The Persistence of Masks (Paperback)
Language: English
Published by University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota, 2025
- Softcover
- New
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Paperback. An examination of surrealisms unofficial ethnography of marginalized subjectivities In interwar Paris, the encounter between surrealism and the nascent discipline of ethnology led to an intellectual project now known as ethnographic surrealism. In The Persistence of Masks, Joyce Suechun Cheng considers the ethnographic dimension of the surrealist movement in its formative years through a close look at the reviews Documents (192930) and Minotaure (193339) as well as the surrealist writer-turned-ethnographer Michel Leiriss ethnography of possession. Analyzing surrealist aesthetic criticism, art, poetry, and field research in terms of a common interest in marginalized modes of subjectivity, Cheng argues that the surrealists used the figures of the mask, the veil, the hand, and the hat to radically reconceive the subject as nonhegemonic, nonanthropocentric, and feminine-identified. Though ethnographic surrealism usually refers to the collaboration between professional ethnologists at the Institut de lEthnologie in Paris and Georges Batailles so-called dissident circle of surrealists, Cheng demonstrates that surrealisms unofficial ethnography began long before the founding of the movement. Starting with Andre Bretons wartime text Subject (1916), written when he was still a young psychiatric intern treating traumatized soldiers, she shows how the future surrealist poet shifted from a clinical to a para-ethnographic approach to subjectivity when adopting his patients first-person voice as a textual mask. Revealing surrealism to be always implicitly ethnographic, Cheng uncovers deep affinities between archrivals Breton and Bataille, highlights psychiatrys underacknowledged role in surrealisms lay ethnography, and theorizes the surrealists feminine identification as a means of critiquing power. By broadening the scope of ethnographic surrealism, The Persistence of Masks offers new insights that challenge longstanding beliefs about this multifaceted movement in poetry, the arts, and culture. Examining surrealisms covert ethnography in interwar Paris, the study uncovers how early surrealists shifted from clinical approaches to poetic experiments with masks, veils, and gestures that reframe marginalized subjectivities. It challenges traditional authority by linking art, poetry, and psychiatric insights. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…
Seller Inventory # 9781517917784
- Title
- The Persistence of Masks (Paperback)
- Author
- Joyce Suechun Cheng
- Publisher
- University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota
- Publication year
- 2025
- Condition
- new
- Binding
- Paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1517917786
- ISBN 13
- 9781517917784
An examination of surrealism’s unofficial ethnography of marginalized subjectivities
In interwar Paris, the encounter between surrealism and the nascent discipline of ethnology led to an intellectual project now known as “ethnographic surrealism.” In The Persistence of Masks, Joyce Suechun Cheng considers the ethnographic dimension of the surrealist movement in its formative years through a close look at the reviews Documents (1929–30) and Minotaure (1933–39) as well as the surrealist writer-turned-ethnographer Michel Leiris’s ethnography of possession. Analyzing surrealist aesthetic criticism, art, poetry, and field research in terms of a common interest in marginalized modes of subjectivity, Cheng argues that the surrealists used the figures of the mask, the veil, the hand, and the hat to radically reconceive the subject as nonhegemonic, nonanthropocentric, and feminine-identified.
Though ethnographic surrealism usually refers to the collaboration between professional ethnologists at the Institut de l’Ethnologie in Paris and Georges Bataille’s so-called dissident circle of surrealists, Cheng demonstrates that surrealism’s unofficial ethnography began long before the founding of the movement. Starting with AndrÉ Breton’s wartime text “Subject” (1916), written when he was still a young psychiatric intern treating traumatized soldiers, she shows how the future surrealist poet shifted from a clinical to a para-ethnographic approach to subjectivity when adopting his patient’s first-person voice as a textual mask.
Revealing surrealism to be always implicitly ethnographic, Cheng uncovers deep affinities between archrivals Breton and Bataille, highlights psychiatry’s underacknowledged role in surrealism’s lay ethnography, and theorizes the surrealists’ feminine identification as a means of critiquing power. By broadening the scope of ethnographic surrealism, The Persistence of Masks offers new insights that challenge longstanding beliefs about this multifaceted movement in poetry, the arts, and culture.
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About the Author
Joyce Suechun Cheng is associate professor of art history at the University of Oregon. Her essays and articles on dada, surrealism, and primitivism have appeared in journals such as Modernism/modernity; Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics; and Gradhiva.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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