Errant Bodies, Mobility, and Political Resistance

110 Pages·2019·1.804 MB·English

by  Gregory Blair

Errant Bodies,
Mobility, and
Political Resistance
Gregory Blair
Errant Bodies, Mobility, and Political Resistance
Gregory Blair
Errant Bodies,
Mobility, and Political
Resistance
Gregory Blair
Northern State University
Aberdeen, SD, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-95746-3 ISBN 978-3-319-95747-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95747-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953446
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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For Bubby, Stell, and Scoobs
P
reface
I first began writing about errant bodies in the spring of 2016 when I was
on sabbatical. I had just finished working on an essay about the use of
spatial transgression in musical performance—part of which explored how
becoming emplaced can be a radical act, especially if it is a place in which
one is considered a persona non grata. This idea of getting into place got
me thinking about those that have actively tried to do the opposite—to
get out-of-place. As part of that initial essay about spatial transgression, I
wrote about the music of Sun Ra and how he would conjure astral projec-
tions to mentally transport himself and his listeners to a place without the
rules, prejudice, and bigotry of earth. For Sun Ra, space truly was the
place. These were my nascent thoughts about errant bodies, which have
been stewed and simmered ever since through numerous conversations
and interactions with students, friends, and other scholars. The presence
of their voices cannot be understated. My hope is that you will find this
project to be a catalyst for thinking about being out-of-place a little
differently—as something that can enact real change in the world.
Aberdeen, SD Gregory Blair
May 2018
vii
a
cknowledgments
The following people have provided encouragement and valuable criticism
for this project through numerous gifts of patience, kindness, and insight:
Jennifer Hall, Kathryn McFadden, Margot Anne Kelley, Nick and Ashley
Hofland, Barry Blair, Sandra Blair, Crystal Harper, Eleni Aman, Kyla
Herman, Kaylee Hall, Presley Middlestadt, Gratia Brown, Spencer Dobson,
and my colleagues in the Art Department where I teach. I especially thank
my wife Sara for being my sounding board, and my children, Liam and
Stella, for keeping me laughing and for giving me glimpses of different
ways to see the world.
ix
c
ontents
1 E rrant Bodies 1
2 Cynics and Punks 13
3 Parisian Drifters: Flânerie and Dérive 25
4 Wanderlust and the Gendering of Mobility 41
5 Beatniks and Guerrilla Warfare 53
6 Rambling and Restlessness 63
7 Excursions into the Wild 77
8 Emergent Errant Bodies 89
Bibliography 97
Index 105
xi
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 An image of me and my faithful Ford Tempo outside of Astoria
along the Oregon coast taken during the wandering odyssey of
1999 3
Fig. 2.1 Louis Figuier, The Barrel of Diogenes, 1873–1877 14
Fig. 3.1 Paul Gavarni, Le Flâneur, 1842 26
Fig. 6.1 An illustration from Mark Twain’s 1880 book, A Tramp
Abroad, showing a typical depiction of a tramp as lazy and
dirty—sleeping with pigs in the street 69
Fig. 7.1 The site of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond about 40 yards
from the water’s edge 79
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Errant Bodies
Abstract This chapter begins by profiling the various types of wandering
one might undertake. It then goes on to serve as an introduction to a form
of wandering that can be described as “errant bodies,” in which the mean-
dering is intentional, without specific destination, and operates for the
errant body as a means of resistance or struggle against hegemonic forms
of power or cultural prescription. The origins and genealogy of errant
bodies draw from a wide range of disparate sources that include pilgrim-
ages, exploration, vagabonds, nomads, hoboes, tramps, peripatetics, travel
writing, Greek Cynicism, punk, geography, biopolitics, and Michel
Foucault. This analysis is also built upon the theories of mobility and wan-
derlust posited by Tim Cresswell, Rebecca Solnit, John Urry, Janet Wolff,
Gilles Deleuze, and Frédéric Gros.
Keywords Errant • Body • Out-of-place • Being • Mobility
• Wander
There is a common idiom, or at least what has become a prosaic phrase,
that claims: “Not all who wander are lost.” Originally written as a line of
poetry by J.R.R. Tolkien, the pithy bon mot suggests that many wanderers
have an objective; they travel for a reason, trying to find someone or some-
thing (perhaps unknown) to satisfy an unfulfilled inclination. Many people
have traveled in this manner, seeking out a new place that will bring
© The Author(s) 2019 1
G. Blair, Errant Bodies, Mobility, and Political Resistance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95747-0_1