Experiments in Exile : C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness
Saved in:
| Title: | Experiments in Exile : C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness |
|---|---|
| Description: | Comparing the radical aesthetic and social experiments undertaken by two exile intellectuals, Experiments in Exile charts a desire in their work to formulate alternative theories of citizenship, wherein common reception of popular cultural forms is linked to a potentially expanded, non-exclusive polity. By carefully analyzing the materiality of the multiply-lined, multiply voiced writing of the “undocuments” that record these social experiments and relay their prophetic descriptions of and instructions for the new social worlds they wished to forge and inhabit, however, it argues that their projects ultimately challenge rather than seek to rehabilitate normative conceptions of citizens and polities as well as authors and artworks. James and Oiticica's experiments recall the insurgent sociality of “the motley crew” historians Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker describe in The Many-Headed Hydra, their study of the trans-Atlantic, cross-gendered, multi-racial working class of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Reading James's and Oiticica's projects against the grain of Linebaugh and Rediker's inability to find evidence of that sociality's persistence or futurity, it shows how James and Oiticica gravitate toward and seek to relay the ongoing renewal of dissident, dissonant social forms, which are for them always also aesthetic forms, in the barrack-yards of Port-of-Spain and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the assembly lines of Detroit and the streets of the New York. The formal openness and performative multiplicity that manifests itself at the place where writing and organizing converge invokes that sociality and provokes its ongoing re-invention. Their writing extends a radical, collective Afro-diasporic intellectuality, an aesthetic sociality of blackness, where blackness is understood not as the eclipse, but the ongoing transformative conservation of the motley crew's multi-raciality. Blackness is further instantiated in the interracial and queer sexual relations, and in a new sexual metaphorics of production and reproduction, whose disruption and reconfiguration of gender structures the collaborations from which James's and Oiticica's undocuments emerge, orienting them towards new forms of social, aesthetic and intellectual life. |
| Authors: | Laura Harris |
| Resource Type: | eBook. |
| Subjects: | Aesthetics, Black, Expatriate authors--Intellectual life--20th ce, Expatriate artists--Intellectual life--20th ce |
| Categories: | LITERARY CRITICISM / Caribbean & Latin American, ART / Caribbean & Latin American, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Geography |
| Database: | eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) |
| FullText | Links: – Type: ebook-pdf – Type: ebook-epub Text: Availability: 0 |
|---|---|
| Header | DbId: nlebk DbLabel: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) An: 1735855 RelevancyScore: 1084 AccessLevel: 6 PubType: eBook PubTypeId: ebook PreciseRelevancyScore: 1083.55249023438 |
| IllustrationInfo | |
| ImageInfo | – Size: thumb Target: https://rps2images.ebscohost.com/rpsweb/othumb?id=NL$1735855$PDF&s=r – Size: medium Target: https://rps2images.ebscohost.com/rpsweb/othumb?id=NL$1735855$PDF&s=d |
| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Experiments in Exile : C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness – Name: Abstract Label: Description Group: Ab Data: Comparing the radical aesthetic and social experiments undertaken by two exile intellectuals, Experiments in Exile charts a desire in their work to formulate alternative theories of citizenship, wherein common reception of popular cultural forms is linked to a potentially expanded, non-exclusive polity. By carefully analyzing the materiality of the multiply-lined, multiply voiced writing of the “undocuments” that record these social experiments and relay their prophetic descriptions of and instructions for the new social worlds they wished to forge and inhabit, however, it argues that their projects ultimately challenge rather than seek to rehabilitate normative conceptions of citizens and polities as well as authors and artworks. James and Oiticica's experiments recall the insurgent sociality of “the motley crew” historians Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker describe in The Many-Headed Hydra, their study of the trans-Atlantic, cross-gendered, multi-racial working class of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Reading James's and Oiticica's projects against the grain of Linebaugh and Rediker's inability to find evidence of that sociality's persistence or futurity, it shows how James and Oiticica gravitate toward and seek to relay the ongoing renewal of dissident, dissonant social forms, which are for them always also aesthetic forms, in the barrack-yards of Port-of-Spain and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the assembly lines of Detroit and the streets of the New York. The formal openness and performative multiplicity that manifests itself at the place where writing and organizing converge invokes that sociality and provokes its ongoing re-invention. Their writing extends a radical, collective Afro-diasporic intellectuality, an aesthetic sociality of blackness, where blackness is understood not as the eclipse, but the ongoing transformative conservation of the motley crew's multi-raciality. Blackness is further instantiated in the interracial and queer sexual relations, and in a new sexual metaphorics of production and reproduction, whose disruption and reconfiguration of gender structures the collaborations from which James's and Oiticica's undocuments emerge, orienting them towards new forms of social, aesthetic and intellectual life. – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Laura+Harris%22">Laura Harris</searchLink> – Name: TypePub Label: Resource Type Group: TypPub Data: eBook. – Name: Subject Label: Subjects Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Aesthetics%2C+Black%22">Aesthetics, Black</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Expatriate+authors--Intellectual+life--20th+ce%22">Expatriate authors--Intellectual life--20th ce</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Expatriate+artists--Intellectual+life--20th+ce%22">Expatriate artists--Intellectual life--20th ce</searchLink> – Name: SubjectBISAC Label: Categories Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="ZK" term="%22LITERARY+CRITICISM+%2F+Caribbean+%26+Latin+American%22">LITERARY CRITICISM / Caribbean & Latin American</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="ZK" term="%22ART+%2F+Caribbean+%26+Latin+American%22">ART / Caribbean & Latin American</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="ZK" term="%22SOCIAL+SCIENCE+%2F+Human+Geography%22">SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Geography</searchLink> |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=nlebk&AN=1735855 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Classifications: – Code: 818.5209 Scheme: ddc Type: prePub Languages: – Code: eng Text: English Subjects: – SubjectFull: Aesthetics, Black Type: general – SubjectFull: Expatriate authors--Intellectual life--20th ce Type: general – SubjectFull: Expatriate artists--Intellectual life--20th ce Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Experiments in Exile : C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Laura Harris – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Laura Harris IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2018 – D: 30 M: 08 Type: profile Y: 2018 Identifiers: – Type: isbn-print Value: 9780823279784 – Type: isbn-print Value: 9780823279791 – Type: isbn-electronic Value: 9780823279807 – Type: isbn-electronic Value: 9780823279814 Titles: – TitleFull: Experiments in Exile : C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness Type: main |
| ResultId | 1 |
