Before
we looked up words online, we referred to dictionaries. Within those dictionaries
often one may find multiple definitions for a word based on parts of speech,
context and usage. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the
definition of the word “read” can be a transitive verb or intransitive verb,
the transitive meaning of the word means that it acts upon a direct object, and
the intransitive verb is one that does not require a direct object. The
transitive definition takes on a passive tone as if words and their meaning
impose themselves onto a reader, whereas the intransitive definition has a more
active role where the reader is a participant performing the “act of reading.”[1] My attention lies on the
intransitive definition and the more active tone it takes on by including the
words “perform” and “act” within its meaning. Building upon scholarship from
Judith Butler who writes about “gender performativity” I look at reading as a
form of performance that both archival caretakers and visitors engage in. Additionally,
I build upon the conceptualizations that Jamie A. Lee introduces in her book Producing
the Archival Body, where she introduces the body as integral to her
methodological strategy and the framework that she uses in conceiving of the
archive as a body. As archivists work to protect, collect, store and apprise
knowledge so too do our individual bodies. Drawing upon our class’s readings
this week of Adler, Foucault and Browne, the themes of disciplinarity and
discipline that they invoked challenged me to consider the normalizing acts
with which I daily engage. I claim that it is not enough to question the
taxonomic systems that we use to label and organize archival materials, rather
it is imperative to find new ways to “read” the archive and its body of work
and to challenge the various archival performances that institutions impose.
“Reading
is fundamental!” From a quirky aphorism quoted by RuPaul on practically every
season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, to the adage that formed the largest
non-profit children’s organization Reading is Fundamental Inc (RIF) founded by
Margaret McNamara in 1966.[2] As a formulaic
communication style found predominately in queer and trans communities of
color, to American literacy expectations, in either case both speak to the
value of reading and how one is perceived in society. There are many techniques
and beliefs surrounding how to read, some ways that we read are commonly quoted
in our vernacular such as “reading between the lines” which is to understand
more than what is stated directly on the page (subtext). Reading always has
connotations with power such as “reading someone the riot act” which is a
commanding way to read a situation and often requires reprimanding those within
the situation in question. Reading also constructs identity as Simone Browne
quotes Fanon in her book Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness
and his concept of “epidermalization,” reading for difference is a disciplinary
tool that creates identities through difference and surveillance.[3] In primary school children
are taught how to read for literacy and are evaluated based on their “reading
level.” Once in secondary school teenagers are expected to read for absorption,
to absorb the material of their textbooks or assigned novels and regurgitate it
back to the teacher so they can be graded on reading comprehension, sometimes
in more inspired classrooms this reading encourages pupils to read in order to
build connections with their own lived experience. If a student decides to
pursue post-secondary education, they are then guided by the disciplinary
knowledge of that field which they have chosen to pursue. Adler described in
her article Disciplining Knowledge at the Library of Congress how the
act of naming and tagging can situate certain knowledges within the canon of
certain disciplines. These disciplines often rely on the knowledge structure
and organization of materials held by the Library of Congress and thus Adler
argues that these situated knowledges are disciplined into place, the library
shelves, by deploying techniques of power such as normalization, routines,
convention, tradition, and regularity that produces those “administrative forms
of governance.”[4]
We
often take our body for granted as we carry out our daily responsibilities and
do not question it until it fails us. Through sickness, we are reminded that
our body is not just a singular whole but an assemblage of parts working in
unison. I use the concept of body as I think it fulfills my purpose as a
concept that is both singular and plural at the same time, “a mass of matter
distinct from other masses: a body of water” and “AGGREGATE, QUANTITY, a
body of evidence.”[5] What this definition
demonstrates without explicitly mentioning is the concept of boundaries, of
finding similarities within difference, the nexus of collections. Foucault’s
reading of the body within the third part of his book Discipline and Punish,
frames the body as docile. He starts out this section by identifying how the
soldier’s attitude with his head held high and movements such as marching, are
a “bodily rhetoric of honour [sic].”[6] Foucault continues that
for soldiers who are seen to express an air of authority are still docile
bodies as the construction of their bodily rhetoric has been completely
manufactured, almost like a machine. Referring to the work of La Mettrie’s L’Homme-machine,
he explains how this “docility” is imposed and absorbed by its subjects, “A
body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved.”[7] The docile body is one
that exists within borders and forgets about its assemblages. The disciplinarity
that Foucault and Adler discuss is what relegates docile scholars to their
selected fields of study, rarely permitting opportunities for interdisciplinary
imagination. This mindset is what scholars rely upon when then choose to visit
an archive and read it for their selected disciplinary value.
In
developing a queer archival methodology Jamie A. Lee takes reading beyond a disciplinary
delimiter to “…unsettle---to reconsider how archives are defined, understood,
deployed, and accessed to produce subjects in time.”[8] This is one way of reading that I myself
choose to engage in by grappling with the paradoxical nature of the archive as
a singular and plural body simultaneously. Reading can also be liberatory, not
simply how books can metaphorically transport a reader to a new setting, but
“reading against the grain” which is to approach reading from “unexpected or
unconventional perspectives” or to unearth something in the archive that appears
serendipitously.[9]
Reading in resistance is a tool for those who enter an archive to consider the standpoint
of that archive. This entails considering questions such as who or what founded
this archive and for what purpose? Where are materials sourced from and are
there sibling archives with which to compare and contrast? This is not to say
that we should abandon all other forms of reading all together, rather it is
important to add more tools to the tool belt and question the normalizing
practices that we engage with. The slippages between normalcy and disciplinary logic
are easy to overlook and often replicate dominant narratives that maintain the curtailing
power of institutions which oppress us all especially those most marginalized. Reading
in resistance is not passive it is indeed an active performance, and it is
labor, yet it is a labor of love to work outside the confines of disciplinarity and to consider new readings to preserved histories. Like a beautiful bouquet
it is not just beautiful for the biggest blooms but for the shades of green that
support it and the blend of scents not just the dominating aromas but the
subtle fragrances that uplift the bouquet entirely.
[1] Merriam-Webster.com
Dictionary, s.v. “read,” accessed January 30, 2023,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/read.
[2] “FAQ.”
FAQ | RIF.org. Accessed January 30, 2023. https://www.rif.org/faq.
[3]
Simone Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2015):1-62
[4] Melissa
Adler, “Disciplining Knowledge at the Library of Congress,” Knowledge
Organization 39(5).
[5] Merriam-Webster.com
Dictionary, s.v. “body,” accessed January 30, 2023,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/body.
[6] Michel
Foucault, Discipline and Punish and The Birth of the Prison, New York: Vintage
Books, 1995, “Part Three: Discipline,” 135-228.
[7] Foucault,
136.
[8] Lee,
Jamie A. Producing the Archival Body. S.l.: Routledge, 2022.
[9] CalPolyPomona,
RAMP. “Reading with and against the Grain.” Reading, Advising, & Mentoring
Program (RAMP). CalPolyPomona. Accessed February 14, 2023.
https://www.cpp.edu/ramp/program-materials/reading-with-and-against.shtml.
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