I feel like all of my posts should have a nerd alert warning, but, well, this one really needs it. My inner nerd is coming out to play. Unrestrained. I have found that these posts are a way for me to try stuff out that I am thinking about writing. This is one of those.
I keep thinking about that 14 minute segment of Thomas Pettitt’s lecture I highlighted in a previous post (minutes 23 – 37, in case you missed it). He talks about words being restrained in the container of the book happening about the same time paintings start to be framed, fixed maps start to replace navigational directions, and the image of the body starts to be seen as an envelope. A container. That 14 minutes of video has been pinging around in my brain ever since. I am fascinated by this. Fascinated.
I study fairy tales, this is true. But I also spend a lot of my time with Julia Kristeva’s work, particularly her theory of abjection. My thesis, in fact, is trying to bring those two things together. As a result, sometimes I get lost in my own head. Anyway, this idea of the image of the body as an envelope corresponding to the Gutenberg Parenthesis really connects with abjection.
As Pettitt points out, etiquette of the time starts to become very concerned with keeping the envelope intact. Cover your mouth when you yawn or cough, cover your nose when you sneeze, don’t eat with your mouth open, keep your legs and ankles together, and so on and so forth. According to Kristeva, when anything leaves the body it becomes abject. If we didn’t view the body as an envelope, a container, if we weren’t so concerned with categories and compartments (another aspect of the Parenthesis, according to Pettitt), we wouldn’t have the abject.
Would we also not be as concerned with the differentiation of self and other?
How much does materiality affect cognition?
Could abjection be the result of the Gutenberg Parenthesis?
I can’t stop thinking about it.
Seeking Knowledge... 