Blogger has been good to me. However as begin to demand more flexibility from my blogging experience, I begin to tire of the restrictions I find here.
With that in mind I've migrated my blog to http://cradledincaricature.wordpress.com/. First post went up yesterday > http://cradledincaricature.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/soja-geography-la-sarthe/.
Information relating to the Cradled in Caricature symposium will remain here for the meantime, though will to be migrated from 20 June onwards. And for those who are interested, the #CiC liveblog on 20 June will be simulcast between the new CiC wordpress site and @cincaricature. Exciting times!
Dr B
Monday, 13 June 2011
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
#CiC – adverts and taxonomies
One of the most exciting events taking place at Cradled in Caricature is a workshop entitled 'Create Your Own 1920s Advert'. This is to be led be two postgraduates from the School of History – Michael Kliegl and Rebecca Farmer – and will explore aesthetic, psychology and advertising in order to understand how and why advertisements are so wedded to stereotypes of character. After dividing into groups participants will be asked to make their own advertisements, and (here is the really fun bit) will be offered big pens, jumbo stick notes and boards in order to make them.
Despite there being a clear intellectual rationale behind this workshop focusing on cigarette advertising in the 1920s (see abstract here), we felt that spreading posters containing the Marlboro man around campus may have attracted some negative attention from the powers that be at the University of Kent. We therefore had to find an alternative advertising campaign that was both well known internationally and clearly associated the product in question with making people a 'better' man/woman. After some thought, the only campaign we could think of was what you see below. As Terry Norton says on Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge “people will always want to look at lovely ladies”...
Cradled in Caricature will take place on Monday 20 June, at Woolf College, University of Kent, Canterbury.
The full programme can be found here.
For inquiries or further information please contact me at cradledincaricature@gmail.com or twitter.com/cincaricature.
Despite there being a clear intellectual rationale behind this workshop focusing on cigarette advertising in the 1920s (see abstract here), we felt that spreading posters containing the Marlboro man around campus may have attracted some negative attention from the powers that be at the University of Kent. We therefore had to find an alternative advertising campaign that was both well known internationally and clearly associated the product in question with making people a 'better' man/woman. After some thought, the only campaign we could think of was what you see below. As Terry Norton says on Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge “people will always want to look at lovely ladies”...
The full programme can be found here.
For inquiries or further information please contact me at cradledincaricature@gmail.com or twitter.com/cincaricature.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Memory and Remembrance - Part 1: The Fallen
The second teaching aid I am creating for the British Cartoon Archive's JISC funded CARD project is a selection of cartoons on the theme of 'Memory and Remembrance'. Inspired by both the work and teaching of my colleague Dr Stefan Goebel this group looks at the reappropriation of symbols generated by heroism, conflict and loss in British cartoons.
One sub-theme within this group looks at physical and imaginative memories of 'The Fallen' and how they both shape and are manipulated by politics and culture. A taster of this work can be found below...
(c) British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent, Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 30 Apr 1985.
As Jay Winter writes, however we might wish to believe otherwise, remembrance is political. When US President Ronald Reagan visited West Germany in Spring 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of VE Day his choice of locations (and indeed those of his host Chancellor Helmut Kohl) were consciously political, chosen to foster reconciliation by establishing the events of World War Two as a shared tragedy (these one time combatants were now, of course, allies). The itinerary however included a visit to Kolmeshohe Cemetery at Bitburg, a site at which 49 members of the Waffen SS were buried. When this was leaked to the press a huge controversy ensued (interestingly Reagan’s chief of staff, Michael Denver, had failed to notice the names on the graves on a preparatory visit due to heavy snowfall). Despite protests from Jewish Americans, Reagan pressed on with the visit and joined Kohl on 5 May 1985 to lay wreaths at a wall of remembrance.
The visit was ‘saved’ by former Nazi Luftwaffe pilot and later NATO General Johannes Steinhoff, who in an impromptu act reached and shook the hand of his former belligerent General Matthew Ridgway, commander of the 82nd Airborne during World War Two. This, alongside a well pitched speech from the ever theatrical Reagan, gained the visit unexpected credit. Garland anticipates how Reagan was expected to emerge from the Bitburg, using the exhumation of Yorick in Shakespeare’s Hamlet to mock Reagan (who famously was a Hollywood actor before turning to politics). While Hamlet touchingly remembers the court jester he once knew, Reagan turns in horror from the Nazi before him (which, as a side note, is possibly a visual quotation to the Nazi villains in Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the highest-grossing films of the decade).
One sub-theme within this group looks at physical and imaginative memories of 'The Fallen' and how they both shape and are manipulated by politics and culture. A taster of this work can be found below...
As Jay Winter writes, however we might wish to believe otherwise, remembrance is political. When US President Ronald Reagan visited West Germany in Spring 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of VE Day his choice of locations (and indeed those of his host Chancellor Helmut Kohl) were consciously political, chosen to foster reconciliation by establishing the events of World War Two as a shared tragedy (these one time combatants were now, of course, allies). The itinerary however included a visit to Kolmeshohe Cemetery at Bitburg, a site at which 49 members of the Waffen SS were buried. When this was leaked to the press a huge controversy ensued (interestingly Reagan’s chief of staff, Michael Denver, had failed to notice the names on the graves on a preparatory visit due to heavy snowfall). Despite protests from Jewish Americans, Reagan pressed on with the visit and joined Kohl on 5 May 1985 to lay wreaths at a wall of remembrance.
The visit was ‘saved’ by former Nazi Luftwaffe pilot and later NATO General Johannes Steinhoff, who in an impromptu act reached and shook the hand of his former belligerent General Matthew Ridgway, commander of the 82nd Airborne during World War Two. This, alongside a well pitched speech from the ever theatrical Reagan, gained the visit unexpected credit. Garland anticipates how Reagan was expected to emerge from the Bitburg, using the exhumation of Yorick in Shakespeare’s Hamlet to mock Reagan (who famously was a Hollywood actor before turning to politics). While Hamlet touchingly remembers the court jester he once knew, Reagan turns in horror from the Nazi before him (which, as a side note, is possibly a visual quotation to the Nazi villains in Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the highest-grossing films of the decade).
Sunday, 5 June 2011
#CiC - heroes and villains
A panel called 'Heroes and Villains' promises to offer a vibrant exploration of the topics central to the symposium. Jacob Bradsher will investigate what makes a science-fiction villain, whilst Caleb Turner will ask "how do we magnify bodily attributes through caricature and why as viewers do we need this exaggeration to better realise a sense of meaning or truth, i.e. superheroes?".
Their abstracts (below) inspired the above poster which now can be found dotted across UKC.
The full programme can be found here.
For inquiries or further information please contact me at cradledincaricature@gmail.com or twitter.com/cincaricature.
Jacob Bradsher
Villainous caricature in Science-fiction literature, film, and art is rooted firmly in the portrayal of villains in Victorian literature. The limitations of the human mind to conceive of truly unique villainous characteristics is obvious when these comparisons are made. Despite the radical design of some twentieth century visions of space-villains and alien overlords, the similarities between them and the likes of Dickensian illustrations are striking.
I would like to investigate what makes a ‘villain.’ That is, I am going to explore the facial features, actions, modes of speech, and overall physical appearance of what has been considered villainous in Victorian literature (such as the illustrations of Phiz and Cruikshank) and how that has carried over into genres like science fiction and the portrayal of its antagonists (Star Wars, Titan A.E. etc.).
It’s mostly a compare/contrast project, but I don’t want to simply show the similarities and differences in illustrations and character designs. Roughly, I would be using Dickensian canon as a starting point, then I would move to the golden age of American comic books, then onto modern movies and science fiction literature to explicate the relationship between the genres and periods.
Basically, I would like to explore the relationship between what stereotypical villainous characteristics are immediately available to us a humans and those that we project onto perceived villains of the future. The caricatures of Dickensian villains are easily identifiable compared to some of those featured in Sci-Fi productions, but there are also striking similarities.
Caleb TurnerCradled in Caricature will take place on Monday 20 June, at Woolf College, University of Kent, Canterbury.
How do we view bodily depictions through caricature? The cartoonist Lenn Redman has described caricature as: “An exaggerated likeness of a person made by emphasising all of the features that make the person different from everyone else. It is not the exaggeration of one’s worst features. This is a carry over from the days, 100 years and more ago, when humour was almost always based on cruelty and when the caricaturist’s intent was to insult his subject… Many people think that a caricature is necessarily a graphic distortion of a face. Not true! The essence of a caricature is exaggeration – not distortion. Exaggeration is the overemphasis of truth. Distortion is a complete denial of the truth.
In this light, caricature should no longer be (traditionally) viewed as simply a form of mockery through grotesquery, but more so as magnifying the truth through over-emphasising the defining physical boundaries – constituting an individual body – to their absolute limits. One type of body in particular that utilises this process to great effect is the superhero figure, being an intensely graphically illustrated physicality.
To exaggerate a super-body is to take one’s most distinguishing features, (i.e. pointed ears, thick eyebrows, thin chin, warped smile and sharp teeth for the face of ‘The Green Goblin’; huge, thick fists attached to tree-trunk muscular arms for the hands of ‘The Incredible Hulk’) and streamline them to depict just how ‘different from everyone else’ they are. To caricaturise these individuals is to then ‘magnify’ the limits of truth associated with them even further (i.e. a display of ‘invulnerability’ in the sheer size of Superman’s solid chest, or ‘intelligence’ with Brainiac’s brain bulging outwards from the top of his head).
What does this overemphasis of truth (rather than distortion) achieve in conveying meaning to us through the process of caricature? The superhero body is itself an expression of deliberately exaggerated characteristics, intended to evoke from only a marginal threshold of interpretation, consequently having a specific series of connotations attached to it. These constructed figures portray specific ideas, but they are designed to be among the most recognisable depictions of these ideas: they are presented as being an absolute epitome or incarnation of such concepts.
How, then, is this ‘magnification’ of super-bodily attributes useful as a process for understanding and why as viewers do we need it to better realise a sense of meaning or truth?
The full programme can be found here.
For inquiries or further information please contact me at cradledincaricature@gmail.com or twitter.com/cincaricature.
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Richard Rodger: Space, place and the city: a simple anti-GIS approach for historians.
Phase III of the City and Region project will include significant GIS work as a means of displaying rent data in a dynamic visual format.
Watching this Digital History seminar at the IHR is therefore part of my job. Thus I thought I'd share.
Watching this Digital History seminar at the IHR is therefore part of my job. Thus I thought I'd share.
Watch live streaming video from historyspot at livestream.com
The Efflorescence of Caricature
Just a small post in reponse to my review of Todd Porterfield (ed.), The Efflorescence of Caricature: 1759-1838 (London, Ashgate, 2011) appearing in the IHR's Reviews in History (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1084).
First, I wanted to praise the IHR for providing such a reactive and reflexive space as RIH. I first saw this book at BSECS '11 (which was in early January), asked for a copy days after, recieved it just a few days after that, and having only submitted the review to them in mid-April it is already up. So huge kudos to the IHR.
Second, I wished to add that I really did enjoy this book even if at times my review comes across as a little negative. There were some moments of signifcant frustration with the 'representation without physical grounding' direction some of the contributions took (my flatmate can verify to one particular moment where the book was in risk of being hurled out of a room - I'm sure you can guess which from the review...), but the willingness of Porterfield in particular to break the study of graphic satire out of the shackles of orthodoxy must be applauded. So if you like your history to be both annoying and inventive (comes with the territory of being radical I guess), then pick up a copy.
First, I wanted to praise the IHR for providing such a reactive and reflexive space as RIH. I first saw this book at BSECS '11 (which was in early January), asked for a copy days after, recieved it just a few days after that, and having only submitted the review to them in mid-April it is already up. So huge kudos to the IHR.
Second, I wished to add that I really did enjoy this book even if at times my review comes across as a little negative. There were some moments of signifcant frustration with the 'representation without physical grounding' direction some of the contributions took (my flatmate can verify to one particular moment where the book was in risk of being hurled out of a room - I'm sure you can guess which from the review...), but the willingness of Porterfield in particular to break the study of graphic satire out of the shackles of orthodoxy must be applauded. So if you like your history to be both annoying and inventive (comes with the territory of being radical I guess), then pick up a copy.
Monday, 30 May 2011
Flirting with Apocalypse - Part 3: Whales
Flirting with Apocalypse (for the CARD project at the British Cartoon Archive) is nearly done. This sample section on whaling was completed today along with a final piece on natural disasters. Carl Giles on whaling. Who'd have thought it?
On Tuesday 21 July 1981 the International Whaling Commission met at Brighton's Metropole Hotel for their annual conference. On the agenda was a worldwide ban on the commercial killing of whales. Japan led a successful opposition to the proposals, and despite nations voting 16-8 in favour of a ban with three abstentions, the requirement of a three-fourths majority ensured the ban did not pass.
On Tuesday 21 July 1981 the International Whaling Commission met at Brighton's Metropole Hotel for their annual conference. On the agenda was a worldwide ban on the commercial killing of whales. Japan led a successful opposition to the proposals, and despite nations voting 16-8 in favour of a ban with three abstentions, the requirement of a three-fourths majority ensured the ban did not pass.
(c) British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent, Carl Giles, Daily Express, 21 Jul 1981.
Carl Giles, in his typically apolitical style, comments on the situation with compassion, sympathy and jollity. "I'm afraid that whale the gentleman's been giving the kiss-of-life to for the last half hour happens to be one of these 'ere rubber ones" says a seaman. Yet the eye is drawn to the energy with which the anti-whaling campaigner goes about his task, and the broad, warm, satisfied smile of the 'rubber' whale he is trying to save. Campaigners, Giles tells us, may occasionally have more passion than sense, but the beasts they are trying to save are worth every ounce of effort.
A year later the IWC meeting voted through a complete ban on commercial whaling. Environmentalists celebrated their first major international political triumph.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
#CiC - what makes masculinity?
With Cradled in Caricature less than a month away, the drip feed of promotion is now beginning.
Next week postgraduate students at the University of Kent will find in their email inbox a copy of our programme. The team are very proud of the contributions we've managed to collect together, coming as they do from across the postgraduate community at UKC. We hope the community will respond with the same enthusiasm we have.
Part two of the promotion drive will see a collection of posters appear around campus highlighting the themes we intend to explore during the day. These are designed to be big, bold and provocative, but also to make serious points whilst provided discursive links with the contributions of specific speakers.
This poster plays on the themes Stelios Christodoulou, a PhD candidate in Film Studies at UKC, will explore in his paper '“You can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man: no time to talk”: 70s Masculinities in Saturday Night Fever (1977)'. His abstract reads thus:
Cradled in Caricature will take place on Monday 20 June, at Woolf College, University of Kent, Canterbury. For inquiries or further information please contact me at cradledincaricature@gmail.com or twitter.com/cincaricature.
Next week postgraduate students at the University of Kent will find in their email inbox a copy of our programme. The team are very proud of the contributions we've managed to collect together, coming as they do from across the postgraduate community at UKC. We hope the community will respond with the same enthusiasm we have.
Part two of the promotion drive will see a collection of posters appear around campus highlighting the themes we intend to explore during the day. These are designed to be big, bold and provocative, but also to make serious points whilst provided discursive links with the contributions of specific speakers.
If there is single image that encapsulates the 70s model of masculinity in popular culture, this is arguably John Travolta on the disco floor, in his white three-piece suit and black body shirt, right hand pointing upwards. Travolta’s performance as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (1977) elevated him to immediate stardom and now stands for all polyester fakery and excess tastelessness that allegedly was the 70s. What popular memory has obscured, however, is that Tony Manero’s masculinity is by no means an accurate reflection of the 70s, but a construct, an amalgam of often contradictory masculine styles and behaviours.
This paper explores the construction of Tony Manero’s masculinity, aiming to explain its cultural function and popularity, rather than to expose stereotypes. It also uses Saturday Night Fever as a historical case study of masculine identities in the late 70s. Underpinning the film are a number of historically specific discourses, including the association between disco and homosexuality, the male liberation movement, the style of the gay clone, Travolta’s star persona, and the revival of white ethnicity.
These discourses manifest in the film’s memorable grooming scene, which serves as the paper’s main textual example. The paper considers existing interpretations of this scene and attempts new interpretations based on literature on the representation of masculinity, including Richard Dyer’s discussion of the male pin-up. The scene, however, proves resistant to a theoretically consistent ‘reading’. Rather, it reveals that Tony Manero’s masculinity collapses together disparate signifiers of 70s liberated and homosexual masculinities with a nostalgic understanding of a unitary model of aggressively heterosexual machismo. The paper ends with the proposal that Tony’s identity as an Italian-American working class man renders his implausible masculine identity both appealing and believable.
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Neurogubbins: Goffman vs bad science
Tonight I attended a lecture given by Professor Bruce McConachie entitled “All the World is Not a Stage', hosted by the the Center for Cognition, Kinesthetics and Performance at the University of Kent.
His paper went something like this.
Erving Goffman is wrong, the world is not a stage. The idea that social interaction/culture can 'replace' nature makes little evolutionary and/or cognitive sense, as nature and nurture are intertwined. Thus reality is not wholly socially constructed, rather our actions are a combination of acting roles (the illusion bit) and self; imitations are not illusions; the subjunctive worlds humans create are real; and so on and so forth.
Now, I'm not sociologically 'trained' enough to respond to this fully [though I would consider the proposition that I couldn't respond without sufficient training somewhat narrow minded], but I did find McConachie persuasive and engaging, especially in his belief that sociology could learn a lot by spending some time revisiting anthropology. Where I did find McConachie problematic however was in his appeal to science for some form of subterranean authority.
As my problems with the paper grew steadily, it seems prudent to outline them in turn, in the creeping chronological order in which they appeared.
First, in his initial criticisms of social constructivism, McConachie seemed happy to lump together the biological, the cognitive and the evolutionary. Now these fields obviously have their points of interaction, but his reductionism was undoubtedly crude.
Second, McConachie described empathy as the reading of a persons mind. And to give this statement some sense of gravitas he mentioned 'mirror neurons'. Later he used the concept of 'neural plasticity' as one reason why “we become out habits” [at which point he also seemed to be contradicting his attack on Goffman entirely...]. More on both these scientisms later. He also, continuing the 'mind' theme, stated, again as a counter to Goffman, that “our brains are part of the real world”. I have no problems with this statement. What I do have a problem with is his assumptions that the only alternative to this belief is Cartesian dualism. It is not (see Raymond Tallis).
Third (and this all came out in the Q&A session, when perhaps McConachie was being less cautious with his words), he stated that mirror neurons are the “lower level of empathy” on Thompson's scale (see Evan Thompson, Mind in Life, 2007), and that in order to perform well “actors [that being those on a stage] must work closely with the mirror neuron of other actors”.
Gradually then, although carefully avoiding the term 'neuroscience', McConachie descended into neuromania. Whether or not one believed his reading of Goffman and his alternative views on social interaction, this appeal to (neuro)science as subterranean empirical evidence is false. Mirror neurons are no longer considered as unproblematic as they were upon their 'discovery' in 1992; and neural plasticity has been widely derided as a term without meaning (see here). McConachie's understanding of (neuro)science is therefore deficient to the point of alarmingly basic. Moreover, recent neuroscience, and in particular the work of David Eagleman, might actually be in the process of providing evidence to prove Goffman's thesis. Eagleman is a divisive figure, but if his work on time and perception is right, that (in sum) there is a distinct gap between reality and perception during which time the brain filters and manages the information it is receiving before reporting an alternative 'reality' back to the host, then Goffman is back in the game (see here).
My problems with the paper are simple. Why do figures such as McConachie think reaching to a limited understanding of neuroscience for answers is a positive step in humanities scholarship? McConachie's paper was, after all, admirably inter/multi/trans/post-disciplinary [is anyone else bored of such shifting nomenclature?] and hence neuroscience was not needed to support his point (though studies of evolution and psychology clearly were, and indeed made welcome appearances). Indeed why place alongside a rich and diverse understanding of sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy et al, subterranean observations on a discipline towards which he clearly has limited, partial and hardly cutting edge knowledge of.
Much more work is needed to understand how and for what purpose humanities scholars - who I think we can safely say work in a field whose paradigm shifts tend to slow and tortuous - can logistically draw upon a field as fluid, radical, fresh, disrespectful towards meta-narratives and developing at such a breathtaking pace as neuroscience. Put McConachie in front of a room of scientists and I suspect that his subterranean scientism would have been uncovered more readily, and his paper, respectfully, put under severe scrutiny.
His paper went something like this.
Erving Goffman is wrong, the world is not a stage. The idea that social interaction/culture can 'replace' nature makes little evolutionary and/or cognitive sense, as nature and nurture are intertwined. Thus reality is not wholly socially constructed, rather our actions are a combination of acting roles (the illusion bit) and self; imitations are not illusions; the subjunctive worlds humans create are real; and so on and so forth.
Now, I'm not sociologically 'trained' enough to respond to this fully [though I would consider the proposition that I couldn't respond without sufficient training somewhat narrow minded], but I did find McConachie persuasive and engaging, especially in his belief that sociology could learn a lot by spending some time revisiting anthropology. Where I did find McConachie problematic however was in his appeal to science for some form of subterranean authority.
As my problems with the paper grew steadily, it seems prudent to outline them in turn, in the creeping chronological order in which they appeared.
First, in his initial criticisms of social constructivism, McConachie seemed happy to lump together the biological, the cognitive and the evolutionary. Now these fields obviously have their points of interaction, but his reductionism was undoubtedly crude.
Second, McConachie described empathy as the reading of a persons mind. And to give this statement some sense of gravitas he mentioned 'mirror neurons'. Later he used the concept of 'neural plasticity' as one reason why “we become out habits” [at which point he also seemed to be contradicting his attack on Goffman entirely...]. More on both these scientisms later. He also, continuing the 'mind' theme, stated, again as a counter to Goffman, that “our brains are part of the real world”. I have no problems with this statement. What I do have a problem with is his assumptions that the only alternative to this belief is Cartesian dualism. It is not (see Raymond Tallis).
Third (and this all came out in the Q&A session, when perhaps McConachie was being less cautious with his words), he stated that mirror neurons are the “lower level of empathy” on Thompson's scale (see Evan Thompson, Mind in Life, 2007), and that in order to perform well “actors [that being those on a stage] must work closely with the mirror neuron of other actors”.
Gradually then, although carefully avoiding the term 'neuroscience', McConachie descended into neuromania. Whether or not one believed his reading of Goffman and his alternative views on social interaction, this appeal to (neuro)science as subterranean empirical evidence is false. Mirror neurons are no longer considered as unproblematic as they were upon their 'discovery' in 1992; and neural plasticity has been widely derided as a term without meaning (see here). McConachie's understanding of (neuro)science is therefore deficient to the point of alarmingly basic. Moreover, recent neuroscience, and in particular the work of David Eagleman, might actually be in the process of providing evidence to prove Goffman's thesis. Eagleman is a divisive figure, but if his work on time and perception is right, that (in sum) there is a distinct gap between reality and perception during which time the brain filters and manages the information it is receiving before reporting an alternative 'reality' back to the host, then Goffman is back in the game (see here).
My problems with the paper are simple. Why do figures such as McConachie think reaching to a limited understanding of neuroscience for answers is a positive step in humanities scholarship? McConachie's paper was, after all, admirably inter/multi/trans/post-disciplinary [is anyone else bored of such shifting nomenclature?] and hence neuroscience was not needed to support his point (though studies of evolution and psychology clearly were, and indeed made welcome appearances). Indeed why place alongside a rich and diverse understanding of sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy et al, subterranean observations on a discipline towards which he clearly has limited, partial and hardly cutting edge knowledge of.
Much more work is needed to understand how and for what purpose humanities scholars - who I think we can safely say work in a field whose paradigm shifts tend to slow and tortuous - can logistically draw upon a field as fluid, radical, fresh, disrespectful towards meta-narratives and developing at such a breathtaking pace as neuroscience. Put McConachie in front of a room of scientists and I suspect that his subterranean scientism would have been uncovered more readily, and his paper, respectfully, put under severe scrutiny.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Pantomime Parliamentarians
(c) Kevin Kallaugher, British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent, Kal, Today, 03 Jun 1987.
Tuesday 29th March saw the launch of Pantomime Parliamentarians, an exhibition I curated alongside the British Cartoon Archive and the History Society (an undergraduate society at the University of Kent).
The exhibition can be seen in the space outside the BCA in the Templeman Library at UKC (for those who know the Templeman, it is next to the cafe). If you can't make it to the exhibition in person before the end of the summer term, you can take a virtual tour on the BCA website (http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/group/pantomime-parliamentarians).
For further details see http://www.kent.ac.uk/history/news/#2011_5_17_cartoon_exhibition.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
OP and Jewishness
For some time I've been intrigued by the Covent Garden theatre riots which took place in the Autumn of 1809. More recently my research has been focused on the perception of Jewishness which surrounded the so-called 'OP War'.
Some background. On Monday 9 October 1809 John Philip Kemble, lead actor and part owner of Covent Garden Theatre, introduced Jewish boxers (typically referred to by contemporaries as 'ruffians') into the pit in order to suppress the riots. Such was the public indignation against these (to use a present-day term) 'bouncers', that the group (led by the noted boxer Daniel Mendoza) were hardly seen in the theatre after the following Monday. Nonetheless letters, pamphlets and satires continued to associate resistance to Old Prices with Jewishness for some weeks. Moreover, the motivations of Kemble became associated with Jewish traits. My thesis, in sum, is that this notion of Jewish influence is a subtle yet significant narrative of the riots, perpetuated by the print media in order to make sense of the riots. Despite the lack of factual veracity, letters and satires speaking to Jewish influence illustrate a powerful virtual construction of OP. So powerful indeed, that Kemble's career prior to taking ownership of Covent Garden theatre became satirically recast as somehow 'Jewish'. This explains, therefore, why Kemble becomes 'Mr Jew Kemble'.
Today, I stumbled across the following letter which is of particular importance to my research because it the only letter I have found (thus far) which illustrates the pervasiveness of the Jewish narrative of OP whilst defending London's Jewish community. Historians are quite used to studying stereotypes and prejudice through sources which seek to marginalise minority or non-domestic groups. Rarely however are we offered a glimpse of these processes from an alternative (rational) perspective. I must admit, I'm rather excited...
The Morning Chronicle, Wednesday, October 18, 1809
For the MORNING CHRONICLE
MR. EDITOR,
Considering the independency and impartiality of your Journal, I flatter myself you will give a corner to the following observations, by setting aside a prejudice that seems to pervade the public mind against the Jews.
I allude to the present question at issue between the Managers of Covent-garden Theatre and the Public; now, Sir, I say if the Managers have been mean enough to cringe to the lowest and worst orders of society, for protecting their imposition, I cannot see why the Jews should be singled out from the rest of the disorderly. Where is the sect to be found that ever was, or are, unanimous in the virtue of their body politic? To find a diversity, we have Mr. Harris to thank, for he has certainly brought forward the dregs of the community; therefore, in justice to Mr. H. we ought to recognise him as leaders of the band. As to the Jews that are admitted by orders, I am sure not one fourth of them are in favour of the Managers, for they have still in memory the usage of Kemble against Braham. Is it then not prejudice, to call in question some of the most honourable characters of the Jews, on account of a few hired fighting fellows. Surely we live in an age of reason; let us not run back from civilization to refer to the blood-stained pages of the dark ages of persecution; let us not be unjust to a Jew, for no other reason than he being a Jew.
Odium is generally levelled by those who can the least account for the antipathy, but the citizen of the world looks impartially for the man.
I am; Sir, your constant Reader,
COSMOPOLITE
EDIT: it is worth adding that the print which adorns the background of my blog is in response to the OP war. Little of the print relates to Jewishness as far as I can tell. But if anyone spots a connection, do tell.
Some background. On Monday 9 October 1809 John Philip Kemble, lead actor and part owner of Covent Garden Theatre, introduced Jewish boxers (typically referred to by contemporaries as 'ruffians') into the pit in order to suppress the riots. Such was the public indignation against these (to use a present-day term) 'bouncers', that the group (led by the noted boxer Daniel Mendoza) were hardly seen in the theatre after the following Monday. Nonetheless letters, pamphlets and satires continued to associate resistance to Old Prices with Jewishness for some weeks. Moreover, the motivations of Kemble became associated with Jewish traits. My thesis, in sum, is that this notion of Jewish influence is a subtle yet significant narrative of the riots, perpetuated by the print media in order to make sense of the riots. Despite the lack of factual veracity, letters and satires speaking to Jewish influence illustrate a powerful virtual construction of OP. So powerful indeed, that Kemble's career prior to taking ownership of Covent Garden theatre became satirically recast as somehow 'Jewish'. This explains, therefore, why Kemble becomes 'Mr Jew Kemble'.
Today, I stumbled across the following letter which is of particular importance to my research because it the only letter I have found (thus far) which illustrates the pervasiveness of the Jewish narrative of OP whilst defending London's Jewish community. Historians are quite used to studying stereotypes and prejudice through sources which seek to marginalise minority or non-domestic groups. Rarely however are we offered a glimpse of these processes from an alternative (rational) perspective. I must admit, I'm rather excited...
The Morning Chronicle, Wednesday, October 18, 1809
For the MORNING CHRONICLE
MR. EDITOR,
Considering the independency and impartiality of your Journal, I flatter myself you will give a corner to the following observations, by setting aside a prejudice that seems to pervade the public mind against the Jews.
I allude to the present question at issue between the Managers of Covent-garden Theatre and the Public; now, Sir, I say if the Managers have been mean enough to cringe to the lowest and worst orders of society, for protecting their imposition, I cannot see why the Jews should be singled out from the rest of the disorderly. Where is the sect to be found that ever was, or are, unanimous in the virtue of their body politic? To find a diversity, we have Mr. Harris to thank, for he has certainly brought forward the dregs of the community; therefore, in justice to Mr. H. we ought to recognise him as leaders of the band. As to the Jews that are admitted by orders, I am sure not one fourth of them are in favour of the Managers, for they have still in memory the usage of Kemble against Braham. Is it then not prejudice, to call in question some of the most honourable characters of the Jews, on account of a few hired fighting fellows. Surely we live in an age of reason; let us not run back from civilization to refer to the blood-stained pages of the dark ages of persecution; let us not be unjust to a Jew, for no other reason than he being a Jew.
Odium is generally levelled by those who can the least account for the antipathy, but the citizen of the world looks impartially for the man.
I am; Sir, your constant Reader,
COSMOPOLITE
EDIT: it is worth adding that the print which adorns the background of my blog is in response to the OP war. Little of the print relates to Jewishness as far as I can tell. But if anyone spots a connection, do tell.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Flirting with Apocalypse - Part 2: Nukes
Having completed some work on commerce and oil spills, my work on this project (see earlier post) has now moved on to nuclear science, weapons, and opposition in British cartoons. Below is a my first draft of how this section will open:
Nuclear weapons, testing, threats and fears were a central political narrative of the twentieth century. The existence, power, persistence, and apocalyptic potential of nuclear weaponry were also central to the emergence of a strong environmental rhetoric in the western world. Unsurprisingly therefore cartoon responses to the nuclear problem were (and remain) both legion and myriad. Moreover the visual language of nuclear warfare and fallout have been used to inform and augment comic commentaries upon a variety of subjects.
Threading clear representational threads through and trends from this vast corpus is not the purpose of this section. Instead, it presents striking examples of how 'the bomb' has been imagined by British cartoonists, as a facet of a wider conversation upon man's flirtation with self-induced apocalypse.
Threading clear representational threads through and trends from this vast corpus is not the purpose of this section. Instead, it presents striking examples of how 'the bomb' has been imagined by British cartoonists, as a facet of a wider conversation upon man's flirtation with self-induced apocalypse.
(c) British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent, David Low, Evening Standard (02 Jan 1928) LSE 0326
“She came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high [...] Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw”
Much like Lewis Carroll's Alice, a small boy of 1928 peeks with intrigue behind a curtain. He is met with a feast of technological invention, an imagined future of weather control, robots, and communicative media (here 'TELETASTE' stands out as a particularly jovial comic flourish). However among these delights of utopian and egalitarian optimism stands three portentous potentialities – 'THE FINAL POISON GAS?', 'THE FINAL EXPLOSIVE?', 'THE HARNESSED ATOM'?.
“She came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high [...] Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw”
Much like Lewis Carroll's Alice, a small boy of 1928 peeks with intrigue behind a curtain. He is met with a feast of technological invention, an imagined future of weather control, robots, and communicative media (here 'TELETASTE' stands out as a particularly jovial comic flourish). However among these delights of utopian and egalitarian optimism stands three portentous potentialities – 'THE FINAL POISON GAS?', 'THE FINAL EXPLOSIVE?', 'THE HARNESSED ATOM'?.
Post-war optimism, science-fiction, and technological achievement combined to create an aura of optimism in the 1920s. Things hitherto imagined could, it seemed, be brought into actuality. Yet as Alice discovered as she traversed Wonderland, appearances can deceive and the beneficial does not always discern itself clearly from the troublesome. Low here plays upon this conundrum, thereby problematising the hope underpinning scientific prediction. Little did he know that Ernest Rutherford's model of the atom, discoveries in astrophysics, and the experiments with radioactivity and nuclear physics to which he refers in this piece, would in the coming years form the basis of an atomic weapon possessing such shocking violence, toxicity, and finality.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Neurogubbins: some beginnings...
I recently had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Raymond Tallis as part of our open lecture series at the University of Kent. I've followed Tallis for some time, and whilst picking through his latest - Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinities and the Misrepresentation of Mankind (2011) - a lively attack on, among other things, neurohumanities interpretation, I was reminded of the work of John Onians. Almost a year ago now I had the curious pleasure of seeing Onians speak on the topic of 'Towards a neuroarthistory of the twentieth century' at the KIASH Annual Lecture, again at UKC. Confused, baffled and concerned by his reduction of art to neural stimuli, I immediately rushed out (aka logged on to Amazon) and ordered a copy of his book.
Once the Post Office had done their bit, I plunged into this mysterious world of 'neuroarthistory' and by the conclusion of Onians' introduction I became acutely (and pleasantly) aware that something was amiss. Over the comings months I discussed things at length with a friend who knew more about such things than I (Matthew Thomas, currently studying an MSc in Human Evolution & Behaviour at University College London; follow his musings at http://tangledwoof.wordpress.com/), and clear cracks in Onians' thesis started appearing. Agitated I furiously constructed the following response.
A short caveat. This was a work of catharsis, designed as a means of exhaling the thoughts that were swirling around my mind at the time. It was not designed to be published. And it has not been edited for some months. This then, is snapshot of my mind in late-August/early-September 2010 (when, I must add, I probably should have been spending my time finishing my PhD thesis... and for those who are concerned, fear not. PhD was submitted on time and successfully viva'd). As such there are some aspects of this I would probably change now. And add to. Nonetheless it is a good starting point, and a useful document of how, where and why my life as a neurohumanties skeptic began.
REVIEW
Neuroarthistory: From Aristotle and Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki
John Onians
Yale University Press, 2008
Pp 225. US$40·00. ISBN-978-0-30012-677-8
As it's title suggests, Onians' book has the bold aim of synthesising 'hard' scientific knowledge with the somewhat 'softer' realm of art history. Such work has only recently been made possible, as Onians argues in his introduction, our understanding of the brain has progressed so rapidly in the last third of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first centuries that cultural constructs, the world of signifiers (and signifieds), are no longer sufficient to explain the processes by which works of art were and are created and experienced. 'The use of neuroscientific knowledge as an aid to the study of art', Onians triumphantly writes, 'is now an established practice'. [9]
Onians' positivism is hardly surprising. It was he who coined the term 'Neuroarthistory' in 2005, and the present volume pursues such an application of neuroscientific principles to art developed first in his postgraduate teaching at the University of East Anglia and second in his collaboration with Semir Zeki, the Professor of Neurobiology turned founder of 'Neuroaesthetics' at University College London.
This multidisciplinarity has not gone unnoticed, or indeed passed without significant critique. Raymond Tallis, Emeritus Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester, had led a fierce resistance against such scholarly behaviour. For Tallis, writing in the Times Literary Supplement in a response to A. S. Byatt's neural deconstruction of John Donne's poetry in the same publication, Onians (although not mentioned due to the near simultaneous publication of their work) would be considered not as a pioneering innovator but as one of the growing number of so-called 'neuroscience groupie[s]'. Reductionist, professionally exploitative and prone to 'overstanding', these writers Tallis contends deal in 'neurospeculation, not neuroscience' and in doing so marginalise the rich networks of context and understanding which enliven humanities scholarship. As Tallis concludes [link here]:
As a sub-discipline of neuroaesthetics we would expect Tallis to hold similar reservations about the veracity and utility of neuroarthistory [a small interjection from present me is required here, as, unbeknown to me, Tallis had indeed made a significant pop at Onians at the time I was writing this: see here]. Indeed this essay argues that like Byatt, Onians' thesis suffers fundamentally from a similar misunderstanding of the 'present state of neuroscience'. But before discussing how Neuroarthistory offers a salutary lesson for historians and humanities scholars on the dangers of appropriating neuroscience (and indeed emergent 'hard' scientific processes in general) for their purposes, it is worth outlining the positive values of Onians' study.
Onians makes his aims very clear from the outset. 'The last of our authors, Semir Zeki, claims that artists are often neuroscientists without knowing it. This book', he continues, 'makes a similar claim for writers on art' [13]. Irrespective of the neuroscientific problems associated with this claim, the formulation of his argument is refreshing and at times compelling. His structure involves brief, segmented discussions on the works of major thinkers on art (including notable chapters on Josef Goller, Ernst Gombrich, and Michael Baxandall) covering a period from Aristotle to present day. What is innovative within this chronology is Onians' invocation of theorists not traditionally associated with art, such as Kant, Marx and Freud, and his exploration of how these men (there are lamentably no women) all displayed an underlying and cumulatively developing concern with how the (sub)conscious brain shaped the production of art. Each may have lived in different era of medical and scientific knowledge, but all were keen to postulate on the brains role because they (rightly so, Onians argues) suspected the function of the brain would ultimately (at times read: inevitably) unlock the 'secrets' of art. This synthesis of close readings from works produced by these unlikely actors is achieved with relative ease (with or without the neuroscientific baggage), begging the question of why this position had not been reached previously.
Problems however start to arise, as hinted above, when Onians moves from these more traditional methods of intellectual enquiry into regarding the theorists under discussion as the 'neural subjects' [14] he promises to in his introductory gambit. Although Onians does display caution regarding the fixity of the scientific foundations underpinning neuroarthistory – 'it will constantly change as the knowledge on which it is based is expanded, reinterpreted and revised […] today's knowledge easily degrades into tomorrow's opinion and error' [17] – such comments are at odds with the tenor of his account.
Indeed the closest Onians comes to the tendentious reductionism Tallis accuses Byatt (and neuroaesthetics in general) of is in his neural explanations of how the theories his subjects wrote were arrived at. Passages of this nature conclude each chapter and centre around how environmental factors shaped not the outlook of each subject but there actual neural networks. To do so, Onians invokes the concept of 'neural plasticity' (more on which later), the impact of which he understands thus:
In short, for Onians every human experience (and more so those from earlier in our lifespans, our formative years) shapes our brains due to the fundamental 'plasticity' of our neural connections.
Thus in his discussions of Goller, Onians makes the perfectly plausible claim that Goller's theory of architecture was ground-breaking because improvements in train travel allowed him to not only see a variety of architectural styles, and hence a wide range of 'data', but to see them in more rapid succession than was ever before possible. Even his modestly neuroscientific claim that Goller 'would have unconsciously become more and more sensitive to patterns of variation through time and from place to place' is thoroughly explainable using 'traditional' non-neurological methods. What is most problematic however is when Onians pushes this neurological reading into territory only his neuroscientific/neuroaesthetic framework can explain, such as his claim that:
Onians use of neuroscientific theory reaches it's most questionable however in a chapter on Baron Charles Montesquieu. Having explained, through close textual reading, the primacy Montesquieu gives to climate in his theory of art, Onians notes unproblematically that:
It is here Onians makes one his most startling claims, one which ultimately illustrates the weakness of his neuroscientific theory. He writes:
Obviously to explain Montesquieu's theories through the neurological experience of wine growing is ambitious, and raises issues I will leave more experienced readers of Montesquieu to problematise. What is important for the purposes of this paper is that even if we take Onians explanation of current neuroscience as fact these claims seem questionable. Moreover if we pull away their neuroscientific foundations, the whole thesis quickly crumbles.
It is worth reiterating at this point that I am aware that Onians clearly states that he knows the neuroscientific knowledge behind neuroarthistory is liable to change and in the process make neuroarthistorical writings obsolete. Considering this, his taking on of such an endeavour must be applauded. What is problematic, and what I will now move on to show, is that not only has the neuroscience underpinning of Onians' work been challenged since the publication of Neuroarthistory, but it was far more unstable at the time of writing than he recognises. This, I argue, seems to stem from Onians' (fundamentally problematic) positivist perception of scientific knowledge.
The 'plasticity' or 'neuroplasticity' which Onians relies upon, for example, does indeed mean something close to his definition (see above) in scientific parlance. Yet however 'scientific' this definition sounds it means little more, as Vaughan Bell writes, than 'something in the brain has changed', and thus says little about the impact of environmental experience on theories of vision and art. As Bell continues [link here]:
Indeed as a recent critique of WEIRD(Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)-centric behavioural generalisations suggests, it is insufficient to register human difference via a “call and response” dynamic between brain and environment. Here the far more complex dynamic of 'behavioural plasticity' is preferred, as it responds to:
Similarly the concept of 'mirror neurons', central to Zeki's theses and crucial to Onians' understanding of how the brain replicates experience, is far from unchallenged. In short 'mirror neurons' are used to describe the phenomenon, first hypothesised in the 1980s by observations upon macaque brains and quickly imported into understandings of the human brain, of neurons in the motor cortex (ventral premotor cortex) which 'fire' both when the animal/human performs a gesture (say picking up a piece of chalk) and when they see the same gesture being performed. This theory has since proven extremely influential, not least because it purports to hold the proverbial key to learning by sitting alongside pre-existing simulation theory and concepts of neuroplasticity.
But mirror neurons are far from unproblematic. The backlash against their existence may have arrived too late to alter Neuroarthistry, but Onians' statement that 'soon it was realised that humans have even richer neural resources for mirroring' [6-7] is not only vague but represents a crude and ascientific leap between macaques and humans. As the above mentioned paper by Henrich et al. notes, scientists had argued for some time that transferring a biological trait of one species to humans underplays the impact of 'culture-gene coevolution [that] has dramatically shaped human evolution in a manner uncharacteristic of other species' [79]. Or as Tallis writes 'we are different from animals in every waking moment of our lives […] But if we deny this (invoking chimps etc) even in the case of creativity – and the appreciation of works of art – then no distance remains'.
By raising these issues I am not simply criticising Onians for getting his neuroscience 'wrong'. Indeed I warmly congratulate him for attempting, however problematically, to synthesise neuroscience with humanities research. Instead the lesson to be taken from Onians' approach to science is not his mistakes, but his erroneous tendency towards fixity and the cumulative power of science. At no point are the above questions, concerns and debates addressed with respect to scientific principles fundamental to his conclusions, and in their place we are told of the 'surprising precision' with which scientists understand our 'neural resources' [xii]; contestation is not addressed, instead neuroscience is marked by words and phrases such as 'contributing', 'agreed', 'common concern', [5] 'accumulation of knowledge' [5, 7], and 'gradual improvement in the understanding' [12]. To some extent this is true. Knowledge of the brain has improved vastly in the last four decades. However by seeing agreement where there is in fact vigorous debate, Onians is led into making very reductionist and vague statements of scientific 'fact' and the utility of those facts for his study:
The subjectivity of the individual is not, as some have argued, just a social construct. It is embodied in the brain […] Throughout an individual's life it manifests itself in his or her actions, thoughts and products, and, since all the experiences a persons has during their life are liable to affect the formation of their neural networks, to the extent that those experiences can be reconstructed, the subjectivity they produce can also be reconstructed hundreds or even thousands of years after the person in question has died. [14-15]
Indeed the treatment in Neuroarthistory of Onians' chief influence, Samir Zeki, is particularly revealing. Towards the conclusion of Inner Vision (1999) Zeki writes:
Here Zeki invokes discussions earlier in his book of how specific aspects of vision (colour, facial recognition) are disabled by damage to specific areas of the human brain. Hence he does not claim to understand what these areas we have 'pinpoint[ed] with an unimaginable accuracy' are fully capable of, rather that we simply know their basic functional capacity. Zeki's rhetoric is thus cautious, a sentiment extended in his epilogue where he remarks:
Onians dismisses these humble, cautionary concluding remarks as 'embarrassing' [203], a pertinent indication of his attitude to science for it is the very same tentative rhetoric and willingness to be wrong which the scientific community have applauded Zeki for and found refreshing about his work. To quote Vincent Walsh, Professor of Human Brain Research at University College London:
What is interesting about this passage is not only that Zeki's neuroscience is subject to debate but that Walsh, like Zeki, sees being 'fruitfully wrong' as part of the scientists job. In contrast Onians may see it as part of his job, as a pioneer of neuroarthistory, to be similarly 'fruitfully wrong' but his discredits Zeki putting his own work in such an unstable category. As Onians writes:
Where scientists see instability, Onians sees a fixity of knowledge. Indeed even fMRI scans, seen for so long as indicators of brain activity, have been subject to a recent backlash, 'the conceit that brain scans present an image of human cognition', writes Crawford, 'hold obvious attraction' which, he continues, is reinforced as much by cultural acceptance as scientific investigation. [Matthew B. Crawford, 'The Limits of Neuro-Talk,' The New Atlantis, Number 19, Winter 2008]
Despite these problems Neuroarthistory is a book of undoubted and admirable ambition. However what Onians describes as the 'defining feature' of his 'approach' (we are told categorically that it is 'not a theory'), namely it's 'readiness to use neuroscientific knowledge to answer any of the questions that an art historian may wish to ask', is misguided [17]. Although neuroscientific knowledge has potential to become a tool in the armoury of humanities scholars, at present the foundations of neuroscience are too unstable and too disputed to be of significant use, and to ignore this volatility, as Onians does, is not only erroneous but potentially dangerous. Indeed I was initially, although with some lingering reservations, convinced by the case made by Neuroarthistory. Yet it took only a few enquiries with colleagues and friends to uncover the shaky foundations of Onians' approach and how his compelling prose and vital capacity for analytical description could cloud and distance the realities of neuroscience and neuroscientific debate from a less inquisitive reader.
Onians acknowledges in his introduction the different pace of scientific and humanities research, and hence the possibility of Neuoarthistory becoming obsolete faster than a 'traditional' work of art history might. This addition is welcome and Onians' bravery and ambition has and should continue to be applauded. Indeed as neuroscientific research continues his position may in fact be vindicated. There is already, for example, the potential (unexplored by Onians) to view the categorisation of the world by the brain alongside the societal urge to stereotype explored in Walter Lippmann's seminal Public Opinion (1922) and the instinctive rationalising of physiognomic perception outlined by Ernst Gombrich ('On Physiognomic Perception', 1960). Nonetheless it should not be ignored that with a little probing the scientific foundations of Neuroarthistory are shown to be far less secure than Onians appears to suggest they are, and thus without significant reappraisal and scaling back of its claims, Onians risks the discrediting of the approach he himself has founded. It is hoped then that in the remaining two books of this neuroarthistorical trilogy the imprecision of neuroscience and the debates over some of the key concepts he uses are addressed. Otherwise, regrettably, neuroarthistory must be considered little more than a pseudo-scientific deception.
Once the Post Office had done their bit, I plunged into this mysterious world of 'neuroarthistory' and by the conclusion of Onians' introduction I became acutely (and pleasantly) aware that something was amiss. Over the comings months I discussed things at length with a friend who knew more about such things than I (Matthew Thomas, currently studying an MSc in Human Evolution & Behaviour at University College London; follow his musings at http://tangledwoof.wordpress.com/), and clear cracks in Onians' thesis started appearing. Agitated I furiously constructed the following response.
A short caveat. This was a work of catharsis, designed as a means of exhaling the thoughts that were swirling around my mind at the time. It was not designed to be published. And it has not been edited for some months. This then, is snapshot of my mind in late-August/early-September 2010 (when, I must add, I probably should have been spending my time finishing my PhD thesis... and for those who are concerned, fear not. PhD was submitted on time and successfully viva'd). As such there are some aspects of this I would probably change now. And add to. Nonetheless it is a good starting point, and a useful document of how, where and why my life as a neurohumanties skeptic began.
REVIEW
Neuroarthistory: From Aristotle and Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki
John Onians
Yale University Press, 2008
Pp 225. US$40·00. ISBN-978-0-30012-677-8
As it's title suggests, Onians' book has the bold aim of synthesising 'hard' scientific knowledge with the somewhat 'softer' realm of art history. Such work has only recently been made possible, as Onians argues in his introduction, our understanding of the brain has progressed so rapidly in the last third of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first centuries that cultural constructs, the world of signifiers (and signifieds), are no longer sufficient to explain the processes by which works of art were and are created and experienced. 'The use of neuroscientific knowledge as an aid to the study of art', Onians triumphantly writes, 'is now an established practice'. [9]
Onians' positivism is hardly surprising. It was he who coined the term 'Neuroarthistory' in 2005, and the present volume pursues such an application of neuroscientific principles to art developed first in his postgraduate teaching at the University of East Anglia and second in his collaboration with Semir Zeki, the Professor of Neurobiology turned founder of 'Neuroaesthetics' at University College London.
This multidisciplinarity has not gone unnoticed, or indeed passed without significant critique. Raymond Tallis, Emeritus Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester, had led a fierce resistance against such scholarly behaviour. For Tallis, writing in the Times Literary Supplement in a response to A. S. Byatt's neural deconstruction of John Donne's poetry in the same publication, Onians (although not mentioned due to the near simultaneous publication of their work) would be considered not as a pioneering innovator but as one of the growing number of so-called 'neuroscience groupie[s]'. Reductionist, professionally exploitative and prone to 'overstanding', these writers Tallis contends deal in 'neurospeculation, not neuroscience' and in doing so marginalise the rich networks of context and understanding which enliven humanities scholarship. As Tallis concludes [link here]:
Neuroaesthetics is wrong about the present state of neuroscience: we are not yet able to explain human consciousness, even less articulate self-consciousness as expressed in the reading of reading and writing of poetry. It is wrong about our experience of literature. And it is wrong about humanity.
As a sub-discipline of neuroaesthetics we would expect Tallis to hold similar reservations about the veracity and utility of neuroarthistory [a small interjection from present me is required here, as, unbeknown to me, Tallis had indeed made a significant pop at Onians at the time I was writing this: see here]. Indeed this essay argues that like Byatt, Onians' thesis suffers fundamentally from a similar misunderstanding of the 'present state of neuroscience'. But before discussing how Neuroarthistory offers a salutary lesson for historians and humanities scholars on the dangers of appropriating neuroscience (and indeed emergent 'hard' scientific processes in general) for their purposes, it is worth outlining the positive values of Onians' study.
Onians makes his aims very clear from the outset. 'The last of our authors, Semir Zeki, claims that artists are often neuroscientists without knowing it. This book', he continues, 'makes a similar claim for writers on art' [13]. Irrespective of the neuroscientific problems associated with this claim, the formulation of his argument is refreshing and at times compelling. His structure involves brief, segmented discussions on the works of major thinkers on art (including notable chapters on Josef Goller, Ernst Gombrich, and Michael Baxandall) covering a period from Aristotle to present day. What is innovative within this chronology is Onians' invocation of theorists not traditionally associated with art, such as Kant, Marx and Freud, and his exploration of how these men (there are lamentably no women) all displayed an underlying and cumulatively developing concern with how the (sub)conscious brain shaped the production of art. Each may have lived in different era of medical and scientific knowledge, but all were keen to postulate on the brains role because they (rightly so, Onians argues) suspected the function of the brain would ultimately (at times read: inevitably) unlock the 'secrets' of art. This synthesis of close readings from works produced by these unlikely actors is achieved with relative ease (with or without the neuroscientific baggage), begging the question of why this position had not been reached previously.
Problems however start to arise, as hinted above, when Onians moves from these more traditional methods of intellectual enquiry into regarding the theorists under discussion as the 'neural subjects' [14] he promises to in his introductory gambit. Although Onians does display caution regarding the fixity of the scientific foundations underpinning neuroarthistory – 'it will constantly change as the knowledge on which it is based is expanded, reinterpreted and revised […] today's knowledge easily degrades into tomorrow's opinion and error' [17] – such comments are at odds with the tenor of his account.
Indeed the closest Onians comes to the tendentious reductionism Tallis accuses Byatt (and neuroaesthetics in general) of is in his neural explanations of how the theories his subjects wrote were arrived at. Passages of this nature conclude each chapter and centre around how environmental factors shaped not the outlook of each subject but there actual neural networks. To do so, Onians invokes the concept of 'neural plasticity' (more on which later), the impact of which he understands thus:
The organ that we rely on for every one of our bodily actions, feelings and thoughts is liable to have its structure affected by all such activities and indeed by all our passive sensory experiences, whether conscious or unconscious.
Thus in his discussions of Goller, Onians makes the perfectly plausible claim that Goller's theory of architecture was ground-breaking because improvements in train travel allowed him to not only see a variety of architectural styles, and hence a wide range of 'data', but to see them in more rapid succession than was ever before possible. Even his modestly neuroscientific claim that Goller 'would have unconsciously become more and more sensitive to patterns of variation through time and from place to place' is thoroughly explainable using 'traditional' non-neurological methods. What is most problematic however is when Onians pushes this neurological reading into territory only his neuroscientific/neuroaesthetic framework can explain, such as his claim that:
As he [Göller] went from city to city, from building to building, he would have unconsciously experienced the formulation of a plethora of memory images in his own brain. [113]
Montesquieu's perception of difference had certainly been sharpened by his travels, but his sense of significance of climate and terrain must have a more precise source.
The principal origin of his [Montesquieu's] wealth was wine growing, where weather and soil were the predominant determinants of success. Constantly at the back of his mind, their role, like that of other factors, slowly became clear to him as he accumulated his data […] Principles, such as the influence of climate and terrain, had emerged only after looking again and again at the materials he had collected. In his wine grower's brain such factors were already important; so it was easy for data in other areas to become related to them, slowly forming a pattern. His ideas had not been imposed on the data. They had grown naturally like vines and the neural networks in which they took shape. [69]
It is worth reiterating at this point that I am aware that Onians clearly states that he knows the neuroscientific knowledge behind neuroarthistory is liable to change and in the process make neuroarthistorical writings obsolete. Considering this, his taking on of such an endeavour must be applauded. What is problematic, and what I will now move on to show, is that not only has the neuroscience underpinning of Onians' work been challenged since the publication of Neuroarthistory, but it was far more unstable at the time of writing than he recognises. This, I argue, seems to stem from Onians' (fundamentally problematic) positivist perception of scientific knowledge.
The 'plasticity' or 'neuroplasticity' which Onians relies upon, for example, does indeed mean something close to his definition (see above) in scientific parlance. Yet however 'scientific' this definition sounds it means little more, as Vaughan Bell writes, than 'something in the brain has changed', and thus says little about the impact of environmental experience on theories of vision and art. As Bell continues [link here]:
The latest refrain in popular science is that ‘your brain is plastic’, that experience has the potential to ‘rewire’ your brain, and that many previous mysteries in cognitive can be explained by ‘neuroplasticity’. What they don’t tell you is that these phrases are virtually meaningless.
Different environments, epigenetic effects, divergent trajectories of cultural evolution, and even the differential distribution of genes across groups in response to divergent evolutionary histories.
[Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine and Ara Norenzayan (eds.), 'The weirdest people in the world?' (2010) Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Volume 33, Issue 2-3, June 2010 pp 61-83; 78 - link here]
Similarly the concept of 'mirror neurons', central to Zeki's theses and crucial to Onians' understanding of how the brain replicates experience, is far from unchallenged. In short 'mirror neurons' are used to describe the phenomenon, first hypothesised in the 1980s by observations upon macaque brains and quickly imported into understandings of the human brain, of neurons in the motor cortex (ventral premotor cortex) which 'fire' both when the animal/human performs a gesture (say picking up a piece of chalk) and when they see the same gesture being performed. This theory has since proven extremely influential, not least because it purports to hold the proverbial key to learning by sitting alongside pre-existing simulation theory and concepts of neuroplasticity.
But mirror neurons are far from unproblematic. The backlash against their existence may have arrived too late to alter Neuroarthistry, but Onians' statement that 'soon it was realised that humans have even richer neural resources for mirroring' [6-7] is not only vague but represents a crude and ascientific leap between macaques and humans. As the above mentioned paper by Henrich et al. notes, scientists had argued for some time that transferring a biological trait of one species to humans underplays the impact of 'culture-gene coevolution [that] has dramatically shaped human evolution in a manner uncharacteristic of other species' [79]. Or as Tallis writes 'we are different from animals in every waking moment of our lives […] But if we deny this (invoking chimps etc) even in the case of creativity – and the appreciation of works of art – then no distance remains'.
By raising these issues I am not simply criticising Onians for getting his neuroscience 'wrong'. Indeed I warmly congratulate him for attempting, however problematically, to synthesise neuroscience with humanities research. Instead the lesson to be taken from Onians' approach to science is not his mistakes, but his erroneous tendency towards fixity and the cumulative power of science. At no point are the above questions, concerns and debates addressed with respect to scientific principles fundamental to his conclusions, and in their place we are told of the 'surprising precision' with which scientists understand our 'neural resources' [xii]; contestation is not addressed, instead neuroscience is marked by words and phrases such as 'contributing', 'agreed', 'common concern', [5] 'accumulation of knowledge' [5, 7], and 'gradual improvement in the understanding' [12]. To some extent this is true. Knowledge of the brain has improved vastly in the last four decades. However by seeing agreement where there is in fact vigorous debate, Onians is led into making very reductionist and vague statements of scientific 'fact' and the utility of those facts for his study:
The particular strength of neuroarthistory is its ability to reconstruct the unconscious intellectual formation of the makers, users and viewers of art. [13]
The subjectivity of the individual is not, as some have argued, just a social construct. It is embodied in the brain […] Throughout an individual's life it manifests itself in his or her actions, thoughts and products, and, since all the experiences a persons has during their life are liable to affect the formation of their neural networks, to the extent that those experiences can be reconstructed, the subjectivity they produce can also be reconstructed hundreds or even thousands of years after the person in question has died. [14-15]
Indeed the treatment in Neuroarthistory of Onians' chief influence, Samir Zeki, is particularly revealing. Towards the conclusion of Inner Vision (1999) Zeki writes:
We have little knowledge of what brain areas are involved in the powerful subjective feelings that the painting [Jan Vermeer's, Girl with a Pearl Earring] arouses, or how these brain areas interact to give us an overall impression of the painting. We are therefore still ignorant of much about the workings of the visual brain, and above all of the neurological basis of beauty. Our ignorance should not, however, detract from the very considerable achievements that allow us to pinpoint with an unimaginable accuracy the brain areas without which all the beauty of portrait painting would simply not exist. [181]
Here Zeki invokes discussions earlier in his book of how specific aspects of vision (colour, facial recognition) are disabled by damage to specific areas of the human brain. Hence he does not claim to understand what these areas we have 'pinpoint[ed] with an unimaginable accuracy' are fully capable of, rather that we simply know their basic functional capacity. Zeki's rhetoric is thus cautious, a sentiment extended in his epilogue where he remarks:
It is quite true that we know almost too little about the brain, and certainly not enough to account in neurological terms for aesthetic experience. [217]
One of my scientific heroes is Semir Zeki. I think he's been substantially wrong on almost everything, but his contribution to science has been far bigger than those who haven't had the intellectual smarts or courage to put new ideas into the literature. This is no side swipe, I actually think Zeki should have shared the 1982 Nobel prize: he had completely rewritten the architecture of the visual cortex by 1978. The best most of us can hope for is to be fruitfully wrong – and you need to be damned clever and courageous to be so. I can only dream of getting things as intellectually wrong, but there's time.
['Q&A Vincent Walsh', Current Biology, Volume 19, Issue 21, 17 November 2009, pp. 970-1 ]
What is interesting about this passage is not only that Zeki's neuroscience is subject to debate but that Walsh, like Zeki, sees being 'fruitfully wrong' as part of the scientists job. In contrast Onians may see it as part of his job, as a pioneer of neuroarthistory, to be similarly 'fruitfully wrong' but his discredits Zeki putting his own work in such an unstable category. As Onians writes:
It is poignant that, after nearly two and a half thousand years of writing on the topic [artistic activity], at the very moment when a wealth of knowledge allows it to be handled with a new level of precision and sophistication, one of the principle authors of the new knowledge has to apologise for his attempts to do just that. [203]
Despite these problems Neuroarthistory is a book of undoubted and admirable ambition. However what Onians describes as the 'defining feature' of his 'approach' (we are told categorically that it is 'not a theory'), namely it's 'readiness to use neuroscientific knowledge to answer any of the questions that an art historian may wish to ask', is misguided [17]. Although neuroscientific knowledge has potential to become a tool in the armoury of humanities scholars, at present the foundations of neuroscience are too unstable and too disputed to be of significant use, and to ignore this volatility, as Onians does, is not only erroneous but potentially dangerous. Indeed I was initially, although with some lingering reservations, convinced by the case made by Neuroarthistory. Yet it took only a few enquiries with colleagues and friends to uncover the shaky foundations of Onians' approach and how his compelling prose and vital capacity for analytical description could cloud and distance the realities of neuroscience and neuroscientific debate from a less inquisitive reader.
Onians acknowledges in his introduction the different pace of scientific and humanities research, and hence the possibility of Neuoarthistory becoming obsolete faster than a 'traditional' work of art history might. This addition is welcome and Onians' bravery and ambition has and should continue to be applauded. Indeed as neuroscientific research continues his position may in fact be vindicated. There is already, for example, the potential (unexplored by Onians) to view the categorisation of the world by the brain alongside the societal urge to stereotype explored in Walter Lippmann's seminal Public Opinion (1922) and the instinctive rationalising of physiognomic perception outlined by Ernst Gombrich ('On Physiognomic Perception', 1960). Nonetheless it should not be ignored that with a little probing the scientific foundations of Neuroarthistory are shown to be far less secure than Onians appears to suggest they are, and thus without significant reappraisal and scaling back of its claims, Onians risks the discrediting of the approach he himself has founded. It is hoped then that in the remaining two books of this neuroarthistorical trilogy the imprecision of neuroscience and the debates over some of the key concepts he uses are addressed. Otherwise, regrettably, neuroarthistory must be considered little more than a pseudo-scientific deception.
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
The Widow
Widows received a bad press in early modern England.
Think of Isaac Cruikshank’s MY GRANDMOTHER: alias the Jersey Jig: alias the RIVAL WIDOWS (26 August 1794), a satire on the sexual triumvirate of George Prince of Wales, Lady Jersey (who was in fact married) and Maria Fitzherbert (there is also a parody in here of Elizabeth Cooper’s 1735 work The Rival Widows). Or of George Cruikshank’s bizarre THE WIDOW WADDLE OF CHICHABIDDY LANE (12 October 1807), after a song by Joseph Grimaldi, which plays on the stereotype of the remarried widow as a masculine husband beater.
More common were droll satires such as Isaac Cruikshank’s, The Disagreeable Intrusion, or Irish Fortune Hunter Detected (4 September 1795). Here a widow, seduced by an attractive Irish fortune hunter, consents to their marriage only to have her wishes thwarted by the arrest, presumably for polygamy, of her lover. Contrasted with a classical nude portrait, Cruikshank satirises her willing ignorance towards this calculated, charming and affectatious male exploiting the foibles of English elite institutions. He is a criminal and a bigamist, yet 'The Disagreeable Intrusion' will only briefly rob him of his liberty and delay his enrichment. He is thus not the fool. That honour is taken by the widow, who, shocked by the 'intrusion' rather than appalled at her deception, would willingly marry a rogue rather than not marry at all.Allowances for satiric exaggeration aside this is the classic early modern view of the widow - she is desperate, violent, and scheming. Yet if we replace a negative (scheming) with a positive (clever) we might be able to start breaking away from this caricature. For once again, my work on the account books of the Rochester Bridge Trust, has rendered such gender constructions problematic (see my previous post here).
In 1594 at the RBT managed property of East Tilbury, Essex, Alice Gestlyng took on with her son Isaac the estate of her late husband Richard, which they held jointly until 1601. In 1660 Ann Aynsworth, a ‘widow’, took the same property, now replete ‘with barn, buildings, demeasne lands, meadows, pastures, marshes except timber rights’, before it passed to her son Rowland in 1676. One Elizabeth Unton held this lease from 1752 until 1765, and in 1795 Mary Benson took charge of what is by now described as the ‘Manor of Tilbury’. Mary held the lease until 1814 when it passed into the hands of her son, Samuel Benson, who himself continued at the property until 1823.
These names, dates, and descriptions found in the RBT records tell us little beyond what was formally required to be on such official documents (leases et al). Nonetheless the patterns present are of interest. As was the case for High Halstow (Kent) it is notable how female possession of a property was in the early modern period a means by which families could retain ownership of that property. It is also of note how, once again, female ownership at this Essex estate ceases from sometime in the early-nineteenth century.
Perhaps the increased frequency of businesses, as opposed to individuals, taking ownership as leases can explain this trend. Land in both Essex and Kent, as the City and Region project explores, came across the period 1577 to 1914 under increasing pressure from the (masculine) industrialising march of London. Men and leases then could quite possibly have started seeming more natural partners. However these fragmentary insights might also suggest that part of the rationale for virulent anti-widow satires can be located in the power widows of the eighteenth and early-ninteenth centuries could exert over property and hence, as was remarkably clear in the case of Maria Fitzherbert, over men.
I’d be pleased to hear if any recent work on the early modern widow has explored such territory.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Flirting with Apocalypse - Part 1: Christmas
I have recently been commissioned by the British Cartoon Archive to produce a series of teaching and learning aids using their digital collections (as an appendage to the JISC funded CARD project). These aids will take the form of groups of cartoons selected, interpreted and given scholarly context by me, and will be made live on the BCA website in the coming months.
This morning I've been working on a group entitled 'Flirting with Apocalypse', which plans to go beyond the 20th century symbol of doomsday, the atomic bomb, and explore through cartoons man's relationship with what Al Gore famously called 'our only home'. Themes such as rural erosion, consumerism, oil spills, green politics and natural disasters will be covered, with the aim of offering students a starting point towardss thinking about how man's construction of their world (not only physically, but also mentally) impacts upon the environment we all inhabit.
Over the coming weeks I plan to share some preliminary findings here. And today I offer some thoughts Christmas:
This morning I've been working on a group entitled 'Flirting with Apocalypse', which plans to go beyond the 20th century symbol of doomsday, the atomic bomb, and explore through cartoons man's relationship with what Al Gore famously called 'our only home'. Themes such as rural erosion, consumerism, oil spills, green politics and natural disasters will be covered, with the aim of offering students a starting point towardss thinking about how man's construction of their world (not only physically, but also mentally) impacts upon the environment we all inhabit.
Over the coming weeks I plan to share some preliminary findings here. And today I offer some thoughts Christmas:
Michael Heath, The Independent (7 Dec 1998) PC5102
Christmas is, despite its spiritual origins, the modern symbol of reckless and conspicuous consumption. Moreover its centrality to annual trade cycles and its use to gauge such virtual signifiers as 'economic growth' and 'consumer confidence' demonstrate the exploitative mentality of big business.
Heath's bold, brash style may make for an obvious critique of consumerism (notably how Christmas as greed subverts its selfless origins), but subtle witty commentaries remain present. Note, for example, the few figures picked out of this otherwise faceless parade. Towards the bottom right two middle-aged businessmen, frustrated and anxious, make their way from the busy high street. Nearby a well dressed female raises her voice to a crying child. Behind them small groups, including women sporting what resemble fine ushanka hats, browse the shop windows. These well-to-do types represent the chaos, the hysteria, the madness of the 'SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!' mentality, and they contrast starkly with the less orthodox figures who stand bemused, and speak for the cartoonist/left-leaning Independent reader, in the bottom left-hand corner. This couple are not exempt from critique, they after all carry a gaudily wrapped gift, yet they cut through the masquerade and see Christmas as it really is. The signs reading 'BE GREEDY IT'S COOL' and 'GET LEGLESS THIS CHRISTMAS' are then what they project onto the scene - once the glitzy mask, under considerable strain, has cracked, this Christian festival is revealed to them as in reality a hyper-consumerist Vanity Fair.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Will, Kate, and Cannadine.
This of course does not render Cannadine's thesis incorrect. Although his predictions of monarchical decline may seem on 30th April 2011 a little premature, #RW2011 is surely little more than a sticking plaster. Of greater importance perhaps, 'the wedding' alerts us to the trouble historians can run into (though Cannadine carefully litters his thesis with caveats) when predicting the future. Moreover it reminds us of the intoxicating power such public displays of 'ornamentalism' can still have on the 'public imagination'. For as an expression of everything 'ornamentlism' is, the wedding was also everything the Queen cherishes - as Cannadine writes 'medals, uniforms, decorations, investitures and ceremonial'. Combine that with a Clarence House administration more technologically savvy than most commentators give them credit for (see The Royal Channel), and suddenly we have a powerful 'ornamentalism' operating with an unprecedented communicative pervasiveness.Friday, 29 April 2011
Land and Gender
Delving into a historical field or period outside of your specialist area of study can, it is always said, only make one a better historian.
Working with the tenancy records of the Rochester Bridge Trust since September 2010 for the ‘City and Region’ project at University of Kent has therefore been an enlightening experience. Indeed new experiences have been plenty in my interactions with the project at large (getting a grounding in economic history; working with, and digitising, historic maps; planning the delivery of a bespoke website to carry our dataset), but the records themselves have thrown up some truly surprising moments.
Today, whilst massaging the RBT dataset, I discorvered how economic approaches can be used to tell us something about gender in British history (and not merely, as is often the case, with respect to patterns of consumption).
The small town of High Halstow near Rochester in Kent is not somewhere with which I have an acquaintance. However property records for the land there owned by the Rochester Bridge Trust between 1581 and 1914 reveal a remarkable fact: for 117 of the 333 years the main tenant of High Halstow was female.
Katerine Kelsham held the rural estate for 29 years from 1581 after the death of her husband Edward. Between 1643 and 1644 one Marye White paid £2 2s. rent per year on the property. She was awarded the property by the Bridge Wardens for, quote: "the great expense charges and troble the said Marye and her lately deceased sonne Alexander Witherley were enforced vnto in the defence of the right of the said Bridge vnto the said marsh land against the suite brought by one Sir George Theobald in his Majesties Court of Exchequer whoe thereby vaynly hoped to possess himselfe of the same". In 1659 the lease was taken by Margaret Lake who in 1674 passed it to her son, Hugh Lake. Similarly Ann Sanders (reverting back to her maiden name from Lake) took ownership in 1688 from Hugh (her late husband), and passed it to their son Nicholas in 1703. And finally one Laetitia Akers held the lease for a remarkable 41 years from 1775, during which time she saw her annual rent increase from £8 to £33 in 1795.
Hereafter the lease is held solely by men, all of which allows us to make some provisional conclusions.
These records tell us that the role of women was crucial in the early modern period to the way property was managed, inherited, maintained, and protected, only to decline (or mutate) sometime around the middle of the nineteenth century. One might speculate then that the idea of property (as land) was being renegotiated and gendered male in mid-nineteenth century Kent. This data may only provide a snapshot, but as something I’ve run across a few times since starting work on the dataset, it has forced me to ponder how even disciplines as traditionally separate as economic and gender history can, in fact, be fruitfully intertwined.
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Tradition
Though decided on the AV debate - #Yes2AV - following the political mudslinging over the recent weeks has proven curiously captivating.This morning I stumbled across this interview of Baroness Warsi conducted by the ever pugnacious Adam Boulton. Surprisingly, and not merely because he was on 'my side', Boulton came across rather well, particularly during his dissection of what Warsi classified as 'tradition' (She did not actually use the word, but statements such as 'fundamental principles' and 'generations have fought for' suggest what she is getting at. Well at least it did for me).
Two semantic problems arise from this which probably should trouble us more than they do.
First, how old is 'tradition'? Warsi was appealing (erroneously of course) to a tradition beginning around 1945, thus disregarding from tradition a long history of parliamentary adaptation. In a similar vein the Old Price rioters at Covent Garden theatre during the Autumn of 1809 classified the rights of Englishmen to public entertainments as existing since 'time immemorial'. In the same way that Milton's Areopagitica claimed press freedoms to be inalienable, 
the OP rioters had a dislocated and distorted sense of what terms such as 'tradition' and 'ancient' meant. Equally during a period of acute food shortages in the early-nineteenth century, Justice Kenyon prosecuted against forestallers and regrators. These practices, which inflated food prices artificially, were perfectly legal. However common law and custom stated that they were not, and thus many ignored the 1771 legislation repealing prohibitions on these practices. Kenyon, under the Cruikshankian gaze, became a popular hero, a defender of natural rights. Yet, there is more, the legislation making forestalling and regrating illegal was neither ancient nor natural but had clear sixteenth century legislative origins.
Tradition then is a complex beast. And depends on the perspective of those who claim something or other to be traditional. Indeed as environmental historians are keen to tell us, there is nothing ancient or traditional about any of this. Human existence, Bill McKibben notes, is to the lifespan of the Earth but a blink of the eye.
Second, whose tradition is tradition? This may seem a very obvious point, but if 'tradition' has chronological problems it is also impacted upon by gender, class, nationality, faith et al. This is exemplified by returning to our forestallers and regrators - for 'the people' (I use that word begrudgingly, with an awareness of the huge problems it entails...) treating food as a special case, as outside of market forces, was customary; for the acolytes of Adam Smith on the other hand food was just another product, another unit to be monetised (and so followed land, labour and, in the present day, carbon - see Doreen Massey's beautiful essay on such matters here).
For Warsi and many in the #No2AV camp, 'tradition' is associated with post-war frugality (both intellectually and financially), settling and stoicism. For many in the #Yes2AV camp, like myself, 'tradition' is something more theoretical, something more timeless (at least in theory, it can, I guess, never be so in reality) - that being a simple belief in individual agency and in a rejection of clannish traditions based upon words enshrined upon paper which one may not question.
Tradition then is the very rejection of tradition. And I suspect this definition (if we swap over the two traditions) nicely encapsulates where Warsi stands on the issue too.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Cruikshank in public
Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at The Cartoon Museum on the topics explored during my doctoral research. Reflecting on the experience, it strikes me how enchanted members of the public are towards the satirical prints produced in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries; the supposed 'Golden Age'. Even when I had to explain the joke - which as Gombrich regularly reaffirmed only serves to kill it - chortles and chuckles filled the room. More importantly however, it intrigues me how willing the public are to accept ideas scholars might be more skeptical of.
The work of Isaac Cruikshank has formed the crux of my intellectual life for nearly four years (one of his most lively and detailed prints adorns the background of this very blog - see the record at the British Museum collections). As a result my talk focused on why I see Isaac as an important figure in the history of satirical printing - namely because, unlike James Gillray (whose work tends to be held up
as representative of the trade at the time), Isaac rushed his etchings, made mistakes, lacked consistency in style, couldn't draw likenesses, and was generally a bit (to use my favoured antipodean term of slander) 'average'. Perhaps I'm being a little harsh on Isaac. He did after all teach a young George Cruikshank all he knew (well, maybe I'm exaggerating now...). But my point nonetheless is and was that artists such as Isaac Cruikshank are representative of the trade, not supreme masters such as Gillray.
Perhaps I underestimated my audience. But to be frank I expected a backlash. I expected the idea that artistic quality would not 'win out' to be dismissed, decried, and pooh-poohed. Instead the audience were very accepting of my remarks, and saw it as perfectly logical that we have to (to paraphrase the work of Adrian Johns on books) forget what we know about cartoons in the present when studying the same medium in the past, because, in sum, the two are actually not the same medium at all.
It has troubled me for a number of years that historians seem unable to make this leap of faith. And it surprised and delighted me in equal measure to find that those members of the public who made their way to The Cartoon Museum that night had indeed, it seems, made that leap. Or had they? Are we as historians taught to tie our sources together too neatly? Are we, despite Butterfield's warnings of eight decades ago, inclined towards Whiggish narratives of the past? Or, more controversially perhaps, has the influence of art-historians on the field of Golden Age satirical printing inculcated this Whiggishness?
My attempts to explore these problems, and much more, will be explored here.
The work of Isaac Cruikshank has formed the crux of my intellectual life for nearly four years (one of his most lively and detailed prints adorns the background of this very blog - see the record at the British Museum collections). As a result my talk focused on why I see Isaac as an important figure in the history of satirical printing - namely because, unlike James Gillray (whose work tends to be held up
as representative of the trade at the time), Isaac rushed his etchings, made mistakes, lacked consistency in style, couldn't draw likenesses, and was generally a bit (to use my favoured antipodean term of slander) 'average'. Perhaps I'm being a little harsh on Isaac. He did after all teach a young George Cruikshank all he knew (well, maybe I'm exaggerating now...). But my point nonetheless is and was that artists such as Isaac Cruikshank are representative of the trade, not supreme masters such as Gillray.Perhaps I underestimated my audience. But to be frank I expected a backlash. I expected the idea that artistic quality would not 'win out' to be dismissed, decried, and pooh-poohed. Instead the audience were very accepting of my remarks, and saw it as perfectly logical that we have to (to paraphrase the work of Adrian Johns on books) forget what we know about cartoons in the present when studying the same medium in the past, because, in sum, the two are actually not the same medium at all.
It has troubled me for a number of years that historians seem unable to make this leap of faith. And it surprised and delighted me in equal measure to find that those members of the public who made their way to The Cartoon Museum that night had indeed, it seems, made that leap. Or had they? Are we as historians taught to tie our sources together too neatly? Are we, despite Butterfield's warnings of eight decades ago, inclined towards Whiggish narratives of the past? Or, more controversially perhaps, has the influence of art-historians on the field of Golden Age satirical printing inculcated this Whiggishness?
My attempts to explore these problems, and much more, will be explored here.
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