°Wandering with Genet, pt1
A somewhat aleatory post. I’d been reading, very slowly as I think it should be, Steven Miller’s essay “Open Letter to the Enemy - Jean Genet’s Holy War” (diacritics, 34:2, 2006), which begins with the short text eventually published as the first piece in Genet’s L’ennemi déclaré: textes et entretiens
J.G. seeks, or is searching for, or would like to discover, never to uncover him, the delicious enemy, quite disarmed, whose equilibrium is unstable, profile uncertain, face inadmissible, the enemy broken by a breath of air, the already humiliated slave, ready to throw himself out the window at the least sign, the defeated enemy: blind, deaf, mute. With no arms, no legs, no stomach, no heart, no sex, no head, all told a complete enemy, already bearing all the marks of my bestiality that now need never be used (too lazy anyway). I want the total enemy, with immeasurable and spontaneous hatred for me, but also the subjugated enemy, defeated by me before he even knows me. Not to be reconciled with me, in any case. No friends. Above all, no friends: a declared enemy, but not a tortured one. Clean, faultless. What are his colors? From a green as tender as a cherry to an effervescent violet. His size? Between the two of us, he presents himself to me man to man. No friends. I seek an inadequate enemy, one who comes to capitulate. I will come at him with all that I can muster: whacks, slaps, kicks, I will feed him to starving foxes, make him eat English food, attend the House of Lords, be received at Buckingham Palace, fuck Prince Phillip, and be fucked by him, live for a month in London, dress like me, sleep in place of me, live in place of me: I seek the declared enemy.
While reading Miller’s essay, which I’ll come back to, I wandered over to Elizabeth Povinelli’s essay “Notes on Gridlock: Genealogy, Intimacy, Sexuality”, which also discusses Genet (though Querelle in this instance), gladly nudged along by remarks on Comay’s essay (and Povinelli) on Sarapen.
Here’s the final paragraph and coda from Povinelli’s essay (Public Culture, 14:1, 2002), which is definitely worth reading – it, also, slowly:
The dispersion of the intimacy grid is especially apparent when we examine historical linkages among intimacy, sexuality, and recognition in the shadow of the postcolony. Remembering the lesson from Genet that to be human is to engage in practices of intimate recognition, let us return to the postcolony. There some people are foreclosed from entering the human realm in order that a nation can be made more human(e). It is in this light that we return to our earlier discussion of state forms of recognition of indigenous social organization, this time focusing on the dehumanizing gesture embedded within it. Remember, in legal precedents pertaining to traditional forms of tenure, indigenous persons are recognized as organizing their sexualities or socialities not on the basis of intimate recognition but rather on the basis of social status — kinship, religion, economic utility. Ashis Nandy (1983) has discussed with great insight the shattering of the intimate self in this colonial relation. Indeed, Western recognition of the worth of other cultures within the nation and among nations was meant, in one of its ideal forms, to repair these distensions.
What irony then that state recognition of traditional forms of indigenous social organization works by acknowledging the humanity of indigenous social organization (the local descent group) even as it evacuates the prima facie indices of that humanity: intimacy (Habermas 1989: 47). The double bind in which persons are placed multiplies. It might not be the intent of legislators within the liberal Australian state, but in the context of indigenous Australia — where life chances are closely tied to state aid — indigenous persons must in fact dehumanize themselves into pure genealogy to gain the recognition of courts. And so tightly has the narrative I of intimacy become associated with the human and humanity that to be without it is to risk being dehumanized and subject to all the harms of the dehumanizing practices of modernity. What wonder that we now know that all people have feelings. We might conclude by noting that the gay families Burke promotes do not escape these binds. They just approach them from another angle. To be sure, intimate love makes a family human, but love must still culminate in a family, a domestic or communal plot, a social group that adheres. It is Genet who pulls apart the intimate and genealogical plot, by creating narrative spaces in which intimacy and the subjective I separate and in which love refuses to build into the grammar of genealogy. […]
The genealogical imaginary did not die when the sovereign’s head tumbled. Nor was it replaced by intimacy as a new form of association and attachment. Something more — and less — interesting is happening. Both genealogy and intimacy have emerged as semiautonomous foundations for legitimating sex acts and other forms of corporeal sociality, even as both have been dispersed in and by colonial and postcolonial worlds. Sociality seems unthinkable not only without one or the other of these two grids, but without them working as twin pairs, intertwined, twisting, struggling against each other in the empty horizon of the Universal. [emphasis added, for BN]
Here, I begin thinking also of returning to Susan Maslan’s essays, dealing as they do with – to use Povinelli’s phrasing – the dispersion of the intimacy grid and the democratisation of the genealogical grid. But onto Steven Miller’s piece, in part two of this rambling post.
Someone read my blog! I exist!
More seriously, I’m glad I’ve turned you on to Povinelli. It’s always nice to get anthropology out of the intellectual corner it’s painted itself into. I think I misrepresented the Povinelli paper I mentioned on my blog, though, it’s really more about different cases of incommensurable commensurability. However, if you’ve read Radical Worlds along with the Gridlock essay then you’ve officially read more Povinelli than me (a situation I will remedy posthaste).
How did you find the Public Culture essay, anyway? It doesn’t show up immediately when you google Povinelli (as opposed to her books like The Empire of Love, which sounds really fascinating and the kind of book I always feel slightly guilty reading because it doesn’t impact on my research).
You’ve gotten me started on a European history kick, you know. Now I’ve got a hankering to write about the Paris Commune and anarchist anthropology, and I would if I wasn’t sure my few regular readers would lynch me (Sarapen is actually a research blog for disseminating and discussing my work on Filipino bloggers to and with those bloggers themselves). But ciao and thankee for the linkee.
Sarapen [August 25, 2006 @ 5:47 am]
Hello Sarapen - and it’s a very nice blog, btw.
I’ve yet to read Radical Worlds (or Empire of Love), which I obviously should do. I found the “Gridlock” piece via MUSE. Also, if you want to linger about on the French Revolution, I’d recommend Craig’s blog too.
And I was thinking for a moment I might entice you to a blogweave on Galactica, come October and the screening of the 3rd Season. Perhaps your readers (and your research committments) will be forgiving.
s0metim3s [August 25, 2006 @ 1:57 pm]
Blog about Galactica? Do I dare to eat a peach? I’ve got to tell you, though, I don’t actually have a tv right now and haven’t for the last year. I’m still making my way through season 2 thanks to episodes that my, umm, friend (cough cough) downloaded (only 3 eps to go). Still, your proposal intrigues me, so I’m giving a provisional yes. I think my new roommate will have a tv, so maybe now I can stay current on BSG (and Lost, and Desperate Housewives, and Ultimate Fighter, and Veronica Mars — wait, I think I see a downside).
Sarapen [August 27, 2006 @ 1:56 am]
A provisional excellent, then. And, well, when I said ’screened’, I meant ‘downloaded’ … Not that I would ever suggest such a thing, of course. It’s wrong.
s0metim3s [August 27, 2006 @ 3:58 pm]