I look a the stack of papers I have to get through. There are a lot. Two classes this quarter-both about research methods. I never imagined I would be taking one methods course (none were required in my previous M.A. program-I should have known then right ;)!) let alone multiple methods courses at the same time. I mean I signed up for them-maybe I didn't know the class was a class theorizing about performance and maybe I thought it was more of a how-to. I mean I am not extremely creative-I'm not artsy-the most artistic thing I do is make cd compilations-good ones- but still. Lots of reading in both clases, some writing too. It shouldn't be too bad. If I can just get through Barthes, "The Pleasure of the Text," which reminds me of something painful and yet beautiful at the same time, like touching hot wax, it burns but I just keep wanting more.
(Btw) I just ate a cookie that tastes like marshmallows-that scares me because I do not eat marshmallows, I am not a vegan but the idea of gelatin really makes me feel ill. I have gotten most of my friends to stop eating gelatin even if they still eat meat because the idea that animals are produced for their connective muscle fibers to make nasty gelatinous substances is more grotesque than eating meat to them. I have to admit both sicken me slightly, but that is beside the point-right?
Back to my stack of papers. I pick up the first Conquergood-I read the opening lines. Immeadiately, I think, O.k. so you want to challenge normative modes of knowledge by offering this different methods of presenting your data-like performance-spoken word, art, daily activities like quilting, cooking, recipes..." Hasn't this been done before? Isn't this exactly what Alice Walker is advocating in the book, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" and isn't Audre Lourde advocating for reintroducing the body into the academy in "The Pleasure of the Erotic." They are not new concepts but of course white, straight (I am assuming) guy comes in and says it so veryone has to listen right? I don't want to be this negative-I swear it is the feminist in me-she likes to be a pessimist-she isn't exactly sure how to be any other way.
But I read on knowing that my initial reactions are far too simplistic he must have something more to say-something more to offer. And he does...Conquergood suggests that performance can challenge dominant ways of knowing and can challenge the way we do things in the academy. He is wanting to revolutionize the praxis/theory divide and give us new ways of knowing and opening up the everyday (ritualized) activities we engage in to be valued knowledge, that those kinds of knowledge are just as worth studying and knowing as something extremely positivistic. And how does he suggest this happen? By introducing the body back into our study. That our bodies can somehow hold us more accountable to the cultures we study than writings on a paper. That our bodily knowledge is undervalued and we need to integrate it back into what we do.
That's kind of big-HUGE if you think about it. Here is a man coming from privilege-he could be happy just leaving things as they are-goddess knows he's the kind of person that would really benefit from keeping such a system in place. But he wants to change it and not only that but he wants to do it ethically. He doesn't want to be the paternalistic hand of the father changing ways of thinking in the people that he studies-he doesn't want to go native, or save the natives, he just wants the body to be reintegrated into the way we know and then used to rearticulate the knowledge we have learned.
This is fascinating to my feminist side. The body which is so often on the female side of the male/female, man/woman, masculinity/femininity divide that for a "man" to suggest using the body to know seems completely foreign and outrageous (in the good way-I am feeling another candle wax moment coming on...). And I hate dichotomies-they do very little for anybody but limit them and express a system of language that dominates and benefits from a dichotomy. But as a "classically trained women's studies minor" we have to recognize the dichotomies before we dismantle and disrupt them. So maybe that is also what Conquergood is doing- queering the notions of scholarship and at the same time challenging traditional notions of the masculine and the feminine...maybe not but I thinkt he argument could be made.
But at the same time and my main critique is while he is advocating this totally radical thing-where did I read about it? A freaking peer reviewed journal article. Because we still have to value some of that traditional stuff and still do somethings in a traditional and normative way. It sucks. It's like here's a great idea-now if we could just get over that hump of will it ever be accepted? Which it won't not int he radical revolutionary way it needs to-but change is slow and a process and I am willing to wait it out-I mean I have to.
What else is there for me to do? But sit here and think about these things and try to offer what little I have-which happens to be myself. My brain, my thoughts, my insights. Because I know that for me without autoethnographical performances like those of Alix Olson and Staceyanne Chin I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for hearing those words of pain, and joy and taking those into my body letting the words consume me until they couldn't anymore and I just had to break down and cry because I did not think there was anything else I could do. Is that bodily enough for you?
--
I can just imagine her performing this at Michigan orange pants, tank top, wild hair maybe in two pigtails every word inciting some sort of movement with the occasional pause- for oh what's the word-i guess to work up her momentous orgasmically inclined potential...
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Staceyann Chin's FALL AWAKENING (for sloane)
after too many movies
about honor
and faith
and the fury of time/the hours
unwrap moments for me to fill
the monotone hiss of the heater
has begun
new skin is shedding the nights I spent
aching for things not promised
wishes and horses and all that manure
the crisp edges of real time
injects itself drunken into me
vein and artery
arrow and artistry
my fingers click precise
not trained or systematic
they type inclined to carpal tunnel
syndromes
honing in on old age and raw certainty
and me only worried that my eggs
will never bring themselves to fruition
but life can mark itself on a body
many ways
sperm and life
and being a lesbian is more complicated
than I would ever have envisioned
inside my head
I was coming to America
to laugh
and live a little
leave some of me to giggle
small parts dissolving into cackles
I though I would last longer than this restless devil caressing
inch long bruises across my identity
what the fuck is identity
in the face of all we endure
existence is inane
necessary
and without reason
no logic sticks to the ribcage
of death
and my voice is finding itself
blue
and yellow light breaking new skin all over my solitary bed
my limbs
can rest naked
missing the familiar
but aching less with the hours
thank God/or fate/or luck foe these horrible movies
for this book I am tapping into shape
no matter what you say
assault
survival
almost/almost survival
almost rape
such windows were made to be seen through
tall glass structures
erected upright for efficiency
and me sleeping un the nude
so the cold autumn sun can lick my stomach
my face unfolding to find morning
blinking at me
nothing feels as good
as my own belly
uncontained, my hips, my ass curved and kissed gently by the blanket
we slept under
in Washington Heights
and here
I can smile now
thinking of you
inhale the memory of your beautiful hands
seeking a clarity
elsewhere
and me
searching the bed for the phone
or a pen
or the remote
for one more movie
and me smiling open at the possibilities
opened up again
not so long ago
my hands were happily tied to yours
perfect
your fingers knew me
languid
Sunday mornings
sex and sleeping and the simple rote
of kisses
awakening
smiles
hidden/self-conscious
you were always too conscious of how much this meant
in another life
we will look back
and weep at our innocence
our rash politics
our wild hope against hope
we could have lasted
and did
almost two years
and I can smile at us now
new rings
promised under skies
and rain jackets at 2 a.m.
my feminist self
has never felt so reflected
almost a foot above me
you towered
and I laughed at how small you seemed
wrapped-up in my arms
you made me into a giant
small hands
and feet
I was always amazed
at the height of me
lying next to you the world seemed smaller
than my fears
my hesitation
I wish I would have jumped for you
higher than I did
not out of regret
but because you would have known
that I wanted to
you were beautiful
are beautiful
without clothes
and I challenge the looking glass
here in my bedroom
noon has never been so far
away
rocks the rhythm of a night without tears
willow trees bend stunning
in my imagination
they weep and whisper sweet nothings
nothing can make me
take back how much we loved each other
love each other
even now
a crass warp in our time
synchronized
we could have tested the parameters
of forever
but the edges would not have been
visible
the skies would have been endless
such excess
may have compromised
the way I love you now
rejoice
not in what could have been
but what was
flesh
morning
cafes
love and hope blooming radical in out chests
we nested
each lifetime pocketed
finite
in our hands
forever
was a thing to be trusted
and I giggle now
pleased with the memories fluttering comfortable
against my ribs
Adam can go fuck himself
I wanted Eve- I always want Eve
the apple tempting rose-like against her cheek
the meek shall inherit the earth
but I wanted your flesh
revelled in it human
frail
I found you
against these odds
twice
and now the future
winds itself spring-like against the Fall
winter is almost here
the winds
the leaves breaking colorful piles and piles of potential
next year
is still a possibility
and am committed to living in the now
--
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