Читать книгу The Constructivist Moment - Barrett Watten - Страница 6

I am especially grateful to Michael Davidson, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Bruce Andrews, Alan Davies, Steve McCaffery, Ted Pearson, Ron Silliman, and Charles Bernstein for their work as poets and critics; to Ted for his help with the manuscript; and to Carla for many more reasons than that. This work, in its original presentations, was a response to the call from a number of individuals:

Thanks to Ron Day, whose proposal for a panel at the 1992 meeting of the Modern Language Association inspired me to write “New Meaning and Poetic Vocabulary: From Coleridge to Jackson Mac Low,” and to Gail Scott and the late Bill Readings, who facilitated its presentation at the Université de Montréal in March 1993. Brian McHale solicited it for Poetics Today 18, no. 2 (summer 1997); reprinted by permission of Duke University Press. Thanks to Jackson Mac Low, Herman Rapaport, and the editors of Poetics Today for their comments.

“The Secret History of the Equal Sign: L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E between Discourse and Text” was written for the conference “Poetics of Avant-Garde Poetries” in Tel Aviv, November 1997; thanks to Brian McHale, Meir Sternberg, Karen Alkalay-Gut, and Tamar Yacobi. It was also presented as a keynote address to “Tradition and Resistance in Contemporary Poetry,” Conference for English Studies, University of London, November 1998; thanks to Alison Mark and Robert Hampson. A section was presented at the Twentieth-Century Literature Conference at the University of Louisville, February 1998; thanks to Alan Golding. It appeared in Jonathan Monroe and Brian McHale’s special issue “The Poetics of Avant-Garde Poetries,” vol. 1, Poetics Today 20, no. 4 (winter 1999); reprinted by permission of Duke University Press. Thanks to Charles Bernstein for his comments.

Charles Bernstein invited me to present a talk at the SUNY Buffalo Poetics Program in November 1996, for which I am grateful; “The Bride of the Assembly Line: Radical Poetics in Construction” was the result. The English Department at Temple University heard a version of the essay in January 1997; my thanks to Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley published it in the Impercipient Lecture Series, no. 8 (October 1997); a section also appeared in Dispatch Detroit 4 (2000), edited by Christine Monhollen. Thanks to Arthur Marotti and Georgette Fleischer for their comments, and to Jessica Burstein and Nancy Jones for the occasion of the unveiling of the “Bride.”

“The Constructivist Moment: From El Lissitzky to Detroit Techno” answered Cary Nelson’s request to define the state of modernist studies at the 1997 meeting of the Modern Language Association, where it was presented with the title “Free Radicals, Modernist Examples.” Randolph Starn then sponsored it as a part of a two-day presentation at the Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley, March 1998; after which it was given to faculty in the English Department of Wayne State University, October 1999. Thanks to the editors of the Berkeley journal Qui Parle, especially Faith Barrett, where it appeared in vol. 11, no. 1 (fall/winter 1997). Thanks as well to Mike Banks, Sandy Jaczszak, and Marc Christensen for their insights into techno.

“Nonnarrative and the Construction of History: An Era of Stagnation, the Fall of Saigon” was part of “The Narrative Construction of History,” a panel curated by Laura Brun, at Southern Exposure Gallery in San Francisco, March 1990. It was given as well at a conference, “The Ends of Theory,” Wayne State University, March 1991, thanks to George Tysh and the organizers; at the Unit for Theory and Critical Interpretation, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, October 1992, thanks to Cary Nelson; at the University of California, San Diego, March 1993, thanks to Michael Davidson. It was solicited by Jerry Herron, Dorothy Huson, Ross Pudaloff, and Robert Strozier for inclusion in the conference volume The Ends of Theory (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995); reprinted by permission of Wayne State University Press. A section also appeared in Peter Baker’s anthology, Onward: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (New York: Peter Lang, 1996). Thanks to Randolph Starn for his comments on the original version.

“Negative Examples: Theories of Negativity in the Avant-Garde” was originally presented at two conferences: “Žižekian Negativity and Modernist Poetics,” at the Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 2000; and “Avant-Garde Examples after Heidegger and Foucault: Robert Grenier and David Wojnarowicz,” at “Avant-Garde and Culture Studies,” a seminar cochaired with Rachel Blau DuPlessis, at the Modernist Studies Association conference, University of Pennsylvania, October 2000. Thanks to Alan Golding and George Hartley for their comments.

An invitation from Ellen Berry to appear on the panel “Postmodernism, Postcommunism” at the 1991 meeting of the Modern Language Association led to the writing of “Post-Soviet Subjectivity in Arkadii Dragomoshchenko and Ilya Kabakov.” Thanks to the editors of Postmodern Culture, Eyal Amiran and John Unsworth, who published it in vol. 3, no. 2 (January 1993) and then included it in Essays from Postmodern Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); reprinted by permission of Johns Hopkins University Press. Thanks to Lyn Hejinian for her comments.

Helga Pakasaar, curator at the Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario, asked me to give a lecture in conjunction with Stan Douglas’s exhibition Le Détroit, May 2000; “Zone: The Poetics of Space in Posturban Detroit” was the result. It was also presented at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C., thanks to Lisa Robertson and Aaron Vidaver. Deb King published it in the Detroit online zine mark(s), September 2000; available at <www.markszine.com>. Thanks to Stan Douglas and the David Zwirner Gallery, New York.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following individuals and publishers for permission to reprint copyrighted or previously unavailable works, beyond the scope of fair use:

Kit Robinson, for sections 12 and 13 of The Dolch Stanzas (San Francisco: This Press, 1976). © 1976 Kit Robinson.

Carla Harryman and Lyn Hejinian, for unpublished sections of The Wide Road. © 2003 Carla Harryman and Lyn Hejinian.

Charles Alexander, Joe Amato, Tom Beckett, Charles Bernstein, Sherry Brennan, Maria Damon, Grant Jenkins, Jeffrey Jullich, Michael McColl, Karen McKevitt, Gwyn McVay, Chris Piuma, Clai Rice, Camille Roy, Linda Russo, Kathy Lou Schultz, Gregory Severance, Alan Sondheim, Juliana Spahr, and Steve Vincent, for posts to the Poetics Listserv, April 1999; archived at <epc.buffalo.edu>.

Clark Coolidge, for “Made Thought,” from This 1 (1971). © 1971, 2003 Clark Coolidge.

The Johns Hopkins University Press, for Louis Zukofsky, poem 4 from “29 Poems,” from Complete Short Poetry (Baltimore, 1991). © 1991 Paul Zukofsky.

Jean Day, for “The Fluidity of Attributes,” from The Literal World (Berkeley, Calif.: Tuumba Press, 1998). © 1998 Jean Day.

Lyn Hejinian, for “Exit,” from This 12 (1982). © 1982 Lyn Hejinian.

Jackson Mac Low, for “Wall Rev,” from This 12 (1982). © 1982 Jackson Mac Low.

Persea Books, New York; Carcanet Press, Manchester; and the Laura (Riding) Jackson Board of Literary Management, for Laura (Riding) Jackson, “Room,” from The Poems of Laura Riding (New York and Manchester, 1983); © 1938, 1980. In conformity with the wishes of the late Laura (Riding) Jackson, her Board of Literary Management asks us to record that, in 1941, Laura (Riding) Jackson renounced, on the grounds of linguistic principle, the writing of poetry: she had come to hold that “poetry obstructs general attainment to something better in our linguistic way-of-life than we have.”

Bill Berkson, for “Negative,” from Blue Is the Hero: Poems 1960–1975 (Kensington, Calif.: L Publications, 1976), 98. © 1976 Bill Berkson.

Barrett Watten, for “Negative,” from Frame: 1971–1990 (Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 1997). © 1976, 1997 Barrett Watten.

Robert Grenier, for eleven poems from Sentences (Cambridge, Mass.: Whalecloth Press, 1978). © 1978 Robert Grenier.

Marjorie Welish, for “Black Diluvium,” from The Annotated “Here” and Selected Poems (Minneapolis: Coffee House Books, 2000). © 2000 Marjorie Welish.

Acknowledgment is likewise gratefully made to the following individuals, publishers, galleries, and estates for their permission to reproduce the following works of visual art:

Kit Robinson and This Press, for the cover of The Dolch Stanzas (San Francisco: This Press, 1976). © 1976 Kit Robinson and This Press.

Jackson Mac Low, for three cards from “56 Sets of Actions Drawn by Chance Operations and from the Basic English List by Jackson Mac Low in Spring 1961.” © 2003 Jackson Mac Low.

Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein, for the cover of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, no. 13 (1980). © 1980 L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.

Ron Silliman, for the cover of Tottel’s, no. 6 (October 1971).

Alan Davies, for the covers of A Hundred Posters, no. 26 (1976); and Oculist Witnesses, no. 3 (1976). © 1976, 1978 Alan Davies.

James Sherry, for the cover of Roof, no. 4 (1977). © 1977 Segue.

Bob Perelman, for the cover of Hills, no. 4 (1977). © 1977 Bob Perelman and Francie Shaw.

Terry Swanson, for the cover of Slit Wrist, nos. 3/4 (1977). © 1977 Slit Wrist.

Steve Benson and Tom Mandel, for the cover of Miam, no. 6 (1978). © 1978 Steve Benson.

Douglas Messerli, for the cover of Là-Bas, no. 7 (1977). © 1977 Douglas Messerli.

Carla Harryman and Lyn Hejinian, for the cover of Percentage, Tuumba no. 23 (1979); and for portions of The Wide Road, in Tessera 15 (1993). © 1979, 1993 Carla Harryman and Lyn Hejinian.

Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Ray DiPalma, Steve McCaffery, and Ron Silliman, for the cover and selected pages from Legend (New York: L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E / Segue, 1980). © 1980 L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.

Steve Benson and Barrett Watten, for portions of “Non-Events,” A Hundred Posters, no. 35 (1978). © 1978 Steve Benson and Barrett Watten.

The Estate of Gertrude Stein, for “Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas sitting in ‘Godiva.’ ”

The Ford Motor Company, for “Auto by Robot.” © 1983 Ford Motor Company.

Somewhere in Detroit, for the “Somewhere in Detroit” home page, 1997.

Catherine Cooke, for Iakov Chernikhov, illustrations from Fundamentals of Contemporary Architecture (1931); and from Construction of Architectural and Machine Forms (1932).

Artist Rights Society, for El Lissitzky, Proun 99, 1925; The Constructor, 1924; Proun 1D, c. 1919-20; Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919-20; Russland, 1930; The Current Is Switched On, 1932. © 2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VC Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

Aleksandr Lavrentiev and Varvara Rodchenko, for Mikhail Kaufman, Portrait of Rodchenko, c. 1922; and, with MIT Press, for Alexander Rodchenko, Knigi [Books], 1925.

Transmat Records, for photograph of Derrick May, 1997; and for Derrick May, untitled photograph, 1997. © 1997 Transmat Records.

Planet E Records, for “Flexitone” page, “Planet E” web site, 1997; and the cover of e-dancer (Kevin Saunderson), heavenly, 1998. © 1998 Planet E Communications.

Wax Trax! Records, for the cover of Kenny Larkin, Azimuth, 1994. © 1994 Wax Trax! Records.

Barrett Watten, for a portion of “The Word,” Conduit (1988). © 1988, 1997 Barrett Watten.

Seyed Alavi, for Blueprints of the Times, 1990.

Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York, and Erik Bulatov, for I Am Going, 1975; and Krassikov Street, 1976.

Mary Boone Gallery, New York, for Barbara Kruger, untitled (“Your Manias Become Science”), 1981. © Barbara Kruger 1984.

Lannan Foundation, for Chris Burden, The Other Vietnam Memorial, 1991.

Joseph Kosuth and Artists Rights Society, for untitled work (”nothing”), c. 1966-68. © 2003 Joseph Kosuth/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Bill Berkson and David McKee Gallery, New York, for Berkson and Philip Guston, Negative, 1973.

Robert Grenier, for “my heart is beating / I am a beast” (four versions), n.d.; “LOON,” n.d.; “glitter / sit here . . . ,” 1996; and “west / no farther . . .,” 1996. © 1996 Robert Grenier.

The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W., New York, for untitled, 1993; and untitled, 1990.

The Estate of Andrei Tarkovsky, for still from Tarkovsky, Mirror, 1973. © 1986 Andrei Tarkovsky and Olga Surkova.

Ilya Kabakov, for “The Man Who Flew into His Picture”; “The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment”; and “The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away,” from Ten Characters (1989). © 1989 Ilya Kabakov.

Stan Douglas and David Zwirner Gallery, New York, for Collapsed House, 1998; Sections 5 and 8 of Herman Gardens, 1999; Lafayette Park, 1999; Eastern Border of Indian Village, 1998; House with Wood-Grain Tile, 1998; View of I-94 and Downtown Detroit, 1998; Michigan Theater, 1998. © 1998, 1999 Stan Douglas.

Lastly, grateful acknowledgment is made to Wayne State University for support that was of crucial help in completing the present work, in both part and whole: from the Office of the Provost, a Career Development Chair; from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, a University Research Grant; from the College of Liberal Arts, a Research and Inquiry Grant and sabbatical leave; and from the Humanities Center, a Faculty Fellowship.