a set of rules for producing grammatical transformatiolls of a kern el sClllence; (h), a sentellce pro­ dUl.:ed by using such a role. 20 Judith Ly nne I-Ianna, To Dance Is Human: A Tlleory uf Nonverhal Comm/lIliC!ilio¡¡ (Austi n, Tex., 1979). 21 Roy Rappa port , Ecolog)', ¡\lJc(}l1ing, (Jml Religion (Richmond , CaL, 1979), p. 206.

Notes See my Schism a/ld Conlinu;ly in (In. Aji'ic(ll/ So ciety: A SU/dy oI Ndembu Village Lile (M anchester, 1957); The f'oresl ofSym!Juls: A.\pec/s ojNrlemhll Sociely (Ilhaca, N.Y. , 1967): Thc Dl'1/1l1s olAfllic¡iol1: A SlUdy o( Religious Pl'ocesses amung Ihe Ndemhu oI Za/11!Ji(l (Oxford, 1968); and The Riwal Proce.l's: Slrucwre ul1d Anli­ SII'IIC!UN' (Chicago, 1969) . 2 See I-Ia yde n White's Mel ahislory: The Hi.l'loriml Im(/gina/ion in Nineleet'llh­ Cenlllry Europe (Baltimore. 1973), p. J 6; all furthcr refcrcnces to this work will be cited in thc text. 3 George D. Spilldler, introduetion to The Making of Psychologic(}/ Anlhropolugy, ed. Spindler (Berkelcy, 1978), p. JI. 4 Edward Sapil', "The Emergcnce of the Conccpt of Personality in a Study of Cultures:' }oul'I1al olSocial P.I'ydlOlogy 5 (1934): 412; all further refercnces to this work \ViII be cited in the tex!. 5 Kenneth L. Pike, Language in Relolioll /O (/ Unilied Theory ol llte Slruclure (!r Human Be/ulI'l'or (Glendalc, Cal., 1954), p. 8. 6 See Asmarom Legesse's Cada: Tllree Appro(fche.\· lo Ihe SII/t!y of Afi'ican Society (New York , 1l)73), p. 283 . 7 See Luc de I-Icusch 's Le Roi i"re; ou, L 'Origin e de/'éwl (Paris, 1972). 8 Sec Jan Vansina's Kingdol1l.l' (¿( Ihe Sal'ol1l1uh (Madison , Wis ... 1966). 9 See my Schism ({/1(1 COIlI;nuily in (fn Aji-ic({1/ Sociely: 1'171' Foresl ol S).' fI1IJols; The Drul11s o( Ajj/iclion; s instead 111 gen lIi m' inll lllry. pllllld." 11 10H Ihall pe rrorm a nce. Ilal'on Jl l'ovid cd :1 I

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DIFFERENCE Figure I M oral Mapping 01' Performative Stances Towards the Other*

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Cul/ural Bias (1978) and Jn ¡he Ae/ive Voiee (1982).

striking examp1e of this performa tive stance when he ci ted the case of the Presüott Smoki cultural preservation group \Vho contioued to perform the Hopi Snake Dance over the vigorous objections of J--Iopi elders. T his group appropriated cherished traditions, reframed them in a way that was saereligious to the Hopi , and added insult to injury by selling trinkets for $7.50, all in th e name of preserving " dying cultures. " 17 The immorality 01' such performanees is unambiguous and can be compared to theft and rape. Potential performers 01' ethnographic materials should not en ter the fi eld with the overriding motive of " findíng some good performancc material. " A n analogy from my fieldwork situation would be m y pcrformance of some of the stunningly theatrical shaman chants of Ilmon g hea.Jcrs replete with black veil over fa ce and sacred costume. Not even a Hm ong man or woman may perform these sacred traditions at will. YOll must be called to shamanic performance, which typieally is signalled by a life-threatenin g illness, during \vhich you have tremors , "shake" (oy nang, the Hmong word for "shaman," is Ih e sam e word ror "shake "). When the shamall shakes and ehants, he or she is talk ing an o plcadin g wilh the iipirits th a t control the world. These ecstatic perform ancc!> arc cx trannJi naril y uclieate anu uangerous a ffa irs. A Il m on g Sh:l man ri!'l k:-; h is Qr hCllik c: tc h tillle thl! s()lIll cavc~ the hod y ami ascends the 1 \\)

Ir I i\ l. '\1."1 rN, - ' lJi:C .. 1 !ir., 11111111' ll" ,llIl ll IIIIII II(:Y ItI Ih(' SJlII II 1-..1111,110111. 1 ";Id wlif'keu wilh I III BIIII' 1111 " lIoul III .~4 tl llc tillll, Ji l\l ,l ll' ( 'Ivd /{ Ig h h MIIW IIICIlI, 1I 1llJ Ihe CO ll tllllll'li Nllugp k political , SII\,jll l alHl cl'OIl IlIIlIl" pllwcr UlItI ag,cllcy LoJay. \Ve l':rnnnl It' llOrc how sl.Ich li l\: l:'t pCI iC llucs ¡IIlonn Arrica n-A merican cultural pc rfo n lIa IIce. Alllwug h cllltural perllll'l11élllCCS are rellective and rellcxive as they maill­ tain , critiqlll", slIbvcrL, or even transgress indigenous c ultural tradition s. they arlO alsll appropriated by o ther cultures. It is no wonder, then, that A frican­ American a rl f~) rl11s are so intimatcly intertwined with those ofthe d o mi nan! clIlllIre, it is difficult at times to disting uish them; yet, distinctions persist. A frican A mericans' use of language, for exal11ple, stil1 exisls as a distinguish­ ahlt: component of A merican culture. As ¡knry Louis Gates. JI'. suggests, "t he black vernac ular has assumed the singular role as the black person 's IIlt imatc sign of difference , a blackness 01' tongue. Jt is in the vcrnacu la r thal si nce slavery, Ihe blac k person has encoued private yet com munal cultura l rilllals " (xix). To extend Gales' assertion, I would indude nonverbal commun­ ication , for even when used alone it may communicate what specch can and more. Behaviors such as rolling the eyes ami neck . " givi ng skin ," and po king lhe lips are al1 nonverbals recognized in popular culture as " blaek" expres­ sions, and are used quite often to parody or to stereotype African Amcricans. Tlle same is tnle for the nonverbal behavior known as "snapping. '" T he "S NAP1 " is onomatopoetic in form , in that the word sounds like the bchavior. It consists 01' placing the thumb and the middle finger together to make a snapping sound. The behavior is like that of people dancin g to music who "pop" their Jlngers to the beat. However, the SNAPl embeds the pop wilhin a larger nonverbal structure. Along with the actual snapping of the lingcrs , the arm makes a sweeping mOlion , usually from left to ri ght , the snap cOllling at the end of the movement. When used in combinatian with words, Ihe snapping may occur at the end of each word, the arm portion varying in posilion according to the number of words spoken. In addition, the snap is lIslIally louder than that heard whjle popping one's fingers to music. The snap lI1ay be used by itself, in combination with \\Iords or with other non verbals slIcll as rollin g the eyes. In this essay , I use " SNAP1 " to indicate the non verbal bdlavior. Al one lime snapping \Vas witnessed most often amon g African-American wurncn 01' any sexual practice and Arrican-American gay meno Currently, the bdlavior is so popular that one might encounter the snap in places and among pnsons less expected , particularly among heterosexual African-American and Furopean American males. Thus, the popularity of this behavior, noted \Vell by ils depiction on television sho\Vs and in plays , led to the present stud y. T llis sludy examines snapping as an expressive form within th e com­ II1l1nicalive repertoire 01' Africa n-Arnerican culture, but rocuses prim a rily o n ils use wi lllin Arrican-Amcricun gay male culture. Drawing on interviews. llbsc rva lions, pup Cll llll rc/rnudi ll Il'xls. ami critica! essays, I will describe, in lllrr n' l, cva lua ll'. a nd thcullll' ; lhO ll l snapping. Wh ilc my m~ lIcra l ¡¡im is to

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brilll!. Ilris ux pn:ssi vc 1'0 111 1 II! tlll' ;r tlc ll llOIl nI" COllllll ll llicali ulI/pelfonna ncc scholars. lI1y IIhilllatc goa l is Iu illlllllinaLc lhe Illullifúrious ways in which snappin g, as a Jiscursi vc , cullural performance is appropriatcd oulsidc onc , 1' ils indi gc nolls cultures, na mely that of African-American gay meno Morc­ over, I wisll lo ex plore the socio-political consequences that rollow when an expressivc fonn is appropriated intraclllturally (in lhis case by heterosexual African-American males), and interculturally. particularly when the impact or gender and sexual identity subordinalc race .2

Methods The primary data were collected over él fOllr-month period through p arti­ cipant observation, media analysis, and interviews. Most observations \Ve re made on the courtya rd s of two large southern universiti es, one in central North Carolina and one in southern Louisiana. Othe r observations were made at a small , gay night club near the university in sout hern Louisiana, and in shopping malls in central N orth C arolin a. Media analysis consisted 01' viewing popul a r television shows and docu­ mentary films in which the behavior is featured . Examples indude Tongues Unlied, Martín , In ¿¡I'ing Color, and The Coloree! Múselll11. A total of ten texts were examined. Obscrvations and media analyses were expanded; then in-depth interviews with nine adults were conducted individually and a udio taped. The interviewees were four African-American gay males from central North Carolina- all in theirmid-lwenties; o ne40-year-old. African-American lesbian fe male from southern Louisia na; o ne 24-year-old, A frican·American heterosex ual female from central North Carolina; one 27-year-old, white gay male from central North Carolina; one 27-year-old , white heterosexual remale from southern Louisiana ; and one 27-year-old , white heterosex ua l male from southern Louisiana .' Each intervicw lasted approximately one hom and consisted 01' a core set 01' questions witll regard to the interviewee 's use 01' snapping. When appropriate J pro bed further to obtain spccificity about the context in which intervicwces performed snapping, their particular style, and their attitudes a bo ut who snapped and why . rinaIJy, most of the interviewees preferred to use their initials or their first name only. Ouly one chose to create a full pseudon ym .

Snapping in context What little scholarship exists on the phenomenon of snapping comes from the African-American gay community itself. Marlon Riggs's artide, " Black Macho Revisited : Rellections of a SNAP! Queen," for example, orfers él critiq ue 01' the com modifi ca tion 01' snapping in popular culture. Specificall y. Riggs ridicules Africa n-American heterosexual men (particularly those in the. media and in Hollywood ) ror e ngaging in wha l he ca lls "black m acho ism ." 17')

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tu Riggs, !\l'ricH II -!\ lIll!licall Itet ~rW¡I!Xlli tl lll¡tk" ~lI h ael'l'SS tu tlw mcdia, ldcvisi o n, and lillll.lIlalign, csscnliali zé. and Ih.lgll lc !\ lllcu lI -!\llIcrican gay male identily by only prescnling snap in a slcrcolypi ~:a l and/or parodic form. R iggs argues thal heterosexist and homophobic representations of African-American gay men posilion African-American gay men as " other. '· In addition to Riggs's work, Marcos Becquer, author of " Snap! thology and Other Discursive Practices in Tongues Un lied." contends that snapping is a kind of discursive practice that radicalizes traditional conceptions of black, gay male identity and self-expression. For the purpose ofthis study, however, 1 place snapping un de r Ihe larger category ofverbal and nonverbal art known as Signifying. Signi fying incorpora tes either direct or indirect tactic~ in verbal dueling . An cxample of indirect Signifying is when a third party stirs up trouble between friends. The third party accomplishes this feat by falsely reporting to one friend that the other has been bad mouthing him or her. 11' the friend given the false information fails to see through the ruse. he or she might confront the other friend, and an argume.nt may ensue. In this case, the third party's Signifying is successful. This type of indirection is seen most often in the "Signifying Monkey"4tales in African-American folklore. Other examples 01' indirect Signifying are talking around a subject, addressing a third pany to make a comment about a second party, or exposing something about some­ one by aJluding to it metaphoricaJly in the presence of others. Signifying also may be direct. Such is the case in the verbal art game known as "playing the dozens. " The dozens is a test of verbal dexterity--who can best whom through ritual insult. The game is highly aggressive and requjres audience participation. Connections to the dozens and snapping are made later in the papeL ' Certain non verbal behavior is also considered Signjfying. The infamous rolling 01' the eyes is a form of direct Signifying. in that it communicates bel­ ligerence, condescension , or anger. Smirking and poking the lips are non verbal examples of indirect Signifying. For example. three friends are conversing and one of the speakers is apparently Iying about something. 11' the second pa rty smirks or pokes her lips out bchind the back ofthe person speaking, but in view 01' the third party, shc is Signifying. In general, snapping, as it is used among the intervicwces 01' this stlldy, occurs in similar situations as Signifying. Howcver, there are a number of slang deriva ti ves of Signifying that broaden the function 01' snapping. BeJow is a descriptive synthesis of many 01' the contexts and terms that extend the meaning 01' the snap. 6

pla(.·c holh uf th\:sc mllk l II\(' la,,~~n dp lll:lin uf Signil'ying, along \,,·ill! Ihc dl'rival ívcs t11(l[ rulJ ow . •' Rctl dlllg' Itas a Illllllbcr 01' Illeanings. dcpcndillg 011 th \! contcxt. TI) rcad Soll1CUIIC is to scl lhclll "straight," lo put thclll in lheir place, or lo revcal a secret ahoul someone in rront 01' others in an indirect way usually in a way that embarrasses a third party. Reading has two modes: one is serious and one is playful. There are im plicit rules, similar to the dozcns. governing which mode the participants are in. Serious reading accompanies a hostile and aggressive attitudinal change. This type 01' reading is used quite often and is simply kn own as reading. In the playful mode. however, reading has other mImes such as "cracking someone's face" and " calling someonc out." To crack someone's face is also to embarrass them by revealing a ftaw in character, a lie they just told , or saying something dcrogatory about them­ cither to be mean or to respond to something they just said. "Calling someone out" is used in the same way , bul rarely to comment on an external flaw , say dothing or a particular hairdo; rather, it reveats the comment's inherent falsencss or a flaw in character 01' a speaker. Both face cracking and calling someone out are exam ples 01' reading in the playfut mode . They can, however, be used in the serious mode 01' reading. For instance, if someone calls someone out by reveating something loo personaJ . thcn it is taken as an insult by the addressee. While there are no explicit rules governing what can and cannot be said during a " reading session ," most participants are aware 01' what topics are " off limits" in the playl'ul mode. One of the interviewees gives an example of reading someone by calling them out about their sexuality. Atan: .. . gay people, sometimes they call others out or "He's gay" or something you know that could be either positive or negative , however we may feel about the persoll. You know if it is a person who we may think is gay and they're not coming out totally , we'lI snap about that: "Oh , he's gay"­ SNAP'

Based on the intcrviews eond llcted , I discovered two different flln li~ c //1 1.1I';'¡g Co/m', A!1I1'/1I/ ,I lI d / 1". I-i'/'s!t Pril/C'/' (~l n,'/,. 'ir exelll pliJ'y 111m sflap pillg is uscd as cam p aflu p'll ndy. as a rdb:liol1 )1' allilllde, a nd a~ a bunding lIIechaniSIll. l eve n saw (ul k-show host Arscllio J la ll slIap at one 01' his gucsts in . IICl1l1tICS Ihe d'fcl:ls 01' Ihe .\'uppre.l'sed lerro r tha l S t rindberg and Ibsen ex p lo n:d. wllilc wrilers like Genet ano Pinte r allow lerror a more self-consl:ious - a nd overtly violent free-pl ay. We m ight contrast lhe claustrophobic, cxhausted fury o rStrindberg's Dance of Dealh, for example. with the menacing violence ofthe two slrangcrs in Pinter's T he Birlhda)' PaNy. Evcn lhe eruptive, though st ill paraplegie. rrenzy of Ham in Beckett 's Endgame appears to indicate that lerror as violence has resurfaced in Modern ist drama .] Mueh earlier. A ntonin Artaud sought a comprehensively terrifyin g di s­ appearance by eliminating altogelher the re presentational structure o f theatre grounded in " cla ssical" texts. Artaud revolted against the lheatre's over­ dependence on these texts, a dependence that he felt prevented performa nce from attaining its rad ical , excoriating end: to evoke a hyper-Aristotelian catharsis, he had reeou rsc to the cruelty of a te rro r beyond pity and beyond representation - the Plague. Terror in the theatre is different from terrorismo According to Andre Breton (apparently inspired by his friend Vache), " the si mplest Surrealisl act consists 01' dashing in lo Ihe streel , pislol in hand , and firing blindly, a s fast as you can pull the trigger. into the crowd.,,4 This " simple" Surrealisl act is meant to awaken spectators lO their own "debasemenl" and to the exhilaral­ in g dan ger - and beauly -.. of pe,jór/11wu:e menaóng arl. As I will show mueh later in this essay , a sjmilar desirc finds its most grap hic expression loday in the work of those body-artists who use real , and often excessive, violenee as a means of reprcsentation in lheir performances. Unlike lhe theatrc that cvokes terror, these terrorizing wo rks desire for disappearance to show itself and by the same token , to reappear - in a repetition or return of the Same,

lhreatening to destroy lhe performer's body, and producing a visible sign

01' terror in the body. A similar aspiration fuels the complicities 01' media

with the intoxicating plague of transnational terrori sm in post-industrial

culture. " What is the theatre ," \\'I'ites Blau, "b ut the body's lon g initiation in the IlIystery of its vanishings?"5 There is perhaps nothing so terrifying th a n lhe kllo\Vledge that my body will forsake me, that lhis f (/171 is vulnerable to pain , lu dcalh . Or that another, \Vith a single word or calculated glance or hidden uhscrvation , can call my appearance. or my actual being, into qucstion. " ( hah: rnyscll~ r look so ill today," says Loveil in Etheregc's Man o/Mode, and hl'r servanl Pert responds revealingly. " Hate the wicked cause on't, that base m,m I Mr. Dorimant , who makes you torment and vex 1 yourself continu­ a lIy. "1, 111 the inlcrnational thcatres of Sta le terrorism the extreme limit 01' DOIimanl 's inquisulo rial gazc Ih e interroga tion - may even in itiate rea l dis­ ap¡x:.rrance in dea lh (how ma lly dcalhs in El Salvador in I986'!). Perform ance

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1 The lheatre' s entire structure - lhe voiced breaches between and within characters, the abyss separating actor aDd audience - attests lo its in volve­ menl in lhe deep psychic schism that results from what Jacques Lacan calls " the mirror- stage," thal point in psyehic devel opmenl in which the fragmenlcd sclf appears momentarily wholc in the vision of the Other, eilher as a literal mirror-image, or as the body of another person o In this relation, the O ther wields a powcr that one finds both reassuring and terrifying, for it constitutcs onc' s sen se of one's integrity and of what is most gratifyingly familiar , but at the same time il keeps that integrity perll1anently out 01' one's control and thereforc pcrmanently illusory. Disappcarance in the theat.re rclies on this latter asped of lhe Other. 1 F 01' Lacan , the Olher consists partly in that placc outside of the self tha! is Ihe " Iocus 01' the inscription of the Law," lhe concealed spacc of Ihe uncon ­ scious formed by repression . As such, "The Other," like meaning itself, has no distinct sile. It will retain the allusiveness of interpretation , and a lways escape - like language from closure. Since this unlocatibility produces terror. one seeks protedion in becoming inaecessible oneself. Herbcrt Blau puts it succinctly: "The silence of another - intolerable. The only defcnse is the silence \vithin. "~ But this isjust another kind ofterror. one which the self imposes on itself. Hieronimo, in The Spanish Tragedy, demonstrates how grue­ some sllch lerror can be. Afler his son's incomprehensibly wanton murder. his despair drives him to bite out his ton gue. terrorizing his own body. It is just such a displ ace menl by lhe speaking subjecl into the law , into the locus of lhe Ot.her, (in thi s case, the law of silence) Ihat produces aphanisis. When I speak from the loeus of the Other, r disappear to ll1yself. As the Other demands through force that we show ourselves, we experience oLlr "fadin g," the threat 01' our disappearance , a threat that Lacan calls "!cthal." And il is lhis particularly !clhal aspect of the Other, the perception 01' the Other as the Enemy , that gave rise to Blall 's exhaustive work with his group Kraken: The encmy \Ve wanted lo know is the sinisler aspect of the Olher, the Familiar, lhe D ou b!c, lhe Sceret Sharer, perhaps all that survives 01' lhe Beloved wh al makcs your hair sland on end. Y

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111 I he I " 1\~ rIlV. IIIl' fa ll l\ li ;rr iI Y,, 1 I ht' ( >t IrlT Ilre Sl'lJM \Ir I hr I )II I\'r as IIrilTon~d sdJ'. dr lrcle lll. blll also Ilre sall1c is rcu-shit ü;u by Il!lIt Ifal· trollal ditTcrcl\cc, tlral splillfen:d SCClllld nI' an.: lhat represenls lig hl-yealo.;. !'he Olher. slill SllllJchow the Samc. i::l 1l0W radica lly altered. changcd , lite -threatening, like one 01' lhe ghosls 01' Dunsinane, or like the imagc 01' Oesdemona in Othcllo's cye arter he!' imagined adultay. a " wcll-paintcd passion " - the fo rm still rccognin ble, but lhe d(ffáence making " your hair stand on e nd. " There is rH> kno wing ir lhis allerity inheres in l11y perception or in th e Olller: eertainty can only exisl in the kn o wlcdge of lhe Other. This shift in pen:eplion, the assumption of this aspect of the Other, is critical beca use it both c1arifies one aspect of the Other - its seemi ng enmity, or ils enmity as seeming - and obfuscates the larger tleld ofthe O ther by intro­ ducing yet another variable, anothcr variant in the precession of its masks. Bul even within the rcstrictions of its definition as the Enemy , the Other is slill impossible to grasp. impossible to know . The more familiar the Enemy looks, the more threatening, more dangerolls , it becomes. Familiarity is the most dangerous 1iability in the confrontation with the Enemy. In a com­ mentary on the theatrical project built around the concept o/" the Enem)', Blau writes, "Our greatest temptation would be to embrace sorne spectre of the Enemy prematurely, while the mortal Enemy, scornful in the realm of archetypes, was laughing at the presumption." lo Since the Enemy threaten s to exterminatc the selr, it becomes a matter of survival to distingui sh it from the Other in which one recognizes oneself.

The Enemy might be fiction , chimera, product of paranoia - yet something more than our own psychic field distorted, made mon­ strous 01' feeble by the perversions of dread, an inverse reverence. . .. The Enemy 's mas k is inscribed b), history \Vith lines dra\Vn by our earliest childhood fears. The idea of the enell1y is what was dreamed for us before \Ve dreamed. Our dreams retort to our denials: \Ve are being dreamed. The Enemy is doing the dreaming." Finall y, l3Iau's work recognizes in its search 1'01' the Enemy thal the Enemy simply be the paranoia of the search itsclf. "The very wnception of lhe Enem y might be the Enemy," he sa)'s; but all the sa ll1e " there is the l'orJception, " 12 lila)'

When r place myself in language - the Other's loeation - announcing my presenee there , and vanishing to myself h('/"e, disappearance efTects pain . ¡\(;(;ordin g to Laftotte in DalllOn 's Dcath, pain "ll1easures time .. . finely, it splils él sixtieth ofa second."" The 1110menl orterror, like the instant ofpa in is a Illomen t 01' zero time and inlinitc uuration. Although terror can 0111 y () (;(;UJ in hislory. it is tdl a:; " nrü.cd sing ularity, existing o lJtside all pl)$sible n'prcscll t:rtiol1 . In lh\:) aclu al tilTlC I lr at1crror and ptt in occur, I J i ~tory ca nccls il sclr. p \;r ~s itscl r " lI ndcr crII "" II ' .. d iN ;r pp¡;a rs. "Tite.: 'i11l;tIlC'i t IWi JlI ~C urr:rill 01

11I,s" JlI ' I'.\ lt .\Nr ' JI A!-I Ii IS'I'O ln :rlld lira)' il stil' ()Ill y 1)1 ;r :.illj!.k al(H" lIlakcs a rCJll in C rl';rlioll I"ro¡n top lo boll om .·' I~ In pai n \Ve CX pcriCIlCC hislory as pure snbjccl , isnlaleu and dctachcd ; wc cx pcricncc history, in other \Vords, as a-historiea\. But pain is an instancc 01' wh a t Laean \.:alls the Real , a term designating the actual con­ ditiolls of lil'c as they penetrate the mind and body unmediated by the Symbolie. Fredcric Jameson puts it succinctly: "the Real in Laean ... is simply History itsclf," where the terll1 "!l istory " refers to the experience of the subject. 1S In terror the Real seems, paradoxically, to split from history, sheared away in an in sta nt that appears - in the b1ink of an eye - as histor)"s end. The recuperatio n 01' that eml, and the reification of terror into hi story as historicized "fact" 01' image is the Terror, or the practice of the terror, terrorism o Terror threatens the Symbolic, discriminating order of language by forci ng either the di sintegration of lang uage. or its reduction to silence. To again paraphrase Bl a u: Samuel Bedett has sho\Vn us again and again that the theatre reall y may have nothing to sayo But the terror that infects perform­ ance is not the same as terrorism o Terrorism is an inv asive technique; it is effective as a technique only when it appears as a symbolic rupture in the Symbolic, " rational ," " nor mal " order of things - a gun held to the bead 01' a hostage-pilot, for instance, communicating in this threatening display before the television cameras the symbolic structure 01' the hostage situation . The effects of lerror , by contrast, appear as an actual (thus unrepresentable) rupture 01' the Symbolic or Imaginary by the Rea\. As such , it can never be a " technique. " The manipulation ofterror by the forces that create real states of Terror or terrorism must ultimately Ieave terror unchanged, unspoken. Only the image 01' terror, the mask 01' the Enemy. is subject to revision. The space of that revision is performative, \Vhether the performance is theat­ ricalized. or privatized - in torture a nd disap pearances, for example. But revising the image 01' terror in performance should not be confused ,,,ith changing the reality. Although the image ofthe Terror has been changed , or displaced , or " revised ," the real terror, the terror that ha s silen(;ed per­ formance itself, remains hidden (as it must) . It is thus al\Vays up for question whelheT our modes of theatre and performance are laboring against terror, or against the image of the Terror as terrorism o Terrorism seeks to separate the seemingly inseparable - the Real from the historical and to obliterate the transcendental signitler " history" in the ecstasy 01' a moment in which the Real seems to ex ist without its Historical "aura." In that instant of transformation , a moment of slIstained Real-il)', dcmand \Vould fully satisfy dcsire . The terrorist impulse is at once an impulse to the suhlime and an impulse fo r dealh cnacteu in the present performative; hul il becollles, fln ally, lhe O the r Theatre 01' Cruelty , lhe Other Theatrc gcncraled by Plague. sincc as lhe lerrorisl aet necessa rily bCL:ol11es an elec­ tfIJlI;nllll' /II" c!ifll ed l\pcc l a~ k . ils Il1eu trical im pulses ¡ '('l/ XC' lo /J(" llimlre , but more o n Ihis hrln '1 leo

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In the midsl ul' lltcsc ahslra.:lio!ls alld appari.:l1 l l'1' 1I11. lIh ~ II\ II IS , Lcrror, musc ofthc Encmy, may ([ppear un lllt:atcd, unrcpn.!sclllahk. lll lllalllcablc, bul it remains real; like the Enemy, it "has a name." Howcvcr ulIspcakable the moment of tcrror mighl be, the Enemy has its methods ami techniques , ib reasons - no matter how unutterable these may seem . Although the moment of terror exists in the Real , and so is outside language, we ael as though it can be understood - a Utopian twist, perhaps. We study, if not terror, then terror's existence in its effects, its strategies, its ilIusions, its masks, in the cruel and tcrrifying traces of its History upon om minds and bodies - in short. what Marx might simply have calIed History itself. Robespierre, in Danton 's Dmlh , articulates this distinction : The wcapon of the republic is terror. the strength of the republic is virtue. Virtue: for without it , terror is corruptible; terror: for without ir, virtue is powerless. Terror is an outgrowth of virtue; it is nothing more than swift. rigorous, and inflexihle justice. [1. iii.) In the theatre we see the distinctions between masterlslave , self ami Other. Enemy ami Beloved, virtue ami terror blur ami begin to disintegrate. And it is precisely in lerror - the terror 01' disappearance in the binaries - that distinctions threaten , on the one hand, to collapse inlO the totality of the Same, amI on the other, to collap.\·e the totality of the Same itself. The difference between Statc terrorism and terrorism against the State - a diseourse between Others. This distinction is posited quite clearIy in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin when he differentiates the l11ono!ogü: language of the Sta te , which tries to impose the violence of perfectly mediated uniformity (Law) on the language of a society - Robespierre's monolithic appropriation of the terms "virtue" and "terror" - from that same society's use of a performative, heleroglossi(" language, which tries to disable the monologues of power through the endless slippages and differentiations 01' common speech . 16 The intrusion of a more sclf-eonsciously "wmmon " speech into theatre ami performance has been one of the halImarks of modernismo But as Blau notes , \Ve have seen the slow decay of this "realistic" speech into morc ami more primitivist versions of colloquialism, "proto" language , and finally aphasia ami silence. Words thelllselves have been disappearing. The decomposition 01' language through the history of the theatre is best seen , perhaps, by comparing the ebullienee of speech in earlier periods with the arid, aphasic, repetitive "dialogue" in Robert Wilson 's work , or the " ontologic hysteria " of Richard Foreman's librettos. lt is almost as if modern ami postmodern performance, sensing the terrorizi ng inadequacy ofl a ng uage, has . like Hieron.imo, bitten out its to ngue. Both the Te rror and terrori.~m , as words, as symbols of the real terror - the un:spcak able. a-historka l. lI nlltlJ11cahle in v tcm ~ anchori ng thcl1l to thc end 01' the twenti eth eentury. T lll'Y eX)1loit. ru lhe r lhal1 sulwcrt, the rationa Jily 01' history and II.!> norma liz­ ill)'. pn lccdu rcs ny d lill g III IIIIIS 111 wa ys lIli1 l ll1a rk wca kllcss a mi ills lahihl y in , I

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Thc combination of the camp and these enacted provocations shift this protest into yet newer dramatul'gic territory . Relations between the real and lhe imaginary are deliberately distorted: the raet that these are real veterans living under canvas much as they would have done in Vietnam validates the play-acting, yet some 01' the play-acting is done ' fol' real' . The camp and the pcrformanccs melaphorize the Washinglon streets, which become both an e:xtension of the Vietnam jungle and a limbo for dead soldiers searching for their lost comrades. We might thus justifiably talk of an imagin a t ive hyperrealism which challenges the spectator \Vith both the immediacy and the distancc of the \Var, carrying an intensity which may make the action im­ possible both lo accept or reject. This dramaturgy aims lo by-pass the ralional, subvcrting the logic of critical containmcnt, in order to provoke an unprecedcnted response. Signific­ antly. it is not, as it were, recommending an action: it is giving opportunity for revulsion/fascination with one of the vilest wars in human history, but by confounding the real and lhe imaginary so thoroughly tha t it lea ves the nature of any subscquent action open to the spectator. This is a protest which leaves lhe ruture radically undecided.

6 A oew dramaturgy and its theorists So urces for this new dramaturgy can be identificd in the work of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, \Vhich combined Brecht and the techniques of commedia dell 'arte to prod uce popular political theatre . In the mid 'sixties the Troupe's founder, Ron Davis, first used the term 'g uerrilla thealre' lo indicate an action that aims to ' tcach , dircct towards change, be an examplc 01' change'. Guerrilla theatre was distinguished from more traditional polil­ ical theatre (excepting sorne agit-prop) by being staged in the environment of political conflict - the streets of ghettos. the grounds of governmenl buildings - whence the analogy \Vith real guerrilla warfare: but it wa s allied to tradi­ tional political theatre by being often didactic in purpose. Equally influential was the Bread and Puppet Theatre, which introduced archetypal and satirical imagery to street protesls. lIsually in the form of giant puppets. These combined the techniques of religious spectacle \Vith ideas dra\Vn from !\rtaud, and so had a less specifie symbolic charge than the stereotypes of guerrilla theatre . Similarly, the Living Theatre aimed to subvert l'ational analysis by turning speclators into participants in exccssive thea trical actions. T he ri tua lized. hiera tic gestures of ecstalic or sublime experi­ ence were supposcd LO signify a rcalily in which \ (,

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Miehig¡lI l P rcss, 1')92 ): ro r ;111 Kersha w, or. cit . 4 Raymond W illiams , Cullltre (Glasgow: Fonta na, 1981), cspccially C hapler l. 5 John Lahr and Jonalhan Price, Lile Sholl': HolI' (o See Theatcr ill L¡fe ({/UI Li/c' il/ Th cu ter (New York: Viking Press, 1973): Richard Sehcehner, 'Invasi on s Fricnd ly and Unfriendly: lhe Dramaturgy 01' Direct Theatre' , in Janelle G . R einelt ami Joscph R . Roaeh. eds .. Crilical Theory 0/1(1 Per/imuunC(' (A nn A rbor: Uni ve rsily of Michi ga n Press , 1992); and The Street is the Stage' , in R ich a rd Seheehner, Tlle FlIIl/re o/Riluol: W'rilil1gs 0/1 CI1IIl1/'e ol1d Perjimnallce (LoTldon: Routledge , 1993 ). In so me ways my arglll1lent eonst itutes an ongoing con versation with Seheehner's ideas, and if at tim es the tone gets more than a littlc immodera te il is because. paradoxieally, 1 have mlleh respect for th e pionee ring nature ofhis work. 6 f or th e 'sixtics, see Robert Hewi so n , Too M uch: Art and Sociely in Ihe Sixlie.l', 1960 75 (London: Methuell, 1986); for the 'eighties, see Lee Feigon, China Risil1~: Ih e J\lJeaning (~l Tienal1men (Chicago: Lvan Dee, 1990); Peter C hipo wski , Revolu­ {ion in Easl ern Europe (London : John W iley, 1991 7 See Guy De bo rd , The Suciely of' Ih e Spectacle (Detroit: Blaek and Red , 1977): Jean Baudrillard , Simula/iolls (New York: SemiotcxtleL 1983). 8 Sec, for example: Miehel FOllcault. Discipline (I/1{1 PI//lish: Ihe Bit/h o/Ihe Priso/l (New York: Vintage Boo ks, 1979): Baudrillard . op. eit. ; Jolm Fiske, POWef P!ays POlI'er Works (London: Verso , 1993); and Roy Strong, wh o indicates a long his­ toricallineage in Arl ami POll'er: R enaissa/Jce Feslivals, 1(¡50 /850 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984) 9 See Baz Kershaw , ' Framing the Audie nce fo r Thcatrc', in Th e AUlhority oIlhe Consumer, cd. Ru ssell Keat, Nigel Whiteley, and Nieholas Abcrerombie (London: Routledgc, 1994). 10 See J ohn Orr and Dragan Klaic, eds., Terrorism (//1(1 Model'l1 Drama (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 1990).1 am grateful to Clivc Barker for drawing my attention 10 this lively eollection . 11 See, for example: Kenneth O. M o rgan , Tlle Pcople'x Peace: Bri/i.l'h lJislo ry 1945­ 1990 (Oxford: O xford University Press, 1990) p. 294 (though Morga n ,s ecms to confuse the relatively peaeefull October 1968 demonstration with the one in March) . 12 British POlhe NelVs, 19ó8 aYear 10 R ememher, videotape (London: Ingra m , 1990) . 13 The c\assic account is Theodore Rosza k, The Making (!( (1 COl/l1ler Culture: Re/lec lioll.> O/l the Technocru t ie Socidy and ils YOlllhjúl OPf!OSiliol1 (New York: D oubleda y, 1969). 14 Frilncois Beda rida , A Soc/a! J-/is/ory oI England, 1851 1975 (London: Meth ue n. 1979); Arthur Marwick , British Sociely S inc/! 1945 (1Iarmonds\Vorth: Pelica n , 1982) . 15 Leon Trotsky, The Pro letariat and thc Rcvollltion ' , in T/¡e Age o( Permanen/ Revollllion: a Trot.l'ky AllIllOlogy, ed. Isaac Deutscher (New York : Dell Publishing, 1964). 16 See Tariq Ali. 1968 ol1d Ajier: 111side /he Rel'o!ulioll (London: Bl o nd and Briggs , 1978). 17 See Jaques Derrida, Trom P,l)'chc - Invention 01' the Other', in A els o/Litera/ure, ed. Derek A ttrid ge (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 340 ('The very m ove ment o fthis fabulous repetition fthrou gh the logie 01' supplemcntarityl can , through a merging 01' ehanee and neeessi t y, produce thc new 01' an evcnt. NOI onl y wilh Ihe singular inven lio n 01' a performati vc, sinec cvcry perrormative prcsupposcs convcnti o ns

wh al we 1'¡1 1I d"I:I>I ", II II \"l h1l 1 1 I¡': Dc h\Hd, (jI'. ei!. ; ~I'C hcluw lúr 11 \lfllll:l1l and R u bin : M!l rshall MeLuhan. Unda­ slandil/g Media: /lt e /:"s tell.I·/UI/.I' oj' M all (Ncw York : Signct, 1964): Hcrbcrt Marcusc. Eros (11/(1 Cil'ili:'.(I/ioll ( 1,()l1don: Spherc. 19(9) and Ol1e Di,nensiol1ul N/an (London: Spherc, 19(8 ); Tom Bo tl o morc, Thc Frankjúrl S'dwol (Chiehester: Ellis H o rwood ., 1984). For a useflll critique of the I-'rankfurt School. see a\so John B. Thompsoll , ldeology (I/1{1 Alodern Culture (Cambridge: Polit y Prcss, 1990), Chapter 3. 19 Scc Mic hel de Certeau, Th e Praelice oI El'eryday Lije (Bcrkeley: U niversi ty of California Press, 1984). 20 The basie text is James Gleick , Chaos: Making a N elV Sciel1ce (Lond on: Sphere, 1988). 21 For usefully meas ured a nalysis, see Phil ip G. Cerny, ed. , Social Movemen /s and Prolesl in Frall cc ( Lo nd on: Franccs Pinter, 1982); and Ke ith A . Reade r, The Muy l Y(¡8 Evenls in France: R eproduc!ions ond 1n terprelalion.\' (London: SI. Ma rtin 's, 1993); for m o re descriptive accounls, sec Roger Absa lom, Franee: Ihe ¡l/ay Event.\', 19ó8 (London: Longman, 1971); Patrick Seale and M auree n McConvilIe, Frenell Rel'Olut;o/1 19M! (Harmondsworth: Peng uin, 1968). 22 Sec Sadie Pl all t, The ¡\Josl Radical Geslure: /h e Si/ualiol1isl [nl emalional in a Pos/modern A ge (London: Routledge, 1992), especially p. 133 -41. 21 Richard Nevil\lc, Play Power (St. Albans : Paladin , 1971), p. 37. 24 Leon Trotsky , TI/(' J--1islor)' 01' Ih e RlIss;a/1 R pl'ollltio!1 (Lo ndon: Gollancz , 1935). 25 Scheehner, op. eie 26 Ibid. , p. 65 - 7. 27 Lec Baxandall , ' Spectac\es and Seenarios: a Dramaturgy 01' R adical Aetivit y', in Radical PerSfleclil'e.1 in ¡lie Arls (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), N ote Lo I1lus. 12. This essay was the main inspirati o ll for Ih e plesenl argument. 28 R . G. Davis , The Sal1 Franscisco j\nme Tro,l/le: ¡he First Ten Year\' (Palo Aifto: R ,lmparls Press, 1975); Slephan Brecht, Thc Bread amI PUppel Theal re, t\Vo vols. (London: Methuen , 1988); Pi erre Biner, The Lil'ing T/¡eUlre (New York: Avon Booh, 1972). 29 Abbie HolTman , Rel'olu/ joll /iJr Ihe Hell 4 11 (New York : Dia l Books, 1968). p. 30, 183, quo ted by Schechner, op . cit. " p. 64. 30 Jcrry Rubin, Do 1/1 (New York: Sirnon and Sehuster, 1970) , p. 250, quoted by Shechner. op. eit. 3 1 For the theatrieal eontext to thc yippie interve ntions, see R. G. Davis's essays o n gucrilla thcatrc in T he Sa/1 Francisco ¡\1il11c T roupe: The Pir,,' Ten Years, op . eit.: Henry Lesnick, Gllerrilla StJ'ee/ Thmlre (New York : Avon Boo ks. 1973); Arthu r Sainer, 7he Radical 111ea/re NOl1'!Jook (New York: Av on Boob, 1975); John Wisernan , Guerrilla Th ealre: Scel/arios/ilr Rel'olutio/1 (New Yo rk : Anchor, 1973). 32 Thc ground-brea king work is Miehael D . Bristol, ('amiva! and Fhealre: Ple"eian Cullure (lmllhe S/rI/clUre olAulhorily in R enais,wl1 ce Englal1d (London: M ethuen , 1985). 33 Scheehner, op eit., p. 47. 34 Clifford Gecrtz, Local Kl1oil'ledge: Fl.Il'lher Essay s in 1n letprelil'e Anthropology (1.ol1dol1 : Fontana, 1993), p. 27. 35 Ibid ., p. 34. % Sehechncr, op. eit. , p. 86. 37 See, for exa m p le, Michael Brake, ('0111/](//'{//il'1' rO/llh C ullUre: ¡fJ(! Socio logy (JI Y Oil!/¡ C III/llre I/IJ(I )'O/l//¡ SlIhmllllr('s ;/1 AnJ('J'ica, Brilain. and Canoda (I .ondon: Ro ulkd gc. 1')XS): Sillar! Il all and T o ny JctTcrso n , cds., R esislul/ce T/¡rough

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1'('r(Í!f'II/ ~) n c lit' ¡he m lls l Cülll'll1u n forms 01' eeological lhea ler, namely, an lIntlerlying and Jy('(Ip/l'. Tite prohkll l w ilh I hc~c plll Ys is Ihat lhey lry In cxisl within a I"caler acslhctie ami iJ(:'lIl ogy (1I:lJllcly. again . 191h-ccntllry humanism) lhal is, as I shall argue below, prograllllllalically anti-ecological. One soll1lion to lhis problem is to join ccological concerns with lhe protocols 01' " site-specific" theater. ereating works lhat Jirectly engagc the actual ecological problcms 01' particular environments. Jacobson describes the work of groups such as the Dell'Artc School of Blue Lake, California. the Merrimack Repertory Company 01' Lowell , Massachusetts, and the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, each of which has intcrvened in the prcssing ecological debates in its community by stagings of c1assic, contemporary, or new texts . From these accounts there emerges the outline 01' a new materialist-ecological theater practice that refuses the universalization and metaphorization of

nature . Vet another oplion, ecology as metaphor, is so integral a feature of the aesthetic of modern realist-hnmanist drama that, paradoxically, its implica­ tions for a possible ecological theater are easy to miss. I ts very ubiquity renders it invisible, a fact brought out brilliantly in Tony Kushner's Al1gef.~ in America , which might be said to take place (at least from one importanl eharaetcr's point of view) directly under the hole in the ozone. Harper, the only female among the play 's main characters. is alone in understanding that the plagues devastating the physical and cultural Iife of America are not unrelated to certain man-made diseases of the planet. In a way that recalls the eeo-feminism of Mary Daly and Carolyn Merchant. Harper sees what none 01' the men in the play do. that in tearing at the delicate ecology ol' earth's atmosphere we have been destroying our organic "guardian angels. " The angel who appears at the end of part one constellates many American fant­ asies and mythologies, but the single most significant thing about it is the chilling implication that its deseent lo earth is through the ozone hole: even at the end , it seems, Al1lerica's vision of itself must follow the pathways 01' its habitual destructions. Necdless to say, these deslruetions have a long history , both within America and without. ln the theater, the onset of their most virulent phase was dia­ gnoscd at the turn of the last century by Chekhov 's Dr. Astrov , who seemed to subscribe lo something like a Leopoldian land ethic and aesthetic, but who was callght. as many literary ecologists have been, between the contradictory pulls of nature and culture, 01' a human-centered ecology and a truly land­ centereJ one. Astrov 's passionate appeals and tireless efforts on behalf of the environment are counterbalanced by his fantasies of progress ancl his general reliance on rationalism, 01' whose pathological relation to ecology his com­ pulsive mapping is an apt symptom . For all his innate love 01' the l'orests, Astrov can no l read his cco-maps ccologically , as a visual narrative of the ongoing dcslrllcli'lll \Ir 11:11 me hy human bcings: ralher, he rcads thcm as rcconJs "t" 1.:1.11 1111:11 d l 'I Il'Il' nl'Y , sIIy ing that "Ir then! wcre highroads and

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high\Vays UII !In: si tes ul'tlH':SC ruillcd l"on;sts, illltclI: WI:I~~ W" I I- ~ "mi Lletori\.::, and sehools, the peasanls would be healthicr, bc th:r \111, IlIUle illtdli gcnt; but , you sce, there is nothing 01' lhe sor!' There are slill lhe same sw uggesls that the descri ptio ns a lld mcmnrics 01' lhe paintings eonsti lute lheir co ntinuing " presellcc," d(!spitc Ihe absclln: n I' Ihe pa inlings Ihcmsclveli, C alk ge::;l llres

luward ;, lIoliOJl 01 Ih~ illl ":l ,H' I IV I.' "\i.'hall!?\.' hdwt!t! 11 lhe arl objecl amllhc vieweL Whik such ¡;xchalliJ,tlhose eyes are covered with tape throughout the performance, q uestions the traditional wmplicity of this visual exchange. Her eyes are completely averted and the more one tries to "see" her the more one realizes that "seeing her" requires that one be seen . 111 all ofthese images there is a peculiar sense in which their drama hinges absolutely on the sen se of seeing oneself and of being seen as Other. Unlike Rainer's film Thc Man Who El1l'ied Womcn in whieh the female protagonist eannot be seen , here the female protagonist cannot see. In the absellce of that customary visual ex­ change, the speetator can see only her own desire to be seen. The satisfacti on of desire in this spectacle is thwarted perpetually because Festa is so busy conferring with some region of her own embryology that she cannot partieip­ ate in her half of the exchange: the spectator has to play both parts she has to become the speetator of her own performance beca use Festa will not fulfill the invitation her perfo rmance issues. In this sense, Festa's wo rk opera tes on the other side of the same conlinuum as Rain cr's. Whereas in lhe film T risha beco ll1es a kind 01' spectator, hcn: Ihe speclal o r becolllcs a kinu nI' pe rformer.

11111 whilc l 'L's lll :11l'cd l. eilalioll , sillnatll l\:s pltcllOll1el1a Iltal are slnrc\ured hy al1 (ltit'l1 lary Hlld ge l1eralizable ilerahilily. It is lhis thar. De rrida lahs to bL~ im:dllci hlc sil1L:e tite performalive can f'llllction o11ly by separating itsclffnml ilsell'. lmly by citing the possibility ofits past and future instances and, in so doing, t'racturing the punctuality of any grounding selr­ prcsence. As Butler explains, perrormat ivity must here " be understooo not as a singular or delibera te 'aet,' but. rather, as the reitera,tive and citational practiee by which discourse produces the elTects lhat it names" (1993,2). We­ are far here, certain ly, from a notion 01' praxis that plaees language do wn­ stream from an originaIly integral souree. Indeed, \Vith performativity we do not set oul from "real aclive men "- we never, as it were, simply set oul- and the very imagination of a pre-discursive origin can now be viewed as a per­ formative effect: "The spcculative origin," Butler \Vrites, " is always speeulaled about from a retrospectivc position , from which it assumes the character of an ideal " (1990, 78). Have \Ve arrived , then , at an unresolvable impasse between praxis and per­ formativity? lvfayhe flol, as I hinted at the beginning, but I can do little more in lhe time aIlottco than to suggest eIlipticaHy that the relationship between praxis and performativity might itselr be refrallleo as a relationship internal to and constitutive of praxis- which may help lo explain why it is that praxis can genera te representations presumably alien to its own integral nature. This would be , for example, the burden 01' Derrida 's extraoroinary pages in Specters o/Marx on the performativity already lodged within use-value, the iterability that " permits one to identify [a use-value] as the same throughout possible repetitions": "Since any use-value is marked by this possibility of being used by {he other or being used anoLher til11l', this alterity or iterabilily projects it a priori onto the market of eq uivalences" that Marx had reserved for exchange­ value alone (Derrida 1994; 160, 162). This imagination of performativity as an enabling condition rather than a faIl into secondariness also informs. in a variety 01' different ways, J udith Butler's rccasting of construclionism as materiality, Gayatri Spivak 's elaboration 01' a value theory ol'labor (1987, 1993). and "Étienne Balibar's (1994) and Jacques Rancicre's (1994) recenl wrilings 011 lhe proletariat and the lheory of ideology. To pose the relation­ ship between praxis and performativity in these terms would neithcr con ­ stitutc a timely new oirection for Marxist thought, nor would it mean déjá l'U aIl over again . But it might aIlow us to recollceive Marxism's current appeal to performativity otherwise than as an idea whose time has come.

Notes This article is lhe tex t of a talk prescnted al the 1994 M LA Convention in San Diego on a p;lll cl elllitleu " Praxis anu Performativity" organizeu by Amitava Kurnar anu .I () ~I.! M UllO¡ rOl' the Marxisl Lilerary Group. My thanks especially to thclll amll ll (; 1111 ' l' Il lt I "IO ' !\ N G H () Ji /1 tU ,,\ N tI. :\ 1 1() N

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and produce o rder, olle 1'01111 01' whidl is rlrythlllic (paUc rns (h w ugh time). These rhythms beco mc cncoded in the pathways 01' (he brain and ncrvous system. Neural pathways provioe the biological basis rol' consciollsness: thc harnessi ng and repression (canalization) of the booy's drives constitutes the subject. The oominant forces withín any social formation wil1 be imperfect in their entrainment of sllbjects for at least three reasons. First, they must conteno not only with the limitations of the plastieity of human organisms bu!, if the booy-society relationship is unoerstooo oia1ectieal1y instead of as a simple oetermination, they must also engage in a constant struggle against the body ano its drives as a n (/ctive force. Second , in our ro mplex- thal is, multicul­ tural , fra gmenteo , stratifreo- society. subject-positions are ol'er-determined , creating the possibility ror gaps ano contradictions in subjectivity. Subjects are entrained into a variety of rhythms whieh may not exist harmoniously, creating conflict, chaos or simply cancelling one another out like two off-set wave patterns. Third, rhythm can be used as a counterhegemonic force, cre­ ating a lternative pleasures, neurognostic structurcs, mooes 01' consciousness and subjectivities. Think , for exal1lp1e. of what may happen to a subject immersed in the rhythms 01" another culture. Mickey Hart recounts the effect of West African rhythms on E uropean bodies in this way:

Just before enlisting 1 hao oiscovered the mllsic of Babatunoe Olatunji, the Nigerian drummer who lives in New York .... Whenever 1 played this music at one of Raphael's parties, the room \Voulo transformo It \Vas as though the rhythm of the orum \Vas calling something up from these s1eek cosmopolitan bodies that hall bcen asleep. (91 )

Rhythm is one important factor underlying or influencing, as \Vel1 as connect­ in g, social organization, epis temology. co nscio us ness. amI physiology . Th e socio-eeonomic structurcs of a given social form a tio n are em bodied in a nd performeo through vari0 US orga niza ti ons the famil y, lhc workplaL:c, rdi­ gion . rit ua l, cn tcrtain mcTl t. a nu so OIJ. T hcsc o rganil.U lio ns pro viuc. irnpnsc.

The performance of a different order proouces a oifferent subject and state of awareness. Energies, previoUlily represseo 01' channeled toward certain ends, can be released ano redirecteo. I-Jence the attacks on jazz ano rock by the ioeological allies of Fordism. Consciousness is not only influenccd by " non-ordinary" rhythms, such as those used in shamanic rituals for spiritual journeying, but by "everyday" (common sen se) rh ythms that are performcd in any form 01' social organization (language, ritual, work, musi~;, etc.). Why woulo the rhythms ano breathing patterns of Western European eh oral music, the speech patterns 01' midole­ class American English, or the 60 hertz eycle 01' overheao power Iines affec( consciousness any less than thc African rhythms ofBabatunde Olatunji affccteo Ilart's weste m fr iend s'l I lo w can \Ve not be cyborg-subjeets (booy-machine co mplexcs) a lllid sl IIhiqll illlll Sly Il1ccha nizcd anucOl1l puterizeo environments? I h:aríll)' I hyl lll ll ,, 'o ,1 lí 'I ni ( \1' disc\l lIrse a llll a ll enaclrncnt 0 1' social o rgan­ i/.a tioll Ct! l lIt'Ij .... ill l íl ,' 1I l l1 nhl' l (il il\lpli(,':l tiolls . Illost 0 1' wh ich have no( buen

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cxplorcd by lhe fidti 01' c(lnll11l1 n i ~é1lion in gC lleral alld pcrlúrlllOlncc ami organizalionéll studics in particular. Fírst , openíng o ur cars lo rhythrn chal­ lenges common undcrstandings 01' what constítutes " organizatían. " pointing to a wide range 01' divergent cultural fonns . frorn rnachinery to conversation to music to the workplace , which utilize rhythrn to produce a kind 01' arder. Second, rhythm complicates and enhances our sense of the connections betwecn organization and other elements 01' human lite. In particular, the body must be accounted for as an active force and the mind/body distinc­ tion problclllatized on other than él purely philosophicallcvel. Finally, rhythm holds potentia l for those intercsted ín developing altcrnative forms of organ­ ization as well as making interventions in cxisting organizations. 8

Notes As this definition or "organization" implies, and as will become evident in Ihe range 01' examples in this essay. I use Ihe term lo encompass more thall " formal " organizations such as the modern workplace. 2 My use 01' epistcmology hen.: builds off or ils Iradilional sense as the study 01' knowledge. I am following Nietzsche's suggeslion Ihal an epislemology is not a deseriplion or how things are o r 01' how humans do in fact k no\\', "bul an imperative concerning what shou/d eoullt ('ONSUMP fl ON

force in itself). In exp (,()NS U MI' T ION

Thc multivalencc of thc cornmodity The capitahst for111 01' the subject/object dialectic is eommodity production and is described by Marx's theory ofvalue. Not only is production multivalent in that it produces both an object and a subjcct, but under capitalisrn it is multivalent in the sense that , according to Marx , it produces use value, value, and a potentially infinite array of exchange values. Marx ' s opening move in Capilal is to analyze this multivalence. As a use value, the commodity is to be scen in its particular, concrete, apparently material aspect , and yet it must be a social use value, that is, something that is recogniza bly useful in a given society (sinee Lo be a corn­ modity it must be exchangeable, if not actually exchanged). G a yatri Spivak argues (with. not against. Marx) that use value (especially the use value of labor) cannot be used to ground or c10se off a chain of signification, much the way Butler argues (against Lacan) that materia'iity in general (and the pcnis and the phallus in particular) cannot be the guarantor 01' stabilizer of lhe signifying chain that seems to follow frorn it, but rather that materialíty can only seem to be that guara ntor by being posited as such within discourse. which puts discourse before and not only after materialíty .20 The point of both of these diffieult deconstructive arguments is lo show that the posited origins 01' meaning are in fact socially eonstructed and his torically determined and that in their particular forms they tend to sup port particular arrangements ofpower. Spivak's project, and my own , in showing the social (discursivc) detennination of use value , is not intended to em pty it of its materialíty or to make use values appear expendable , as if people don't need to subsist. Rather, the point 01' her argument is to crea te a ver ~i()n 01' Marxian analysis that ties the "polítical economy 01' the sign " (the rcal rn 01" domination) , which scems to have so captured tho minds of F irsl World acadernics, to a more traditional Marxian analysis that can see the exp loita­ tion occurring in the international division of labor. DominaÜ oo is enacled through the technology of exploitation. Or, to displace the dominat iolll exploitation binar)' , I would say, the production 01' monetary surplus va lucs depends on production in its most inclus.ive articulation as all human praxis. Likewise , I want to read the diSCllrsive aspects 01" commodity production not in order to leave the realm of needs, inequality , exploitation , and opprcssion but rather to offer an adequate account 01" the social relations produced tberein. More important to Marx in many ways than usc value is what he names simply I'{¡fue . This value is determined not through the social process 01' inscribing the object as IIScfll1 in its particlIlars, but through the social proccss 01' prod uct io n ilsclf; this valllc is an acco unt ot', an I:x preSSilln or " form of a ppearalll:c" or, the la b~)r thal we nl ¡nto 11luk il1 g the cOlllm~)dil y .~ 1 W hilc Ma rx cmrhasii'.c'i Ihal v:dllc n: pn:sl'lI ls only I h~ (uhstl';l\,; t sud all y IIl'l:~S~a l'y)

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ti!" labor, bl..'(;:lII SI; IlIat ljualltily is dq)cnJ cn t (I!! III\.' kvd to whicl ! prod uclive forces have heen dL:vcloped in a givcn socieLy (i .L: .. UII how the thing \Vas ma(k). valuc abo. in a sellSC, cxprcsses the quality oflabar involvcd , (Il is. lhL:lI. nol (m'ly possible to show ho\V use value is dependent on cxc hange value but. eonvcrscly, how exchangc value falds back into material specilld ly as wel1.) The development af productive fon;es is based not only 0 11 somc naturally increasing human ability but on the historically contingent nced to control labor and labor's resistance.22 Marx saw the production process itself as rccast through the reintcrpretation of it as él battle between c1 asses. as opposed to , ror instance, a cornpetition among workers . So while abstraet value is deterrnined by concrete productive forces, those produetive forees a re again not SOIl1C essential origin of meaning but rather a produet 01' social pré:lctices and struggles. Exchange vaJue (as opposed to value, which is abstract labor in its abstrael statc) is the form 01' appearance of value in the particular language, lhe particular coin, of a particular society or at least 01' a specific transaction; an exchange value is so many dollars or yen or coats. lt is therefore precisely a discursive articulation, a culturally and historically specific manifestati on ur value. In examining all aspects ofthe commodity Marx makes it c1ear that wh at is being produced are meanings, that is, social values, things that perform in the context of social practices, for example, a eonsumption or an exchange. Bul how many praetices or potential meanings did Marx take into consideration? While use value is potential1y a wide-open category, Marx shows re1ativel y little interest in its potential diversity; he is primarily inlerested in the use l O which labor power in particular is put, how its use value produces surplus values. Marx's discussion ofsurplus value- especially when that value appears in the form of profit or money and is llsed for private consumption rathe r than as capital- points to an array 01' social meanings and value distinct fro m a narrowly defined economic sphere but not independent or autonomous 01' it. In the 1844 Manuscripts, for instance, Marx describes the ability ofmonet­ ary wealth to act as the equivalent ofbeauty, intelligence, physieal carability. talent, morality , and so on. Marx, however. doesn't theorize these other values adequately; as ma ny fell1inists have pointed out, by focusing , especially in Capilal, on the use val ue 01' labor po\ver and exchange value , Marx limits his analysis lo a very na r­ rowly drawn economic realm. He does this for a particular reason: to providl! a basis ror the revelation of exploitat'ion through wage labor, which he sees as the primary form 01' oppression under capitalismo Exploitation depe nds 011 the interplay of use value and exchange value. (The use value 01' one d ay'~ labor minus the exchange value 01' one day's labor equals a q ua ntity 01' ~u rp l ll~ value. ) l3ut as has become widd y arrarent, cxploitalion has not displat:cd lhe r rorllls 01' opprcsSion; capi la lism has in ract inco rpo ra led 1 ( ' IIU N ,\N I) t' UN ,-;I I M I'II0 N

nw klllillisl arglllll\'llts IhallJlllllJ1arkl'1 adivilics, su.:!! a~ I\'produdioll , artO pmuLlclioll orCIl tite possibilily (with which Ihcsc Icmin ists werc no t r)articu­ lar/y Lllllcerncd) for a Ituge range of pnvate, social activities lo bc considerctl pl"mluctillll. Ir child socialization 01" heterosexual sexual acti vity (inscribcd as l1lonclarily valuable productive practices only in the demimondes of paid child care and prostitution) can be recognized by thesc feminist argumenls as valuahle labor. lhen gay sex is also certainly analyzablc as a valuable, pro­ ductive ac!: productive of relationships, identities, communities, and social spaces. The anonymity and randomness of gay mal e sexual activily at ccrta in points in gay history seem to me techniqucs that produce a n imaginary expanse 01' iden tification , not unlikc the newspaper in Benedict Anderson's ll/lagined C0l11l11uni'ies. 25 This scxual activity has defined and daimed a variety of public places - certain streets, hlocks, and parks, as \\lell as bars and bathhouses­ as gay comlllunal space. This social production feeds almost immediately back into production in the narrowcr sense of monetary surplus value production. Donna Harawa y has said that "the body is an accumulation strategy," a point that David Harvey has elahorated in his recent work, exploring the construction of the body as variable capital through the sites of production, exchange, and con­ sumption?' However, the strategic production of speciAc but diverse bodies as capital requires thc complicity of discourses not nOlmally named produc­ ,ioll. As Janet Jakobsen puts it, with referencc to Weber's " Protestant ethic," the realm ofvalues (i .c. , religion, culture, and domination in the form of "fam­ ily values") enters- at the site of the body- the supposedly value-free realm ofvalue, the economic. I would simply add here that not only are individual bodies an accumulation strategy a nd thus the site ofthis values-Iaden produG­ tion process, but social bodies, social formations. f'amilies , and communities are also accul1lulation strategies. 27 But one needn't look outside commodity production for the production of values other than use and exchange and th us of subjccts other than wage­ laborer and capitalist. The importance of social production for economic production is evident in the elaborate efforts made by capitalists to influence idcntity and community structures. While sorne feminists argue that Marx­ iSIl1 has failed to give adequate atlcntion to something going on simultane­ ously \Vith, but external to, direct commodity production (i.c., reproduction), theorists of consumer culture makc a more historical argument, suggesting that capitalism itsc1f has changed, that thc nature of the products being produced has changed, and that what is significant about thc products ha!> changcd. lean Baudrillard and olhers have descrihed él shift to a stagc of capitalism in which protit depcnds not on lhe prod uction process, 01' the exploitation or lahor, but ralher on lhc conlrol OrCOnSlIl1ler desire through ad vcrtising, th ro ugh control or "lhc codc," lhc Clll irc sym bolil' onJe r ?~ Frcdric Jamcso n arg ues lha lhe prodlletillll ofcu llurc " has hccome in te¡,.rra led ¡n lo cOll1modily prod llClioll

generally" hccausl' il has SUdl a signilicanl rok I.l) play in Ihe prodllction pr innovative commoditics, so that "cultural production [has hccome] an arena of fierce soci al conflict" and there is a " new role for aesthetic dellnitiolls and interventions. "29 But as I see it, the issue here is not so much lhe cOll1modillca­ tion of discoursc, of media , art, ami inforll1ation, but the discursivity 01' the commodity. Baudrillard notes that the status or identity-confe rring q ualily of the com­ modity is not manufactured in the factory but rather in lhe consumption process. Thus it is control over consumplive rather than produclivc labor (through advertising or, less overtly, through cultural products Iike television programs rather than through time docks and shop fl oor managers) that is important to the production of surplus value. The labor of the consumer contributes the greater sharc ol' surplus valuc. an unlimited share since it is based on signification and not on human labor capacity within the twenty­ four-hour day . The status-, idcntity- , and community-conferring aspects of a commodity might be seen as pan of its use va,lue, or in another view as part of its cx­ change valuc. in the scnse lhat the commodily is traded in a marketplace 01' status, identity, or community (a market that is nol merely metaphoricaJly related to the commodity market but is crucially enabling to it). To view it in either of thcse ways raises questions about the distinction between use value and cxchangc valuc . Exchange looks Iike just another possible use for a commodity or all uses look like exchanges in the sense that a commodity (an expression of value) is being invested (used for exchange) to produce a given result , which result will then be turned around and invested again to turn anothcr proAt of sorne sort. The problem with this conflation ol' use and exchange value is that, while it conforms to Marx's definition of exchange value as a socially determined value abstracted from the particulars of the object, it doesn't conform to his definition of exchange value as an abstrac­ tion of labor, unless labor is redefined to inc\ude sign production. This redefinition of labor puts the appropriating consumer on a theoretical par \Vith the factor)' worker, the so-called producer. Marx rccognized Ihis con­ sumptive labor in the Grundrisse:

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The product only obtains its " Iast finish " in consumption. A railway on which no trains run , hcnce which is not Llsed up, not consumed , is a railway only [potentially], and not in reality . .. . Consumption produces production .. . bccausc a product becomes a real product only by being cOl1Sumed ... . the product, unlike a mere natural object, provcs itsclf to be. hecomes, a product only through consulllption ... only as objcct rOl' thc active suhjcCt, '0 Marx, ho wew r, a Iso rccogni/cd Iltal llw idcn lily o r prodllclion ami cons um p­ liun lhal OIlO cOllld ;llliVl' ;11 lll\·on·til'a lly was IIl cn.:l y theorclical idl'lllily,

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bascu nn s\:cing él sm;idY as a sin gular subjl!t:l. O f1ú! Sl!l' lI as lh~ al:li vlly ul" many individuals, product io n ano l"ons umption are clcarly sq)¡lratcu by d is­ tribution ; " the producer's rclation to the product, once lhe latter is I1nished , is an external one, ano its return to the subject depends on his relalion to other individuals." JI So while the expansion of production to indude consulllption is crucial , it is also important lo note that production is a ditTerentiatcd process. "Consulllptive" labor is productive, but it is organized very differently th a n " productive" labor: it is not organized , procured, or cxploited as wage labor. rn expanding production to include wOlllen's work . priva te activi ty , ane! sig­ nification 01' performance, the dcnnition of the techn ol ogy of oppression , whal Marx called exploitation , also must be expanded. First of all , exploitation must be distinguished from appropriation , a tenn that has been used to accuse dominant groups of taking and profiting from cultural forms that belong to some subordinate group, As Ámy RobLnson arg ues , the logic of appropriation reinvokes and relies on a discourse of private property, which is precisely the discourse that functions to separate­ subordinate groups from social goodS. 32 According to Marx, exploitation is not appropriation ; it is nol the taking 01' property that properly belongs to someone else. One should be able to enjoy seeing someone else make gooJ use of the product of one 's labor, and in Marx's view , one would if one did not see that someone as Other, if one recognized one's communal relation to that Other. The wage labor system is technically fair: the full exchange value of the labor is paid to the laborer. As Marx argues in "The Critique of the Gotha Program ," its exploitativeness would not be cured by increasing the portion of goods distributed to the direct producer; the direet producer would still be exploited beca use he would still not have control 01' the means of production. He would still be controlled by, opposed to. lhe capitalist Other; he would still be in competition with other workers and would still be subject to a division 01' labor that divided his particular interest from the general interes1. The key to exploitation, then , is that it is a practice partici p­ ated in by both the dominant and subordinate parties for the apparently voluntary (and thus value-free, unjudgable) transfer of power to thc domin­ ant party. How does this work when applied to consulllption? Consumptive labor is procured and exploited through active subjection in the expression o f needs. desires, self, identity, and community; as producers seem to freely se ll their labor, consumers freely choose and purchase their commodities. D The exploitation occurs insofar as by freely choosing, consumers contribute to lhe accumulation of capital- and thus to the power 01' the owners 01' lhe means of production- and enact the cultural and social formatio ns in which their choices are embedded but whi ch Lhey uo not control. The consume r\ free choice is constraincd and p rod uclive nI' f"urther constrajnl s. 14 Sta t us. for exa mple. as BOllrdicu rcco¡,.mi zes. is Il()t only a cOllscqucncc of" srccil ic

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economic f"actors . fadors thal limil or cnablc a variel y 01" social pcrf"orIllam;cs such as the purchase 01' status-conlcrring: uommodilies. but is a Illolllcnl in a trajectory. Status ilsclf opens or sh uts o ff ecoll omic opportunity_jobs. cduca­ lÍon , and social access. 15 As conditions of productive labor are the site 01' strugglc between worker and capitalisL so the conditions and illlplications of consumptive labor have been the sile of struggle, A body 01' work in the neld 01' cultural studies has attended to the deploYlllent oflllass products in particular or innovative ways in the e1aboratian ofthe subcultural communi ly identity .16 But the redepl oy­ ment of such uommunal images by the corporate producers oi' the commod­ ities has also been notable ,37 The prob1e1ll with the Gap-incation l~ of gay culture. or with the incorpora ­ tion of hip hop into sneaker ads. is not that someone has sto len a cultural forlll that properly belongs to one group but that corporate appropriation of the given forlll or style makcs it at least in part alien to and against those who generated i1. Queer Nation , for instance, felt that it had to "out" the Gap ror its lIse of gay celebrities and styles. As Lauren Berlant and Elizabcth Freeman explain. The New York Gap series changes the final P in the logo of stylish ads featuring gay, bisexual and suspiciously polYlllorphous celebri­ ties to aY . . , . the reconstructed billboards ... address the company 's policy of lIsing gay style to sell cJothes without acknowledging debts to gay street stylc,"¡ In speaking of "debts," Berlant and Freel11an suggest that Queer Nation is objecting to appropr.i ation , as ir gays had property in the styles they developed by deploying mass culture products sueh as blue jeans and white T-shirts. But if the question 01' exploitation is more a question of control than one of acknowledgl11ent or debt , then lhe issue he re is what social relations a re advanced when gays and lesbians purchase their jeans, white T-shirts. and leather jackets in the I1rst place. And in analyzing the reapproprialion of the style by Gap, one wonders whcther gay people are empowered , their articula­ tion of society promoted along with the particular cJothing itellls, or whether the existence 01' ga ys and lesbians is erased or closeted , And , while hijacking the corporate means of production of the discursive value of commodities can be a powerful intervention , participation in dis­ cursi ve production can also be " conciliatory. [in the] mode 01', for instance, [Marshall] Kirk and [llunter] Madsen 's plan to Illarket 'positive' (read ' toler­ able ') gay images lo straight culture. "40 In either case, the very differentia­ tions that collllllllnilics Illay scek lo cnact with their consumptive production may n ot be exle rna l lo or opposilional to capitalist production but may very well be tlle e1a hunllto n uf' ils tlW II n ~ce ssaril )' incrcasingly dense 3j'ticulations 01' d ifkrcncc. nI' lIicllcs :llId 01" l:I lI llI llIllIitics l1f con sllmcrs amI prod ucen; . \i'; 1

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CapitaJislII Ilruduccs lI1ultitlimcnsional sodal rl'la CiclIIs Out 01' the multivalence of the commodity Marx draws a dynall1ic ano m ultidimensional social space. He describes a histo rical e volution of social relations toward individuation and universaliza tion , a dialectical rclation bctwecn simultaneo LIS and contradi\.:tory articulations 01' social relations , and a discursive process through which social movements, a class conscious of itself, may be \.:onstitllted.

The evo/vin¡: relatüm of cllpitlllism to cOlllfIJl1nit)' In both The German Ide%gy and Capital Marx writes at length on the pro­ cess of the progressive reformation of society undcr capitalism , which brcaks down existing communities and communal forms, freeing (and obliging) indi­ viduals to sell their labor and to be refunctioncd as necessary for the capitalist dcvelopment of prod uctive forees . He notes that big industry .. . destroy[ed] the former natural exclusiveness ofsepar­ ate nations . .. and resolved all natural relations into money rcla­ tions . .In the place 01' naturally grown towns it created the modern, large industrial cities which have sprung up overnight. 41 Ultimately. this tllrns out to be a good thing: the eonditions have been created so that under communism individuals are free to aet according to their desires in relation to a "universal ," " world-historieal" human association, unimpcded by locality or relations of hierarchy , dependenee, or dominance. Only then will the separa te individuals be liberated from the various national and local barriers, be brought into practical eonnection with the material and intellectual production of the whole world and be put in a position to aequire the capacity to enjoy this all"sided production of the whole earth (the creation of man).42 Unlike many late-twenlieth-eentury Icftists, Marx is not nostalgic for older communal forms; describing the extraordinarily destructive effects 01' thc introduction of industrial technology and capitalist logic by the British in India, he \\Tites, Wc must not forget that these idyllic viHage commullltles ... restrained the human mind within the sll1allest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of su perstition. enslaving il beneath traditional r ules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies. . . . these little communities \Verc contaminated by distinction s 01'

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cask and by slavery. that they slIbjllgatcd man to I.!xternal circlllll­ stances instead ofelevating Illan to be the sovcrcign 01' circuinstances.'ll Likewise, afler di scussing the faet that the English Parliament had fin all y decided to regul are the economic exploitation 01' children by their pare.nls and thus destroy the traditiona l rights of parents over their children. Marx argues: However terrible and disgusting the dissolution . under the capitalist system. of tbe old family lies might appear. nevertheless. modern industry , by assigning as it does an important part in the procelis of production , outliide the domesti e sphere. to women . to yo ung persons, to children 01' both sexes , crea tes a new economic founda ­ tion for a higher form 01' the family and of relations between the sexes. 44 The pOliitive opportunities provided by the disintegrative effects of the ocvelop­ ment of capitalism have been noted by feminist and gay historians, who havc shown how industrialization freed young women froll1 parental autho rity and allowed gay people to congregate in urban eenters outside the reach of the patriarchal and communal situations from whieh they had come. This research does not suggest that capitalism, in dissolving communities, len people "alienated" but rather that it cnabled them to create communities on ne\\' (and in their accounts more voluntary) grounds .45 However, as I began to argue earlier, these new communities also serve an evolving capitalism in particular ways. The dissolution oflocal and idiosyncratic communities eoincided with the process 01' corporation building, culminating in Fordism,4G whieh involved the rational ization and massification both of production processes (the Taylorization 01' work processes, the introduclion of assembly lines) and 01' consumption (the family wage and the eight-hour day were meant lo eneo ur­ age \Vorkers to consume the products they made) . As Alan Trachtcnberg argucs, this massing of capital and of labor also tended to articulate a rcl­ atively obvio LIS and simple division between work ers and capitalists .47 This simplicity \\las factually complieated by the vast class of managers , pro fes­ sionals, and so on necessary to make these corporations runo And , as Harvey points out. Fordism created él dass 01' relatively privileged white maJe (if often immigrant) workers and undcrdasses 01' African Americans, Asians , and \Vomen. 4~ Nonethc1css, I would guess that Trachtenberg is correct to the extent that the ideology ofwork was likely dominated by factory producti on . Ilowever , corporations have ror él lon g time been sites 01' eomplex subject con struction . a co rn plcxi ty that cu ls agai nst such simple binary oppositions. Thi s corpora te slIbjcc\ \!o nstrllcl ion has bccome more obv illllS in the recent

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shirt away from I-'ordist mass production ami toward wllal has hccn ca lleJ posl-Fo/'disl1l orjlexihle acculIlulatiol1. Harvey dates from approximately 1973 the brea kup of"Fordist-Keynesian" "configurations 01' political-economic power" and a shift to " new systems of production and marketing, characterized by more flexible labour proccsscs and markcts ... geographical mobility and rapid shifts in consumption prac­ tices," He argues that , starting in the 1970s, technological changc, automation , the search for ncw product tines and market niches, geographical dispersal to zones 01' easier labor control, mergers and steps to accelerate the turnover time of thei r capital surged to the fore 01' corporate strategies for survival. 49 According to Harvey , the merging 01' massive multinational corporations has come to depend on diverse communalIy structured production and con­ sumption. The proliferation of corporate strategies to promote rather than suppress diversity , ranging from affirmative action to diverse representation on television , operates to stabilize, not disrupt, the sys tem .50 Niche marketing and the shift from durable goods to services and media have been the popularly recognized aspects offtexible accumulation. So there has been , for instance, a proliferation of long-distance telephone sen/ices that operate under the sign of sorne particular community, in so me cases claim­ in g to contribute some part of their income to organizations promoting the interests ofthat community. I am aware, for instance, ofservices d aiming iden­ tification with progressive causes in general, women, Latinos, gays/lesbians, and Christian conservatives. Over the last few years, the American Family Association has sent out several direct maitings promoting the "Lifeline" lon g-distance service. One such mailing read in part, Dear Friend, It is not my intent to make you feel gui1ty, but I thought you would want to kno\\': 1f you are a customer of AT&T, Mel or Sprint, you are helping promote the immoral, anti-family causes that the Amer­ ican Family Association has been fighting for 17 years.... The good news is that there is a way to fight back- and help J\l-A at the same time.... Lifeline is deeply committed to helping Christian ministries like "FA. In 1994, AT&T tried to fight back by target-marketing gays and lesbians wi tb a direct mail campaign . The packet they sent out inc1l1Jed a lavender anJ rainbow-colored brochure colors widely uscd lo signify gay culture él nd "gay pride"- featuring pictures o f gay couplcs, unel gay pcople with, úr tal kin g o n the ph onc too their parenls. T lll:se imagcs wcrc accompa nicd by lhc slog,U1S " Lel YO ll r T rue Voice (le 1karu " amI " I I's T ime a C ham!c." T his packct also

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im.: ludcd a I~,ct sheet on the history 01' A r&T's gay cmployces ¡Issociation. What is beingsold is not so much phone service as participation in a givcn community. But post- Fordist flexible acculllulation dramatically shifts the structures of production as wel1 as consumption. One of the principal trends of corporate capitalist activity has been the rclocation of hard-core industrial production away from more "developed" regions and into formerly less industrialized arcas where labor is cheaper and reglllations are fewer. 51 This trend creates a new relationship between labor and capital in developed areas such as the United States. Work ers are articulated as bein g in competition with workers elsewhere in the world , both those employed by the same company and those employed by other companies, The corporation cGln c1aim that the other com­ panies will use their cheaper foreign labor to put this company out of busi­ ness, which wil1 be bad for these ",orkers too. (And in faet such competition has even been fomented between workers in different regions of tbe U ni ted States.)52 Corporations use this situation to elicit a cooperative approach to col1ective bargaining (that is, to gain concessions), to encourage a sense of investment on the part ol' the workers in the profitability 01' the company, which the company backs up with more or less token profit sharing and man­ agement sharing. Both nationalist and corporate identificatory discourses 1 can be and tend to be articulated in this process. 5. Interestingly, these etTorts to articula te worker and company interests as coincident come precisely at the moment in which workcr loyalty is pro­ foundly threatened by the increasingly evident lack of 10ya1ty on the part of the corporation toward its employees. Not only are corporations willing to move plants overseas; they are also busy downsizing and outsourcing, replacing full-time, benefited workers with part-time, temporary labor. Jobs that once seemed to carry Iifetime tenure are now vulnerable to the latest economic news. M ichael Moore's documentary film Roger amI Me (1990) bemoans precisely this loss of a sense of company loyalty, as wel1 as the loss of actual jobs, among General Motors (m,1) \\'orkers in Flint, Michigan, \Vho were subjcct to a seemingly endless series of plant dosures in the 1980s. In ils own public relation s efforts, a series of ful1page ads in the New York Times (probably not the paper most frequently read by l I( : 'IION ANI> ( ' O NSI I MI"l ltJN

[/\s] the various intcrests ami conditions 01' lite within the ranks 01' the prolctariat are more cqualised .. . lhe collisions belween indi­ vidual workman ami individual bourgeois take more and more lhe eharacter of collisions between t\Vo c1asses. There upon workers begin to forrn combinations (Trade Unions) against the bourgeois: they club logelher in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent association in order to make provi sion beforehand for these occasional revolts . ... The real fruit of these battles lies, not in the illlmediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped by the improved Illeans of communication that are created by Illodern industry and that place the workers of differ­ ent localities in contact with one another. The bourgeoi:·üe finds itself involved in constant battle... , In all these battles [the bourgeoisie] sees itself cOlllpe].]ed to appeal to the proletariat ... ami thus to drag it into the political arena. The bour­ geoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own eJcments of polítical ami general education. 59

rOl itsel f, u ltimaleJy in Ihe pr(l~IIICII\ln 0 1' gl)OU¡¡ h UI il11meuialely as a n;:volu­ t ion;1I y fo rce. is a k:ngl hy 1'1 p\'\.,·~S

The story told herc can be read in a couple of different ways. It can be and has been read as a story 01' essentialism and determinislll- of real material conditions (as sorne real essence or truth) producing a necessary result. Or it can be seen as describing and rhetorically promoting a process of con­ sciousness raising, in whieh people both within and without the given dass must witness, narra te, or practically inscribe- not necessarily verbally- the conditions ami collectivity of the c1ass in order for the c1ass to form as a self­ conscious actor. Marx's description of the evolution of the revolutionary c1ass from geographically local rebellion to a worldwide revolution , through means of communication supplemented by "experience" of collectively taken actions and " political élnd general education ," suggests that at each crucial turn it is the discursive/practical inscription of experience through/in the appropriation (Iearning, education, enactment) of existing forms and methods of collective action (i.e., political partics) that allows the movcment to gro\\'. The textual locus for the argument 1 am rnaking about the discursive formation of ¡;Iasses in Marx is usually the 181h Brumaire, and especially its discussion ofthe lumpenproletariat. Marx sees the proletariat forming through " rubbing together in the factory ," which is why he does not see a revolution­ ary role for the lurnpenproletariat, a diverse and dispersed mass (not quite a class and not produccrs). The lumpenproletariat have not been brought togethcr into a productive collectivity, which they can then reappropriate or re narrate for new cnds; they lack the prior connection within the reaJm of product ion that would sllp Po rl an ceonomic determinist theory of their funct ioni ng as a \.:ohcn.: nt d ass. A'S Pd cr Slu ll yhr'l"s cxplains, "T he lu mpen ~CCItl:i ltl fi gurc h:ss ti d¡1SS ill any S(;IISC tha l \) II l! IIslIally IIl1dcrstanJ s lha n a

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TIle discu/'sive prodllction ofun oppositionul movement Marx e1aborates a third theory of social relations (counting the evolutionary ami dialectical as the first two) in describing the developrnent 01' the revolu­

lionary proletariat. This e1ass is produced through a process 01' (practica!) consciousncss raising based on participation , first in production and th en in resista nce. The co-operation 01' the wage labourers is entirely brought about hy the capital that employs them , Their union into one single pro­ ductive body and the establishment 01' a connexion between their individual runctions, are mallers foreign and external to them, are not their own act, but the act of capital that brings and keeps Ihem togethcr. 'x T hc IransrorTnation or lhi s cilllcctivily fmm working ror capila l lo workin g

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1'.1 llllp IlIal is a lTlI':lI ahll: 11) polili..:al illtil:lI lali o n."('U Ih : hllllpo.:ll proklarial is wllslillll Ct! as él dass by and 1( )J' l3o napartc 's perfo rrnann : 01' polilical hege­ IIIOlly. l\1arx's prcsclllalion 01' " Bonapartism ... opens up thc doma in 01' polilics amI lhc state as something other Ihan a reflecti on."61 It is nol c!cm Ihal Marx was rcady lo recognize the full import ofthe discursive, parlicipal­ ory , performative process of dass formation that he describes. Its full import is Ihal capilalist societies are not split along one single axis but rather gencr­ ale colleclivilies that align or agonize on Illa ny incoherenl, unassimilable fwnls. As noled in the previolls section. while M arx 's theo ry ofi ers a glirn pse 01' the rnultidimensional dynamics of social formati on. he Iimits his view to Ihe proccss 01' monetary exchange and Iherefore misses the releva nce 01' other silcs of production to Ihe process 01' exploitation . Because of Ihese Iimitations in Marx's texts (and later orthodox Marxisms) many Iheorisls have rejected his analysis altogether, finding a so urce of subjcctivity and social relations outside of production . While largue that the innovations and elaborations of conternporary capitalisl production , especi­ alIy when taken to include activities outsiJe the factory, to indude consump­ lion can be analyzed as the site of a great diversity of social rc\ations, others havc chosen instead to reject productivism as a mode 01' analysis a nd look dscwhere . Laclau and Mouffe and Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis see lhe discourse of rights rather than the discourse of cIass as the more potent force 1'01' social change, as able to both generate and coordina te , into a unified counterhegemonic formation , various " new social movements."62 My own argument is that this is not so much of a break with Marx as Lacl a u makes il out to be and that the discourse of rights appears within a productivist analysis . However, accounting for rights discourse is not enough . It is the particular diversity of collectivilies and conflicts that really needs to be ac­ counted fOL I \Vant no\\' to tum to theories that aceount for heterogeneity by locating it outside of production, by opposing production and performance, production and liberation .

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The re is a line of argument running from the Frankfurt school to some recent queer theory that attempts to account 1'01' the diversity of social movements, the diversity 01' axes 01" antagonism, by positing an exterior to production; these critiques posit production as creating a "one-dimensional. " rationalized, hOl11ogenized , and hegemonized society, and they look for ex pressions of helerogeneous--connoting "free"- hllman intelligence, spirit, imaginati on , anJ sexualily lo break lhro ugh lhe d i~cipIine 01' produetion. "The ' helero­ gcneous' inclllues everything ' rcsulling from unprod llclivc expenditure,' evcryLhing lhat 'h o mogcnculi -;' SOCi¡;ly dclincs as 'wasle' or lhat il is ' powcr­ Io.:ss lo assilllilat c."'('¡ In t!lis vil:w, Ihe unprodllcl ive. cq lla lcd wi lh lhe

hl'lcrog¡;nco us , is eclcbratcd as havin); a libcralnry pOlclltial. The assllcialion ofholllogeny witll hegemony is a false OIlC, as ll1y argu111cnts about the import­ ance ofdiversity lo contemporary capilaJiSI11 uC1110nslrale, bul it is pervasive in lhe line 01' thcorizin g I am addressing. The currcnt version of this critique can be found in scattered assertions ofthc " hetcronormativity" ofproduction (meaning nol that it is based on or produces heterogeneo us norms, but just the opposilc, that it is based 011 and reproduces the hegemonic homogenizing norm 01' heterosexuality). and in celebra tions of heterogeneity, homosexual­ itv, and theatricaIity as subversi ve of dominant discourses. In "Unthinking Sex," Andrew Parker weaves togcther the various threads ofcontemporary arguments that charaderize unproductivi sm , performati vily. and homosexuaIity as heterogeneous and thus liberatory practices. 64 H is weaving techniq ue is that 01' suggestive slippages, 01" metonymic associa­ tions: he states thal Marx 's nolion 01' productivity is modeled on procrealion('S and that, citing the Marx-Engels correspondence, Marx sees homosex as anal (" Iumpy "), wasteful , and Ihus unproductive ;('6 Parker argues thal Marx sees homosex as a mere recirculation (ralher than produetion) of goods , adding no "allle/ '7 such as goes on amid the lumpenproIetariat, the SClllTI , the heterogeneous, metonymically associated mass. Parker further associatcs this lumpensexuality with theatricality, \Vith the parody 01' production: 6~ he cIaims that, in the 18117 Brumaire, Marx criticizes the French political scene as a " farce " because politics seems to have lost its realist representational relationship to c1ass divisions, that is, to production. w WhiJe a link between performance and unproductiveness can be found in Marx (ami Adam Smith), wbo cJaimed that theatrical performance, like aH service work , was un pro­ ductive in a technical sense because " it vanishes in the very instant 01' its produclion ," it is cIear that such vanishing products are precisely what con­ temporary capitalisll1 thrives on. And there is another reading of the 181h Brul11uire that shows that Marx recognized the political productivity of Louis Bonaparte's farcical performance. iO Parker cIaims that he is doing somelhing different, in generating this chain of verbal associations that ultimately connects homosexuality (very narrowl y evoked as maJe-male anal penetration and a queeny theatricality) with un pro· ductiveness , from prior Marxist (Frankfurt sehool) dealings with sex, which see natural scxuality as repressed under capitalisll1 (i.c., a regime of producl­ ivism) . But Parker's rhetoric, which condemns Marx for his (indisputable) hOll1ophobia and his (highly disputable) antitheatricalism, enacts a very similar move; it seems aIso to condemn production and productivism. !t's just that it is Marx's productivism rather than capitalist production that is doing the reprcssing ofsubversive sexuality. Associations belwecn h omosexllalily and heterogencolls, free, subvcrsive, unralionalizcd unp rod uctivi ly are well cstabli shed in Ihe carlicr Frankfurt sehool thco ry lo which Pa rkl.:r rdás . In The Dio/ce/it o/ Enlighlenmenl, Max Ilorkhcim\!r ¡¡lid " h¡;odur AJ~)rn() cla bora l\! lhe vicw Iha! capi ta list

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I"OdIU:lioll Itas ,·OIO llill.!d "lOt e alllllllon: 01' an otltCI WII:>~' II ~' ~ Itlllllan lik or spiril. includ ing kll ow lcugc. I:lIltural proJudion, amllci sun: lime. lll obi li7ing a 11 01' I Ilcsc aspccts 01' life al:l:ording to a rationallogic 01' pcrfonnam:e- in the adll1inistrative sense of job performance, measured according to the needs 71 01' capitalist production. In Eros ((mi Civiliza/ion, Herbert Marcuse wo rk:; 0111 this same analysis of capitalist rationalization in relation to sexuality. Marcuse argues that "the perfo rmance principie" is " the pre-vailing historical 1'01'111 01' the reality principle";72 "the reality principie," as defined by F reud. is tltc con.f'ormation of man's drive ror plcasure to the social and natura l realit­ ics in which he Jinds himself. Marcuse: We designate it as the performance principie in order to emphasizc that undel: its rule soeiety is stratified according to the competitive ceonomic performances 01' its members .. . . M en do not ¡¡ve their own lives but perform pre-established functions .... Libido is diverted for soeially useful perfonnances.. .. Bis erotic performance is brought in to hne with his societal performance. 71 '''rhe perversions thus express rebellion against the institutions which guar­ alltee this order."74)t is interesting that the term perFormance here has none of lite liberatory connotations that it takes on in contemporary queer theory. My point is that heterogeneity, undefomled human nature expressed throug h hOl1losexuality, is posited as external to production. However, because ofthe l'xtcnsive reach ofthis regime ofproduction, that "outside" is ver)' difficult to [illd. Adorno suggests that evidence ofthis nature or spirit or psyche can only be found in relativcly private artistic expression such as Iyric poetry. In The Mirro/' oI P/'oductiol1, Baudrillard, like Parker, develops this criti­ que of the totalizing and repressive nature of production in the direction of Marx, arguing that like the political econom ists, Marx cclebrates production and thus does not ex pose the way in which man is alienated by being iden­ tilled with his labor power (and notjust by the sale ofthat labor power). 75 It is not the organization 01' production (which he very narrowly imagines as wage labor) but the system 01' meaning that values only production that is oppressive in Baudrillard's analysis. According to Baudrillard, freedom is to be found not, as Marx would sug­ gest, through production (i.e. , through binary dass conflict), but through suoversion ofthe code by diverse oppressed groups: ethnic minoritics, women, youth, sexual perverts. Revolution must involve heterogeneous exp.ression, wasteful gift exchange (pure expenditure rather than accu\1lulation. fi nal consumption rather than productive consumption), and nonprocreative sexo (J'II just note again that contemporary capital ism uses final cO!1s um pti on to llIake roo m ror more prodllction .) For Ba udrillard lhe extcriMil Y rrolll which this heterogcneou:i ex pression can OCC\II' is a produc! 0 1' lh\.: sy:; !l'1ll itself. \' ).)

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Suhvc rsion is hol'll t\¡ere. an clsC'II'//l'/'e . ... Scg.regakd, disl:rim inaled against , satellitized- [youth, blacks. womenJ are gradually rclcgatcd to a position 01' non-markcd tenns by the structuration 01' the system as a code.7() And yet Baudrillard does ascribe a peculiar freedom to this forced exterioriza­ tion; the "unmarked" are able to rebel against the code rather Ihan demanding equality within the terms of the code , so these groups would seem to have sorne source of subjecthood other th a n tbeir exclusionary construction by the codeo My questio n is what that source might be. The link between performance and unproductiveness found in contempor­ ary q ueer theory such as that 01' Parker and Peggy Phelan, whose work I will address shortly, is made by constructing two analogies: first between repres­ entation and production , and second between political and symbolic repres­ entation. As Spivak points out, the structure 01' analogy is problema tic here, producing a conflation of the two forms of represention which erases their complicity. Cultural representation, she says, has the structure of subject predication, while political representation rclies on "rhetoric-as-persuasion. " It is the \York of critique to see when these two things wor k togcther, when hegemonizing polítical representation "behaves like" subject predication. In erasing this complicity, Spivak argues, the analogy obscures discontinuities within the subject and defers that subject to a space of silent unrepresent­ ability.77In the analogic model , representation is understood as a (re)productive technology operating wühin the symbolic. The falsity, the insufliciency, oppres­ siveness, and homogeniz ing character of any realist (political or cultural) representation of a social group is emphasized, based on (post) structuralist arguments against the referentiality of the signifier (this is to go no further than Baudrillard), and theatricality is promoted as a nonrealist and thus a less hegemonized , repressive, possessable, co-optable form of signification . A Brechtian sort of performance is singled out for praise here: a performance that announces its own constructedness and thus disrupts the realist truth c\aims of productivelrepresentational hegemony. Parker and Stallybrass fOL~ US on Marx's discllssions of faree and parody; Peggy Phelan talks about performance that ineludes " the marked reproduction ofthe real prodllction" (i.e. , representations of things used to make the artwork are induded in the work itself).n These theorists disagree about what antirealist theatricality makes poss­ iblo. Parker seems to suggest that it is the free play ofsignification. Stallybrass is interested in giving the political relative freedom from economic deter­ mination , ma ki ng available diverse forms and sites for social protest and political activity. Phelan and Baudrillard. however, suggest that theatricality Crees political subjects frQlll rep resentati on altogether and thus offers access to the (supposedl y) inac(,;cssihle ( Laca nia n) RC (, ()N Sl I M I'II O N

is Iruly humall is the pu lil ical rcalIll purged 01' all ncccssil y. She ll1akes a further distinction betwc~n lhe rcpelilive labor 01' reprodudion and the produc­ tion of works 01' art, which is neither truly unproouctive nor mere animalistie existence. As 1 noteo earlier, Marx OOCS not count heterosexual reproduetion as proollc­ tion per se. In fac!. he scems to feel , not unlike Maril yn Waring (lf' Womel'l Co/./nled, 286), that the inscriptioll of sexual relations in market terms is a corrup­ tioll of what should be vallled on its own oistinct terms (1844 Mal1uscripls, 105). But I am not here particularly interested in Marx's views ofhetero- or homosexu­ ality exeept to the extent that, as Parker argues, they l'orlll a metaphoric basis ror his analysis of proouetion ano unproductivity, respectively . 66 Parker, "Unthinking Sex ," 34-] 5. 67 ¡bid., 25. 68 Parker relies heavily on E ve Kosofsky Seogwick in his a rgument here, citing her asscrtio!l of the tie between self-display and sexuality in the nineteenth century (straight lIlen do not engage in self-display). Separately, in explicitly antihomo­ phobic projects she docs engage in celebrations 01' heterogeneity: for instance, Epislell1olo~ies (J/llie C10sel (Berkelcy: University o fCalifornia Press, 1990) begins \Vith an elaboration of the sheer variety of possible sexual preferences (ano poss­ ible oetinitions of sexual preference), al! o f which ha ve been condenseo into the binary hOlllo VS. hetero; and Tel1del1cies (Durham, N. e. : Duke University Press, 199]) begins with an attempt to separate out the di verse picces ol' identity that have all beeli conoenscd into genoer. Howevcr, I am not sure that Scdgwiek ties heterogeneity, theatrieality, and hOlllosexuality to an antiproductivist stance as Parker does , siJlce she also c1aims to be faseinated with the proouetivity 01' perforlllativity- the ability 01' the speeeh aet to proouce the reality it describes. 69 While Stal!ybrass uses the 181h Brunwire to locate iu Marx a recognition 01' the ilTlPortanee of the politieal (a representational or oiscursive reallll \Vith some inoependence frolll econo m ic determinism), Parker foeuses on Marx 's conoemna­ tion of this independenee and thus finds Marx in a self-contradietion, rejeeting performative, oiscursive, and rhetorieal strategies even while he uses them. I'm not sure what the point is of catehing Marx in this self-eontradietion: it seellls to me Illore political!y useful to see Marx reeognizing ano offering a useful strategy than to posit Marx as the enemy ano to throw out, along with Marx' s clcar and repugnant homophobia- ·whieh Parker has very valuably uncovered- ..his very potent 1 wrnpany coulJ ll(J t ;¡ssc rl a " ri u.ht (JI"

ownership in a musical arrangement," by which he ll1eant \lol jusi (\11 instru­ mental or vocal score but the whole sty1c 01' lhe performance on lhe record (909). Supreme Recordl' was decided well before the 1976 revision of lhe copyright statute, which includes the following, more extensive limitation: "The exclusive rights 01' the owner of copyright in a sound recording [ ... 1do not extend to lhe making or duplication o f another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fix ation 01' other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording" (sec. 114b). Jt is unlawful lo duplicate a recording in which you do not hold the copyright, yeí it is perfectly legal to replicate the performance on that recording in order to make your own recording ol' it. 6 T his examplc serves to show that even a performance that has been fixed and rendered replicablc through reproduction is not protected by copyright. Virtually every com­ ponent of a sound recording can be so protected: the underlying text, the arrangement of the te:\t, and the recording itself all can be copyrighted. The only thing that cannot be is the peljór/11al1ce of the text or materials in question , which can be imitated with impunity.7 The same is true for other recorded performances, such as video-tapes of choreography, which can be deposited with lhe Copyright Offiee. Although the choreography itself is thus protected against copying, the particular performance of that choreo­ graphy on lhe tape is not protected. Whilc Balanchine (as an " author") might be able to copyright his choreography of The Nu!c/"{/ckel'. no dancer could copyright his particular interpretation or performance of the Mouse King in Balanchine's ballet. Nevertheless, there have been a number ol'decisions over the years in which performers apparently have been determined lo have rights of ownership in their perforl1lances, live and recorded. Go/din 1'. C!arion PIJ%p/ays (195 N.Y.S. 455; 202 AD I [1922]), for example, is a case in which the magician who invented the "Sawing a Lady in Hall''' illusioll successfully sued to pro­ tect his exclusive right to perform it. In 1928, Charlie Chaplin won a decision against another actor, Charles Amador, for imitating his Little Tramp char­ acter in fIIms. Ber! Lahr won a judgmenl against a company that used a voice that sounded like his in a television commercial (Lahr 1'. Adelt Chemical Co. 300 F. 2d 256 [1 st Cir. 1962]). An important recent case is Mid/er v. Ford M%r Company (1988), in which singer Bette M idler sued the autol1lobile company and its advertising agency for using a singer \Vho sounded exactly like Midler in a cOl1lmercial. She lost her initial case but won on appeal. ~ It is important to observe that although the cases J just cited all had the effect 01' extending legal protection to specific performances (a magic trick , a dislinctive eharacter) or performance sty1cs (speaking and singing voices) , nOne 01' these cases actually establishes a performcr's right of ownership in perfo rma nce as a w\)rk nI" :lulhorship, l':ach was Jecided 00 a different basis, n l)t1~ under lhe copyrigh t slalll lc. 111 ClIlII,lin l' AlI/adOr (93 C al. App. 358 , 69 P. 544 W)2:-i j), I he ":\111 11 sl al~d \!x pliei lly lha l " lil e case ul" plainlifT does

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tk pend oal his righl lo the exclusive use 01' lhe role, garb, amI ma nner· iSllls. ele.: it is hased upon fraud and deception. The ri ght of action in s uch a caSl' arises from the fraudulent purposc and conduct of appellant and injury callsed lo Ihe plaintiff thercby , and the deception to the public [ .. . (269 1'. 546). This understanding 01' the case arose from the fact that not only had Amador imitated the Little Tramp, he had also billed himselfin the fil m~ as C harlie Aplin. The decision stemmed from the concJllsion that Amador had practiecd fraud and was gui1ty of " llnfair competition in business," not fmm Ihe theory that Chaplin had a copyright in his performance as lhe Little Tramp. The original dismissal of Lah,. \l. Ade/! Chemical was re vcrsed 011 a similar basis: the appcals court fOlllld that llsing a voice that sounded likc Lahr's cOllld constitute " passing off" and , therefore, unrair competition. T he decision in Coldi/l also was based , in part, on grounds of lInfair competition. ('Iarion Phot o plays had made a film revea ling how the illusion was achieved; Ihe court round against the company on grounds 01' unfair competition , si nce dislributing th e film would rcnder Goldin 's illusion worthless and thus de­ prive him 01' " the fruits of his ingenllity, expense, and labor" (202 AD 1, 4). Midle,. 1'. Ford Mulo!" Company (849 F . 2d 460 [1988]) Iikewise does no t hold that Midler has a copyright in her vocal style. JlIdge Noonan sta tes hlllllLly in his decision that "a voiee is not copyrightable. The sounds are no t ' Iixed'" (462). In this case, the decision was made on the basis of a California slalule enshrining what has come to be called the right 01' publicity- Ci vil ( 'ode, Section 990, also known as the Celebrity Rights Act- originally designed lo allow the esta te of a deceased celebrity to continue to control the use o f Ihe name, voice, signature, photograph , and lik eness o fthat celebrity. Jud ge Noonan interpreted this sta tute as protecting a living celebrity's identity ur personhood and found that Midler has a property right not in her voice 01' performance but in her identity, her self. " A voice is as distinctive and personal as a face," he wrote . "The singer manifests herself in the songo To impersonate her voice is to pirate her identity" (463).9 Performers have the right to be protected from fralld and unfair business practices; they may even have property rights in their identities. None of these ri ghts is equivalent , Irmvevcr, to a copyright in performance. The central difference between copyri ght and the right of publicity is that while lhe former protects \\'orks of authorship, the latter protects pcrso nhood and o therefore , applies only to those whose persons have market valLle: lo celchrities. Judge Noonan ' s decision carefully spells out Midler's c1aim to cclchrity by summarizing her career, quoting her revie\Vs, and indieating her slatus as él cultural icon appealing to baby boomers . In the last paragraph 01' Ilre decision , he states: " Wc need not and d o not go so fa r as to hold thal cvery imitation of a voice to auvc rtise merchandise is actionable. Wc holl.1 on ly tha! when él dislincti w vo iee Df a prolcssiol1éll singcr is wiJely kn own ól lld is J llliherald y imila tcd in Ullil'l !\) '{ ell a product, the sell ers have ap p ro­ pria tcd whUIIS 11 01 Iheirs I '" ( .1() 1). This implics Iha l ove n ¡fa n aJ wrlisi n"

agency sel oul deliheratcly lo replica le tire voiee 01' an unknown singe r in él commercial, that singer would not enjoy the same rights as Midler beca use, unlike Midler's, that singer's identity has no generally established value. Jane Gaines observes that the Midler deci sion "signaled a new devel o p­ ment in intellectual property law, one that had been evolvin g since the 1950s but that was not recogni zed in common law until the early '70s: the right of publicity paradigm " (1991: 142). The origins ofthis development can be traced back even further in case law. lo The illll sionist in Culdin 1'. Clarion Phulop/ays, for in stance, was able to control the performance of th e Sawing a Lad y in Hall' illusion beca use the illusion and its title " have become identified with plaintiff's name to such an extent that theatre managers and the pu bl ic immediately connected the t\\'o " (202 AD 1, 3). DeCosla, too, ca n be seen as a stop in the evolution of the right 01' publieity paradigm and has n uances that are worth examining in that light. In his DeCosla decision , J udge Coffin did not discount the possibility that a character co uld be copyrighted and even imagines "a procedure ror register­ in g 'characters' by filing pictori al and narrative description [o f them] in an identifiable, durable, and material form " wilh the Copyright Otlice. 11 Wh y then does he say not only that DeCosta could not preva il beca use he had not " reduced his creation to afixed form " (Miller and Davis 1990: 305) but al so that " the plaintiff 's creation, being a personal characterization [ ... ] could no{ be reduced to sllch a form " (320, emphasis added),? The answer lies in the judge's use of the phrase " personal chamcterization ." In discllssin g thi s matter, the judge reveal s himself to be a fairly sophisticated performance theorist , conversant with the coneept of "everyday-lite performance. " " AH human beings- and a good part of the animal kingdom--create characters every day ofthcir lives, " writes Coffin, but he goes on to say that the kind of character people often invent " for their o\\'n and others' amusement [ ... ] is so sli ght a thin g as not to warrant protection by any la\\'. [ ... T)o the extent that a creation may be ineffa ble, we think it ineligible for pro tection aga inst copying simpliciter under either state or federallaw" (:l20). Thc judge's reasoning concerning everyday-Iife perfo rmance is sOllnd: to create a situation in \vhich one person could seek legal remedy beca use another had copied his Hal10ween costume or hi s hum orous performance a t the ofllee watercooler c1earl y would be intolerable. This reasoning extends logically to professional performance as wel!. What is interesting in DeCosla , however, is the judge's refusal to treat DcCosta 's creation as anything more lhan a " personal characterization " on the order of a Hal10 ween costume even though it turned out to be con siderabl y more than that to CBS. Coffin notes !hat, in the original tria!. DeCosta' s attorneys had cited

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several ca ses I .. ·1 tlr~)llnd tllé general proposilinn that it is an ac­ li onahlc WI"\)Jlg lo a pPlIlp riulé " nd exrl~l illh c rrod uct a nolher\ t:rca livc clfur l; b ul ¡III SCCII1 111 i" vol v\! dist il111u ishahlc Wrtl ll l!.S uf at

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k;¡~1 \.:qllal ni \.:VCII slI f)Crinr !'iigl1ilkancc. Mo..;1 reS I 1)11 Ibl.: InrI 01' " pa ssi l1g ofT": arp roprialiol1 not 01' lhe creatio ll b UI 01' Ihe value alladl\.:d to it by public associatioll [ . .. ] by misleading tlle public inlo Ihinking that the dcfcndant's otTering is the product of the plaintilT's established skil1. (317- 18)

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J\n author does not have to be wel1-known, or even published. to enjoy copyright protection for her work , but a performer must be sufficiently famous so that someone else \Vould scek to purchase her identity to enj oy prolection 01' her performance under the right of publicity paradigm. Even thcn, that protection is not ofthe performance as a work. but as an extcnsiol1 01' thc pc rformer\ identity, construcd as ha vjn g val ue in itself. Although it i:-; not cica!' lhat it is de:¡irabJe tü formulale a genera.l propc rly right ill perform­ ance. 111l~ suc.c.css 01' Lhc right 1' 1' r llhlicily ptlr:uJ igm s uggesLs Ihat an y 'lttClllpl

tn do so would havc lo lake Ihe lack lhal all performance::; arc mallikslaliolls 01' the performer's sc\f and that, therefore, the unlicensed use 01' any perform­ ance is an appropriation 01' the performer's propcrty in her idcnti ty, T his is a highly problematic position from the pcrspective 01' acting and performance theory , in which the relationship hetween the performer's identity and her performance is much thornier and more ambiguous than the law would seem to allow. 12 While some performers nlay see their perfonnances as manifesta­ tions of identity, others may prefer to see their performances more as " works of authorship" separate from themselves. Arguably, the ambiguity of the rela­ tionship between self and other is at the heart of perform a nce; to eliminate that ambiguity in favor of defining performance as necessari1ly a mani­ festation of the performer's sc1f wouJd be a reduclive enterprise. In saying this, 1 am not suggesting that the law is wrong about the nature of perform­ ance, though it would surely benefit from a review of performance theory. The more important point is that the law, through its particular historical evolution, has constructed the concepts 01' performance and performer, and therefore 01' performers' rights , in particular ways which may not accord with the ways that acting and performan ce theory have constructed these terms through their own historical evolutions. The suspicions of theorists who see performance 's evanescence as a site 01' resistance to a cultural economy based in reproduction seem justified by the vagaries of sorne of the decisions I've cited. George Harrison certainly learned the hard way that copyright law has no respect for what I-1enry Sayre has called the "aesthetic 01' impermanence" (1989) . The lesson of DeCo.l'ta is that. in a capitalist representational economy, the entity legally defined as the "a uthor" of a creation is the one that ca n extract proflt from it. 13 Midle,. and related cases raise troubling questions about property rights tbat seem to accrue on Iy to a celebrity elite. Given these considerations. it is easy to under­ stand the appeal of seeing performance as a discourse that escapes and resists the terms ofthis cultural economy. That sword is double-edged , however, for it is al so not difficult to sympathize with performers who might want to put that economy to work for themselves by acquiring greater control over their creations even though that would mean sullying their performative purity. Copyright la\\' shares with performance theory the premise that live performance exists only in the present and has no copy, that it is constituted by an ontology of disappearance (Phelan 1993: 146): that is why it is not protectable under copyright. To copyright law, an undocumented perform­ ance is Iess than invisible: inasmuch as it has no copy, it was never created; it does not exist at all. As \Ve have seen, even performance that hat been flxed through reproduction is not actually governed by copyright--- only the underlying texts a nd lhe lixation itself are protected. Decisions in which performers appea r to have been accorded rights of ownership in their per­ fo rmances lum 0111 10 ha ve b cc lI milde 0 11 other gro unds, whether those ol' f.... ud , 1I1lrair ~OOlpc l il ip n . ()J lite I i¡! hl orpllhlicity. not on Ihc basis oran idea

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Certainly. therc was no "passing otf" in t his instance: unlike Am ador's implying that he was Charlie Chaplin. CBS had no reason to state or imply Ihat its Paladin \Vas DeCosta because DeCosta 's name and reputation were 01' no value to CRS. Although Coffin does not exprcss Lhis conclusi ol1, it is hard to bclieve that it played no role in his formulation of the concept 01' "personal characterization." 1 suspect that if DeCosta 's performance had been professional rather than avocational and he had become famous for it (like the illusionist in (Jo/din) , the result of the appeal would have been different even before the advent of the right of publicity paradigm beca use then CBS unquestionably would have poached something 01' establishcd value. The irony of DeCosta is that the plaintiff could have prevailed had he proved that CBS had poached a creation of established value but, beca use DcCosta was not a celebrity, the value ofhis creation could be proved only b y the fact that CBS found it worthy of poaching. The ¡\lidler decision makes it even c1earer that a present day DeCosta could expect to have a right of ownership in his performance only if he were a celebrity and CBS had some­ thing to gain by appropriating his ideotity, not the character he created. 1n a discussion of whether ordinary people can benefit from the right of publicity, Gaines finds that the law enshrines a paradox: Before exploitation [ ... 1 the ordinary person and the unknown actor can be said to have a right of publicity thaL. in its dormancy, is both there and not there. It is inherent at the same time as it I'nosl be produced hy exp/oitatiol1. What I mean is that in currcnt legal thought a person does not have publicity rights in him or herself unlcss, at one timc or another in the course 01' a career, he or she has trans­ ferred these rights to another party. (1 99 1: 190; original emphasis)

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Ihal p~ rrOnll¡¡II\."l: a... ,>udl IS \l\vllabk. 11 is rair to say, 111 \:1 1, 111;11 ¡'c~allsc livl! pl.: rlúrlllam:c GIIlIlOI be co pyrig hll:J , it escapes ownership, cOllll1lodificalio n. and \llha proccsses 01" regulation within a reproductive cap ilalist economy. Whelher Ihalmakes performance a site oflllcaningful resistance to th al eco­ 11l>1lly is more problema tic. lf performance may be said to slip th rough the Iúga lnct 01' copyright, it does so because that nel was designed specifically not lo catch it. Whatever resistance performance's ontology of disappearance 11lay cnable has bcen allowed by the very cultural anu political uiseo urses it is saiu to resist. Roth Patricc Pavis anu Peggy Phelan see performa nce's evanescence amI its subsequcnt cxistence only in spectatorialmemory as placing perform ance olltsiuc the purview of reprouuction and regulati o n. As Pavis puts it. "The work_ once performcu_ uisappears fm ever. The only memory which one can preservc is that of the spectator's more 01' 1ess distracted perception [ ... (1992: 67). Phelan extends this observation into the political realm: "Without a copy, live performance plunges into visibili ty- in a maniacally charged prcscnt---and disappears into memory, into the realm of invisibility and the IInconscious where it eludes rcgulation and control" (1993: 14S). The re1ationship of the view of memory s uggested by these performance Ihcorists to the concept ofmemory implicit in copyright law \Vould seem to be OIlC of opposition. As Pavis suggests, the version of performance that li ves h~:yond the moment is distorted and inaccurate, a product of "t he spectator's 1110re or less distracted perception." Ph ela n va lorizes the unrelia bility of spec· tatmial memory beca use it gives rise to unrecuperably subjective versions of p~:rrormance that are faithful to perforlllance's ontology of disappearance. ( :opyright law, by contrast, valorizes technological memory (fixation) beca use it provides an ostensibly reliable record of the protected object against which claims of infrin gement may be judged objectively: either the questionable object is "s ubstantially similar" to the protected one or it is not. I4 U pon closer cxaminatíon, however, it becomes clear that this opposition between pcr­ I"ormance theory and copyright law is only apparent, for copyright finally privileges human memory over technological memory as \Vell. Even when a pe rformance is fixed in tangible form , the tangibl e version has no absolute authority. If a question of copyright infrin gelllent were to come up, it \Vo uld not be possible to resolve that question simply and self-evidently by looking at the reproduction ofthe performance. In order to enter into legal discou rse, lhc performance must be retrieved from the tcchnological memory-form in which it is preserved and subjected to the vagaries of human memory and interprctation. 15 In llorgal1 ji. MacMillan, /ne. (1986), the esta te ofGeorge Balanchinc sucu a pllblishing company for printing photographs of He NulCrCltker that the cstaW c1aimcd violated the copyright in his cho reography, a video tape 01" which he hall SlIbmitted a long wilh his copyright appli ca lion. "The trial co m t slalcd tllat dwn:ogm phy iSCs~l" lI liall y lile nlOvcment ol" Slcps in a da nce a nd

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Ihal plJol ogra plJs 1IICf'c1y caldl dallu;rs al specific illslants in limc. Then: f~)rc, lhe courl reaso ncd , photog raph s could not capt ure mOVClllent , which is thc csscnce ofchorcography" (Hilgard 1994: 770 - 7 1). Thc appc1late court relt that the trial court had not employed lhe appropriate standard for infringe­ mcnt and sent the casc back to be tried on its merits. The appellate eo urt proposcd t\Vo theories of how ph otographs mi ght infringe on ch oreograph y, the second 01' which is of interest here. "The court stated that a photog raph could e1icit in the imagination 01' a person who had recently seen a perform­ ance lhe fto\V of movement imllledia tely preccding and follmving th e split second recorded in the photograph" (Hilgard 1994: 776). Although the case was settled before it \Vas decided on a ppeal , ]-]urgan is the only extant decision in a copyright infringemenl case involving choreography under the 1976 sta tute . One legal scholar suggests that: "The court's approach would providc a chorcographer with a c1aim based on an observer's recall of the movement surro unding the moment captured in the photograph " (Hil gard 1994: 780 ­ 8 1). 11' In this interpretation of ]-]orgal1, spectatorial melllory is far from being out of the reach of regulatory processes; in fa.c t, it is pressed into service by the law. (Even if the deposited videotape, rather than spectatorial memory, were used to decide the case, the comparison between the photographs and the video would still be made by means of hum an memor)' , for no human being could look at the vidco and the photos simultaneously.) Whcn it comes to the evaluation of copyright infringement c1aims, huma n memory is not th e safe haven from reg ulation and control that Phelan proposes. Rather. it becomes a mec!wl1isl11 ./ó¡- the en(ó¡-cement o/ regulatiol1. 17 Performanee 's ontological resista nce to objectification uoes not make performance a priv­ ileged site of ideol ogieal resistance to a cultural eeonomy based in capital and reproduction. If performance persists only as spectatorial memory. then it persists in precisely the form in which it can be useful to the law that regul­ ates the circulation of cultural objects as commodities . Not only is memory an agent ofcontrol, it is a site ofregulation as \Vel!. In Bright Tunes lv/lIsic Corp. 1'. ]-]arr¡soI1Xs Alusic, Lid., the court did not find that Harrison had deliberately plagiarized the earlier song but concluded that " his subconscious knew [ ... ] a song his conscious mind did not remembcr. [ . .. ] This is , under the law, infringement of copyright, and is no less so even though subconsciously accomplishcd" (180 - 81). In such cases, memory and othcr psychic operations are subject to policing. The very undependabi1ity of memory becollles the object of legal surveillance. Even the processes by which subconscious materials enter into consciousness and the relation between the subconscious and memory beco me matters oflegal scrutiny. In Harrison 's case, a subconscious melllory of a performance made itself manifest in a \Vay that rendereu hi11l subjcct to legal discipline. Argu ably, mem o !"y is the very found a tion 01' la w. not just in the sense tha t Anglo-Am erican C0 111 n1\1 n law is " an in!:icripti o n of the past in the prcsen t" ((j oodrich JI)l)O· Ih) hlll in Ihc largcr SClISC British legal scholar

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loss 111.' sIIlfL'rL'd I . .. I )ll c vL'ntL'd hinl !'rolll artinning, cxplailling, or daboratillg lIpOIl his out-oJ'-courl statemelll jusI as surcly and

cnl11plctely as [ ... :1 his death would have. 1M IClllory governs law nol as a series 01' established particularities, precedellls that will always differ from circum stance to in fi nite cir­ Clllllstance, but as "essentiallaw," as a method of handling, defi ni ng "nd dividing a system of argument. [ ... ] Memory establishes legal institlltions and not the banal specificity ol' individual cases [ ... J. (1990: 35)

(846)

rRJespondcn t's solc ucc uscr was lhe John Foster who , on May 5, IlJX2 , iuen tilieJ respo nJ en l as his a llacker. T his Jo h n Foslcr, how­ cwr. J iJ nol les lí!')' al n'sIH IlIlk'II I's lrial : lhe pro fo ll nd mC lllory

Brenna n's contlation of id entity, presence, and, indeed , existence itself with memory reaffirms the central role of memory and performance as mech­ anisms of la\\'. In Brennan's analysis, it is no! because certain conten!s had been erased from Foster's memory that he \Vas "unavailable as a witness. " Foster had retrieved and arliculaled those contents while in the hospital ; they were known and had served as the basis for a trial. Rather, it was Foster's inability to perjó/'/11 the retrieval of lhose memories in the present moment of the trial, to " affirm, explain, or e1 aborate upon" whal he had said earlier and outside the courtroom ,l'J that led Brennan to declare thal the trial court should have considered Foster to be functionally deau and his hospital bed identification inadmissible hearsay. In the interest of intellectual honesty , I have to underline that Brennan's opinion was the dissenting one and that the Court found that the adlllission of Foster's identification of his assailant had been proper despite his loss of memory. At first glance, this circumstance problelllatizes my thesis: if mem­ ory is the deep structure of law , how could the Court accept the testilllony 01' an amnesiac witness? The constitutional question at issue in v. Owens \Vas whether the defendant 's Sixth Amendment right to confront his acc user, known as the "confrontation dause," had been violated by Foster's " unavail­ ability as a witness" due to memory loss. J ustice Scalia, writing for the majority, found that as long as cross-examination of Foster had been possible, there \Vas no Sixth Amendment violation. His argument was that '"Meaningful cross­ examination [ ... 1is no! destroyed by the witness' assertion of memory loss, which is 01'ten the very result sought lO be produced by cross-exalllination [ ... ]" (838). Regardless of its merits as law , whieh are open to question, 20 Scalia's opinion supports my contention that the performance of recollection is the essence of testimony. In Scalia's view, to assert memory loss in the courtroom is to perform recollection, albeit in i:I ncgative way that makes the opposing attorney ' s job very easy. If testimony is the performance of recollection, the purpose of cross-examination is to discredit that performance specifically by showing that it has no legitimate daim to being a performance of recoltec­ tion , \Vhether by demonstrating that the accuracy of the witness's memory is open to question or by showing that the witness has, in fact , no memory 01' the events at issue. Thcre is no disagreement between Brennan and Sealia on the theoretical q uestion 01' whether testilllony is a performa nce of recollec­ llo n. Rather, they d isagree on the critical q uest ion a f \V hether Jo hn Foster s ho uld he ucscribeu as havin g !'aih.:d lo givc slIch a perfo rmance (Brennan) or as having givcn a hlill pc rfúrl1l ¡II I1';C Ihal hclpcd Ihl: IIlhcr sitie (Scalia). Por

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I,cgal memory , then , is not just a ma tter of bei ng able to cite preceden ts relevant to specific circumstances. Memory is the deep structure of a language nI' la w whose utterances takc the form of specific aets of recolleetion. 11' memory is the langue of law , then performance, the enactments that con­ stilute a trial , is its paro/e. To give testimony is to perform recollection , lhe retrieval of memory , in the performative present moment of the trial. A text­ hook analysis ofthe legal concept ofhearsay describes the function ol'witnesses as lhe "recordi:ltion and recollection " of pereeived events: this proeess of the storage and retrieval of memories is the basis for in-court testimony (Graham IlJ92: 262). The text of Federal Rule 01' Evidence 804a offers fllrther support fm this characterization of the witness function. The Rule presents the fol ­ lowing definilion 01' " unavailability as a witness": "Unavailability as a witness" ineludes situations in which the declarant - [ . . . 1 (3) testifies to a lack of memory of the subject matter 01' the declar­ ant's statement; or (4) is un able to be present or to testify at the hearing because of death or then existing physical or mental illness. (in Graham 1992: 376) In other words , from the point of view 01' the federal courts, a witness who is unable to perform memory in the courtroom is indistinguishable from a dead witness 01' a deranged one . l ~ In his dissenting opinion in Uniled Sta les \'. OIVel1.1' (108 S. Ct. 838 [1988]). a ci:lse concerning John Foster, a savagely beaten prison guard who had iden­ ti[ied his assailant while in the hospital but, subsequently, could not remelll­ ber the attack though he could remember making the identification , Justice Brenmm sllggests that inasmuch as Foster had had no Illemory ofhis assai lant at the time of the trial , he had not even been present in the courtroom:

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BlI'llIlall, a had Jlt.:rlo ll llalll'l' is nI) Ix:rl'orlllam;c al :tl l a po mt 01' vicw wi lh wltid , 111¡III Y p0rfM lllalll;c eriLies wOllld no dOllbt be in ~y lllpallly. 1:cd t:ral R ull: 01' Evió encc (, 12. conccrning the use 01' dOclIl11ents to "rcl'n:sh Itlte witncss' sJ memory " in the courtroom , also clearly illustrates the pre­ IlIilllll placcd within the legal discourse on the idea that testimony is a prescnl performance 01' memory retrieval (in G raham 1992: 210). S Ul:h docllments lII ay he lIsed only to stimulate the witness's "indepcndent I'ecolleclioll" 01' the isslIc al hand: they may not flll1l:tion as sl:ripts from which witnesses recou n l lhcir rcwllcctions (Rothstein 1981: 49). The judgc must be persua ded tha t "lhe witm:ss's statement, springing from active , eurrent (though revived) reeol­ Icctiol1 \ViII bl: the evidcnce [. , .]" (45). If tbe judge feels that the witness is leslifying " from what purports to be a revived present memory when his leslimony is actually a reflection, conscious or unconscious , of what he has read rather than what he remembers," the judge has the right "to reject such lestimony by finding that the writing did not in faet revive the witness 's recollection" (Graham 1992: 213). In order to constitute val id testimony, the wilness's statements must be persuasive as present performances 01' memory rl't rieval. Sorne American jurisdictions forcibly extend the same logic to tbe proccss by whieh a verdict is reaehed by forbidding jurors from taking wrillen notes on the trial. Their deeision-making thus becomes a perform­ ance of memory retrieval guaranteed to be unprompted by written texts (see Ilibbitts 1992: 895). Inasl11uch as memory is brought into legal discourses as both a policed si te ami a meehanism of regulation , Phclan's proposition that memory eludes r.:gulation and control seems true only 01' materials stored in memory and I/¡'I'('r relriel'ed from it. As long as a memory remains stored , it apparentl y has no engagemcnt with mechanisms 01' regulation and control. But once a memory is retrieved, it can no longer c1aim to take up a position outsidc lhe reach 01' those mechanisms but becomes both a subject and a mean s of regulation and control. 1l' a witness cannot or will not retrieve memories of lhe matter at issue, the court considcrs that witness to be unavailable to the legal discourse and , therefore , to be dead , If Georgc I-Iarrison had not re­ lrieved "lle's So Fine" from his memory , even subconsciously, his psycruc proeesses would not have been the subject of a court decision . " Visibility is él lrap [ ... ]," Phelan wams, "it summons surveillance and the law [ ... ]" (1993: 6). Although Phelan is referring here to visibility politics, not mcmory, lhe making present of memories surely must mn the same risk- once thcy emerge from the safe haven of memory , recollel:tions beeome visible and , lherefore, subjeet to surveillance and to being pressed into service as testi­ Hllm y, As soon as a memory is retrieved , it becomes available to the law. T he question that emerges from this analysis is: At what point in the prnccss 01' menwry re l rie val docs lhis risk actuall y a ppea r? Does a m cmory ht:!;olllc vi~ ibl e a nd , thus. SUnl lI l@ th¡; la w, si mply by bein g rct rieved , l') r is visihilit y lhe k:gal.iy 01' lltl: 1I11l llll'IIt at which rhe retTié vcd m ClIll l ry l'x plicill y

elltcrs inlo discourse? 111 olhl'l' \Vords, is il possible rOl' ti memory lo rcma in iafc from surveillance at some l1loment after it has becn retrieved but befo re it has bcen entered into discourse'? My argument is that therc is no such moment, that memory itself soJieits disco urse. Title 17 states that a copy of a work need not be deposited with the C opyright O ffice for that work to rel:eive copyright protection, but a copy must be deposited to support a claim 01' inrringement (secs. 407a, 41.1 a). Thc sole purpose 01' storing a copy of the work in the governmental memory bank is to enter it into (legal) diseourse. It is pcrhaps for this reason that Jacques Derrida suggests that in order for performance to escape objeetification , ., [ts aet must be forgotten , actively forgotten " ([1966]1978 : 247). U nli ke Pavis and Phelan, both ofwhom seem to see memory as functioning outside 01' reproducti on, at Ica st where perform­ ance is concerned, Derrida suggcsts that the reeording 01' an even t in memory is itselfa form ofreproduction. The memory thus assumes the form in whil:h it can be appropriated by such regulatory agenl:Íes as the law . In order to escape the eeonomy 01' reproduction , performance must not only disappear. it must also be excluded from memory. Thc question 01' when memory roay be said to enter into disl:ourse and thus summon the la\\' is addresscd by Goodril:h , in a provocative passage:

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The path 01' the law is that 01' experience, in the words 01' one Americanjudge. Could \Ve not take that to mean that we live the law, that what is interesting and at the same time frightcning about the la\V is precisely that it is integral to experience, that it is everywhere present, not as command or faeile rule but rather as an architeeture of daily Jife, a law 01' the street. an insidio us imaginary. In terms 01' any phenomenology 01' the law in its forms 01' daily life, \Ve would need to study the images 01' possibilily, the imagery, the motive and affcctive bonds that tie the legal subject quite willingly, though not neecssarily happily, to the Jimits of law , to this biography, to this persona , to this body and these organs. (1990: 9 -· 10) Goodrieh's f oucauldian suggestion that law is not a secondary overlay on individual experiencc but a constituent 01' that expcrienee itself has important implieations. From the perspective afforded by Goodrich's aecount, it becomes clear that the cxperiences sto red in memor)' were themselves shaped in rela­ tion to the law as part 01' the phenomenology 01' daily life. Perhaps Goodrich's referenl:e to the legal subjeet's persona can be taken to suggest thal the psychie functions 01' memory storage and retrieval (01', in legal parlan te, recordation and recollcction) also do not oecur outsidc the context (JI' la\\' as a cOllstitucn t 01' experience. In view 01' Goodrich 's discus­ sion 01' thc phenomen ol ugy 01' law , il is clear lhat Illelllories do not summon lhc law hy hecom in g vis ihle nI" by hcing cnl crcd into diseoursc, beca use there

1II " I ¡lit \ '. l' I ti 11 11 . S, l' () 1. IT 1< . A 1. 1; l ' () N () M Y

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is 110 11101111:111 al wh il'!l l a IIH': lIlory cxisls prior to its inscription in and by law al Illl' phL'll(lnlcllologicallevel. The content ofany memory has already been sllaped by law as part or the phenomenology 01' daily Jife. In that sen se, all IIlL'IIwry is inhabited by the structures of law, is always already entereo into k-ga l discourse. Thl: extent to which memory is both embedded in and structured by legal discol!rs(, problcmatizes it as a site 01' resistan ce to that same diseourse. Much I he sal11e can be said 01' Jiveness, the ontological q uality some performance Iheorisls see as placing performance outside 01' a cultural economy governed hy rl:production. I have already stated that the witness's live pe rformance 01' lIlemory retrieval in the present moment of the courtroom, not the informa­ tion retrieved , is the essence of testimony. A procedural isslle that has also provoked Sixth Amendment questions is the propricty 01' using depositions, wrilten or on videotape, in the place oflive testimony in the cOllrtroom. Even decisions in favor of the use 01' depositions generally , and or videotaped dC]lositions in particular, reflect the law's strong preference for live witnesses. For examplc, the Georgia Court of Appeals judge who ruled that "the laking of the deposition of an expert witness to be used at the trial [ ... ] by IIleans ofvideotaping" is an acceptable practice stressed in his decision that: " 11 is weJl to remem ber that the tak ing 01' a deposition [ ... ] is a substitute, at h\'sl , rol' the actuallive testimony ofthe witness" (Mayor \l. Palmerio 135 Ga. ¡\ pp. 147 [1975], 150). I ndeed , mosl of the court decisions that have allo\Ved 1111: use 01' depositions at criminal trials stipulate very dearly that this practice IS acceptable only when the witness is legitimately unavailable to testify live. ' 1 In Slores 1'. Slale (625 P.2d 820), heard by the Supreme Court of Alaska ill I ()¡jO, the court overturned a conviction in a rape case on these grounds, lilldillg that the prosecution had not made sufficient good-faith efforts to ~L~Cllrc at the trial the presence ofthe doctor who had examined the victim and whose testimony had been presented on video while she was vacationing. 22 The higher court's interpretation ofthe prosecution's strategy was that: "The sole purpose of taking the deposition was to create former testimony to be lIsed in lieu of live testimony . We will not sanction sllch an evasion of tb e constitutionally based preference for livc testimony in open court [ ... ]" (X27) . T he la\V's preference ror the live presence of witnesses , implied by the cOllfrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution , is clear. Writing ror the dissent in SI ores 1'. Sta/e, Justice Matthews argues that "lhe critical question is whether there \Vas a significant diffcrence between I he Icstimony as it was actually presented to the jury on the videotape and as il rnighl have been presented had DI'. Sydnam appeared in pe rson at Stores' Irial " unO) . Justice Matthews's position \Vas that inasmuch as Ibe circum­ slalH':CS ()f the taping were 'iim il a r lo those of lhe trial (the same atlomeys W¡;n: present, as was a trial judge,