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    Performing Writing Della Pollock FIVE fe alin & postion of raishment—cal it you mst our only hope for suvival— being agains al odds and through tivslons, to Keep on wating. “Susan Sleiman, Subversive Intent emporary discourses of history, culture, and identity seem stil to be sng n *extuality,”feling the loss of reference a a lss of bearings, suddenly, uneasily ited from ready catologes of meaning into an world not of mesninglessness exactly but of duplicity, doubleness, mulation. From the eye of this storm, what is/was i always on the fof becoming something ele. Words don't stick. They are “Janus- i” fick,” indiferent to discourses of truth and meaning. In lan- as diference, in language eldded with dffeence, criticism becomes erie in double plays: In pastiche, parody, punning, ‘ith each turn an retutn of language, “extuallty” seems increas- lt fnot impossible to make sense, to make claims, to make meaning, writing its own object/subjec, which duly n/wrltes itself in every and tun, sometimes in cynical pleasure, sometimes in abject horror, ing julia Kristeva, for instance, to ask, what is there but writing? what todo but rite? “Kristeva's questions anticipate and exhaust the so-called linguistic ture 50 doing they also echo ealir questions, the question Theodor Adomo sed in the ealy sixties, for instance, the question asked by a character in splay Mort sas sepulue, *'s there any meaning in life when men ‘who beat people until the bones break in thelr bodies?" Adorno ‘on the edge of referentality, at once referring the question ise to the atoctes of the Second Wend poo rsnpettoaa meine on tn rel question, Adorno ushered In a suk cites which the literature of commit ioxeplica cris ‘em dooms cancer Dees se ae Particularly suspect, Drenched as it was, ia tic i he does of cp til Meat of va ‘ina, on “the question whether uae ears intellectual regression is not inherent in the ee = omit iterate bec of thereon okt" sate Ame chines nian ape fone Tiss icon ‘is now the debris of wal ea mats hp om ree er fm ly a a Tate Sats tg ae to call “textuality” or the sense that al iso fc a within a mullayred, selxiveproducive "tees ease ig fe a aa ea ny yt ae iat {s or might be the purview of the writing/performir a ce ‘might writing break up the regressive reiterations of "t fe yer mm ra a pas ee ea fe mena "ig Aa dn et Asm ee th ution of ign roman nay aor fone ee Te perks aie pen ter tla to recall performative dean pei eon ‘arena of corporeal history in which Adorno himself ‘ eee ase has argued that “the critical discourses of speech dee stom yg ae pe yn mode luction: print.”* Rethin| writin, 2 ft ie Rant cae et ity with print and the subsequent at tion of SRE : ay s'petemainn? Me sme ee rae ‘aul fe dsitonbetvenperomance and ox, psermanan ormativity/textuality, or, for ietenaotee oie cet space 74 Dela Pok the, atthe brink of meaning, poised between abjection and rears: art apa doing digplaces writing as meaning: witing becomes mean- re rater, disfcontinuous act of writing, Efacing itl twice i meaning and reference, twice as deferral and erasure-— og becomes ioe, becomes its wn means and ends recovering to r Mrort of ation, Arex, ater turing itself inside out wating oer only Co dscaver the pleasure and power of tuning, of making Sr meaning pers but making wring perform: Challenging the Sef veflexive textual; relieving wilting of ts obligations un se name of “textually shaping, siting, testing language, Practicing performing writing, Weting pesformatvely. Maer co explore some ofthe ways What we have come to call “peform- reiting” answers discourses oftextualty not by recovering reference geno “la” work bat by writing into anew one Foc me, performs ng i nota gene or fixed form (a a textual model might URBes) Tay of describing what some good wilting des. Al good weting isnt sega be performative. Nor would all the writers cited here consider 1c work performative. Peformativty describes a fundamentally materi Ire Like performance, hovever, itis alsoan analytic away of framing vinderscoring aspects of wrting/ife. Holding “performative weting” user shapes and meanings would be (1) to undermine Is analyte ext “fj-and @ to betray the postitesofperformativity wath the imitations “ofreferntiaity. Tntorunately, performative writing has come to catty its own fae “seferens: stylish, trendy, clever, avant-garde, projecting in turn a kind of Tpew formats. Performative waiting i for me, precisely not # matter of formal syle (especialy in the degraded sense of glinting, surface play) it fo scursive practice that—misprsioned—may have disestrous conse quences, that may be bad—or, for that matter, god. The discourses of | fextualty have removed the vil of Innocence from language, drawing us way trom questions of what words door dont mean into the complex Problem af How to mean in words and yet tend to mit the answer to such hestions tothe reiteration of socal, historia, textual formations. The hiestion thus tums back on sel, detecting the possiblities for normative ‘Eitigue of the way we write or do witing and of what waiting des that t ‘onetheless implies. Performative wating i an img tion into routine representations of socialperformati fand varied history in antheopology, feminist critique, portant, dangerous, and dificult interve- ve fe, Te has along ‘and writing about evfrming wating 75 petformance, taking much of its impetus from the eross-discplinay “break” into poststructualism* But my aim here is nelther to assess the istry of performative writing nor to represen performative writing fn a, 4s forms and implications, but rather to identify the need to make writing speak as writing. To discern posible intersections of speech and waiting ‘To resolve the alienation of meaning and reference within postmodern textualitis not by reincribing presence per se but by making wating exceed ts determinations within structures of absence/presence in ord to perform a social function. Peeformative writing spins, to some extent, ‘on the axis of impossible andor regressive reference and yet out into new _modes of subjectivity and even referetiaity. Finally, then, I want to ead performative claims on textuaity for thelr immanent utopics, for their susceptibility to the democracies of imperfect, Inexpert repetition, reve son, replay, and remand Performance Writing Writing Peformance: One Way In Several years ago attended a workshop/eonference on wating history. ‘The conference discussions circulated around the rise of “experimental” history writing, the new “narrative history,” and what was variously called self-eveation, selfdisclosure, and selfzellection in the composition of history.” One argument in particular has continued to haunt me. A distin _gulshed feminist historian argued that more “conventional” forme of wilt ing history—the dull but steadfast forms of the academic article and the 'monograph—were mote “democratic” than the new (or renewed) form ‘of narative history Because they could be taught As forms of intellectual and cultural capital, they could be relatively esly and equally distributed across socal class diferentials. And having acquired such conventions and/or plain techniques, anyone could contabute to the formation of social knowledge. “Like my colleague, 1 was and remain suspicious of a preening avant- ards in new (history.)wuting, {am wary ofthe extent to which a new/ ld formalism (even In the form of Brechtian alienation techniques) might divert attention from the subect() of history othele ne containers But my primary response atthe time was one of stifled horror, Leal flushing and stiffening at what scemed to me democracy become mediocracy, at the looming sense of democracy asa science ofthe lowest common de ‘Rominator, as competency trumping specialty, as random acces to generic et om he gy, anaes sae of ns emo re, warhedemocy othe Fod Lon, Kaat and See se tne consumption gases puchsng re net he and lpn bdr eh Co ales prog eq Dad saan Ft heli fat Henry Go dees a elton” tmp im such awe. Rfering 1 Aa pony to pve cy n popula dscuses fw es education (how could anyone with any common sense not be for Gitoux argues, "lant becomes a cde word for an approach to Fung that s profoundly Eurocentric in both context and content” ‘hat conforms to presuppositions about standard language wse and he historical, political, and cultural specificity of diverse audi Sr publics? Claims fr auch writing assume a cortespondence theory rage that effaces questions of vole, ile, and difference and “fat- he rcationship between language and audience, refusing not only endless meditions and negotiations that compose thet relationship Md the meanings that lv fom it, but the recognition of subalter clams Tanguage use that a moce genuinely plural eading/eting democracy entail The homogenization of language in the name of clarity tends Mdeanse knotledge of "complex discourses of oppositional insights.” angus, theresa tendency to perceive members faves publiccultures as objects athe than subjects as socially constricted pawns rather hans complex End contradictory human agents who mediate, read and write she work i erent, The polities of such a postion ote ether leads one into the exci- Slonary tetris of Eurocentrism eliism ad colonialism, or into the pot “al ded end of eynicism and despair! sng scene nung Gio wots oe a hc robe ton betwen the dicouse of uation he sr efasnal praeddemocoy Wy aallnga wie rang see tne meant of potucton’” Her argument uate amet Mets the snorting ster through est ig! east churns ee uence Pa ay ey Cn et pecilyon the oman sumption a ete the ple iy ed sl senator en whos sls are anointed othe be toc a ter oro mosh nue een 0 tis athe etrming iting 77 in re do wig. ten by athe" Kn a plete ry itles make them, in tur ale of ferming tel of common cen wins decease ing ee ina demo ute nt i hw ti pan dt es esi Wallen mca Se Mh ie ening the stgment et ses to met fal ‘reduces the istic mi teapot sis the ns piesa per ine e perae emocratic exchange (conflict, compromise, dia a‘ qu sce, @) it cates, even in dana he ns nntenthceny,ngoomantc conception th pene os ne st for artistic, imaginative, and opaque writing, as of ae Allegeysewiceable an car wes of language, etifng demoray th the later and sng o ter sn tera ig wing tht, vere doesnot Wanda vesity owe ial a, ee breil, tos the emerens a mew rey tng ‘tive form of unrealized democracies.'¥ ee aaa ing demon ny in effect, a8 Trinh Moving Out sizan eating” wat not mach dsp the mptey my Hera fener mena ome sneee ‘is built, oc ‘those dividing the historian and the ar ch are conventionally conside a Sone eT rat ea mca te erence eter eared ‘on how well it performs within a system animated not sent Sane rn rere cont atm proms wen a le a sedimentation the ete rm inte a seg et m forms, in its own fulfillment of form, in is between authorsubjects, reading subjects, and subjects written? 78 alate. ‘erformativewrting i thus no more and no tes formally Steiible ond sgn ora lncimark is yes may be numbered; taught, and bat is meanings are contextual. 1 takes Hs value ftom the map in which ite focated and which it simultaneously marks, es transforms. art then with what seem contradictory desres on the ne hand, pat namie splay of performative wating 1 order, among make perormative wating generally aalabe oe; and Sn pand, to nat on the dfcaly of peformatie wnting! atmatey. twat to sige tat proraive wing 5 # ms ef technology, that mus and an be commonly deployed mi porpraton often an be ao more merely SSE OF sean then shouldbe nsirumental—conchsins, Fm aad, to eianiest of peormative elements, options, drstions may i ea oth bouigue and “how-to oct eal) models et sing. wont to sopgest thie posi pefocmative wt rata resyonse othe extent to which ting snd performance rated cah other by withdrawing whether defensively o by peor cretion tnt weneaton wth eter cane o apparels dent means of knowledge production ne tat tht olows assumes a negative cae: Kind of wring atthe sa italy of performed culture wing that threatens to dhyaiote ance or tatabordinatesptformotive temporal ote spatial Menating) convertion o he (hola “text.” As nidlousldsap- MS suchwertng forte prospect of ch wing) may be, 5 not mike ate of wing pr sto wring the Me out of peformance ot damaliseH within cultures of scholarship. To wt peformances nt and otto to betray athe, seems o me, the betrayal cons Tr not wong ein conceding to the deployment of Inqusgs against ‘perfor ‘and 30 to the absence/death of performance in processes of oowisdgetonmaton. The anges to the clas of textual on pefore2- ‘ity is thus not to write less but to write more: to write in excess of norms: ofschoty presentation, 0 write beyond textual Into what might be faled socal morales, to make wtinglextuaity speak 4, of, and Tough plssre possiblity, disappearance, and even pa! tn thet “Words, to make writing perform, Tote the following ist then with some Irony. Its desciptive/prescri- ‘ve, practicaltheoretica, As eet an excursion into performative writing, ‘is intended to map diretions/arectives for performative writing without foreclosing on the posetility that performance may—at any moment — resforming Wiking 79 ee isa mate of anyhing pe? ‘that anyone can do it anymore than “anyone” can write “good” ne representation, ‘Six Bxcwsions into Performative Writing sentir Send to ely absent ree nang, hus susan anne ful prensa perme perpectv tnd torr the encase lu pais of language an language encounter der nd wien the spoon of anng does sos ing maowly report sense, an objectively verfable event or oes ws langues ke pt 1 rate what sleaey ee ‘What was, what is, and/or what might be. Se ‘What I want to call performatis i at | want oa ptrmaie wing (ten et oly na sho er Turns, tke) cases ditnctons by wnch conc eee long ep peter ey esi manne of avowed tor) or tel in iene tor een word ie ngage) dvs nat nae oe no cn witing or exeortig ti rues othe wer tls pers, ut hybang the very tes y whl a "eta rato te made, suggesting an in-between, “liminota” Red of posillity, 2 of hybrid, mixed forms that exceed categorical distinctions in thelr Ho mak possible, to make absence present and yet to recover presence pstrytural, realist mess for poess Be aormative, evocative writing confounds normative distinctions be- critical aod creative (hard and soft, true and false, masculine and ne), allying tse with logles of possibility rather than of validity or fy, the scientific principles underlying postivist distinctions be tee" and alse” It shifts the operative social paradigm from the what if (what then’) to it performative counterpart, "as if” Ite pees of mating pose, peformative wring simultaneously the choke hol of conventional Genie, rational schol is eran thet enabling structures. Ik moves with, operates alongside cs through, rather than above or beyond the Maid, coningent aicable dicontinaous rsh of (pertormes) experence—and aginst fssomption that (hola) writing mast of should do otherwise es that the writer dropdown io place where word nd the word eect inactive interpretation, where each poses, aoe, entrances the nto alternative formations, where words press nto and are deeply a by “the sensvouses of hee ferent." ae witer andthe word's bodies intertwine in evocative writing, in opeformance of language and experience. This, fr instance, Carl Navor writes with/sboat te photographs ofthe maida: rk Hanna Culiick olctedby the lt Vconin poet Arthur My render eas wth ey, setng what she ser and fling the suble press Clic’ image on hes imagination. The ensuing scene ges beyond “oth entiation and “sede pruction of Barthes’ endlessly open eit to engage te reader in & materia encounter withthe photoaraphs ocaes heel an he esdern the at of taking up the pce of femoving them from the collectors box stored in the Wren Library at “Wnty College, Cambridge. Performing vewing, Mavor Singers an image ‘Of Callie’ rough, working hands, lid open and blackened with soot bore er, bore or wondering eyes. Theit hands, lays already med | ated bythe protocols of looking and being ookedat, ouch: They touch Te Mavor's hans, the image tales on sown agency. 1 performs “her and through her, us, now caught in a kind of ménage a trois of looking! | feeling/wanting. Mavor draws us in as the images, in her description, “pop Out oftheir small drawer” and cath her eared n the scene of het Festorming Witing 81 inwrector Many andthe Ubtarans ofthe Wren lima" The ina, ‘ums back on Mavor, suggesting her own fetishstc enchantment, {ind yeti gente conspiracy with Hannah against thls iro image — {he "team effort” by “inspector Munby” and his curators o keep Hanoay {closed her show shut down—Mavor tls the plete rom Hannah's pap of view: “Hannah took pleasure in blackening her (hands) with grea And because simple grime was never enough, Hannah used patches n- ‘lack lead (that she would spt on) to literally draw on her skin” Neve evokes in the very shape and fel of her sentences the twin pleaune sig 4nd Hannah take in Hannah's datk hands. Asif in homage to the marge desire to write herself, erally to draw on her skin, insrbing here She did with lac lead, Mavor das her rade into the (perverse) ples ‘sures with which she now inscibes the page: ‘he portato anna invites overall fingering, Fel her calluses. Fee the sy brocade fabs with ase oral design. eel the leather wt sap. Imagine what feels keto wear ne. Feel the rush inher hand in youn ‘ether muscle rms. As Hannah one sid about hr own hands fo “Munby), They are quit hand again— tel"? Fingering, feeling, making us feel: the page isthe materia stage of Mavor's ‘vocation. She reads/wates in body-time, moving the rade into ene, tion, into what can only be called cial ecstasy (ex-stass) tough the Petformance of her own subjectivity within the scene of rading-wrting an Image performing. Her performance echoes Hannah's in fiom of the ‘camera, doubling the urgency with which Hannah displayed her hands in Interaction with her reader reading, realising Hannah's performance neve {in excess of te frames and boxes that contained it. Mavor brings the act of seeing images taken in the late nineteenth century into the full body of the reader's experience. She does not represent the photographs ax mech as she reiarses ther clam on the reader/viewe’sbod.imagination, mak, ing it posible for us to know Hannah not as different but In allot her ‘demanding, resplendent difference. 2, Pesformative witing is metonymic 1 sa self-consciously partial or complete rendering that takes its pulse from the diference rather than the identity between the linguistic symbol and the thing it is meant to 82 at Fooek onan seein! ee Ara esc iene) to, see cnn ancy ee of sentation. It recognizes the extent to which writing displaces nar ming ne even f ng i tonal presence of words, fete making absent what yetic/metaphoric uses of language attempt to: ET Bie et asm cman econ ting Woe tip nme ty mone Len Dect unwring. W onides eel Een tis ome al a minor metonymy mark the mately ce: ‘with the use of a practically unspeakable, non- or counter sre onto punctaion, a cement neigh oniy by : ey visual grammatical codes by which a slash or "/" Is Peay ym a “I” or *;", that in its particular use here to divide and eae inc nt sn aw tng tone an tse a tS wt oem engin ne scum tpn inns mh ya be a varias ede oe a ayy A a cnpaton bern wat li conse "vga “cenit” pai nanan he win sta Fe ee anc ey eas ee Seed ne aah si nb ams een id Stump pene nk pen le eat omaatons of gmmar an phates eon’ in hei of i samen prea 1 naam een Gain neicrs tert partons andthe dey wth wtih Brace Mery ono ce ec eh) th finn Saath poe men me he eco umcng en he ers we te wet Bo enna Ae besten, Moker ste hate Mss driven by a sense of loss, by a sense of "just-having-missed” Mendieta Be roccies ss san nso ha ew the) ora tier tate ot ne, peat tala tery a er Fevtoming Weting 83 the sory other elle, the story of erat lok tthe ses, photograph, ‘nd ms she let behind as though they night pot to her presence bot {ey lvays only remind me that she has gone 2 Metonymic wating Is often, as st fs her, fled with lor subjectobject, for a subjectiobject that hes disappeared time, and for what, inthe face of that els Snadequacy and impossibility of evoetior ‘tes that fame and dwindle into as, shoreline image that are no soon Inscribed in sand than they are swept away by wave aftr wave) are oe ‘ted to disappearance. They perform the beauty and tagly of lie veg, 3 ging its Bckering beauty in the proces of (always alreyy “lsappearing, Centered in that place where lf and performance intense, 23: dying, as dlsappearance, they moreover tremble with the beauty of as performance. Pg Fr 2 ay Into history e¢ a PPEAANCE, May seem both the 2. Mendieta’ earthworks (grave Life, deat, performance, nd disappearance mix and fuse in Mendieta’ ‘work, rising to her own mysterious death in 1985, Togethe, they dare Blocker to go beyond obsession and fetishization, beyond desie to wits the “lost objec, to find/tx it in print and s0 ultimately to deny the ‘quaking esence of Mendiea’s work/life, into loss, into transformation and Performance. Taking up Peggy Phelan’s charge to write “into” dsappeat. lance, Blocker characterizes her proect as an attempt to move representation of loss—history—to an enactment of loss—an admission that the story of present absence cannot be sustained" In so doing, she ‘opens her text to performance, to writing as a figure of los, “esing and so eallzing the performed ie, ‘The “llr of history ot mean to suggest hat the very eptine ia which Iam engaged somehow fal short, tht it acs efeacy. Rather by “flue refer to that process whereby history sell-destcts, or should say “setdeconstructs? Iam not et wing otelinguish thetling of tries, to ‘soggest that as “representations” they ate inherently fae and thereto rong What would Ik to do sto celebrate the fare; oe tht they seine that at certain point, by vite of epetiion, rend, fami laity, they begin to break down. Its this dissing that produces ora east, allows forthe performative—that effect whereby history is retumed tothe resent, whereby the reader or listeners brought into belngby the tale “tom a 35 proces of For Blocker, history/writing exhausts itself in the pleasures of perfor: ‘mance, in is failure to save history from ielf fom Its return to the present in the being/becoming of the reader reading. As de Certeat has ‘argued, whatever good history writing win, it doesnot keep? Ie gens by Data rotk fee rofl eur of arn seo Frye tng goo he bjecefeent conventionally eld at A ean covapontmcs nave he io Bere kee mages tng se moog of Mitory | Rapeeseleenmrt aparoenseepgeesanieinne| Nee elt: of posi he hao Be re recaneane ea ete tn ag Fe acento go ving in eon te Fass ee he difference between print-based phenomena and the corporeal, af- ctive, processual temporalities in which they operate, thus actually fea- Beco ny wort Mcrae wing aes he prose tat ah erage tartrate canto rom et ptg er aap enipe pene mpepadet par ey Be ete Mie arson, an nage of tong wate and sitet Brey cerns eniy donte ef. she coed Be oe tooo tn Yosech ty Bent enc at Ge Fes eat cbr 8 it. i. Butane weld el oa “Peec, Del” She permed pt Sr nay ein to om a pen at Tarte ave oie oragpet: When ee of presence tas ae que fnbcoming, when “Sth, Jor Besta come, “heer wr at erent wry te Wes ite other thing was fe doing elsewhere? Turning away from the stft atthe front of the room, we crossed through the law of print into the absent-Imaginary. What had Miss Carlson, despite her- el, authorized but this turning away? this giggling, momentary trespass absence on schoo! tetitory? Joe (r, for that matte, me, here) was more sient in his absence, in being present in name only than he ever was on Jt days when, careful, pole, looking straight ahead, he guaranteed the nection between word and ferent with his bodily presence, with the bration of his body to smug confirmation of print’ ability to name object, “Her!” ‘Matking an absence, metonymic veriting also marks itself an active, “material signifying process that Is neither a prison house nor a fun house, “ot a place even, but a boundary space, inviting laughter and transforma 3. Performative writing is sic By ws 1 on “centered or circling back on tt Poet peed he wer bjt in sucha wy the “se whiner marae eminence swe ans indy seo. Tse amo may ca autobiographies whose express autobiographies NPSS purpose Is to write a coherent self acne Thinking about witing asa mate practice, want to stipulate a more ‘or subjectivity asthe petfoomea mami engagement os ra fet and comgus athe than continuous) watlon ieeer ne Ad her subject) scent ,subetsle andor reader), Wing ta odie hs od of ujecy tend fo sj the adr tn pect sobjectseles ecirocaly and simu, eo ceal"inimagy."™ Ths po i patomaree the eet to which it eines the sabes inte eae ent, compora siting stated wton -andae ef een nen onteral—rather tan, sy the end of ne ‘stobiogapiea acount or the foundaon! oe vee ‘ence narratives” often refer. ne Some De eae 1 ihink of hs elton shaving ‘ 2s hang patel eo dneson, ep ls sage by Susan Slcnas renga Mae os orl The ating ofl VS ooh a Fesing Lacan with Duras, we see eerging the possibilty of pychosne- iti dscoure that would not bea discourse of mastery bt a dscouse of mu {ual entanglement... Who speaks, o wie, the ravihment of Lal orene ting Entanglement, ravishment, love, wet performs love, writing: what 1 want to call performative writing does not projec a self even a radically destabilized one as much {alti of being and knowing that cuts back and forth across multiple “visions” among selves, contets,afilations such tha, as Elspeth Poe, Datarock oes, “the self + not simply put forward, but... is reworked in its pring the self in its enunciation (as itself the enunciative context Temaking) requires two preliminary moves: fst, shifting from pos! the self and so potentially either spatalizing and relfying identities Mopening entity to Judith Bute’ absurd “et.")™ to ateuating the shaping relations among selves in an ongoing process of (sel) fom; and second, shifting from documenting “me” to reconsttut- Mg an operative, possible “we.” The self that emerges from these shifting ves i, then, & possibility rather than a fact, a figure of elation from between lines of difference, moving inexorably “trom her ‘performative. As Probyn argues, the performative self “isnot simply orward; it moves forward (into survival? democracy?) and between, structures, projecting in turn alternative figures of socal relation. fn *Stabat Mater,” Jota Kisteva emblematizes lines institutlonally and really dividing mother and father tongues, semiotic and symbolic ses, suggesting typographically ther diference and simultaneity: ‘Chistanity is doubtless the most refined symbolic constuet in which Fem init, to the extent that it transpires trough it—and it oes so nces- santly I focused on Matera. Le ws all *matermal” the FLASH—instant of time or of ambivalent principle that i bound to ream without time; inordinately the specs, onthe one hand, and on ‘lien atoms ofa Bond, a vision, the other stems fom an Went cats- {shiver a yet formless, unaamie- trope that causes the Name o topple ableembryo. Epiphanies Photos over ino the unnameable that no one of what isnot yet ble and that maginess Femininity, nonlanguage language neces skims over fiom af, allusively Words that when alls sak and doneis "human ateainaystoo dant too a8- only trough his mother—asif Cristy strat or his underground fr Chiltan mans could only be 2 ‘arming of veconds, faking in materialism (this besides, what some tinimaginale spaces Witing_secularzng tends within sabi do them down isan ordeal dit not cease claiming thelr estes) ours like love. What sloving, And yet, the Bumaniy ofthe Vipin fora woman, thesame things mother spot always obvious, and we writing Laugh. Impose lath shall se how, in he betng cleared of ‘nthe unmameabe, weaving of sin, forinstance, Mary lstinguishes her: absractions tobe torn ‘eff from mankind.” Backend upand do roman pad down, css institutional, materi bee hieecas ona maleral and dscusie inst denws, det en does the esa, I hink~in the Dna a Othe have te ro eng the double and mule vk loves by wing pst epreetaton no eon neg as ime logic form does not in and of itself guarantee performativi Dae S92 rn may i old ptt Ines ire egregiously, as it does in the case of He im sacs 2 of Hope Elna aig took opened inking sou ny stn And shu! er eel agi, my le ol to nds a isbn meses on ng ik “ow nein ast wth aero ae nally realizing, of course, that where Edelman begins arcane toe. The gst dale wn fron he th aot of mi cn the thn ny yg futon especie, estoy back to A bop “Hope itd ob tat the ning fe bad pas aoe it celta ety spproprtig “hope 6 “ope aa es a ity—rather than difference) was mere proj in ‘until I saw ads for the sequel, a collection of ity cleo. Hap Here was, seed 6,4 wontene ponent a te etveson of monaoge ‘Oost to ee ‘ok died pinto ue charter raven gst ‘however, this approach tends to disentangle the multipte: ee ck se ng ns oie ove thar rc enengle set To te coy, Nancy Mats hb cal ney ae ing tpt the ating cag te wing i ee set in the plies of aang with 4“ ene tow sve nt inservice xbbipephia icomted arn ngage Ses whos andmoretan-ne Our Serer iterone anthers Te MEO dat rotock ce are few examples of one story folding into another, of one story duother, bypassing questions of appropriation altogether to pet re ndweling of Mait’s“notsme as elegant as Cato Stacks recent veal to Home, an account ofthe return of African Americans to an cathe, tual South the late seventies and eighties, Stack notes Pere erly versions ofthe book she tried to maintain a clear distinction Thesories she heatd andthe stories she told about them, between resnative voice and her Interpretation ofthe people with whom she Mrput my voce today” she says, “isn part a voice taught to me by Carolinians who told me thele stories; they and t conspired to unde mat and communicate theit experience." Inhabited at once by the fe with whom she spoke and the people-readers with whom she is speaking Stack’ voice shifts unpredictably, almost imperceptibly one tory or narrative key into another. “ike the creck Stack describes in the opening paragraphs of Call o Home, fh “twists, doubles back and redoubles, and works itself almost into wringing. out the territory like anxious knuckles squeezing a ge." tacks view “swings out deep and wide, cutting abroad ae." We teh with her as "the groun lifts back and away from a fringe of cypress gum tres up gently through all the acres of leds" and Ped’ house, the house where Samuel was born in 1922, where he and Pear lived their ied life and alsed their ten children," comes into focus. Moving, stack takes us along as she reviews the house's minor Improve ents, She observes, knowing what we wil come to know, "There ae sil iden in the house, grandchildren now,” as we crossover the thresh “old and, taught well by Stack’s own careful tone and demeanor, reach out Thand to greet our beckoning host: "Pearl," Stack says, “Is still Miss a Performative subjectivitles often begin small—in a daughter’ question “ora fiend’s comment." Or simply inthe desire to speak frankly, directly iva reader, implying a readers presence inthe evident anticipation of a ‘reply. Beginning in the small, concrete gestures of answering back, pet formative subjectivities may als ise to the coursing, liturgical uncertainty th which Dick Hebdige remembers “america.” ‘in Hebdige’s montage United States, there are ao stable selves. They have been evacuated, leaving the landscape, however, redolent with pet formative subjecivities. Abandoning cartography for memory, spatial analysis forthe broken, wanton, post- (pre?) nanatve temporaitis of life ‘onthe edges of Los Angeles, Hebdige writes an exe's nonstory. He appears 4m his/story a the author who finaly makes himself at home in his own reforming Wee Prose shiting Into an “tame, siting down from “he! 10 “me,” ashe Snalywitesses his may pas both individuality and alienation tower something ke hope something lie ove eatin ee ‘hope for survival —call it love"): "ay espent one Christma alone, in sented solar, detached a ast aig several yeas in ell tom mos ofthe moorings that had ts i te an Men Bean an ike ome attra Scrooge, he found himsl sheds ours, by allthe ghosts and dant objects hed misndor thrown away ‘ape to this lace, On Citas dayhe picked up the phone and egg ‘one of hit oldest tends in London the widow o his other olde end ong he was shocked as avays, thanks to Aberoptcechnoogy bythe eran sounded close enough to touch she tales the phone nto nother room so we can ak unimpeded thou being overheard by her new family Within minutes we're aling ld ies. and it al els 50 efforts leaning back two decades Inte of understandings... 1 eels 0 comfortable ad right otal hee nd newran the present tense across 6,000 miles and an Bus tmedilerence ther ‘ats, to wait insides lence, wai fort beak without having to worry bout what's coming next, confident inthe knowledge, pechaps alli, ‘thatthe person on the other ends riding every nutnee right alongside you and that eveything loving unimpeded hack and forth along the tel, atic ciety setup al those years goin al those hour Spent ting to- scterin the same apartment where she's siting now, In the hous thee ‘ashe swe sat hee sting to muse; smoking, making cup of tea, ds- ‘ctng who ald what to whom with what efect eae thot evening i he ub, watching the sey London dawn come up, show and til, ver the vie Wet rooftop ofthe houses opposite ‘Sddenly i's time to leave home again and come back hereto whete ive fdas replace the receiver catch nye elected in the mio by the men epee, face cracked open inthe gooy, ols, adolescent gat ecogise {tom ancient schoolboy pots inthe family photo album Impey, ‘ld London wraps me nits foggy aura and move about the sat Cera "tchen with the costrmonger swagger ofa javenite exis tn Or, tne eg cal My accent has sped sofa back down toward its 1980's cockney engi {atthe attendant atthe Arco sation, whee stop several hours late to by | cannot understand single worm saying = 4: Pesformative writing is nervous. I anxiously croses various stories, ‘theories, tents Intertexs, and spheres of practice, unable to settle into a 9 Datarock cous nese ig no abe sop ering ee ‘ge ransitive, traversing spatial and temporal borders, link teks sd Tag in of mara sss Fg rth ally tn ened ar han sh oo sper or een mee ano, ns ero match opens by syle ray, owing onsasng mowed i an ongNE sna ane gin the wien Yo ee a ‘urgency that keeps what amounts to textual trav se a anda ins te rer to she sgn Os i cal eh to its conduit. a nme om nteextaty genera 3 = tative. It takes its pulse from a specifically Foucauldian sp fey ts dsconnoon cure of ips a proces us tations” incorporated in history as events. Genealogy Bape sagen crt mt a the gaa een sof nes twa mys don than reing contin Hes oc nv experience ater hs geelony : iow nics mip oy 5 cox pusssarr suring stability of fe and na- sa IM apse of tees no etna pb nse yawn tin ecm ing ol on ona ou Tea arg speeded ony. = recor and expe Focldan genealny soc the body si sy note en fl wow ison in tines Mreunce! we yn der abe, The moment when ey Pain vetzed=* ts oneness ny wey io ieee thay ae wrt rym bess andi nt es ture sy of ng as aye sendy cote 2 bt andr pliea eves, the so et ic hey nin comes, stance, performance emg ane noe Kx won fr tin, pesformane Yop toc tc the Boy vn pela he V8 a force ‘and effect of performance across the history of fies on Ba lar cedures are simi- nee Conaeing Row spectacle ieee ance matte eyheentvcntry tote shows, and reerming iting 97

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