Planetarity: Musing Modernist Studies Susan Stanford Friedman Modernism/modernity, Volume 17, Number 3, September 2010, pp. 471-499 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press For additional information about this article Access Provided by University of Glasgow Library at 08/23/11 3:40PM GMT http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mod/summary/v017/17.3.friedman.html
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Planetarity: Musing Modernist Studies
Susan Stanford Friedman
Modernism/modernity, Volume 17, Number 3, September 2010,pp. 471-499 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
For additional information about this article
Access Provided by University of Glasgow Library at 08/23/11 3:40PM GMT
La modernité, c’est quoi? Modernity, what is it? Imagine a polylogue of reflections on this question. [fig. 1]1
Susan Stanford
Friedman teaches
at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
She has published
extensively on global
modernisms, and she
received the Wayne
C. Booth Award for
Lifetime Achievement
in Narrative Studies in
2010. She is the Second
Vice-President of the
Modernist Studies As-
sociation.
Fig. 1. Anupam Basu. Scripts of Modernity, 2009.
• ModernityisEurope’sEnlightenment,thebreakfromre-ligious hegemonies and the spread of science, technology, and cosmopolitan ideals of freedom and democracy.
[Modernity isEurope’s brutal colonialismbuilt on thesystematicenslavementofAfricans,arbitraryandimposednation-state boundaries, and the formation ofmodern
M O D E R N I S M / m o d e r n i t y
472 African identities amidst the legacies of corruption and failed states.] Translated fromYoruba.
•
[Modernity isBengal’sRenaissance, its self-critique and self-realization thatemerges in the nineteenth century out of its struggle against British colonialism, notonlyasBengalis,butasIndians.]TranslatedfromBengali.
• LamodernidadenLatinoamericaeselmestizaje,productodeunamezclaex-cepcionaldeculturascolonizadorasycolonizadas;unmestizajeatrapadoentrela hegemonía europea y la norteamericana.
[ModernityisLatinAmerica’smétissage,itsparticularmixtureofcolonizingandcolonizedcultures,caughtbetweenEuropeanandNorthAmericanhegemonies.]Translated from Spanish.
•
[ModernityisChina’sprojectforthefuture,movingbeyondthebackwardnessof the past and the humiliations of foreign domination, reasserting the centrality ofitsfive-thousandyearcivilizationasamoral,globalforce.]TranslatedfromChinese.
•
[ModernityistheArabworld’srebirthoftheoldinformedbyreligiousdiscourse,Arabhumanism,scientificprogress,therationalismofijtihad, and creative trans-formation rather than conformity to a stagnant turath (heritage).] Translated from Arabic.
•
[ModernityisIndianIndependence,bornofBritishrule,bathedinthebloodofPartition,andgrowingastheworld’slargestdemocracyandatechnologicalpowerhouse.] Translated from Hindi.
FRIEDMAN / musing modernist studies
473Modernity, of course, has no single meaning, not even in one location. This poly-logue—constructed collaborativelywith colleagues at theUniversity ofWisconsin-Madison—voicesparticularviewsshapedbydifferentplanetarypositionalities.2Glob-allyandlocally,modernityappearsinfinitelyexpandable.Listeningtothesediversevoices,readingtheirscripts,Idespair—especiallyforthenewscholarjustenteringthefieldofdreams,aTowerofBabelwithtoomanylevelstoclimb;butalsofortheolderscholar,trainedintheoldmoderniststudies:vertigooutonalimb,whirledupintoavortexofthenew.YetIalsorejoice.Changeiswhatdrewmetomodernisminthebeginning.Whyshoulditossify?Whyshouldthefluidfreezeover,theundecid-ablebecomedecided?
All that is solid melts into air.3Weknowthat.Whyshouldwewantastabilityforthefieldthatthemoderniststhemselvesrebelledagainst?Caughtinthepolylogue,weareinthethickofthings.Atthelevelofscholarshipandteachingweinhabitwhatitiswestudy.AsW.B.Yeatsasks,“Howcanweknowthedancerfromthedance?”4 Weareparticipatinginwhatwestudy,andweshouldnotbeapologeticaboutit.Thisis a planetary epistemology of modernity, of modernism.5
The New Modernist Studies: Expansion and Containment
Intheir2008overviewofthe“new”moderniststudiesinPMLA Douglas Mao and RebeccaL.Walkowitzcharacterizethefield’sexpansionsalongthreemajoraxes—thetemporal,horizontal,andvertical,bywhichtheymeanthegrowinghistoricalandgeographicalreachofmoderniststudiesaswellasthedissolutionofdivisionsbetweenhigh and low art and culture.6JenniferWickehasdubbedthefield’smakingitselfnewaformofrebranding,acommodificationofthefieldthatensuresourowncomplicityinthelogicofglobalization.7 In Disciplining Modernism, PamelaL.Caughieaskswhethermodernismcanorshouldbecontainedandifso,whatwouldbetheethics/politicsofsuch“disciplining”?8Wewonder,havethefield’sboundariesbecomesoboundlessas to incorporate everything and thus lose all definitional cogency or analytic utility? Doesthisrebrandingexhibitimperialambitionstocolonizeotherfields?Oristhisnewplanetaryreachanunravelingoffoundationalhierarchies?Modernism,likemodernity,exceedsdefinitionalanddisciplinarylimitations.Andyet,thesetermsrequiresomesetofmeaningstoprovideanyfunctionaluse.Theconjunctionoftheneedforlimitsandtheirfailuretocontaincharacterizesmoderniststudiestoday,recapitulatingthelogicofmodernism/modernityitself.AsGarryLeonardsuggests,modernism/modernityisliketheinternalcombustionengine:bothexhibitanendlesslyrecurringdynamicofexplosionandcontainment.Thelogicofmodernityfollowsthehydraulicsofpressureandexplosiverelease;containmentandthenmovement.9
474 todefinemodernismand“makeitnew,”therebycreatinganethicallyunjustifiableneed for ourselves as a professorial elite.10Butaretreatintothecomfortzoneofamoderniststudiesbasedonlatenineteenth-earlytwentiethcentury“highmodernist”experimentationinEuropeandtheU.S.,isneitherdesirablenorpossible.Thecatisalreadyoutofthebag.Andyet,thedangerofanexpansionistmodernismlapsingintomeaninglessnessorcolonizinggesturesisreal.Tonavigatebetweentheseextremes,Iadvocateatransformational planetary epis-
temologyratherthanamerelyexpansionistoradditiveone,onethatbuildsonthefar-reachingimplicationsofthelinkageofmodernismwithmodernity.Thislink,reflectedin the title of theModernist StudiesAssociation’s journal,Modernism/Modernity, mightseemsoobviousbynowastobeunworthyofnote.Butitwasn’talwaysso.Inthe early days of the field, modernism was understood primarily in formalist terms as alooseaffiliationofmovementscoalescingaroundcertainaestheticrebellions,styles,and philosophical principles and resisting the aesthetics of immediate precursors in the artsandliteratureofso-called“high”culture.11Curiously,thesubstantivelinkbetweenmodernismandmodernityappeared inMalcolmBradburyandJamesMcFarlane’sintroduction to their 1976 volume, Modernism. They wrote:
Modernism is the one art that responds to the scenario of our chaos. It is the art con-sequentonHeisenberg’s ‘Uncertaintyprinciple’,of thedestructionofcivilizationandreasonintheFirstWorldWar,oftheworldchangedandreinterruptedbyMarx,Freud,andDarwin,ofcapitalismandconstantindustrialacceleration,ofexistentialexposuretomeaninglessnessorabsurdity.12
Inspiteoftheirbook’slimitedcanon,theseedwassownforaradicaldeparturefromaestheticism as the definitional foundation for modernism. Modernism,formany,becameareflectionofandengagementwithawidespectrum
ofhistoricalchanges,includingintensifiedandalienatingurbanization;thecataclysmsofworldwarandtechnologicalprogressrunamok;theriseandfallofEuropeanempires;changinggender,class,andracerelations;andtechnologicalinventionsthatradicallychangedthenatureofeverydaylife,work,mobility,andcommunication.Oncemo-dernitybecamethedefiningcauseofaestheticengagementswithit,thedooropenedto thinkingabout thespecificconditionsofmodernity fordifferentgenders, races,sexualities,nations,andsoforth.Modernitybecamemodernities,apluralizationthatspawned a plurality of modernisms and the circulations among them. Toresistthedefinitionalexpansionsinmoderniststudiesistofightmodernism’s
constitutivelinkwithmodernity.Coulditbethattheanxietiesaboutthegeohistoricalandgenericexpansionofmoderniststudiesrepresentsanuncannydesiretore-establishaparticularearly twentieth-centuryWesternaesthetic styleas thesina qua non of modernism?Whatistheethicsofthatinterminablyrepeatedcomfortzone?Howarewetobreaktheholdoftheoldmodernistmold?Thatisthequestion,ifwewanttofoster a planetary modernist studies.
Interrogate the slash! A planetary epistemology in modernist studies beginsbylookingatthemeaningsembeddedinthatslashbetweenmodernism/modernity.Theslashbothconnectsandseparates,itistheparadoxofallborders.Manyregularlyassumethatmodernismmirrors, reflects, reacts, or responds to modernity—as if the historical condition of modernity precedes the aesthetic response to it, as if modernismcomesbelatedlyastheavant-gardeofdissolvingepis-temological and political hegemonies. I want to suggest however, a simultaneityofeffectsandpractices.Ithinkweshouldstoppositing
Instead, I suggest we regard modernism in its different geohistorical locations and periods as a powerful domain within a particular modernity, not something outside ofit,causedbyit,orrespondingbelatedlytoit.Fromthisperspective,modernismis a force effecting change as much as it intersects other domains of change. Thus, I amsuggestingthatwetreatmodernismasthedomainofcreativeexpressivitywithin modernity’sdynamicofrapidchange,adomainthatinteractswiththeotherarenasof rupture such as technology, trade, migration, state formation, societal institutions, and so forth. Theslashbetweenmodernity/modernismimpliesasimultaneity,butalsoadistinc-
tion;aconnection,butalsoaseparation.Modernismisapartofmodernity,apartthatiscenteredinmodernity’saestheticdimension,whichisdistinctfromotherdimen-sionsbutnotseparatefromthem.Thoughinterlockedwithinstitutionaloreconomicforces,forexample,modernism’sexpressivedomainisaproductofparticularlyhumanagenciesinthemediaofthecreative,theaesthetic,andtherepresentational.Focusedon the contradictions of the slash, this approach opens doorways to seeing how the aesthetic interacts with other arenas of change. It also empowers a planetary approach tomodernismthatbreakstheAnglo-Europeanholdonthefield.Everymodernityhasits distinctive modernism.
Selena Beckman-
Harned. Thirteen
Blackbirds.
M O D E R N I S M / m o d e r n i t y
476 Blackbird Two: A Confession
Imustconfess,however,tosomeanxietiesthatIhavenotyetre-solved. The power of those early concepts of modernism as the crisis of aesthetic representation, with a repudiation of nineteenth-century realism, remains very strong within me. It is one thing to claim, as I have,thattextslikeTayebSalih’sSeason of Migration to the North (1966)andArundhatiRoy’sThe God of Small Things (1997) are “modernist,”definingapostcolonialmodernismbothinterlockedwithandyetdistinctfromEuro-Americanmodernism.14 The for-malistexperimentalismofthesetextsmakesthemphilosophically,psychologically, and aesthetically attuned towriters likeConrad,Joyce,Woolf,andFaulkner,howeverdifferenttheirmodernities.
It’sanotherthingentirelyformetomakesuchaclaimaboutanovellikeBrick Lane (2003), MonicaAli’spredominantlyrealistnovelofBangladeshimigrationtoLondon.Brick LanedeliberatelyechoesUlysses and Mrs. Dalloway,embedsepistolarynarra-tivesfromLondonandBangladesh,anddealscentrallywithwhatmigrationscholarNikosPapastergiadis calls “the restless trajectoriesofmodernity,” thedialogic andcontrapuntalpsychologiescharacterizingthe“turbulenceofmigration.”15 But is Brick Lanea“modernistnovel”?I’mcaughtinaconundrumofmyownmaking—myinsistenceonaplanetaryap-
Aplanetaryepistemologyofmodernism/modernitymustbreakthemoldofEurocentrism.“Eurocentrism,”writesAamirMufti,is “an epistemological problem” (“GlobalCorporatism,” 493).Epistemologysignifieswaysofknowingandembedsthepoliticalquestionsofwhoisdoingtheknowing,forwhomknowledgeisproduced,howknowledgeisdeployed,andwhobenefitsfromthatdeployment.Eurocentrism,ofcourse,isnottheonlycentrismonearth—all societies construct narratives of their own centrality, exceptionalism,andworldviewthroughwhichothersareviewedand against which they are measured. But in modernist studies, EurocentrismisthedominantcentrismtoconfrontbecausetheWest’snarrativeofitselfisthestoryofitsowninventionofmo-
477dernityandbecausethefieldofmoderniststudiesitselfbeganintheWestasastudyofWesternmodernitiesandmodernisms.Aplanetarymoderniststudiesbeginswith“provincializingEurope,”toinvokeDipeshChakrabarty’sresonantphrase.16 Add to thisanawarenessthattheconceptof“theWest”isitselfdeeplycentric,repressingtheheterogeneities and peripheries within EuropeandNorthAmericaandthedegreetowhichtheWesthasneverbeenandisnot“one.”Eurocentric“structuresofhistoricalknowledge,”asMuftiwrites,
normalizeandmakenormativetheideaofEuropeas“thesceneofthebirthofthemodern”.. . . It is the social and cultural forceofthisideaofEuropeinintellectuallife...thatIamreferringtohereasEurocentrism....Humanisticcultureissaturatedwiththisinformaldevelopmentalism—a“firstintheWest,andthenelsewhere”structureofglobaltime...inwhichculturalobjectsfromnon-WesternsocietiescanbegraspedonlywithreferencetothecategoriesofEuropeanculturalhistory,aspaleorpartialreflectionsofthelatter,tobeseenultimatelyascominglate,laggingbehind,andlackingoriginality.17
AnthonyGiddens,forexample,aprogressivedoyenofsociologicalmodernitystud-ies,definesmodernityasaspecifichistoricaldevelopmentcharacterizedbytheriseofthenation-state,panopticbureaucracies,andcapitalismasdevelopedintheWestfromtheeighteenthcenturyandspreadtomanypartsoftheworldbythetwentiethcentury.Inhisview,globalizationisthediffusionofWesternmodernitytotherestofthe world. He is not alone.18
Elsewhere,Ihavepositedmodernity’srelationalstructureasatemporalnarrativethatinventsthe“before”as“tradition.”Traditionisitselfaconstructofmodernity,comingintobeingatthemomentofitsloss,aprocessbothcelebratedandlamented.Inrela-tionalterms,Modernitycontainswithinitastruggle—oftenaviolentone—betweenmodernizersandtraditionalists—evident,forexample,inboth theU.S.andtheMiddleEast today.Italsocontainsapalimpsestic layeringofnewoverold,one thatofteninvolves a misrecognition of powerful continuities that is constitutive of modernity. Forsome,suchmisrecognitioninvolvesahauntingoftheoldinthenew,areturnoftherepressedoccasionedbytheruthlessforgettingofthepastthatNietzscheandDeMantheorizedasconstitutiveofmodernity.21Forothers,itrepresentsillusorythink-ingbasedinwhatBrunoLatourdescribesastheneedsofthemoderns“toinventtheGreatDivide”betweenthemselvesandthepremoderns.”22
Infacingthequestionofhownewis“thenew,”andhowmuchmustweforgettothinkofitas“thenew,”wealsobumpsquarelyintoamajordifficultywiththerela-tionalapproach.Wherethenominaldefinitionprovidesthecomfortofrelativestability(modernity=a,b,andc),therelationalapproachopensusuptothedifficultquestionofwhetheranythingis“notmodern,”andthuswhetheranyexpressiveformis“notmodernist.”Isthereahistoricalperiodwhichisnotundergoingrapidchangeacrossaspectrumofsocialindicators?Aretheretextswhicharenotengagedwiththatchange?ForanytextthatImightname,wouldsomeoneriseuptodefenditsparticularformofengagementwithaparticularmodernity?Milton’sParadise Lost forexample?WillaCather’sO Pioneers!?NormanMailer’sThe Naked and the Dead?Formodernity/modernism to have utility as analytic categories, even relationally defined, must we identify the not modern, not modernist?
FRIEDMAN / musing modernist studies
479Blackbird Five: An Experiment, Bound to Create Resistance
AlthoughIstillstrugglewiththesequestions,letmebrieflyshareanexperiment;anattempttodrawaverbalmapofmodernityrelation-ally defined as a set of conditions—dare I say structures?—open to a vast array of distinctive articulations across the longue durée of history.23
Modernity as Matrix of Converging Changes
Vortex of Change:technological, commercial, political
cultural, religious, aestheticfamilial, sexual
unevenunequal
Radical Ruptures:shattering breaks
movement, mobilityacceleration, speed
collisionsfluidity
dynamismfreedom/unfreedom
Hybridity Heightened:encounters
contact zonesmixing, mimesis
convergence, conjuncturetransaction, translation
juxtapositioninnovation
Phenomenology of the New and the Now: utopic/dystopic
480 Striking,youmightsay,howmuchthatmapexhibitsamodernistpoeticsdrawnfromtheearlytwentiethcenturyintheWest.Infact,SatyaP.Mohantychallengedmychartonjustthosegrounds,sayingthatitrepresentsanimpositionofanaestheticperspec-tive onto modernity, instead of the philosophical one featuring individualism that he prefers,orthesocioeconomiconeGiddensdelineates.Hemayberight.24 Perhaps all relational definitions slide into the nominal, incorporating willy-nilly some presupposed characteristics.AsIstrugglewiththisproblem,IacknowledgethatIamwhatIstudy,formedbymybackgroundinliterarystudies—thisisepistemologicallytrue.Icutmycritical teeth on manifesto modernism—perhaps my efforts to move outside of my epistemologicalframeenduprepeatingit.Ontheotherhand,forthewordmodernity tomeananythingatall,weneedtothinkaboutwhatisputintorelationwithwhat,andhowthatrelationshiptakesondifferentformsatdifferentgeohistoricallocations.PerhapsthemodernistpoeticsoftheearlytwentiethcenturyintheWestprescientlyarticulatedalogicatworkinothertimesandplaces.
Blackbird Six: The Multiple, Polycentric, and Recurrent
Arelationalepistemologyallowsustoseetheglobeafresh,toseethat modernity which is not one, to see modernity in its multiple and diverse forms in the geohistory of the world. In step with the rapidlyproliferatingrhetoricsofpluralmodernities,Iask,here,for
anapproachdiametricallyopposedtothatofFredricJamesoninA Singular Modernity, inwhichhearguesthat“Everyoneknowstheformulabynow....youtalkabout‘alter-native’or‘alternative’modernities....Butthisistooverlooktheotherfundamentalmeaningofmodernitywhichisthatofaworldwidecapitalism....Ibelievethattheonlysatisfactorysemanticmeaningofmodernityliesinitsassociationwithcapitalism.”25 Such a reductionist view limits the nominalist definition, even more radically than Giddensdoes,toasetofone:capitalism.Jameson’snotionofsingularityimpoverisheswhatneedstobeacomplexapproachtotheoverdeterminationsofhistoryandtheenmeshments of different systems of power in understanding modernity. Theprofusionof terms formodernity’s plural formationsbelies the singularity
Jamesonseeks.Thefieldaboundsinsuchadjectivesformodernityormodernitiesasmultiple, polycentric, early, at large, alternative, other, peripheral, divergent, discrepant, uneven, conjunctural, and recurrent.26Eachtermisitsownkeyword,withdifferentnuances,particularlyinwhatitsuggestsabouttherelationtoWesternmodernities.Ilikehowtheysuggestaspatialapproachtomodernity,anecessityforglobalizingaconceptthathasbeenpredominantly temporal.I likehowtheyassumeanuneventemporality for the emergence of different modernities. Some arise at the same time, suchasthemodernitiesofcolonizerandcolonizedinthefin de siècle ofBritain,Egypt,and India. Some arise at different times, such as the early modernities of India in the fourteenth-fifteenthcenturiesorthepostcolonialmodernitiesofAfricaafter1960.Ilikehow the term polycentric posits each modernity as its own center, with others as their peripheries.Ialsolikehowthetermsuneven and discrepant invite analysis of unequal
FRIEDMAN / musing modernist studies
481powerandprivilege,bothbetweendifferentlylocatedmodernitiesandwithinasinglelocation.Idoobjecttothewaysuchtermsasalternative, other, peripheral, and even divergent reinstateWesternmodernityasthecenter,withallthe“other”modernitiesasmarginalorderivative.Insum,Iliketermsthatsuggestthefluidityandmultiplicityof modernities, terms that refuse to use one modernity as the measure of all others. I havebeenprobing thepotential of yet another term, recurrent modernities,
because it suggests thathumanhistorycyclesunevenly throughperiodsof relativestasisandthenexplosivekinesis;betweenretrenchmentandexpansion,continuityandchange,consolidationandrisk;betweeninwardandoutwardmobilities.27 The concept of recurrent modernities requires a capacious historical archive, the longue durée of world historians or whatWaiChiDimockcalls“deeptime.”28 Different points of the globeflareupatdifferenttimesasnodalpointsoftransformationalchangeacrossawidespectrumofsocietaldomains,eachtakingaparticularforminitsgeohistoricallocation—fromlongagoworldsystemstotoday’sglobalization.AsDilipParameshwarGaonkarwrites,“everywhere, at every national/cultural site, modernity is not one but many, modernity is not new but old and familiar; modernity is incomplete and neces-sarily so.”29
Blackbird Seven: Conquest, Coloniality, and World-Systems
“Thereisnomodernitywithoutcoloniality,”WalterD.Mignolowrites.30He is speaking specifically ofEuropean andLatinAmerican modernities formed constitutively through conquest since1500.He regards themasdistinctivemodernities, butthoroughly enmeshed, formed through interaction with each other through conquest, or through colonial and postcolonial
relations.“Wehavecometounderstandcolonialismandconquestastheveryconditionofpossibilityformodernityandforaestheticmodernism,”writesAndreasHuyssenofEuro-Americanmodernism.31 Have we all come to this understanding, I wonder, or do (post)colonial modernities and modernisms remain at the periphery of the field? Morefundamentally,doother,evenearlierempirescombineperiodsofviolentcon-
questwithrapidtechnologicalchange,world-systemsoftradeandculturalexchange,thebang/clashofdifferentpeoplesandtheirworldviews,andnewrepresentationalpracticesintheartsandotherexpressivedomains?Yes,Ithinktheydo.Forstarters,theRomanEmpire;TangDynastyChina;theMuslimEmpirecenteredespeciallyinthecommercialandculturalcapitalsofBaghdad,Al-Andalus,andTimbuktu;theMughalEmpireinIndia;andthelargestlandempireinhumanhistory,theMongolEmpire—allencompassed these phenomena I am calling modernity before the modernities of the post-1500world-system.Allproducedexplosivelycreativemixturesofpeoplesandcul-tural practices.32PuttingtheformationofWesternmodernitywithinthatlongue durée doesnotdiminishitsglobalpower,butitdoeschangetheexceptionalist,diffusionist,and hierarchical originary myths of modernity that have dominated the field.
U.S. Air Force Blackbird.
M O D E R N I S M / m o d e r n i t y
482 Recognizingtheviolenceandconquestthataresooftenaconstitutivepartofrecur-rentmodernitieshelpspreventdiscoursesofmodernity’sfluidity,multidirectionality,andreciprocalexchangefromslidingintoautopianrhetoricofhappyhybridity.Tocounterthistendency,Ikeepremindingmyselfthatthemassiverupturesofmoder-nityacrossaspectrumofsocialformationsaremostlikelytooccurduringperiodsofrapid,oftenbrutalconquestthatcausewide-scalematerial,psychological,spiritual,representational, and epistemological dislocation.
And yet, with the dislocations of imperial or hegemonic dominance come creative re-locations.Withsufferingalsocomethetransformativeagenciesofthehumanimagi-nation.Recurrentmodernities,Ibelieve,areneitherpuredefeatnorpureprogress.Theyaregeohistoricalmomentsofdynamickinesisthatputindialecticthedystopicwith the utopic, slaveries with freedoms, destructions with creations. At the center of thesecontradictionslietheself-reflexiveandrepresentationaldomainsofmodernity,the arena of all modernisms. Justthinkofjazz:RememberthatPaulGilroyargues thatthefirstmodernsub-
jectsoftheEnlightenmentperiodweretheAfricanstornfromtheirhomes,enslavedintheNewWorld—alienated,exiled,transplanted,andinfinitelycreative.33 And in thatnewworld,theirdescendantsblendedEuropeanandAfricanmusicstocreatecreolizedmusicalformsthathavethemselvestransformed,traveled,andtransplantedthroughout the planet.
Blackbird Eight: Circulations, Networks, and Translations
Polycentric, recurrent modernities and their modernisms develop notinisolationbutalwaysrelationallythroughencounterswithothersocietiesandcivilizations,encounterswhicharetranscultural,notunidirectional.“Lescontactsentrelescultures—,”ÉdouardGlissantwrites,—c’estlàunededonnéesdelamodernité”/“Contactamongculturesisoneofthegivensofmodernity”(PR,39/26).Historiansof
theglobalecumenelikeAndréGunderFranktracelarge-scalepatternsofencounterthrough commerce, war, technology, migrations of people, and cultural practices.34 Anthropologists like JamesClifford andArjunAppardurai trace traveling cultures,interculturalnetworks,andtheprocessesofcultural translationandtranscultration,assertingthatdistinctiveculturesformthroughhybridicinteractionwithothers.35 In The Hybrid Muse and A Transnational Poetics JahanRamazaniadaptstheseconceptsofcirculatingculturestoproposeaplanetarypoeticsofmodernismthatis“bothdiscretelylocatedandthoroughlyenmeshed,networked,cross-racialized.”36AsLauraDoyleandLauraWinkielargueinGeomodernisms,thinking“intermsofinterconnectedmodern-isms”“breaksopen”thetermmodernismintosomethingtheycall“geomoderisms,”alandscapeofinterlockingengagementswith“culturalandpoliticaldiscoursesofglobalmodernity.”37In“Modernism,Geopolitics,Globalization,”MelbaCuddy-Keanebringsthe“interactivityandinterdependency”of“culturalglobalization”tomoderniststud-ies,insistingonthemultidirectional,kinetic,andimpurefluidityof“disjunctiveglobal
Erin McKean. Pho-
tograph, 2010.
FRIEDMAN / musing modernist studies
483flows.”38ReginiaGagnier’sGlobalCirculationProjectisavastonlinedialogueamongscholars around the world on the circulations of different Anglophone modernisms.39
Theborderlandsofcontactzonescreatecreolizationsonallsidesthroughpatternsofimitation,adaptation,transculturation,andculturaltranslation.“Icallcreolizationthemeeting,”Glissantwrites,“theinterference,shock,harmonies,anddisharmoniesbetweentheculturesoftheworld,intherealizedtotalityoftheworld”(“UnforeseeableDiversity,”290).Beyondcreolization,dozensofkeywordsinEnglisharebeingused—andpresumablyinotherlanguages—fortheseprocesses,eachwithdifferentresonances,oftensuggestingbothutopicanddystopicformsofinterculturalencounter.Think,forexample,oftheopposingweightoftermslikecontamination versus adaptation or theft versus translation.Ihavebeencollectingthesekeywordsandsortingthemintodistinctiverhetoricsbasedonthebiological(e.g.,adaptation,bastardization,contamination,grafting,rhizome,transplantation,etc.);thecorporeal(e.g.,incorporation,absorption,cannibal-ization,ingestion,etc.);thecommercial(e.g.,borrowing,commerce,exchange,lending,traffic,etc.);thepolitical(e.g.,accommodation,alliance,appropriation,collaboration,co-optation,etc.);thetechnological(e.g.,interlocking,network,web,transmission,etc.);thecultural(e.g.,assimilation,blending,encounter,hybridization,vernacularization,etc.);andtherepresentational(e.g.,mimesis,cuttingandpasting,distortion,translation,versioning,etc.).Inshort,thevastarrayofkeywordsforinterculturalismonaglobalscalepointtothemajordomainsthatconstellatedifferentmodernities.
Models of planetary cultural traffic, mimesis, and translation need to supplant older conceptsofmodernistinternationalism,whicharetypicallybasedonbinariesofSelf-Other,modern-traditional,civilized-savage,highart-primitiveart.Theappropriationmodel inparticularregards themodernistsof theWestascosmopolitanproducersofculturewhociteorstealthetraditionsoftheResttobreakoutoftherepressive,clichéd,ornarrowrepresentationalconventionsoftheWest.WhetherusedinpraiseorcritiqueoftheWest’smodernism,theappropriationmodelrecapitulatesthelogicofimperialism,withtheRestprovidingtherawmaterialtransmutedintomodernistartintheWest.AsJahanRamazaniargues,“Criticismthatreduceshighmodernist ...‘appropriations’toorientalisttheftorprimitivistexoticismmayriskcircumscribinginsteadofopeninguppossibilitiesforglobalandtransnationalanalysis.”40Picasso’sLes Demoiselles D’Avignon(1907),withitsincorporationofAfricanmasksintothreeofthefivefacesoftheprostitutesinthepainting,isofteninvokedastheiconicexampleof this appropriation model.41 [fig. 2] AsSimonGikandihasargued,suchdiscussionsoften refuse to grant African art the position of aesthetic or formal innovation, instead reducing it to the fetishistic and psychological.42 In contrast to the appropriation model, a planetary approach to cultural circulation would stress how the agencies of African artistsproducingandbeingcollectedinAfrica inthelatenineteenthcenturywerepart of a colonial modernity, constituting a colonial modernism that Picasso and the cubistsindigenized,thatis,madenativetoParisianmodernism.ThecreativeagenciesofmodernitiesoutsidetheWestcirculatedintotheWestastransformativeinfluences.Who,wemustask,isderivativeofwhom?[figs.3–6]TakeforanotherexampletheUkiyo-e,orFloatingWorldwoodblocksfromJapan,
izedintheMeijiperiod.[figs.7and8] Asaformof“low”orpopularart,theUkiyo-ehadbeenproducedsincetheseventeenthcenturyinEdo,alittleseaofcommercialandaestheticmodernitywithinJapan’sfeudalstate.VanGoghcalledtheUkiyo-e“savage,”andfreelytranslatedtheirboldaestheticsofcroppededges,radicaldesigns,andcolorpatterns,tomakehispaletteandframe“modern.”43 [fig.9] MaryCassattindigenizedtheUkiyo-easwell,adaptingformalistqualities,asinThe Boating Party (1894), along withtheirfascinationwithinteriors,fabrics,materialculture,andmomentsofintimacy[fig.10].ShedidnotregardtheUkiyo-eartistsas“savage,”butratherpromotedtheirartistrythroughcollectingUkiyo-eanddisplayingherfavorite,Utamaro,sidebysidewith her Suite of Ten (1890–1891)inherownhouse.[figs.11and12] Again,Iask,whois derivative of whom? And how does seeing Japanese popular art as the source of aes-theticinnovationindigenizedinFrancechangeourunderstandingofmodernism?44
Fig. 2. Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907. The
Aplanetary aesthetics ofmodernismneeds tobe transformativeratherthanmerelyadditive.Itisworthwhiletoidentifytexts—visual,verbal, auditory—outside theWest that exhibit the aesthetics ofso-called“highmodernism,”butafullyplanetaryapproachshouldaimtodetectthedifferentformsthatrepresentationalrupturetakeinconnectionwithdifferentmodernities.WeneedtoletgoofthefamiliarlaundrylistofaestheticpropertiesdrawnfromtheWesternculture capitals of the early twentieth century as the definitional core ofmodernism.I’mattachedtothatlist,asIhaveconfessed.Butweneedtoprovincializeit,thatistosee“high”or“avant-garde”mod-ernismasONEarticulationofaparticularlysituatedmodernism—animportantmodernismbutnotthemeasurebywhichallothersarejudgedandtowhichallothersmustbecompared.Instead,wemustlookacrosstheplanet,throughdeeptime,andverticallywithineach
formal,particularlythecreativeagenciesofexpressiveculturethatputintoquestionthe representational conventions of their time and place. I want to avoid the familiar polarizationof aesthetics andpolitics thatprivileges oneover theother.Rather, Ihopethatwecanbeopentodifferentkindsofaestheticinnovationlinkedtodifferentmodernities around the world and through time. In this regard, the aesthetic is always imbricatedinthepolitical,thehistorical.Andvice versa.Notasinglesetofformalistcharacteristics,butrathertheformalper se, however it might articulate the modern.Take, for example, theexperimentalblendofhigh and lowculture as aesthetic
markers of anAfricandiasporicmodernity in theHarlemRenaissance.LangstonHughes’sMontage of a Dream Deferred wedsajazzandbluesaesthetictothelyricsequence form of the twentieth-century long poem and the dialectical principles of cinematic montage:
Dream Boogie
Good morning, daddy! Ain’tyouheardTheboogie-woogierumbleOfadreamdeferred?
Taketheparticularintertextualityofpostcolonialmodernisms.TheglobalcitationalstrategiesofPoundandEliotarereinventedinthedialogicengagementofthecolonizedwiththecolonizer,throughdenaturalizingmimicriesorindigenizingtransplantions,asinTayebSalih’sorArundhatiRoy’srewritingofHeart of Darkness.Roy’splaywithConrad’stitle—“DarkofHeartnesstiptoedintotheHeartofDarkness”—doesmorethanmimicinacolonialregister.Itrelocatesthe“darkness”ofallstates(colonizing,
FRIEDMAN / musing modernist studies
489colonized,andpostcolonial)fromthepurelygeopoliticaltotheinterpenetrationsofpublicandprivate,institutionalandpersonal,therebyfosteringarereadingofMarlow’slie to the Intended.46Postcolonialintertextualitiesarenotderivative;theyinnovate,inadifferentregister,breakingwithotherandoftenmultipleconventions.Aplanetarymodernistpoeticsmustbeplural,openinguptheconceptofformal
ruptures toawidearrayof representationalengagementswithmodernity. “RatherthanprivilegetheradicallynewinWesternavant-gardist fashion,”writesHuyssen,“wemaywanttofocusonthecomplexityofrepetitionandrewriting,bricolage and translation,”orthelayeringofhighandlow,realismandexperiment,“thusexpandingournotionofinnovation.”47InLatinAmerica,MaryLouisePrattargues,Europeanavant-gardismdevelopedalongsideotherexperimentalismswithrural,frontier,andethnographicaestheticsblendingorality,popularforms,realism,thevernacular,andthesupernatural—asinthemodernistmagicrealismofGabrielGarcíaMárquez.48
Blackbird Ten: Plural Languages
Howcanmoderniststudiesbeplanetaryifitismonolingual,ifitoperates within the lingua franca of any given era, if it reproduces thelinguistichegemoniesofmodernity’s imperial legacies, if, forexample,itremainswithintheconfinesofglobalEnglishtoday?“LeditdelaRelation,”Glissantwrites,“estmultilingue.Par-delà
lesimpositionsdespuissanceséconomiquesetdespressionscultu-relles,ilss’opposeendroitautotalitanismedesvisées,monolingues”/“Relationisspokenmultilingually.Goingbeyondtheimpositionsofeconomicforcesandculturalpressures,Relationrightfullyop-posestotalitarianismofanymonolingualintent”(PR,31/19). Even
Modernity’spolylogueisavastarchiveofhundredsoflanguagesbeyondthekenofanyindividual.ButGlissant’s“worldness”—hisconceptof“planetaryconsciousness”—asksnotfortheimpossiblelinguistically,butratherforatransformativeepistemology:thatwe write with the consciousness of the diversity of languages and cultures and the richnessthatthesedifferencesbring.Inthissense,themultilingualarchipelagooftheCaribbeanishismodelfor“worldness.”Creolization,forGlissant,isnotthesynthesisorfusionofdifferenceintoamonolingualsameness,notaglobalhomogenization.Instead,creolitérepresentstheprincipleoflinguisticdifferencesinmixture:thecontactzones
Blackbirds of 1928.
Music score cover.
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490 ofencounter,linkages,interconnections—apoeticsofmultilingualrelationbasedinthe continual play of multiple vernaculars.49
Translationhasacentralroletoplayinthemultilingualglobalizationofmoderniststudies.Translationinvolvesaparadoxofthecommensurableandincommensurable,asEmilyApterarguesinThe Translation Zone.Equivalencefromonelanguagetoanother,oneculturetoanotherisnotpossible,buttheexistenceofworldsystemsforthousands of years has necessitated the continual presence of translation, evident in theancientRosettaStoneinEgyptianhieroglyphics,EgyptianDemotic,andGreekfrom196B.C.E.andthemorerecentChengdeImperialSteleinManchu,Tibetan,Chinese, and Mongol from the Qing Dynasty in the eighteenth century. [figs. 13 and 14] Planetaryculturalcirculations,networks,andenmeshmentsof theglobaland localalldependupontranslation,broadlyunderstoodfromthelinguistictothecultural.Indeed, linguistic translation is essentially a practice of intercultural encounter and borderthinking,thebasisuponwhichotherculturaltrafficdepends.Translationisaformofadaptation,transplantation, indigenization—fromoneculturetoanother.The multidirectional traveling of modernities and their modernisms is fundamentally a translational practice.Onaplanetary scale, themultitudeof vernaculars coexistswith the singularity
of a lingua franca,acommonlanguagethatenablestheculturalflowsoftheglobalecumene—fromAramaic,Latin,Sanskrit,andChinesetoArabic,French,andEnglish.Thecoexistenceisadynamicandtenseone,withthevernacularsperpetuallyunderthreat,withthenativespeakersofthecommonlanguageprivilegedaboveallothers.50 Translationinplanetarymoderniststudiestodayoughttobereciprocalandmultidi-rectional. But it is too much of a one-way street, with the rest of the world translat-ingEnglishtextsintootherlanguages,withmanyfewerworksbeingtranslatedintoEnglish,andwithEnglishtranslationtoooftenservingasthemediationbetweentwoother languages.51Challengingmodernity’scomplicitywithcolonialismintheforma-tion of a planetary modernist studies requires studying, reading, and empowering the vernaculars.Everymodernityplaysout linguistically inadialecticof thevernacularand the
cosmopolitan. The linguistic cosmopolitanism of Ulysses, The Cantos, or The Waste Landisfamouslycitational,absorbinglanguagesfromelsewhereintoEnglish.Makenomistake,however.Theoppositionbetweenvernacularandlingua franca or cosmopoli-tanismdoesnotreproducethebinaryoftraditional/modern.Thevernacularhasoftensignaledamodernityofadifferentkind,aresistancetothehegemonyofthelanguageofelitesofallkindsaspartofwidespreadsocietalchange.52Chaucer’sMiddle-EnglishandDante’sItalianwereharbingersoftheRenaissance,breakingwiththedominanceofLatin.Women,attimesdeniedaccesstothelanguagesof“highliterature,”wroteandreadinthevernacular,helpinglocalspokenlanguagesdevelopliterarycultures:forexample,LadyMurasakiintheearlyeleventhcentury,brokewiththedominanceofChineseinhighculture,bywritingThe Tale of Genji in Japanese.53 In medieval Al-Andalus, a new poetic form arose called the Muwashshahat counterpointing the parallellovelamentsofamanspeakinginclassicalArabicandawomanspeakingin
FRIEDMAN / musing modernist studies
491
thevernacular,asMariaRosaMenocalshows.54Infifteenth-centuryOrissa,agroupoflow-caste(sudra)poet-saintschallengedtheSanskrit-educatedeliteinproducingrevolutionarypoemsinOriya,thelocalvernacular,accordingtoSatyaP.Mohanty.Oneofthese,BalaramDas,writesanexplicitlyfeministnarrativeinthevernacularthatadvocatesgenderandcasteequality(“AlternativeModernities,”3–5).Inhisnovella,The Broken Nest,RabindranathTagoreconflatestheassociationofthevernacularwithmodernityandwomenwritersbyhavingawoman’sanonymouslypublished, fresh,modernwritinginthevernaculartakeliteraryCalcuttabystormforitsbreakwiththeartifice of convention-ridden Bengali poetics.55 The vernacular, as Amit Chaudhuri writes,is“theidiomofmodernity.”56
Blackbird Eleven: Anxiety’s Return
Iseedoubtinyourfaces;Ifeeldoubtinmyown.Tenwaysofsee-ingthatblackbirdhaveproducedanarchiveofmodernismsthatisstaggeringinitsglobalandtemporalreach.Thatwayparalysislies.What’sapoorscholartodo?Thisistoomuch.That’sjustgoingtoofar.Don’tweneedtodisciplinetheproliferationofmodernismsandtheirinterconnections?Can’twejustglobalizemodernismwithinasingleandidentifiablehistoricalperiod—let’ssay,1890through1950, as theModernist StudiesAssociation’swebsiteproclaims,or1840through1950,ifwewanttoincludetheFrench?Genug, enough already!
China. 18th century. Inscriptions in Manchu, Tibetan,
Chinese, and Mongol.
The Blackbirds,
Anatomy of Melan-
choly. 2006. Album
cover, Blackdog
Records.
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492 Ah,thatoldcomfortzoneagain,thereturnofwhatissohardtorepressinmoderniststudies. I suggest, however, that we return instead to the full significance of the slash: Modernism/Modernity.Ifmodernismisconstitutivelylinkedtomodernityasthecre-ativeandexpressivedomainwithinit,thenweareboundtorecognizethatparticularmodernismstakeshapewithindifferentmodernitiesandcanpotentiallyenduplookingvery different from each other. That slash has consequences.
Blackbird Twelve: The Archives of Planetary Modernisms and How to Read Them
Toworkwithin a planetary framework, no single scholarneeddo it all. Instead,we can recognize the foundationalmeaningofcollaborationintheprojectofscholarship—weshareacommonproject,howeverourviews,methods,andlanguagesdiffer.Wecaneachlocateourselvesinamanageableway among the multiplicity of critical practices in modernist studies.Wecanfindourownplaceonthecriticalmapofthefield,one thatsuitsourparticular interestsandknowledge
Re-visionistheactoflookingagain,ofdefamiliarizingthefamiliararchivebylook-inganewthroughdifferentlenses,askingnewquestionsof“highmodernism”:Picasso,Pound,Joyce,Woolf,Eliot,andsoforth.WhatarethetracesofothermodernitieswithinthetextsofEuropeanandAnglo-America“highmodernism”?WherearethefootprintsoftheplanetaryinthelocalformationsoftheWest?Whatistheghostinthemachine?ScoresofscholarssinceSimonGikandi’spathbreakingMaps of Eng-lishnesshavelearnedtoreadcolonialityinthemodernismsofEuropeandtheU.S. 60 ButtheplanetarynotonlyincorporatesWesternempiresbutalsoexceedsthem.TheplanetaryofwhatDimockcalls“deeptime”—atranscontinentalspatialityaswellaslongue durée—needstoberereadinthemodernismsoftheWest.61
Recovery is the act of digging, an archaeology of new archives—other modernities outsidethefamiliarWesternonesandthusotherformsofcreativeexpressivities.Newbooksonothermodernismsareproliferating,workingwithmodernismscontempora-neouswithorindifferenttime-framesfromWesternmodernisms.Inhistranslationof Kalapurnodaymau/ The Sound of the KissfromtheTeleguofthesixteenthcentury,V.NarayanaRao,forexample,claimsanearlymodernismforPingaliSuranna,citinghis invention of the novel-in-verse genre for Telegu literature, his radical disruption ofliteraryconventions,andhispsychologizingofthehumanmind.Raoalsotranslatesa more recent Indian modernism: Kanyasulkam/ Girls for Sale, an 1892 Telegu play usingparody,masquerade,andsatiretoattackboththecolonialgovernmentandthegender system within Indian culture.62 Multilingual scholars are the avant-garde of such recoveries,locatingburiedandforgottentextsintheglobalarchiveoflanguages,butscholarsworkingintranslationarealsoessentialtobringknowledgeofthesemodern-isms into the lingua franca of the field.63
493Circulationisthearchiveofmobility,callingfortheactofseeinglinkages,networks,conjunctures,creolizations,intertextualities,travels,andtransplantationsconnectingmodernisms fromdifferentpartsof theplanet.Often thepathways are the routesbornofcolonialism,passagestoIndia,Africa,ortheCaribbeanbywesternwriterslikeForsterorConrad;passagestothecolonizers’metropolebywriterslikeJeanRhys,MulkRajAnand,orTayebSalih.Howisthatrelationalityexperienced,reflectedupon,represented?Whatistheinterplayofrootsandroutesinthosecirculationsacrosstheglobe?Unlikeacenter/peripherymodel,circulationstressestheinteractiveanddy-namic,assumingmultipleagencies,centers,andconjuncturesaroundtheworld.
Collageisthearchiveofradicaljuxtaposition,thescholar’sactofparatacticcuttingandpasting.Itestablishesamontageofdifferenceswheretheputtingsidebysideil-luminates those differences at the same time that it spotlights commonalities. Ideally, collageisanon-hierarchicalactofcomparison,ajoiningthatilluminatesbothcom-mensurabilitiesandincommensurabilities.Take,forexample,fromdifferentpartsoftheworldanddifferentdecades,AiméCésaire’sNotebook for a Return to the Native Land andTheresaHakKyungCha’sDictée.Voila!Whatcomesintofocusisadiasporicmodernismbasedintheinstabilitiesofcolonialexileandtheimaginativerecreationoflosthomes:forCésaire,NegritudereunitingthediasporasofslaverywithblackAf-rica;forCha,thematernalbodyasroutetoasyncreticphenomenologyofhomeandhomeland.Bothinvokingtherhythmofaller/retour.64
PlanetarityinitsverynameinvokestheEarthindeeptime.Doesthe planet have its own modernities, crises distinct from those of the human species? The critical practices of re-vision, recovery, circulation,andcollagecanexaminethemeaningsofthenon-humanworld for the human and the interactions of human modernities with theEarthasaplanetinthecosmos.Canwe,forexample,re-visionEliot’swastelandinthecontextofecologicaldisastersandreadthehumanmindasobjectivecorrelativeofthelandscapescarredbywar? How do the rivers of Heart of Darkness, Season of Migration to the North, and The God of Small Thingsbothshapeandexceedthehumanstoriesuponthem?“Timepasses,”Woolffamouslywritesin To the Lighthouse, with human modernities a mere parenthesis withinnature’sgeohistory.57
Perhapsmore answerable is to examine the intersectionofhumanmodernitieswiththeearth’snon-humanspecies,diversities,andcosmicrhythms.UrsulaK.Heise
Michael Spafford,
The Planet. No.
9 from woodcut
series, Thirteen
Ways of Looking at
a Blackbird. 1975.
Courtesy of Mi-
chael Spafford.
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494 callsforan“‘eco-cosmopolitanism’,orenvironmentalworldcitizenship”thatfreestheterm cosmopolitanism from early twentieth-century modernist “connotations of social privilegeandleisuretravel.”58Glissant’spoeticsofrelationincludesacalltorecognizethe“relationalinterdependenceofalllands,ofthewholeEarth,”andtheparticularlyharshconsequencesofthe“politicsofecology”forthepoor(PR,146).Heasksforan“aestheticsoftheearth”whichisnot“anachronisticornaïve:reactionaryorsterile,”butratheran“aestheticsofruptureandconnection,”of“disruptionandintrusion”thatcanencompass“thehalf-starveddustofAfricas,”“themudoffloodedAsias,”“inepidem-ics,maskedformsofexploitation,fliesbuzz-bombingtheskeletonskinsofchildren,”“incitysewers”andsoforth(PR, 150, 151). In what way do our human modernities OthertheEarth,hewonders.
Planetarity
Planetarity as I use the term is an epistemology, not an ontology. On a human scale, the “worldness” the term invokes—to echoGlissant—means a polylogue of languages, cultures, viewpoints, andstandpointsonmodernism/modernity.Itrequiresattentiontomodesoflocalandtranslocalmeaning-makingandtranslation,toprocessesandpracticesofperceptionandexpressiononaglobalscale.Itisnotnominalist,fundamentalist:itdoesn’tnameasingu-
larmodernism/modernity,therebyprivilegingoneoverallothers.Itmust,byitsvery“worldness,”encompassmultitudesonaglobalgridofrelationalnetworks.Andthatmeansencompassingcontradictions,tensions,oppositions,andasymmetries.Likerootedandsituatedcos-mopolitanisms, planetarity suggests a capacity to engage simultaneously withlocalandglobalmodernities.Itembracesthegenerativeenergiesandsynergiesofmodernism’sTowerofBabel.Inthat, it isutopian.
Notveryquotidian,Iknow;notdownanddirtyinthetrenchesofreading,teaching,conferencing,publishing.Butnonethelessplanetarity isavisionthatcanpercolatethrough the practices of everyday professional life. Planetarityisnotathreat,itisanopportunity.Itmeansleavingthecomfortzone
3. See Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity 2nd ed. (NewYork:Penguin,1988).4.“AmongSchoolChildren,”The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats(NewYork:Macmillan,1956),
212–14.5. I use the term planetarity inadifferentsensethanGayatriChakravortySpivakinDeath of a
Discipline (NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2003),wheresheinvokes“planetarity”asauto-piangestureofresistanceagainstglobalizationasthegeohistoricalandeconomicdominationoftheGlobalSouth.Termssuchasplanet, planetary, globality, globalism, world, worldness, worlding, and worldlinessabound incultural theorywithoutstablemeanings; theyareoftenutopicordystopic,typically connoting a transnational consciousness orworld systembeyond thenationalparadigm,though seldom denying the continued significance of the nation-state. I use the term planetarity in an epistemological sense to imply a consciousness of the earth as planet, not restricted to geopolitical formationsandpotentiallyencompassingthenon-humanaswellasthehuman.Fortheshiftingrheto-ricsoftheplanetary,global,orworldness,seeforexample,MaryLouisePratt,Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation(London:Routledge,1992),1–37; Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia (NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2005),29–57;WaiCheeDimock,Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,2006);EdwardSaid,“CultureandtheVultures,”Times Higher Education Supplement 24(January1992):19;BruceRobbins,“ComparativeCosmopolitans,”inCosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation, ed.PhengCheahandBruceRobbins(Minneapolis:UniversityofMinnesotaPress,1998),247;FrancoMoretti,“ConjecturesonWorldLiterature,”New Left Review,SecondSeries(January/February2000):54–68;EmilyApter,The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,2006),3–11,85–93;RobinMorgan,“PlanetaryFeminism,”inSisterhood Is Global (NewYork:FeministPress,1996),1–37; R.Radhakrishnan,“Worlding,byAnyOtherName,”inHis-tory, the Human, and the World Between(Durham,N.C.:DukeUniversityPress,2008),183–248;AamirR.Mufti,“GlobalComparitism,”Critical Inquiry 31(Winter2005):487;hereafterabbreviated“GlobalComparatism”;ÉdouardGlissant,“TheUnforeseeableDiversityoftheWorld,”trans.HaunSaussy, in Beyond Dichotomies: Histories, Identities, Cultures, and the Challenge of Globalization, ed. ElisabethMudimbe-Boyi(Albany:StateUniversityofNewYorkPress,2002),287–88,295;hereafterabbreviated“UnforeseeableDiversity”;ÉdouardGlissant,Poétique de la Relation (Paris: Gallimard, 1990),155–81/Poetics of Relation,trans.BetsyWing(AnnArbor:UniversityofMichiganPress,1997),141–67;hereafterabbreviatedPR. 6.DouglasMaoandRebeccaL.Walkowitz,“TheNewModernistStudies,”PMLA 123, no. 3
ism: A Guide to European Literature 1890–1930(1976;reprint,NewYork:Penguin,1991),27.
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496 13.“ThirteenWaysofLookingataBlackbird,”The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens(NewYork:Vintage,1990),92–95.14.SusanStanfordFriedman,“PeriodizingModernism:PostcolonialModernitiesandtheSpace/
TimeBordersofModernistStudies.”Modernism/Modernity12,no.3(September2006):425–44;SusanStanfordFriedman,“Paranoia,Pollution,andSexuality:AffiliationsbetweenE.M.Forster’sA Passage to IndiaandArundhatiRoy’sThe God of Small Things,”inGeomodernisms: Race, Modern-ism, Modernity,ed.LauraDoyleandLauraWinkiel(Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,2005),245–61.
15. Monica Ali, Brick Lane(NewYork:Scribner’s,2003);NikosPapastergiadis,The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity(Cambridge,U.K.:PolityPress,2000),12.16.DipeshChakrabarty,Provincializaing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference
rationalizingEuropeanimperialism,seealsoJ.M.Blaut,The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geograph-ical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History(NewYork:GuilfordPress,1993);Friedman,“PeriodizingModernism,”429;SusanStanfordFriedman,“UnthinkingManifestDestiny:MuslimModernitiesonThreeContinents,”inShades of the Planet: American Literature as World Literature,ed.WaiCheeDimockandLawrenceBuell(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,2007),62–100.
18. Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity(Stanford,Cal.:StanfordUniversityPress,1994).SeealsoStuartHallandBramGieben’sFormations of Modernity,atextbooksummarizingtheprevailingview(Cambridge,U.K.:PolityPress,1992).19.Forextendeddiscussionofnominalversusrelationaldefinitionsofmodernity/modernism,see
SusanStanfordFriedman,“DefinitionalExcursions:TheMeaningsofModern/Modernity/ Modern-ism”Modernism/Modernity8,no.3(September2001):500–05.20.BrunoLatour,We Have Never Been Modern, trans.CatherinePorter (Cambridge,Mass:
HarvardUniversityPress,1993),10.21.Friedman,“DefinitionalExcursions,”504,510;Friedman,“PeriodizingModernity,”434–39.22.Latour,We Have Never Been Modern,39–40.23.Forextendeddiscussion,seeSusanStanfordFriedman,“OneHandClapping:Colonialism,
Postcolonialism, and theSpatio/TemporalBoundariesofModernism,” inTranslocal Modernisms: International Perspectives,ed.IreneRamalhoSantosandAntónioSousaRibeiro(NewYork:PeterLang,2008),11–40.24.CommentsduringdiscussionofSusanStanfordFriedman,“PlanetaryModernismsandthe
ModernitiesofEmpireandNewNations,”paperdeliveredattheconferenceonMeaningsofModern:SouthAsiabeforeandafterColonialism,Madison,Wisconsin,December4–6,2008.25.FredricJameson,A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present(London:Verso,
2002),12.Inspiteofhisbelief“thattheonlysatisfactorysemanticmeaningofmodernityliesinitsassociationwithcapitalism,”hisbookanalyzesthemany“usesoftheword‘modernity’”inthehistoryofideasandclaimsthathe“rejectsanypresuppositionthatthereisacorrectuseoftheword,”thuscontradicting his own prescriptive and limited definition (13).26.SeeforexampleHomiK.Bhabha,The Location of Culture (London:Routledge,1993);S.N.
Eisenstadt,ed.SpecialIssueonMultipleModernitiesDaedalus 129,no.1(winter2000);ShumelN.EisenstadtandWolfgangSchluchter,eds.SpecialIssueonEarlyModernities,Daedalus 127, no. 3(summer1998); DilipParameshwarGaonkar,ed.Alternative Modernities (Durham,N.C.:DukeUniversityPress,2001);MaryLouisePratt,“ModernityandPeriphery:TowardaGlobalandRelationalAnalysis,” inBeyond Dichotomies: Histories, Identities, Cultures and the Challenge of Globaliza-tion,ed.ElisabethMudimbe-Boyi(Albany:StateUniversityPressofNewYork,2002),21–48;R.Radhakrishnan,“DerivativeDiscoursesandtheProblemofSignification,”European Legacy 7, no. 6(2002):783–95;JuliosRamos,Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America,trans.JohnD.Blanco(Durham,N.C.:DukeUniversityPress,2001);SanjaySubrah-manyam,“HearingVoices:VignettesofEarlyModernityinSouthAsia,1400–1750,”Daedalus 127, no.3(1998):75–104;SatyaP.Mohanty,“AlternativeModernitiesandMedievalIndianLiterature:
nities of their pre-1500 empires. 33. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge,Mass.:
HarvardUniversityPress,1993),221.34.AndréGunderFrank,ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age(Berkeley:Universityof
California Press, 1998). See J.M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s View of the WorldandStephenK.Sanderson,ed. Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Change(London:Sage,1995).
35. James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century(Cambridge,Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress,1997).SeealsoAnnaL.Tsing,Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection(Princeton,N.J.PrincetonUniversityPress,2004).36.JahanRamazani,A Transnational Poetics (Chicago,Ill.:UniversityofChicagoPress,2009),16;
The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English(Chicago,Ill.:UniversityofChicagoPress,2001).37.LauraDoyleandLauraWinkiel,eds.Geomodernisms: Race, Modernism, Modernity (Bloom-
ington: IndianaUniversityPress, 2005), 430.SeealsoBrooker andThacker, eds.Geographies of Modernism;MarkWolleager,ed.The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms(Oxford,U.K.:OxfordUniversityPress,2011);MaryAnnGillies,HelenSword,andStevenYao,eds.Pacific Rim Modernisms (Toronto,CA:UniversityofTorontoPress,2009).38.MelbaCuddy-Keane, “Modernism,Geopolitics,Globalization,”Modernism/Modernity 10,
LiteratureCompass(http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/literature/).40.Ramazani,A Transnational Poetics, 11. See also Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places
in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern,ed.WilliamRubin.Vol.1(Boston,Mass.:Little,Brown,1984);ChristopherGreen,ed.Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon(Cambridge,U.K.:CambridgeUniversity,2001).42.SimonGikandi,“Picasso,Africa,andtheSchemataofDifference,”Modernism/Modernity 10,
modernityontheImpressionists,seeFriedman,“OneHandClapping,”29–34.45. Montage of a Dream Deferred, Collected Poems of Langston Hughes,ed.ArnoldRampersad
(NewYork:Vintage,1995),388.SeealsoArnoldRampersad,“LangstonHughesandApproachestoModernismintheHarlemRenaissance,”The Harlem Renaissance Revaluations,ed.AmrijitSingh,WilliamS.Shiver,andStanleyBrodwin(NewYork:Garland,1989),49–71.ForrecenttransnationalapproachestoHarlemRenaissancemodernism,seeEdwardM.Pavlic,Crossroads Modernism: Descent and Emergence in African-American Literary Culture(Minneapolis:UniversityofMinnesotaPress,2002)andBrentHayesEdwards,The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translations, and the Rise of Black Internationalism(Cambridge,Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress,2003).
M O D E R N I S M / m o d e r n i t y
498 46.TayebSalih,Season of Migration to the North, trans. Denys Johnson-Davies (Boulder, Colo: ThreeContinentsBooks, 1970);ArundhatiRoy,The God of Small Things (NewYork:RandomHouse,1997),290.SeeFriedman,“PeriodizingModernism,”435–39;and“Paranoia,Pollution,andSexuality.”47.Huyssen,“GeographiesofModernism,”15,13.48.MaryLouisePratt,“ModernityandPeriphery,”40–43.49.Forothertheorizationsofmultilingualismandpolyglotlanguages(includingEnglishes),see
EvelynNien-mingCh’en,Weird English(Cambridge,Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress,2004);Ma-rinaCamboni,“ImpureLines:MultilingualismmHybridity,andCosmopolitanisminContemporaryWomen’sPoetry,”Contemporary Women’s Writing1.1(December2007):34–44;JohnMarx,The Modernist Novel and the Decline of Empire(Cambridge,U.K.:CambridgeUniversityPress,2005);FrançoiseLionnet,“ContinentsandArchipelagoes:FromE Pluribus UnumtoCreolizedSolidarities,”PMLA 123,no.5(2008):1503–15;StuartHall,“TheLocalandtheGlobal:GlobalizationandEthnic-ity,”inCulture, Globalization and the World-System,ed.AnthonyKing(Minneapolis:UniversityofMinnesotaPress,1997),19–40.50.SeeWalterD.Mignolo,“Globalization,CivilizationProcesses,andtheRelocationofLanguages
andCultures,”inThe Cultures of Globalization,eds.FredricJamesonandMasaoMiyoshi(Durham,N.C.:DukeUniversityPress,1999),32–53;BrianStock,“TowardInterpretivePluralism:LiteraryHistoryandtheHistoryofReading,”New Literary History 39,no.3(summer2008):389–413;DavidBleich,“Globalization,Translation,andtheUniversityTradition,”New Literary History 39, no. 3 (summer2008):497–517.51.SeeEstherAllen’sdiscussionof“EnglishasanInvasiveSpecies”in“Translation,Globalization,
andEnglish,”andSimonaŠkrabec,“LiteraryTranslation:TheInternationalPanorama,”inPen/IRL Report on the International Situation of Literary Translation,ed.EstherAllen(2007),1–48.(http://www.centerforliterarytranslation.org/TranslationReport).52.SeeSheldonPollock,“CosmopolitanandVernacular inHistory,” inCosmopolitanism, eds.
CarolA.Breckenridge,SheldonPollock,HomiK.Bhabha,andDipeshChakrabarty(Durham,N.C.:DukeUniversityPress,2002), 15–53;SheldonPollock,The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2006); and Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (2nded.London:Verso,2006),47–82.53.Muraski Shikidu,The Tale of Genji, trans.EdwardG. Seidensticker (NewYork:Knopf,
1978).54.MariaRosaMenocal,The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage
(Columbia,MO:UniversityofMissouriPress,1971).56. Amit Chaudhuri, Introduction, The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature, ed. Amit
Chaudhuri(London:Picador,2001),xx.57.VirginiaWoolf,“TimePasses,”inTo the Lighthouse(NewYork:HarcourtBraceJovanovich,
1981),125–43.SeealsoUrsulaK.Heise,Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global(Oxford,U.K.:OxfordUniversityPress,2008);RobertNixon,Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor(Cambridge,Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress,2010);LawrenceBuell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination(Oxford,U.K.:Blackwell,2005);andTsing,Friction.
58. Heise, Sense of Place and Sense of Planet, 10, 6.59.AnothersetofreadingstrategiesisimplicitinMelbaCuddy-Keane’s“Modernism,Geopolitics,
Globalization”throughheridentificationof“fourstrandsofglobalizedthinkinginmodernisttexts,”that is strategiesaimedat locatingwhatshecalls the“critical, syncretic,cohabiting,andrunawaymodes”ofglobalizedthinking(545).60.SimonGikandi,Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism(New
York:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1996).SeealsoMarx,The Modernist Novel and the Decline of Em-pire;RichardBegamandMichaelValdezMoses,eds.Modernism and Colonialism: British and Irish
FRIEDMAN / musing modernist studies
499Literature, 1899–1939 (Durham,N.C.:DukeUniversityPress,2007).ConsiderationofEastAsia(especiallyChina)inWesternmodernismisespeciallywell-developed;seeStephenG.Yao,Translation and the Languages of Modernism: Gender, Politics, Language(NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,2002);Zhaoming Qian, Orientalism and Modernism: The Legacy of China in Pound and Williams (Durham, N.C.:DukeUniversityPress,1995),The Modernist Response to Chinese Art: Pound, Moore, Stevens (Charlottesville:UniversityofVirginiaPress,2003),andEzra Pound and China (AnnArbor:UniversityofMichiganPress,2003);RobertKern,Orientalism, Modernism, and the American Poem(Cambridge,U.K.:CambridgeUniversityPress,2009);ChristopherBush,Ideographic Modernism: China, Writing, Media(Oxford,U.K.:OxfordUniversityPress,2010);EricHayot,Chinese Dreams: Pound, Brecht, Tel Quel(AnnArbor:UniversityofMichiganPress,2003)andThe Hypothetical Mandarin: Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain(Oxford,U.K.:OxfordUniversityPress,2009).61.Dimock,Through Other Continents62. Pingali Suranna, The Sound of the Kiss, or the Story That Must Never Be Told,trans.Velcheru
NarayanaRaoandDavidShulman(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2002);GurajadaApparao,Girls for Sale: Kanyasulkam, a Play from Colonial India,trans.VelcheruNarayanRao(Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,2007).63.Seeeditedvolumeslistedinnote37.RecoveriesofLatinAmericanmodernismsareparticularly
prevalent;seeFernandoJ.Rosenberg,The Avant-Garde and Geopolitics in Latin America (Pittsburgh:UniversityofPittsburghPress,2006);VickyUnruh,Latin American Vanguards: The Art of Contentious Encounters(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1994);CathyL.Jrade,Modernismo: Modernity and the Development of Spanish American Literature(Austin:UniversityofTexasPress,1998). Forpre-1500 modernisms in India, see Surannna, The Sound of the Kiss; Mohanty, “Alternative Modernities andMedievalIndianLiterature,”andforIndianmodernismsfromthelatenineteenthandtwentiethcenturies, see Priya Joshi, In Another Country: Colonialism, Culture, and the English Novel in India (NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2002);AparnaDharwadker,“MohanRakesh,Modernism,andthePostcolonialPresent,”South Central Review25,no.1(spring2008):136–62.64.SeeSusanStanfordFriedman,“ModernisminaTransnationalLandscape:SpatialPoetics,