The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics

464 Pages·2003·21.027 MB·English

by  Barrett Watten

the constructivist moment
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the
constructivist
moment
FROM MATERIA L TEXT T O CULTURA L POETICS
BARRETT WATTE N
WESLEYAN UNIVERSIT Y PRES S Middletown , Connecticut
Published by
Wesleyan University Press,
Middletown, CT 06459
© 2003 by Barrett Watten
All rights reserved
Printed in United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Watten, Barrett.
The constructivist moment : from material text to cultural poetics /
Barrett Watten.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical reference s and index.
ISBN 0-8195-6609-8 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-8195-6610-1
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. American literature—loth century—Histor y and criticism. 2.
Avant-garde (Aesthetics)—United States—History—20th century . 3.
Avant-garde (Aesthetics)—Soviet Union—History—2oth century . 4.
Russian literature—20th century—History and criticism. 5.
Literature, Comparative—American an d Russian. 6. Literature,
Comparative—Russian an d American. 7. American literature —
Russian influences. 8. Constructivism (Russia n literature) I. Title.
PS159.R8W38 2003
810.9'!—dc2i 200300115 3
FOR AS A
I see plans of a house in stages of construction.
Workmen move across bare frames in open light.
—"Parallels"
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments i x
Introduction:
From Material Text to Cultural Poetics xv
CHAPTER 1: New Meaning and Poetic Vocabulary:
From Coleridge to Jackson Mac Low 1
Poetic Vocabulary 2
Coleridge's Desynonymy 16
Zukofsky's Dictionary 25
Mac Low's Lexicons 31
New Meaning 43
CHAPTER 2 : The Secret History of the Equal Sign:
L =A=N=G = U =A=G=E between Discourse and Text 45
Avant-Garde Paradox 45
Postrevolutionary Poetics 54
Legend's Text 6 4
Multiauthors (M ) 7 9
Multiauthors (F ) 8 7
Multiauthors and the Listserv 94
CHAPTER 3 : The Bride of the Assembly Line:
Radical Poetics in Construction 10 3
The Descent 103
Cultural Poetics 110
Stein's Ford 118
Assembling This 127
The Bride 139
CHAPTER 4 : The Constructivist Moment:
From El Lissitzky to Detroit Techno 147
The Great Divide 148
Lissitzky's Examples 154
Constructivist Poetics 175
Detroit Techno 179
Moments 191
CHAPTER 5 : Nonnarrative and the Construction of History:
An Era of Stagnation, the Fall of Saigon 197
Nonnarrative Poetics 198
The Construction of History 206
An Era of Stagnation 215
The Fall of Saigon 226
Nonnarrative Ending 235
CHAPTER 6 : Negative Examples:
Theories of Negativity in the Avant-Garde 238
Negativity 239
Dark Matter 245
The Nothing That Is 254
Limit Situations 268
Negativities 281
CHAPTER 7 : Post-Soviet Subjectivity in Arkadii Dragomoshchenko
and Ilya Kabakov 291
After the Fall 292
Dragomoshchenko's Metapoetic s 294
Kabakov's Kommunalka 30 4
Post-Soviet/Postmodern 31 6
CHAPTER 8 : Zone:
The Poetics of Space in Posturban Detroi t 321
The Postmodern Turn 323
The Object of Spatial Fantasy 324
The Modern as Spatial Fantasy 326
Boundaries as Subject 328
Social Space and Negativity 330
Gaps between Terrains 332
Art and Negativity 334
Negativity and Social Space 336
For a Critical Regionalism 339
Site and Nonsite 341
Douglas's Le Detroit 343
Posturban Detroit 345
Notes 349
Bibliography 395
Index 415
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am especially grateful to Michael Davidson, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Carla
Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Bruce Andrews, Alan Davies, Steve
McCaffery, Ted Pearson, Ron Silliman, and Charles Bernstein for their work
as poets and critics; to Ted for his help with the manuscript; and to Carla
for man y more reasons than that. This work, in its original presentations,
was a response to the call from a number of individuals:
Thanks to Ron Day, whose proposal for a panel at the 1992 meeting of
the Modern Language Association inspired me to write "New Meaning
and Poetic Vocabulary: From Coleridge to Jackson Mac Low," and to
Gail Scott and the late Bill Readings, who facilitated its presentation at
the Université de Montreal in March 1993. Brian McHale solicited it
for Poetics Today 18 , no. 2 (summer 1997); reprinted by permission of
Duke University Press. Thanks to Jackson Mac Low, Herman Rapaport ,
and the editors of Poetics Today for their comments .
"The Secret History of the Equal Sign: L=A=N=G = U=A=G=E
between Discourse and Text" was written for the conference "Poetics of
Avant-Garde Poetries" in Tel Aviv, November 1997; thanks to Brian
McHale, Meir Sternberg, Karen Alkalay-Gut, and Tamar Yacobi. It was
also presented as a keynote address to "Tradition an d Resistance in
Contemporary Poetry," Conference for English Studies, University of
London, November 1998; thanks to Alison Mark and Robert Hampson .
A section was presented a t the Twentieth-Century Literature
Conference at the University of Louisville, February 1998; thanks to
Alan Golding. It appeared in Jonathan Monroe and Brian McHale's
special issue "The Poetics of Avant-Garde Poetries," vol. 1, Poetics
Today 20 , no. 4 (winter 1999); reprinted by permission of Duke
University Press. Thanks to Charles Bernstein for his comments.
Charles Bernstein invited me to present a talk at the SUNY Buffalo
Poetics Program in November 1996, for which I am grateful; "The
Bride of the Assembly Line: Radical Poetics in Construction" wa s the
result. The English Department at Temple University heard a version of
the essay in January 1997; my thanks to Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Steve
Evans and Jennifer Moxley published it in the Impercipient Lecture
Series, no. 8 (October 1997); a section also appeared in Dispatch Detroit