David Bowie Outlaw: Essays on Difference, Authenticity, Ethics, Art & Love

127 Pages·2021·1.74 MB·English

by  Alex Sharpe

DAVID BOWIE OUTLAW
This book explores the relevance of David Bowie’s life and music for contemporary
legal and cultural theory. Focusing on the artist and artworks of David Bowie, this
book brings to life, in essay form, particular theoretical ideas, creative methodologies
and ethical debates that have contemporary relevance within the fields of law, social
theory, ethics and art. What unites the essays presented here is that they all point to
a beyond law: to the fact that law is not enough, or to be more precise, too much,
too much to bear. For those who, like Bowie, see art, creativity and love as what
ought to be the central organising principles of life, law will not do. In the face
of its certainties, its rigidities, and its conceits, these essays, through Bowie, call
forth the monster who laughs at the law, celebrate inauthenticity as a deeper truth,
explore the ethical limits of art, cut up the laws of writing and embrace that which
is most antithetical to law, love. This original engagement with the limits of law
will appeal to those working in legal theory, ethics and law and popular culture, as
well as in art and cultural studies.
Alex Sharpe is a professor of law at the University of Warwick. She is the author
of Sexual Intimacy and Gender Identity ‘Fraud’ (Routledge, 2018), Foucault’s Monsters
and the Challenge of Law (Routledge, 2010) and Transgender Jurisprudence (Cavendish,
2002).

DAVID BOWIE OUTLAW
Essays on Difference, Authenticity,
Ethics, Art & Love
Alex Sharpe
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Alex Sharpe
The right of Alex Sharpe to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-69104-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-69106-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-14042-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003140429
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For Anne, who has taught me much about difference,
authenticity, ethics, art and love.

CONTENTS
Foreword ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
Difference 11
1 Law’s monsters: the hopeful undecidability of David Bowie 13
Introduction 13
A monster framework 14
The hopefulness of monsters 16
Bowie as hopeful monster 17
Bowie and gender/sexual ambiguity 18
Conclusion 20
Authenticity 25
2 Authenticity: what a drag! 27
Introduction 27
On authenticity 28
Subverting (artistic) authenticity 29
Conclusion 34
viii Contents
Ethics 39
3 ‘Flirting’ with fascism: the Thin White Duke, art
and ethical limits 41
Introduction 41
An ethical framework for evaluating artworks 42
The Thin White Duke and fascism 45
Judging Bowie’s artwork 49
Conclusion 51
Art 57
4 Cutting up the laws of writing: the Burroughs effect 59
Introduction 59
Cutting up Burroughs 60
Before Burroughs: the dreamscape 62
After Burroughs: accelerating the process 62
Diamond Dogs 63
Conclusion 66
Love 71
5 Bowie love: beyond law 73
Introduction 73
Escaping necessity 75
Love as letting go 76
Love as humility 77
Love as posthuman 79
References 85
Index 99
FOREWORD
David Bowie Outlaw undoubtedly belongs with those few great texts on music that
are equal to the wild glories that inspired their creation. You need to be a great act
to pull off a thesis as bold as this: Bowie is a law giver. But, before the house lights
go down, we need to rid ourselves of some preconceptions about this word. Read
or heard through Bowie, law is what binds us to something: a fascination, a mes-
sage, an invitation to venture forth. We bind ourselves. Most philosophy of law has
forgotten this fundamental truth.
Now, the theatre is shaking, the band is tuning up, a strip of white lights illu-
minates the stage. Who/what is it that comes? Sharpe’s Bowie enters through the
arch of the ‘now.’ She/he/they are the will to reaffirm life, as a unique grasping of
its own creative potential. This moment of affirmation is the ‘law’ that the book
evokes: the singular way in which Bowie’s music enters its listener and transfers or
transmits a power. Of course, this power slips away as it is summoned, and it is this
peculiar ethics that Sharpe’s Bowie evokes. Only the irreplaceable can be lost. In
the face of this truth, the strong reader/listener creates and fails again.
Sharpe’s book is as perfectly formed as a Mick Ronson riff. It’s like the build
from Suffragette City, funnelling and intensifying its own energies. This is the mes-
sage that runs through Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke: the
artist has to destroy her own creation to kindle the energies that will allow further
invention. Creative thought is a kaleidoscope, re-arranging its own patterns, twist-
ing and turning upon itself, making itself anew. This book is a kaleidoscope – an
experiment in white magic – a talisman to ward off boredom, fascists and gravity.
Bowie as outlaw: Bowie is a law giver, but unlike most law givers, Bowie’s law
destroys the law: the only command is ‘create afresh.’ True creation is not narcissism.
Sharpe’s Bowie is a figure of ethics, or a spirit that knows its own wealth must be
constantly squandered. The real artist, then, is entirely anonymous, merely a conduit
for energies from elsewhere that seek their receivers and transmitters.