Obstruction , livre ebook

Duke University Press - Salvato Nick Salvato

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274 pages

English

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Can a bout of laziness or a digressive spell actually open up paths to creativity and unexpected insights? In Obstruction Nick Salvato suggests that for those engaged in scholarly pursuits laziness, digressiveness, and related experiences can be paradoxically generative. Rather than being dismissed as hindrances, these obstructions are to be embraced, clung to, and reoriented. Analyzing an eclectic range of texts and figures, from the Greek Cynics and Denis Diderot to Dean Martin and the Web series Drunk History, Salvato finds value in five obstructions: embarrassment, laziness, slowness, cynicism, and digressiveness. Whether listening to Tori Amos's music as a way to think about embarrassment, linking the MTV series Daria to using cynicism to negotiate higher education's corporatized climate, or examining the affect of slowness in Kelly Reichardt's films, Salvato expands our conceptions of each obstruction and shows ways to transform them into useful provocations. With a unique, literary, and self-reflexive voice, Salvato demonstrates the importance of these debased obstructions and shows how they may support alternative modes of intellectual activity. In doing so, he impels us to rethink the very meanings of thinking, work, and value.

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Literary theory

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Publié par	Duke University Press
Date de parution	25 février 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780822374473
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1398€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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OBsTRUcTîon

NîcK SaLVaTo duke university pressDurham and London2016

© 2016 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper∞ Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Quadraat and Helvetica Neue by Graphic Composition, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Salvato, Nick, [date] author. Obstruction / Nick Salvato. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn978-0-8223-6084-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn978-0-8223-6098-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) isbn978-0-8223-7447-3 (e-book) 1. Affect (Psychology) 2. Doctrine of the affections. 3. Popular culture. 4. Culture. I. Title. bf175.5.a35s25 2016 152.4—dc23 2015033382

Cover art: Liliana Porter,Untitled with Fallen Chair II, detail. Courtesy of the artist and Espacio Minimo, Madrid.

ConTEnTs

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Acknowledgments vii

Introduction.Tra<cking in Five Obstructions 1

Embarrassment 33 Laziness 63 Slowness 95 Cynicism 127 Digressiveness 157

Conclusion.193Sober Futurity

Notes 205 Bibliography 233 Index 251

AcKnoWLEDGMEnTs

If it is with irony, then it is also with real gratitude that I begin these ac-knowledgments for a book calledObstructionby saluting two people, Robert and Helen Appel, who helped to dislodge a signal, potential blockage to my sustained work on the project: the loss of time to other obligations. Receiving an Appel Fellowship for Humanists and Social Scientists in 2012, I used the leave time in 2013 that the fellowship a=orded to accomplish a great deal of the research, thinking, and writing expressed in the pages that follow. Though time away from Cornell proved useful in a late-ish phase of the book’s construction, so, too, did the conversations at Cornell that helped me to ﬁgure outthatI was writing this book, and how and why it might matter, in a much earlier, more porous stage ofObstruction’s percolation. Amy Villarejo demonstrated typical, and typically beatiﬁc, patience as I came up with—and, through many conversations with her, came to discard—dozens of ideas that had to be both entertained and jettisoned as I set to work in a form that, well, works. Sara Warner inspired and encouraged me to take the particular kinds of risks that tenure ought to a=ord, as well as to trust that my feminist and queer commitments would remain evident despite the riskier, weirder aims to which I fastened them and in the service of which I contorted and recon-torted them. Masha Raskolnikov reminded me more vividly and poignantly than anyone else (could) how “the nineties” felt when we were inside that formation and how to think about that feeling now. Sabine Haenni helped me to let go of the nagging worry that coming “late” to writing profession-ally about cinema would harm the e=ort. Jeremy Braddock supplied some thrilling book recommendations and sanguine beverage time to accompany them. Tim Murray made possible a strange, fun Shanghai trip that taught me,

in less than a week, a lifetime’s worth aboutobstruction,work,value,(non)con temporaneity, and any number of the other keywords that animate this book. And literally scores of other colleagues and students, especially those in my seminars “Television’s Theatres” and “Theorizing Media and Performance,” buoyed me in this work as they committed themselves to provocative and engaged conversation, sustained critical inquiry, sober self-assessment, yet at the same time the self-permission to indulge genuine ﬂights of fancy. Within and beyond Cornell, public occasions to share work in progress challenged and also encouraged me. Earliest of all, Samuel Dwinell invited me to speak on embarrassment and pop at a Cornell Department of Music colloquium, on the heels of which Lily Cui helped me to understand better anecdotal theory, unease, and why I was dragging Henry James into conversa-tion with Tori Amos—and Liz Blake showed me the necessity of going once more into the breach with camp. Anthony Reed and a group of wonderful graduate students working in twentieth-century studies brought me to Yale and gave me clarity about how to put more valuable pressure on terms like leisureandlounge. At meetings of both the American Society for Theatre Re-search and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, giving presentations on Kelly Reichardt’s slowness proved fruitful, particularly because of the conversations that those presentations spurred with Jason Fitzgerald, John Muse, Lindsay Reckson, and Phil Maciak. Lindsay was also present to an American Comparative Literature Association forum on “Flatness,” where she and a number of others, including Alan Ackerman, pushed me further in my thinking on cynicism, animation, andmtv. Alongside Anthony’s collegiality, I want to highlight the conversations I had with Joseph Roach when I traveled to Yale in fall 2012; and alongside Lindsay and Alan’s insights, I want to underline the e=orts of Maria Fackler, who helped to organize the “Flatness” seminar atacla. Yet Joe and Maria deserve thanks for so much more. When Joe told me, many years ago, that advising was forever, I had no idea how committed to that proposition and promise he would remain, or how e=ective his cheerleading would prove in helping me stay the course while writingObstruction. Joe also had the most perverse, which is to say delightful, investment in the meanings and implica-tions of bodily obstructions for this project—and, over the years, kept trying to gross me out with his vivid invocations of them. I hope that he ﬁnds a suit-able payo=in the words herein that salute his brilliant hijinks. As for Maria, there are not enough words—or, rather, there have been too many words, as she has, in her singularly loving and lovingly singular way, let me talk to her for hours and hours about the ideas and objects (especiallyfourfour) that

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make up the fabric of this book. Without her telephonic e=ervescence-cum-divinity, my life and work would be mightily impoverished. In a further embarrassment of riches, many other friends have helped me along by talking with me aboutObstructionwhen I needed to, talking about anything else when that was required, and in any event o=ering a=ection and good humor in spades. I can’t name all of them here, but a partial list must include Carlynn Houghton, Simon Pratt, Jane Carr, Tristan Snell, Megan Quigley, Rebecca Berne, Kamran Javadizadeh (Wordsworth!), Jennifer Ten-nant, Brian Herrera, Aaron Thomas, Joseph Cermatori, Kate Bredeson, Josh Chafetz, and Kate Roach. Family supports have been likewise strong and grounding; and, while I remain most grateful in this regard for the ongoing love and generosity of An-nette and Nicholas Salvato and Lee Drappi, I have been touched in the years of this book’s progress to ﬁnd so much ballast, a<rmation, and intimacy in the relationships forged with my new family, the Buggelns and Corletts. Cathy was game and sweet enough to let me drag her to the Chocolate Factory to see The Dream Express(and for so much more, from Scrabble in Michigan to hiking in Peru), and Richard deserves a special mention for the appetite and stamina with which he kept talking with me about obstructions and reading pages of this book and a slew of others. I treasure our conversations. At Duke University Press, I couldn’t have asked for more. Two anonymous readers were incredibly generous yet also rigorous in assessing the manu-script, and they disclosed new and exciting potential dimensions of the work to me, of which I hope to have captured some sliver or ﬂavor in revision. Ken Wissoker and Elizabeth Ault are a dream to work with, and I appreciate so keenly the care and cheer with which they encouraged me to think clearly and sharply about matters big, small, and at a variety of scales in between. Likewise, all of the other personnel at the press have been peaches as they have paid exacting and gorgeous attention to the verbal, visual, and related elements of the book. Any errors are solely mine to acknowledge. Samuel Buggeln, who always has the most interesting ideas for adven-tures, was particularly inspired to suggest that we spend half a year in Buenos Aires—which we did, and where my work ﬂourished as I learned unexpected and shimmering lessons from a new desk, a new view from the window un-der which that desk was perched, a new regular walk through San Telmo and Puerto Madero, and the countless other sensorial impressions and experi-ences that have shapedObstructionin ways I am still endeavoring to under-stand. For this reason, my dear pal Jean Graham-Jones has suggested that I dedicate the book to BsAs. (And certainly a special nod must be made to

A C k N O w l e d g m e N t Six