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Show HONORS PROGRAM SPRING 2007 Megan R. Wham Craig D. Dworkin 133 Mina Loy and - RRHEA: Politics of Flux and Flow Megan R. Wham (Craig D. Dworkin) Department of English University of Utah Materiality has been an important aspect of experimental art across genres, from the paintings of Jackson Pollock, to the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, to Merce Cunningham’s dances. The emphasis on materiality rises out of the move away from what art can represent to what it actually is: paint, canvas, ink, phonemes, paper, movement. Rather than view materiality as a refinement and elevation of art to its purist elements, the view put forth by 18th century philosopher and art critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, I read material focus as a politics of pushing boundaries, of creating flux, and of challenging artistic and socio-political status quos. In keeping with the move away from representation, my research is not particularly interested in the politics in a poem (political subject matter or content), but rather the politics of a poem: how it uses form, the page, and language itself to either confront or subvert traditional ideas of language. Jed Rasula’s distinction between the politics in versus the politics of a poem gains much attention from experimental poets interested in confronting linguistic power structures and the larger social and political structures that create them. Theories dealing with the politics of a poem also intertwine with the critical work of Frederic Jameson and Guy Debord, both of whom deal with power structures and how we do and do not explicitly engage with and challenge those structures. My research uses the lens of Bruce Andrews, experimental poet and theorist using terms similar to Rasula’s, to put theories of political linguistic materiality in conversation with the early 20th century experimental poet, Mina Loy. Loy’s writing demonstrates materiality which questions language as a system, offers alternate systems based on sound and flow rather than representation, and forces the reader to consider language’s limits and what could exist beyond those limits. Andrews’ theories and Loy’s praxis are part of a much larger conversation questioning how one can write (or paint or dance or speak) within systems of language, society, and politics in order to challenge and expand those systems. |