Out Sources: Philosophy, Culture, Politics

Series Editors: Steven DeCaroli and Jason Read

In this book, Robin James holds philosophy accountable to the pleasures and critical resources
of Western popular musics, which many philosophers have disavowed. With verve and determination, she calls on aesthetics to answer these challenges with a vision of the raced and
gendered body that allows us to think rigorously about political and social questions we engage
as everyday cultural agents. Her discussions give the philosophy of music a salutary update.
Monique Roelofs, Hampshire College
Grounded in continental philosophy, The Conjectural Body: Gender, Race, and the Philosophy of
Music uses feminist, critical race, and postcolonial theories to examine music, race, and gender
as discourses that emerge and evolve with one another. In the first section, author Robin James
asks why philosophers commonly use music to explain embodied social identity and inequality.
She looks at late twentieth-century postcolonial theory, Rousseaus early musical writings, and
Kristevas reading of Mozart and Schoenberg to develop a theory of the conjectural body,
arguing that this is the notion of embodiment that informs Western conceptions of raced, gendered, and resonating bodies. The second section addresses the ways in which norms about
human bodily differencesuch as gender and racecontinue to ground serious and popular
hierarchies well after twentieth- and twenty-first-century art and philosophy have deconstructed
this binary. She argues that feminists ought and need to take the popular seriously, both as a
domain of artistic and scholarly inquiry as well as a site of legitimate activism. The book concludes with an analysis of philosophys continued hostility toward feminism, real-life women, and
popular culture.
While the study of gender, race, and popular culture has become a fixture in many areas of the
academy, philosophy and musicology continue to resist attempts to take these objects as objects
of serious academic study. The Conjectural Body provides an intervention that will be valuable
to faculty and graduate students in philosophy, womens and gender studies, critical race and
postcolonial theory, musicology, popular music studies, and cultural studies.

Robin James is assistant professor of philosophy at University of North Carolina at

Charlotte.
For orders and information please contact the publisher

Lexington Books
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The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, Maryland 20706
1-800-462-6420

90000
9 7 80 7 3 9 13 9 0 28

The Conjectural Body

The Conjectural Body is a fantastic and groundbreaking book! While recent cultural theorists
have exploited and appealed to music, they have failed to think through its complex implications
for race and gender. Music is not a given; it is not merely exemplary of, or expressive of, a raced
or gendered identity any more than race or gender are unproblematically or essentially given.
Rather, race, gender, and music are coincident with one another. They all negotiate in complex
ways the material/social divide that theorists like to impose upon the world. Such is the sophisticated, nuanced, and compelling argument of this book. This is a clearly written, timely book, as
original as it is profound. Essential reading for cultural theorists of all stripes. 
Tina Chanter, DePaul University

robin james

The
Conjectural
Body
gender, race,
and the
philosophy
of music

philosophy, culture, politics

james

Continental Philosophy Music

The Conjectural Body

Gender, Race, and the Philosophy of Music

Robin James

iii

Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

vii
xi
xiii

Part 1: Conjecture and Resonating Bodies

1
2
3

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies:
On Political and Musical Nature in Rousseaus Early Writings
Conjecture and the Impossible Opera:
From the Thought Specular to the Society of the Spectacle

1
3
29
63

Part 2: Fetishism, Abjection, and the Feminized Popular

89

91

Smells Like Booty:

Pop Music and the Logic of Abjection
My Foot Feels the Need for Rhythm:
Nietzsche and the Feminized Popular

Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

131
143
151
175
183
189

vii

Preface
In mid-October 2007, the indie-music world was abuzz discussing Sasha FrereJoness New Yorker article A Paler Shade of White: How indie rock lost its
soul.1 Most of the discussion has, however, missed the articles main claim by
focusing on what Frere-Jones says to the exclusion of what the article actually
does. At bottom, his article is not a critique of indies normative whiteness: it is
a critique of indie rocks aesthetic, posed in terms of racialized and gendered
mind/body distinctions.
While briefly touching on the paucity of actual black people in the indie
rock scene, Frere-Jones is mainly interested in making a case for the claim that
indie rock doesnt sound black (he does not, however, go so far as to argue
why it should do so in the first place). Although Anglo-American rock has, historically, been a mainly white genre, it is nonetheless the product of what FrereJones calls miscegenation. As has been widely noted, the music that inspired
some of the most commercially successful rock bands of the sixties and seventiesamong them Led Zeppelin, Cream, and Grand Funk Railroadwas
American blues and soul (Frere-Jones, 1): Clapton drew from Robert Johnson,
Jagger and Richards from Muddy Waters, Cobain from Leadbelly. As has been
equally well documented, the racial and gender politics of this miscegenation
are problematic: white British and American men identify with what they perceive to be economically underprivileged African-American meni.e., real
men, rebellious, tough, hard, virilein an attempt to counteract both the feminization of the performance position (that of the musician as to-be-looked-at object; object, not subject, of scopophilic desire) and the general feminization of
white masculinity in the post-industrial labor economy. It is the same stereotyped black feel to music admired by classic rockers that inspires Frere-Jones
to lament the fact that indie rock has abandoned rocks tradition of miscegenation or appropriation:
Ive spent the past decade wondering why rock and roll, the most miscegenated
popular music ever to have existed, underwent a racial re-sorting in the nineteen-nineties. Why did so many white rock bands retreat from the ecstatic singing and intense, voicelike guitar tones of the blues, the heavy African downbeat, and the elaborate showmanship that characterized black music of the midix

x
twentieth century? These are the volatile elements that launched rock and roll,
in the nineteen-fifties, when Elvis Presley stole the world away from Pat Boone
and moved popular music from the head to the hips (Frere-Jones, 1).

Although Frere-Jones says that his problem with indie rock has to do with its
racial politicsspecifically, its racial re-sorting, moving from miscegenation to the one-drop rule, so to speakthe actual problems he identifies are
aesthetic ones: white rock bands arent retreating from black musicians or
audiences (one could argue that few attempts were even made to advance into
these demographics), but from stereotypically black musical and corporeal
styles. When black influences had begun to recede from indie rock, what went
missing were a strong sense of swing and a solid backbeat (Frere-Jones, 3).
These stereotypically black stylings were replaced with sounds and techniques
Frere-Jones describes as flat-footed, sylvan curlicues, mumble and moan,
and allusive and oblique (Frere-Jones, 3). Wishing that Wilcos Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot had a little more syncopation, Frere-Jones condemns it for embarrassing poetry, plodding rhythms, and being formless (Frere-Jones, 3).
Looking carefully at what, specifically, Frere-Jones finds lacking in contemporary indie-rock, we see that his claims are not primarily racial, but aesthetic: the
most common issue he takes with indie rock is that its not danceable, but
flat-footed, formless, and plodding.2 He almost comes to this realization
in confessing that
Ive spent too many evenings at indie concerts waiting in vain for vigor, for
rhythm, for a musical effect that could justify all the preciousness. How did
rhythm come to be discounted in an art form that was born as a celebration of
rhythms possibilities? Where is the impulse to reach out to an audienceto
entertain? (Frere-Jones, 3).

Though he seems to be forgetting about a whole indie sub-genre

(dancerock/bloghouse along the lines of DFA, Daft Punk, and Justice, to name
some of the most well-known players), Frere-Jones claims that indie rock is undanceable, that it has reversed Elviss founding gesture of mov[ing] popular
music from the head to the hips by retreating inward and settling for the lassitude and monotony that so many indie acts seem to confuse with authenticity
and significance (Frere-Jones, 3). Introspective and unrhythmic, indie rock has,
in Frere-Joness assessment, moved from the hips back to the head: its not
body music; its mind music.
Now, if Frere-Joness main criticism of indie rock is that its overly intellectualized music more appropriate for quiet introspection or perhaps modest headbobbing than for dancing and entertainment, why does he say that his problem
is a racial one? Since his objections are, at bottom, aesthetic, why frame them in
racial terms? Or rather, why does Frere-Jones mistake his aesthetic argument for
a racial one?
Perhaps because of commodity fetishism (the transaction of social relations
through/in terms of relations among commodities), there is a tendency in con-

Preface

xi

temporary society to make aesthetic judgments in terms of identity categories.

For example, Susan Cooks article Feminist Musicology and the Abject Popular examines the feminization of popular music, or the idea that I was a girl.
My music sucked by definition.3 As many feminist aestheticians have demonstrated, traditional aesthetics also couches its concepts and values in terms of
social privilege: Christine Battersbys critique of nineteenth-century notions of
genius demonstrates that this term is normatively (if implicitly) masculine.4
So, in the West, there is a longstanding convention of grounding aesthetic claims
in socio-political hierarchies. Frere-Joness argument falls well within this tradition of attempting to justify aesthetic judgments by grounding them in (supposedly accepted) relations of social privilege, by using mainstream racial politics
in an attempt to ground an aesthetic argument. While this sort of category confusion usually occurs when using the language of aesthetics to make a claim that is
ultimately about identity politics, Frere-Jones uses the language of identity politics (race) to make a claim about aesthetics. While he might be flipping the
script to a certain extent, Frere-Joness claim is far from radical, for the uncritiqued, unthematized assumption upon which his entire argument turns is the
very same one operating in both traditional aesthetics and more contemporary
discourses: black = body, white = mind. Frere-Jones says black when he
means body and physical pleasure (e.g., dancing, rhythm), and white when
he means mind (thought, introspection, contemplation, klutziness, and all that
is not cool). Perhaps the most overworn and overanalyzed Western racial
stereotype, the association of blacks with embodiment and whites with intellect
is, obviously, both empirically false and politically problematic.
Both the racial claim that Frere-Jones says hes making (indie rock is insufficiently black) and the aesthetic claim that hes actually making (indie rock is
too introspective and should be more danceable/rhythmic) are themselves questionable. Why should any particular genre or sub-genre appeal to racially diverse
audiences? Isnt the point of sub-genres and sub-cultures that they are not universally appealing? Why should blacks (or anyone) care about indie rock? Why
should one particular genre be danceable and/or rhythmic? Should all music be
danceable? Why shouldnt one particular genre of music be contemplative?
These questions, although interesting and worth investigating, are not pertinent
to my main critique of Frere-Jones, i.e., that he makes aesthetic arguments in
terms of racially stereotyped mind-body distinctions. I doubt he was conscious
of his substitution of racial for aesthetic categories. But why was this so easy?
What makes it possible for someone to make such a mistake? As I mentioned
earlier, this is, in a sense, a variation on a longstanding Western tradition of mixing aesthetic values with identity politicsbut it only pushes these questions
back to earlier eras. These are the questions which this book investigates. Why
are aesthetic valuesand identity politics often expressed in terms of one another? Because these two discourses manifest themselves in, on, and through
corporeal experience, the body is a productive place to begin thinking about this
question.

xii

Preface

xiii

Acknowledgments
I have received so much assistance, advice, and support in the process of writing
and refining this manuscript that I can only hope to convey a small portion of
my gratitude and appreciation in this acknowledgement section.
First, I want to thank Tina Chanter for all her feedback, encouragement, and
hard questions. She believed in what might be seen as an unconventional project
and helped me see it through to fruition. Thanks also to Bill Martin, Rick Lee,
Darrell Moore, Peg Birmingham, and Emmanuel Eze for the conversations from
which many of the ideas in this text emerged.
Portions of this work have been presented at various conferences, and I am
very grateful for all the invaluable feedback. Various portions of chapter 4 were
presented at the Eastern Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy, the
Society for Social and Political Philosophy, and at an APA Central session
sponsored by the American Society for Aesthetics. Chapter 5 began as an invited lecture to St. Xavier Universitys Philosophy Club. The epilogue was presented at a meeting of the Radical Philosophy Association. Without the efforts
and input of these session organizers, participants, and audiences, much of this
book would look very different than it does now.
Most of all I want to thank Christian Ryan, my husband (and the artist
known as christian.ryan), for all his intellectual, technical, and personal support.
I also acknowledge the writers of the songs whose lyrics I have cited in this
text. First is Laura Logic, whose Music is a Better Noise appears in chapter 2.
Next, there are the following songwriters:
Diamonds From Sierra Leone
Words and Music by John Barry, Don Black, Kanye West, Devon Harris, David
Sheats, Andre Benjamin, and Antwan Patton
Copyright 2005 Chrysalis Music, Gnat Booty Music, EMI April Music Inc.,
Dungeon Rat Music, and EMI Unart Catalog Inc.
All Rights for Gnatt Booty Music Controlled and Administered by Chrysalis
Music
All Rights for Dungeon Rat Music Controlled and Administered by EMI April
Music Inc.
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission
Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation
xi

xiii

Introduction
Because of claims of transcendental order, on the one hand, and imputations of
its ties to material existence, on the other, music serves as an ideal site for examining the always-gendered [and raced] struggle between mind and body that
has characterized Western culture from its beginnings.1

It is not uncommon for philosophers to turn to music in their examinations of the

bodys status as natural or constructed, and in turn this bodys role in discourses
of social inequality. Why is this the case? What is to be gained in thinking about
resonating bodies (i.e., music) in concert with raced and gendered bodies? Music, race, and gender straddle an oftentimes ambiguous line between what I call
here nature (physical materiality) and culture (social norms), for society
demands all three to account for certain concrete, physical, or physiological
(empirical) phenomena, while at the same time admitting the influence of sociohistorical factors. Sound frequencies, the overtone series, the limitations of the
human ear, organs, hormones, chromosomes, the shape and color of bodies
these supposedly natural phenomena make it easy to appeal to nature in defining
music, race, or gender, and in making normative claims about them. Political
philosophers tend to care about this aspect of the nature/culture debate because
the supposed naturalness of bodily difference is frequently used to ground
claims about socio-political equality and inequality (e.g., homosexuality is congenital, therefore gays and lesbians, because they did not choose to be a sexual minority, deserve special legal protections; there is no genetic basis for racial
difference, therefore one should adopt a colorblind attitude toward racial difference, etc.).2 However, music, race, and gender are also complex social phenomena that cant be accounted for in purely physical/physiological terms. Further,
if we recognize that science and nature are themselves socially constructed
discourses, are we merely presenting another variation on the metaphysical
themes reason conquers nature and the intelligible supersedes the physical?3
If we are committed to avoiding metaphysical dichotomies and their complementary raced, gendered, and classed hierarchies, then how do we account for
this intersection of physics/physiology and the social?

xiii

xiv

Introduction

In response to these questions, I follow, in this book, two related lines of inquiry: (1) the kind of embodiment that political philosophers use music to help
them explain, and (2) the ways in which norms about human bodily difference
(i.e., gender and race) continue to ground serious/popular hierarchies well after
twentieth-to-twenty-first century art and philosophy have thoroughly deconstructed this binary. Each of the books five chapters addresses music, race, and
gender as coincident and mutually determinative discourses that emerge and
evolve with one another (and with other factors such as class, sexuality, nation)
to articulate what it means to be a body and what is at stake in claiming its naturalness and/or constructedness. In order to fully understand the body and its conjectural status, resonating bodies, raced bodies, and gendered bodies must be
examined together.
The first chapter, On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory, argues that
while most scholars in this area treat music as an example of race, racial embodiment, and racial politics, this example model inaccurately treats each area
(race, music, and sometimes gender) as a distinct discourse. If what is at stake in
defining what constitutes music and what constitutes race is fundamentally the
same issuethe determination of the relationship between raced, colonized, or
resonating bodies and the social forces which operate in, through, and on these
bodiesthen the relationship between raced and resonating bodies is not so
much exemplary or representative as it is what I call coincident. While Angela
Davis Blues Legacies and Black Feminism explicitly examines the coincidence
of gender, race, and class as it is expressed in the music of Ma Rainey, Bessie
Smith, and Billie Holiday, it also implicitly begins to draw out the coincidence
of gender, race, and class with the discourses and practices which came to constitute the blues. Thus, I turn to this text as an instance of how the example
model is transformed into a coincidental or conjectural model of the relationships among race, class, gender, and music. I have adopted the term coincidence to describe the relationships among race, gender, and music because it is
a more accurate metaphor than the widely used and critiqued language of intersectionality. Neither the traffic metaphor nor the blending model for intersectionality adequately captures the co-incidence (i.e., mutual constitution) of
social identities. Because social identity categories (race, class, gender, etc.)
never actually exist as separate or separable (e.g., as different roads that intersect
or different color frequencies), we always use these categories conjecturally, to
describe phenomena that never actually exist as such.
Having argued for the importance of thinking music, race, and gender as coincident, I then move on in chapters 2 and 3 to develop a theory of their shared
form of embodimentwhat I call the conjectural body. Jean-Jacques Rousseaus early writings and Julia Kristevas later work both look to music in their
attempts to elaborate a theory of what I call the conjectural body, a body that
is inseparably material and social. Just as Rousseaus early musical writings
repeatedly emphasize that any account of a state of nature is first and foremost
a conjectural history constructed ex post facto, Kristevas notion of the semiotic
insists that this pre-Oedipal, pre-symbolic state is thinkable as such only

Introduction

xv

once the work of the Oedipus complex and entry into language have been initiated. That is to say, Rousseaus state of nature and Kristevas semiotic describe a retrospective, mythic primacyan historicized materiality or a second
nature. Because Rousseau and Kristeva have developed this account of embodiment with both music and politics in mind, it offers, as I discuss below, a
productive place to begin thinking about the interrelationships among aesthetic
hierarchies and relations of socio-political privilege.
This notion of the conjectural has contemporary relevance for a number of
reasons. Primary among these, particularly for feminist and critical race theory,
is its critique or qualification of non-ideal theory, which argues that the heuristic
use of conjecture has only ever (and perhaps necessarily) served hegemonic
ideological purposes. In Charles Millss definitive essay on this topic, he argues
that Western political and ethical theory is systematically incapable of accounting for gender, race, and class oppression because a general commitment to
rel[y] on idealization to the exclusion, or at least marginalization, of the actual4 in turn entails the obfuscation or quasi-fetishistic recognition and disavowal of the reality of sexism, racism, and classism.5 Mills continuallyand
rightlyproblematizes the fact- and reality-avoidance (Mills, Ideal Theory,
179) of mainstream Western political philosophy and ethical theory, claiming
that it is disconnected from the actual workings (Mills, Ideal Theory, 178),
the actual origins and the actual history (Mills, Ideal Theory, 181) of the
phenomena it purports to examine. In order to genuinely address and remedy
systems of oppression, Mills argues that scholars must begin from/with empirical input and an awareness of how the real-life [world]actually works (Mills,
Ideal Theory, 178). While I do want to emphasize that I find Millss insight
here both correct and useful (indeed, I have argued that this insight is useful for
feminist philosophy and feminist approaches to popular culture), I also think that
there needs to be a more nuanced account of what, exactly, we understand actual, real life to be, one that cannot be mistaken for some nave realism or naturalism (neither of which, I think, can be attributed to Mills). The structures of
empirical material reality are significantly influenced by ideology, especially by
ideologies so pervasive that they become material, a form of second nature.
Rather than abstracting away from realities crucial to our comprehension of the
actual workings of injustice in human interactions and social institutions, the
theory of the conjectural body attends to precisely these realities by describing
how the material and the social interact to produce material actualities that
themselves normalize status-quo relations of privilege and power (Mills, Ideal
Theory, 170). In other words, while I agree with Mills that it is important to
start from the actual, it is equally important that the actual be historicized.
Historicization does not seem to be inconsistent with Millss aims, and in fact
seems largely compatibleif not implicitwith(in) them. Because the theory of
the conjectural body allows us to call upon physical, empirical, and personal
experience without thereby positing any essentializing claims about corporeality
or the natural world, it focuses our attention on an actuality, but one that is
historicized. Accordingly, theorizing the body conjecturally admits of the con-

xvi

Introduction

tingent, constructed, and contested character of anatomy while also allowing

us to account for the real-life effects of this concept.6
In the final two chapters, I use this notion of conjectural embodiment to
analyze the political dimension of certain problems in the philosophy of music.
In the fourth chapter, I read Adornos writings on commodity music in light of
Irigarays claim that women were the first and continue to be the most important
commodities exchanged among men in order to examine the implications of
Adornos consistent feminization of commodity music. I argue that because the
discourse of (commodity) fetishism does not and cannot account for the history of what it takes to be real social relations, it must be supplemented by
the notion of abjection. The model of commodity fetishism claims that the subject first experiences an authentic comportment to the world that is later perverted, but it cannot account, for example, for the fact that this supposedly
authentic comportment is always a masculine one. Because the model of fetishism indicates a perversion from a normative state (real social relations; womens
lack of the phallus), it assumes a state of nature. Insofar as it assumes a normative state, fetishism does not account for how and why its norms came to be
considered as such; thus, what is missing from fetishismand what the notion
of abjection providesis the behind-the-scenes work, the establishment of
norms (relations of privilege and marginalization), which sets the stage upon
which fetishism (deviation from the norm) occurs. Abjection historicizes the
actuality of fetishized relations. In other words, abjection helps us account for
the fact that fetishized relations are consistently feminized and racially otheredabnormal relations are associated with social groups which have, prior
to the moment of fetishization, already been deemed abnormal or marginal.7
Kristevas notion of abjection provides us with a conceptual structure and a vocabulary with which to think about precisely this conjectural moment.
In the fifth chapter, I turn to the role of the body in Nietzsches music aesthetics: specifically, his argument for the superior value of popular music.
Claiming that music is to be suffered physiologically, Nietzsche views the production and reception of music as the activity of resonating bodies. Nietzsche
thus frames his critique of Wagner in terms of bodily comportment: instead of
dancing, Wagner poses. Even more interesting for my purposes here is
Nietzsches re-valuation of popular music as a feminized cultural discourse.
Claiming that music is a woman, Nietzsche argues that the positive attributes
of popular music (specifically, Italian Opera buffa) are those which are associated with stereotypical (white) femininity: superficiality, charm, beauty, entertainment, affect, accessibility, and simplicity.8 Nietzsche thus demonstrates one
main way in which popular music is a feminist concern by showing how the
critique of patriarchy is tied to the critique of serious/popular hierarchies (or,
how the positive valuation of femininity and the positive valuation of popular
music follow from one another). In so doing, Nietzsche bolsters my argument
that the popular is a feminist issue. His endorsement of feminized popular
music as a mode of bodily comportment also offers some suggestions for think-

Introduction

xvii

ing through current issues emerging from the coincidence of resonating, raced,
and gendered bodies.
While race and gender theory are so interested in examining the intersections of the material and the social that such projects might sometimes seem
redundant, aesthetics and the philosophy of music in large part still need to be
convinced that these are valid questionseven though it is an issue that has
been raised many times, from Rousseau to prominent contemporary musicologists. Indeed, analytic philosophical aesthetics in the United States and the UK is
a very conservative field wherein many prominent scholars remain unconvinced
that race and gender are inherently philosophical topics of inquiry.
So, when the American Society for Aesthetics website has as its Winter
2003 featured article Dennis Duttons Lets Naturalize Aesthetics, and the
2000 edition of the British Journal of Aesthetics publishes an article that argues
for the impossibility of the existence of a great female composer,9 it is clear
that aesthetics can greatly benefit from the large volume of work done by those
pursuing gender and race theory. Especially interesting is Duttons claim that
[t]he admiration of high technique, of feats of virtuosity, is a cross-cultural,
universal value. It infects not only the arts, but potentially all human activity,
e.g., sporting activities everywhere.10 Arguing that virtuosity is a universal aesthetic value, Dutton claims that universality is grounded in some evolutionary
advantagethe most virtuous is the most fit to survive.11 Positing explicitly
naturalistic and implicitly biological claims, Dutton fails to interrogate the degree to which the pervasiveness of patriarchal cultures makes what are really, at
bottom, patriarchal values (such as the mine-is-bigger-than-yours competitiveness involved in the admiration of virtuosity) seem to be culturally universal
values. In other words, the admiration of virtuosity is not necessarily a component of every culture, but a component of patriarchy in its various manifestations throughout the globe. Indeed, care ethicists have argued that Western culture socializes females to value care and non-competitiveness; thus, even within
Western culture competition and virtuosity are not universal, natural values.12
Not only is mainstream philosophical aesthetics resistant to the political
analyses (so much so that Peter Kivys keynote lecture at the 2006 meeting of
the American Society for Aesthetics repeatedly and resoundingly bemoaned
attempts to politically deconstruct Beethovens oeuvre) that are widely accepted in musicology, literary theory, cultural studies, and even continental philosophy, but it seems that philosophers doing work in feminist and critical
race/postcolonial aesthetics focus mainly on visual art and film (excepting a few
works on black feminism and black vernacular musical forms). So, in other
words, there is a huge vacuum of current philosophical work on race, gender,
and music. This book seeks to fill (at least some of) that void.
This book addresses another important issue for feminism, particularly for
feminist aesthetics: the roles of class hierarchies and American feminisms roots
in Puritan social-reform movements in continuing the marginalization of feminized popular music and the (frequently raced and non-bourgeois) females

xviii

Introduction

who participate in its production and consumption.13 Offering popular music as

a domain for feminist practice,14 I aim to counter the tendency within feminist
theory to ignore or explicitly reject popular musica domain in which many
women are actively involved as creators, and in which women have overwhelming power as consumersseeing it instead as an area in which women can make
significant contributions to society in general, and feminist projects in particular.
While feminist art theory and criticism have long recognized the aesthetic and
social value of quilting, embroidery, weaving, and other such female or
feminine activities which have conventionally been excluded from serious
or high culture, there is resistance to and hesitation in making similar claims
about the cultural value and revolutionary possibilities in commercial popular
music. Most explicitly feminist work on music and women in music (excepting
the fad of Madonna-studies, which gained popularity in the mid-late eighties)
focuses on independent or non-mainstream music. Rarely does one encounter a
positive feminist reading of pop and its fans; to like popular music is to be
duped by the culture industry. However, to write off an artists or fans participation in popular music culture as false consciousness is just another version of
the patriarchal tendency to deny women and underprivileged men the capacity to
make rational, informed, valuable choices. It is my argument that these artists
and fans are actively engaged in musical production, interpretation, and criticism, but that some feminisms/feminists hostility to anything commercially
oriented unduly prejudices them against discerning womens significant agency
in and contributions to commercial pop.
The portrayal of the pop music fan as a passive victim of ideology incapable
of thinking for herself (let alone making informed aesthetic judgments) is but
another means of classifying as culturally insignificant activities performed by
and for women. As Linda Scott argues, If we hold sincerely to the belief that
women have the ability (and the right) to think for themselves, to lead, to create,
to work for change, then the repeated construction of an idiot reader [or listener]
by these critiques is itself an antifeminist act (Scott, 319). Like fashion, which
is the topic of Scotts Fresh Lipstick, popular music is an arena in which females
have significant power as consumers and producers. However, as Scott notes, in
feminist criticism, it is not uncommon to read that the whole of postwar consumer culture was a conspiracy organized to the specific purpose of keeping
women down (Scott, 234). Thus, when women participate in consumer culture,
their actions merely feed their own oppressionso the story goes. That participants are incapable of anything but uncritical adherence to authority, and that
their activities are merely reproductive of dominant norms rather than being
genuinely and originally creative are two highly problematic assumptions behind this feminist critique of popular music. However, feminists ignorance or
downright derogation of female pop music artists and consumers arises from
differences among groups of women and struggles for authority among these
groups. Claiming that certain groups of women are frivolous, silly, and duped
assumes and ensures the legitimacy of ones own position and, mirroring the
tactics and effects of patriarchal power relations, overlooks the actual contribu-

Introduction

xix

tions of numerous women. In the fourth chapter, I specifically address the ways
in which pop music contributes to feminist aims.
Like music, gender, and race themselves, the elements of my project exist at
the interstices of various disciplines, and this book is an effort to address this
interdisciplinarity in a specifically and explicitly philosophical fashion. My inquiry is philosophical both insofar as the texts from which it draws are, while at
times interdisciplinary, well-situated within the domain of continental philosophy (deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and Marxism), and insofar as my approach
is philosophical rather than historical, (ethno)musicological, sociological, or
literary. This book is an argument for an expanded notion of philosophical inquiry, targeted to critics from both mainstream analytic philosophy and the more
conservative strains of contemporary continental philosophy. Race, gender, and
popular music offer up many interesting, complex, and difficult philosophical
problems, just as they can help us illustrate many more wellestablished/accepted ones. Although the epilogue addresses these issues of disciplinary scope most directly, the whole book stands as evidence for this claim.
In the first chapter, I examine the use of music in recent postcolonial theory
in order to argue for the mutual determination or coincidence of resonating,
raced, and gendered bodies. While many popular postcolonial theorists and musicologists use music as an example of social structures and relations, a close
examination of Angela Daviss study of Billie Holiday reveals that social identities and musical discourses are mutually constitutive. What counts as music is
determined by various systems of racial privilege, and racial privilege is reinforced through discourses of musical value. Discourses of music, race, and gender emerge and evolve together as varying modes of articulating the relation
between the material and the social. In other words, music, race, and gender are
interlocking and interdependent manifestations of the nature/culture problem.

xx

Introduction

Introduction

Part 1
Conjecture and Resonating
Bodies

xxi

xxii

Introduction

Part 1
Conjecture and Resonating Bodies

Chapter 1

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory1

It is not uncommon for postcolonial and critical race theorists to use the musical
practices typical to a given community in order to explain the concept and/or
experience of race, culture, diaspora, etc. W.E.B. Du Bois opens each chapter of
The Souls of Black Folk with an epigraph and a few measures of melody from
various popular spirituals. Paul Gilroys use of the antiphonic (call-andresponse) structures common to many black musics as an illustration of his theory of the Black Atlantic is perhaps the most well-known manifestation of this
trend. In this chapter I examine the use of musicspecifically, contemporary
popular musics associated with black culture (broadly construed)as an example of some idea or experience pertaining to race or postcolonial theory.
This technique works so well, and is thus employed so frequently, because
the relationship between music and race is not just one of exemplarity; rather, in
the West, the concepts of music and race/culture relate at a more fundamental
level. Given the history of these concepts and their deployment in present experiences, both music and race share a problematic or a logic: both must answer
the question of or give an account of the relationship between the material
(what is physical, physiological, or natural) and the social (what is artificial,
the product of human intervention or socialization). Music is not merely exemplary of racial and/or cultural difference, because what is at stake in defining
what constitutes music and what constitutes race are fundamentally the same
issue: the determination of the relationship between raced, colonized/colonizing,
or resonating bodies and the social forces which operate in, through, and on
these bodies. In both cases, a claim is made about bodies or material fact(icity)
and the degree to which they are determined by and/or autonomous of social
forces. Thus, insofar as discourses and experiences of music and race grapple
with the same issue, their relationship is not one of exemplarity but what we
might call, in keeping with the way many feminists understand the relationship
between gender and race, one of intersection. They are all lived and thought
together, in a kind of relationship I call coincidence. I choose this term over
intersection because the idea of co-incidence, i.e., that an incidence of race
3

Chapter 1

discourse is at the same time one of gender discourse (and class, etc.), is a more
accurate and productive metaphor for the relationship among social identity and
music.
When one speaks of an intersection, it is possible to portray this intersection as a specific point at which two or more separate phenomena come together,
combine, and theneventuallyseparate out again. However, even though the
heuristic separation of these concepts seems more or less necessary, the phenomena or experiences described by terms like race and gender are not, in
real, lived experience, separate. Unlike a traffic intersection, where separate
roads momentarily overlap, these forms of embodiment intersect in their entiretyphenomenologically, they are never distinct, but complicit and coincident. The intersection of raced, gendered, and resonating bodies is a nexus out
of which we tease relatively artificial and anachronistic (i.e., culturally mediated
ideas of unmediated naturalness) categories to explain and understand our experience. The categories that supposedly intersect or blend never, in real life,
exist in isolation from one another. Thus, every time we invoke one of these
categories in isolation from the others (i.e., race or gender), we do so conjecturally. What precisely it means to think conjecturally is something I discuss
extensively in the next chapter, but here, in my critique of intersectionality theory, I demonstrate the necessity and utility of such an approach.
In what follows, I begin by giving an overview of the way popular music is
used as example in some very influential texts in postcolonial theory and musicology: Paul Gilroys The Black Atlantic and Susan McClarys Conventional
Wisdom.

Serious versus Pop

Most people would not contest the claim that distinctions between high and low
culture (such as that between serious and popular music) are, if not completely,
at least partially determined by or reflective of hierarchies of race, class, and
gender privilege. As Aaron Fox notes,
[t]he logics of value that appear to structure hierarchies of musical styles and
performances and talents are in fact the same logics, in a symbolically condensed and projected form, that structure hierarchies of people in social groups:
logics of race, class, gender, otherness, similarity, and ultimately, of the value
of individual human beings and their communities.2

In both musical and sociopolitical discourses, privilege and marginalization are

allotted according to, if not the same then mutually influential, distributions. For
example, insofar as our culture marginalizes the agency and authority of teenage
girls, it devalues music made by and for them (while at the same time making
vast amounts of money from these girls and their supposed lack of agency and
power). In chapter 4, I discuss the gendering of popular music, but for now I

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

limit my examination to the use of popular music in postcolonial and critical

race theory.
Some work in postcolonial theory and cultural studies maintains this serious/pop dichotomy but inverts the privilege: while language is always Euro,
rational, and intellectual, music is the domain of those denied access to these
privileges. Hence, music represents black, oral, communal, and embodied
discourse.3 Here music is being explicitly raced, only to valorize an authentic
minority culture (usually black) in the face of a homogenizing white Western
high culture. As this view simply replaces what is considered authentic culture
with specific folk or vernacular traditions, models based on this approach dont
help us think through the relationship between the material and the social; in
fact, their continued appeal to a supposedly pure origin illustrates the problem
quite well. Stuart Hall gives the following as an example of such appeals to
keeping it real: Good black popular culture can pass the test of authenticitythe reference to black experience and to black expressivity. These serve as
the guarantees in the determination of which black popular culture is right-on,
which is ours and which is not.4 Within the domain of what is considered, for
example, hip-hop, certain practicesusually those associated with masculinities
privileged in the black communityare considered authentic, while others
usually those which carry connotations of marginalized forms of black identityare trivialized in the usual pop ways: feminization, infantilization, commercialization, etc. Here, then, in distinctions drawn between musical practices,
we find a contestation over the content of racial and ethnic identity.
Thus, Hall notes, [t]he essentializing moment, that is, the appeal to some
sort of authentic or inaccessible origin, is weak because it naturalizes and dehistoricizes difference, mistaking what is historical and cultural for what is natural, biological, and genetic (Hall, 471). It is very easy to associate certain racial
and/or ethnic groups with specific, usually folk-based musics: a quick survey of
the radio dial and the way various stations market themselves tells us that hip
hop is black, salsa is Latin, and rock is white. Even when critiquing essentialisms such as this, academia is fond of claiming that specific styles and
genres are expressive or representative of aspects of racial identity and race politics. From Paul Gilroy to Susan McClary, these arguments are almost always
formalistic: appealing to some quality of the lived experience of some minority
group, these arguments pick out structural devices common to the musical tradition under examination and use these features to illustrate and argue for the
value of ideas and practices characteristic of this racial/ethnic group. For example, both McClary and Gilroy note the antiphonic (call and response) structures
of various blues-based genres and associate this with the black Atlantics
counter-modern values and practices; the non-dominating power relationships
and plural, fluid subjectivities characteristic of black vernacular musics are then
contrasted with European notions of individuality, virtuosity, and sovereignty.
This latter strategy is even adopted in Tricia Roses discussion of the aesthetics
of hip hop.5

Chapter 1

Music (Whatever That Is) as an Example of Race

In The Black Atlantic Gilroy argues that Antiphony (call and response) is the
principal formal feature of these [black diaspora] musical traditions, and that
this musical practice both reflects social structures present within the black Atlantic and offers a model for politics.6 According to Gilroy,
there is a democratic, communitarian movement enshrined in the practice of antiphony which symbolizes and anticipates (but does not guarantee) new, nondominating social relationships. Lines between self and other are blurred and
special forms of pleasure are created as a result of the meetings and conversations that are established between one fractured, incomplete, and unfinished racial self and others. Antiphony is the structure that hosts these essential encounters (BA, 78-79).

Given the importance of response, the structure of antiphony necessarily includes a moment of transformative mimesis wherein the listener(s) actively repeats and modulates authoritative or canonical material. Furthermore, the
inherent and celebrated hybridity of many black vernacular forms (such as reggae, dub, hip hop and house) reflects or expresses more accurately than any
other model the fractured, incomplete, and unfinished character of black identity. According to Gilroy, this fluid, hybrid identity presented in and through
black popular musical practice is offered as a deconstruction of the essentialist/constructionist opposition which structures much of the discourse around
black identity.
Although music figures prominently in his inquiry, the analytical force of
Gilroys text is focused on race and racial identity, leaving music as a relative
given. While his project in The Black Atlantic is clearly a deconstructive one, his
conception and deployment of music presents a very undeconstructed opposition between music and language similar to the oppositions in the essentialist
discourses mentioned above. Given his commitment to deconstructing essentialisms, it is rather surprising that Gilroy assumes a rather Schopenhauerian notion
of music as pure, immediately-given Idea. Thinking about musica nonrepresentational, non-conceptual formraises aspects of embodied subjectivity
that are not reducible to the cognitive and the ethical (Gilroy, BA, 76). True,
music is not necessarily engaged in the economy of signifiers and signifieds that
governs much linguistic communication; however, it does not necessarily follow
from this that music operates without ever engaging concepts (Cages 4:33 is
almost an entirely conceptual piece of music), nor that the bodily/affective dimension of music is some sort of immediate communication lacking commerce
with conceptual and representational phenomena. Gilroy seems to be drawing an
all-too-easy opposition between language and music, representation and embodiment. By opposing embodied, affective music to representational, conceptual language, Gilroy plays into some of the essentialist assumptions and stereo-

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

types he aims to critique. This is so, I will argue, because Gilroys project fails
to address the essentialist/constructionist problem in terms of music. The simple
oppositions between concept and affect, language and music, are a serious flaw
in Gilroys analysis.
In Gilroys text, music is an expressive domain that has functioned as a political and ideological tool:
[e]xamining the place of music in the black Atlantic world means surveying the
self-understanding articulated by the musicians who have made it, the symbolic
use to which their music is put by other black artists and writers, and the social
relations which have produced and reproduced the unique expressive culture in
which music comprises a central and even a foundational element (Gilroy, BA
74-75; emphasis mine).

Focusing on expressivity and instrumentality, Gilroy always views music as

some sort of contentan idea, concept, or practicewhose meaning bears upon
and participates in various social relations. Primarily, Gilroy is concerned with
arguments claiming that music can express some real or authentic racial
identity. Even though he is problematizing what it means for music to be expressive or representative, Gilroys questions interrogate what music is said
to express and represent (i.e., blackness, racial identity), not whether and/or how
music is expressive and/or representational.
He distills his inquiry into black vernacular music and postcolonial theory
down to this question: What special analytical problems arise if a style, genre,
or particular performance of music is identified as being expressive of the absolute essence of the group that produced it? (Gilroy, BA, 75). Framed thus, the
question addresses debates about race and racial identity, namely, the nature of
the identity or identities expressed in and represented by black vernacular musical practices. In Gilroys deconstruction of the essentialist/constructionist binaries operative in postcolonial discourse, music is an example, a text to be read
because it illustrates certain ideas. It is not enough, he argues,
for critics to point out that representing authenticity always involves artifice.
This may be true, but it is not helpful when trying to evaluate or compare cultural forms let alone in trying to make sense in their mutation. More important,
this response also misses the opportunity to use music as a model that can break
the deadlock between the two unsatisfactory positions that have dominated recent discussion of black cultural politics (Gilroy, BA, 99; emphasis mine).

Although I agree that essentialism and constructionism are ultimately unsatisfactory positions, Gilroys analysis presents a serious shortcoming insofar
as he neither acknowledges nor examines the ways in which authenticity and
superficiality function in the discourses surrounding music. He takes music as
some sort of given, especially with regard to its status as material or social. The
debate between essentialists and pluralists seems to exist, for Gilroy, exclusively
at the level of race and its intersection with other identity categories, and is not

Chapter 1

operative in music. If [m]usic and its rituals can be used to create a model
whereby identity can be understood neither as a fixed essence nor as a vague and
utterly contingent construction to be reinvented by the will and whim of aesthetics, symbolists, and language gamers (Gilroy, BA, 102), then it would seem to
indicate either that the essentialist/constructionist question is not a problem for
music or that this problem has been resolved satisfactorily. In Gilroys text,
when debates about authenticity and superficiality appear in relation to music,
they proceed in terms of the musics ability to authentically expressor inauthentically betraya race or culture. Music can make claims toward, be reflective or expressive of, either the true essence of blackness or its impossibility.7
Thus, in Gilroys analysis of the relationship between (black vernacular) music
and racial identity in the black diaspora, he fails to problematize music with the
same complexity and subtlety he grants to the category of race.
Even though the material/socialor, in Gilroys terms, the essentialist/pluralistbinary is inadequate for understanding raced, gendered, classed
bodies, music does not offer us a simple, unproblematic, easily read modelfor
within musical discourses, aporia Gilroy locates between essentialism and pluralism is by no means clearly resolved. This aporia arises because, as Gilroy
argues, [w]hatever the radical constructionists may say, [race, gender, and music are] lived as a coherent (if not always stable) experiential sense of self (BA,
102): even though these concepts are socio-historical, they are, because of their
historicity, unavoidably material. Since music is a social fact just as much as are
race and gender, it cannot provide a way out of the aporia between racial essentialism and radical constructionism. It is precisely the musical appurtenance of
this aporia that Susan McClary examines in her discussion of the race-gender
politics of blues-based rock music.

Race (Whatever That Is), Masculinity, and the Blues

McClary, like Gilroy, attends to the role of antiphony in black vernacular music.
As a musicologist, she offers a formal analysis of various performances by specific male and female performers. For example, she argues that in W.C. Handys
St. Louis Blues, as performed by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, each
four-bar section operates on the basis of a call/response mechanism, with two
bars of call followed by two of instrumental response.8 Within a very common blues structure, an antiphonic relationship is established between the vocalists and the band. Each verse, each performance, then, reinscribes a particular
model of social interaction (McClary, CW, 41) which is different from the one
between, say, the virtuosic violinist and either his accompanying orchestra or his
fawning fans, for while the blues requires cooperation, the nineteenth-century
violin concerto emphasizes individual virtuosity and independence.9 Unlike
Gilroy, whose analysis takes up music as a seemingly unproblematic discourse,
McClary acknowledges that music is not a given, but that analogies between

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

black vernacular musical practice and black identity must question what is
meant by the term music, not just what music means, expresses, and/or represents. Though McClarys analysis succeeds where Gilroys failsthat is, in
addressing the relationship between structure and ideology in musicit fails
precisely where Gilroys is at its strongest, namely, in critiquing racial and cultural essentialism.
McClary finds the antiphonic structure exhibited by Smiths and Armstrongs St. Louis Blues to be characteristic of many blues-based musics, including jazz, gospel, soul, R&B, funk, hip hop, and rock. She argues that many
African and African American genres are characterized by the convention of call
and response, in which soloists are legitimated by the sonic embrace of the
group (McClary CW, 23). McClary notes that in the Swan Silvertones 1959
performance of Near the Cross, lead vocalist Claude Jeters extreme virtuosity
is safely supported not only by the steady regularity of the backup ensemble
but also by an audience that responds enthusiastically to each of his virtuosic
moves, encouraging him on to greater and greater heights (McClary CW, 24).
Unlike the virtuoso solo artist in the European tradition (think Paganini and his
violin, Clapton and his guitar), Jeters virtuosity is, according to McClary, part
of a communal effort meant to engage chorus, audience, and soloist in the performative and spiritual aspects of music making. In McClarys analysis, the musical conventions of mid-twentieth century gospel performances not only exemplify, but reaffirm and recreate the social conventions common to the
performers and audiences lifeworlds: with each verse, each performance, it
reinscribes a particular model of social interaction (McClary CW, 41). Insofar
as it accounts for the ways in which music not only exemplifies or expresses
social structures but is a significant agent in their construction, transmission, and
maintenance, McClarys analysis proves more fruitful than Gilroys; however,
her tendency to essentialize the difference between European and African/African-American is highly problematic.
McClarys text exhibits a seemingly over-simplistic opposition of European
musical conventions and African/African-American musical conventions: while
European music is an individual, intellectual activity meant to express and glorify the prowess of the performer and/or composer, African-American music is
communal, corporeal, and oriented toward building relations via interactive performance (McClary CW, 22-24). As discussed previously, Jeters performance
serves as a foil for conventions surrounding the solo in European tonal music, as
well as in the largely white genre of rock. McClary argues: [f]or the duration of
[Jeter and the Slivertoness] performance, we inhabit a world in which everyone
participates, in which tradition balances with individual invention, in which self
conjoins harmoniously with community, in which body, mind, and spirit collaborate, in which the possibility of a sustained present replaces tonalitys tendency to strain for and against closure (McClary CW, 28). This claim illustrates
the general framework of McClarys analysis, which opposes Euro-American
musical practices and values to African and African-American ones. As Uma
Narayan notes, well-intentioned feminists, aiming to avoid gender essentialism,

10

Chapter 1

by insisting on the difference between Western and Non-Western cultures

and the experiences of women within them, in fact essentialize at the cultural
level.10 Instead of over-generalized claims about women, there exists an essential difference between Western culture and non-Western cultures: not
only is each term in the pair over-generalized, but the fact of difference, the supposed binary opposition between Western and non-Western cultures itself,
becomes essentialized (this is why Narayan refers to Difference as though it
were a proper noun, Difference-in-itself).11 The notion that one or more absolute, irreducible differences exist between Western and non-Western cultures in
turn requires that there exist inalienable, essential features by which Western and non-Western cultures are distinguished. The problem with this, Narayan argues, is that these essentialist claimsboth about Difference itself
and Western and non-Western culturesare both empirically false and politically risky. Not only does this insistence on Difference harm both Western
and non-Western women by misrepresenting them and the issues of most importance to them, it is easily adopted uncritically to further reactionary ends. In attending to the differences between Western art music and various AfricanAmerican vernacular forms, McClarys analysis is a prime example of Narayans well-intentioned feminist, who, in attempting to avoid essentialism, unintentionally posits essentialist claims about Western art music and AfricanAmerican vernacular traditions. I have no doubt that McClarys intentions were
genuine; nevertheless, her tendency to place the conventions and values of black
popular music in binary opposition to the conventions and values of European
tonal music is a weakness in need of redress.
While her analysis can be read as somewhat culturally essentialist, McClary
is very effective in her use of the blues to critique notions of musical immediacy. While many postcolonial theorists use music as an example which expresses some aspect of black diasporic experience, there is little inquiry into
how, precisely, music is expressive. At issue in the possibility of musical expression is the relationship between the material and the social. Is music the
immediate expression of the performers most intimate thoughts and feelings, or
is musical meaning rather the function of the musicians use and manipulation of
conventions? McClary argues that examining the history of the blues can help
academic music study out of a long-standing methodological impasse: I am
drawing on blues as a clear example of a genre that succeeds magnificently in
balancing convention and expression (McClary, CW, 34). The blues, according
to McClary, is an explicit and clear example of an accurate description of the
relationship between structure and ideology, expression and convention. This
examples clarity lies in its foregrounding and attenuating the aporetic relationship between the material and the social: seemingly effortless and powerfully
direct emotional expressions require a high degree of technical mastery. Contrary to a popular belief that regards blues as some kind of unmediated expression of woe, the conventions underlying the blues secure it firmly within the
realm of culture; a musician must have internalized its procedures in order to
participate creatively within its ongoing conversation (McClary, CW, 33). In

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

11

order to make or understand evenand especiallythe simplest blues songs, it

is essential to have a good working knowledge or well-developed intuition of
standard blues structures, conventions, and practicesthey must have become,
as it were, second nature.
One of the most significant social motivations to view the blues in terms of
purity of form and authenticity of expression revolves around the intersection of
masculinities, race, and nation. The British invasion (bands such as Cream, the
Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Who, and, somewhat ironically, Queen) used
the assumptions of a group of white, male, British art students about southern
black bluesmen and their masculinity to develop the teenybop-oriented rock n
roll into what is now known as classic rock. Prior to the 1960s, there existed a
widespread English stereotype that regarded the composition and performance
of music as a feminized and feminizing activity. For white, British, middleclass, heterosexual male audiences, the Delta bluesmenspecifically, the supposedly raw and independently uncommercial nature of their music and the
apparently authentic character of their self-expressionoffered a model of
sufficiently masculine musicianship: they were both real musicians and
real men. As McClary explains, in contrast to what politicized art students
regarded as the feminized sentimentality of pop music, blues seemed to offer an
experience of sexuality that was unambiguously masculine. This was no mean
consideration, for the English had regarded music-making as effeminizing for
nearly 500 years (McClary, CW, 55). The unambiguously masculine character of the Delta bluesmens sexuality derived in no small part from stereotypes
about their race, class, and national identity. Their status as underprivileged and
excluded from mainstream society made their works seem more individualistic, rebellious, and authentic; the character of their musical structures and
musical expression was more masculine than the trivial, schlocky, commercially-oriented teenybop of, say, the early Beatles and other British pop acts.
Furthermore, stereotypes about African-American men and their (hyper- but
always hetero-) sexuality offered a model of masculinity too intense to be diluted by the fact of their engagement with a supposedly effeminate activity.
These stereotypes about the masculinity expressed in and possessed by African-American bluesmen came to be integral to the sea change in rock style
known as the British Invasion. What was most attractive to Cream guitarist Eric
Clapton was the perceived individuality, of the bluesman, specifically, the
perception that the bluesman worked outside the constraints of capitalist production. The rough, edgy, dirty sounds of a typical Delta Blues record contrast
sharply with the highly produced sound of a pop record; hence, the toughness
and grittiness of these songs reflect the values of a certain macho-rebel mythology. This myth, which McClary clearly demonstrates is false, was nonetheless powerful, for the perceived rebellious or outsider status of these working-class, African-American, (purportedly) heterosexual men made their music
very attractive to the British art-school students who would come to form some
of the most popular, influential, and nearly canonical rock bands of the twentieth
century. The blues-based form which came to count as classic rock reflected

12

Chapter 1

these values, which the students saw in the music of Robert Johnson and his
contemporaries, and many of these values were directly related to notions of
African-American identity, heterosexuality and authentic masculinity. The
intersection of class, race, nation, gender, and sexuality was essential in the
definition of rock that emerged from this era and by and large remains with us
today.
McClarys account is strongest precisely where Gilroys is at its weakest,
because she attends to the ways which mythologies of musical immediacy are
constructed in terms of stereotypes about race, masculinity, and nation. Insofar
as it highlights the fact that race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality are not
tangential to, but inherent in the constitution of musical structures as such,
McClarys analysis begins to move from using music as an example of social
phenomena toward thinking about music, race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality as intersecting or coincident discourses which coalesce around and
through the relationship between the material and the social.

Expression versus Intersection versus Cooked Coincidence

What is interesting about models such as Gilroys and McClarys, then, is their
successnamely, the fact that musical structures can be so easily read in and
appear to express constructions of race and gender. Music makes such an illuminative and insightful example of race and gender because all three discourses
are organized around and in terms of an aporetic relationship between the material and the social. While Gilroy uses lyrics and performance practices to illustrate how identity can be understood neither as a fixed essence nor as a vague
and utterly contingent construction (BA, 102), my argument is that music is no
mere example of race or gender identity. While it is clear that there are multiple
relationships between musical structures and social structures, I am wary of
placing these two in a relationship of expression. If expression requires a subject (functioning both as the expressing agent and the object expressed), it is not
proper to say that musical and social structures can be expressive of one another, for they do not pre-exist as independent objects or discourses prior to their
expressive relationship. Unlike performativity, wherein the performing subject
is produced in the very process of its performance, expressivity requires that
there be someone or something already in existence that is made manifest or
expressed.12 Music and race can be misinterpreted as expressing one another
because they are in fact coincident: they co-create and mutually determine each
other.
The idea that music and society express and/or reflect one another is incorrect in the same way that additive models of identity are incorrect: both models view the component discourses as viably if not fundamentally separate/separable. It is also wrong to say that music and social identities intersect

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

13

or are blended with one another. While models of intersection or blending do

remedy some of the problems with additive models of identity, they cannot capture the ways in which music, race, and gender begin fused together (not as
separate components like streets or colors), and only become disarticulated in
the course of post-experiential reflection. Music, race, and gender are experientially coincident and theoretically conjectural categories. At the end of this chapter I argue that cookingboth in the sense of a chemical concoction that cant
be broken back down into component parts (you cant un-bake a cookie), and in
the sense of adulteration or corruption (cooking the books)is a better metaphor for describing the coincidence of music and social identity than those offered by intersectionality theorists and their critics.

Expression, the Additive Model, and the Traffic Metaphor

It is possible to understand intersection as a strong formulation of additive
theories of identity. Although it is now relatively dated, Linda Nicholsons
coat-rack metaphor is a very clear illustration of the additive model of identity.13 Physiology, the ever-present foundation, is like the rack upon which various coats can be hung, rearranged, and removed. While the composition of the
coats might be subject to greater or lesser change, the sturdy rack remains as the
unchanging structure and structuring of their arrangement. Not only does the
rack remain substantively unchanged as it subsists despite the various recompositions of coats, the coats themselves are separate, distinct phenomena that are
not altered by their interactions with other coats. Similarly, additive models
throw lots of separate coats (race, gender, class, sexuality) together onto some
physiological substratum and argue that these distinct elements unite to constitute the complex phenomenon at issue. What characterizes the additive model is
its assumption that there are pre-existing categories (coats) such as race, class,
gender, and sexuality which can be mixed together and individually distilled out
of the mix. In order for music to express race or any other social identity, it
must be seen as distinct and separable from it, a signifier that merely refers to or
re-presents its signified.
The use of the traffic intersection as a metaphor to explain intersectionality
theory establishes it as a strong version of the additive model. At a traffic intersection, two separate, distinct, independent roads join together for a brief space
which is thus opened for the combination and recombination of cars.14 Outside
of this clearly demarcated space, the roads are independent of one another; the
course of a road is not significantly determined by the course of the other
road(s). Like the coat rack, the roads remain stable in their structure, while it is
only the composition of the cars (coats) on them that change. The traffic model
of intersection relies on a priori categories (roads, cars), and thus qualifies as an
additive model of identity. Before their convergence, each of these categories
exists in itself, pure and independent of the others. Such thinking runs con-

14

Chapter 1

trary to the intent of theorists invested in the intersection model, for the force of
intersectionality theory is to think these phenomena together in a formative, mutually constitutive way. As Kimberl Crenshaw explains, [m]y objective[was] that the intersection of racism and sexism factors into black
womens lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking separately at
the race or gender dimensions of those experience.15 While she sometimes
speaks in terms of the traffic metaphor,16 the more general intent of her work
is to attend to the ways in which ones experience of race is constituted
through ones experience of gender, class, and sexuality, and vice versa.
Crenshaw notes,
The problem is not simply that both discourses [anti-racism and feminism] fail
women of color by not acknowledging the additional issue of race or patriarchy but, rather, that the discourses are often inadequate even to the discrete
tasks of articulating the full dimensions of racism or sexism (Crenshaw, 360).

By placing additional in scare quotes, Crenshaw indicates that the problem

with feminist and anti-racist discourses is precisely that they view gender and
race as distinct categories which are added on to one another. If the relationship of race and gender were additive, then there would be no problem using a
combination of anti-racist and feminist discourses to fully describe the oppression of black (and all other) women.
In spite of the possibility for misrepresentation and misinterpretation, it is
the basic intention of intersectionality theory to provide a model for thinking
about the mutually constitutive relationship between race, class, gender, and
sexuality. Thus, instead of envisioning the intersection in terms of roads and
cars, it is more accurate to describe this intersection as a nexus out of which we
retroactively pick categories to explain and understand our experiencewhat I
will later describe as a cooked coincidence. The coincident intersection sets
up or prepares the terrain so that these paths or categories can be conjecturally
and hypothetically sketched out. The categories do not pre-exist their intersection, for their intersection is what constitutes them as such. Accordingly, race,
gender, class, and sexuality, are themselves conjectural categories, because even though they do not actually exist as distinct phenomena, it is sometimes, for the purposes of analysis, useful to name them individually.
While Angela Daviss Blues Legacies and Black Feminism explicitly examines the intersection of gender, race, and class as it is expressed in the music
of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, it also implicitly begins to illustrate the coincidence of gender, race, and class with the discourses and practices
which came to constitute the blues.17 Thus, I turn to this text as an instance of
how the example model is transformed into a coincident model of the relationship between race, class, gender, and music. Furthermore, unlike the work of
Christopher Hight, which I examine later in the chapter, the model of intersection which emerges from Davis analysis demonstrates the conjectural status of
distinct identity categories (race, gender, etc.). After working through an

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

15

accurate and useful account of the interrelationship between music, race, and
gender, I then return to critiques of intersectionality theory to develop a new
metaphor for thinking about the kind of coincident, conjectural relationship that
Davis posits between music and social identity.

Angela Davis: From Expression to Coincidence

Angela Davis Blues Legacies and Black Feminism stands out for emphasizing the coincidence of race with gender and class in the production, performance, reception, even definition of the blues. Davis, however, focuses more on
the ways Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Billie Holiday created powerfully expressive music that in turn produced empowerment and consciousness-raising.
Davis frequently analyzes what the lyrics and vocal delivery of a particular song
express. A typical claim of this type posits, That their aesthetic representations
of the politics of gender and sexuality are informed by and interwoven with their
representations of race and class makes their work all the more provocative
(Davis, xv). For Daviss project, what is important and provocative about the
work of these classic blues divas is what their songs express or represent about
the coincidence of race, class, and gender in early twentieth-century Black experiencethat these singers portray experiences in such a way that their audiences
become aware of these intersecting oppressions and the ways they are resisted
by the characters in the songs. Female blues narrators evince a working-class
black feminist consciousness because, for example, the lyrical expression
particularly the contrast between proper English and Black vernacularin
Bessie Smiths Sam Jones Blues, reflects the clash between two cultures
perceptions of marriage and particularly womens place within the institution
(Davis, 12). While mainstream white bourgeois culture perpetuates an image of
marriage framed by sexual fidelity, bourgeois consumerism, female domesticity,
and the family wage, Smith describes a situation which more accurately reflects
the experiences of working-class black women. In this song, the narrator shoos
off her estranged husband, repeatedly asserting her emotional and economic
independence from him. Posing her analysis in terms of the blues importance
for redefining black womens self-understanding (38), Daviss work, while
intriguing and important, nevertheless continues to use music as an example of
social problems and forces. Davis thinks that because classic female blues singers accurately portray the kinds of oppression faced by black working-class
women, they empower those with similar experiences and raise the consciousness of those who do not. Missing still is an account of why this strong conjunction between blues legacies and black feminisms works so well.
Daviss chapter on the Harlem Renaissance (and the black aesthetic with
which it is associated) deals more directly with the contestation over the definition of the blues, focusing mostly on how class hierarchies within the black
intelligentsia of the time worked to exclude the bluesa popular formfrom

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Chapter 1

consideration as serious black music or black art music. In her genealogy of

blues recording and its status as race music, Davis does offer an account of
how whiteness and blackness come to be defined through and in terms of musical structures. Before black music was commodified successfully by the recording industry the location of the blues within a largely African-American
cultural environment was simply due to the social conditions of its creation
(Davis, 141). At the outset the blues were associated with African-American
people and their cultural practices because the blues were practiced only in African-American communities: due to numerous layers of racial and socioeconomic segregation, blues performers spoke of and practiced within black, working-class communities. However, since blues recordings were marketed such
that the segregated geography of the record store mirrored the segregated geography of American communities, the blues was identified and culturally represented not only as music produced by black people but as music to be heard
solely by black people (Davis, 141). There was the unmarked music section,
and then the race records; in this instance, what counts as musicthe socalled universal languageis defined against certain conceptions of blackness.
This universality is universal only to those with taste. Anything which offends this taste by being incompatible with or incomprehensible to it is rendered
inherently less musical, for it appears as though the discriminating ear is making judgments only about purely musical qualities, not about the qualities of
its performers and intended audience. The supposedly disinterested aesthetic
judgment appears to concern the music in itself, paying no regard to the intersecting ideologies of race, class, and gender. Accordingly, argues Davis, this
marketing strategy and its latent high/low distinction implicitly instructed white
ears to feel revolted by the blues and, moreover, to assume that this sense of
revulsion was instinctive (Davis, 141). Thus, we have an inherent or material
aspect of whiteness that seems to be inevitably and necessarily repulsed by certain purely musical structures.
Although Davis does not thematize it in these terms, her analysis illustrates
an instance in which discourses of music and race coincide around the nature/culture problem. Normative claims about what constitutes the purely musical and what constitutes the inherent nature of whiteness are articulated
through one another. On the other side, normative claims about corrupted (perhaps we could even say degenerate) music and the inherent nature of blackness are, through this same assertion, defined negatively. In analyzing the status
accorded the blues by black intellectuals associated with the Harlem Renaissance, Davis illustrates a case in which struggles over racial identity (or rather,
the racial identity of a certain elite class) manifest in the struggle to define and
situate a specific set of musical pieces and practices called the blues, and vice
versa. Moreover, this coincidence occurs precisely where normative claims
about materiality or nature are made.
Christopher Hight offers another account of the intersection of music and
race. Focusing on the pre-tonal harmonic theory that dominated Western thinking (about music) from ancient times until the mid-eighteenth century, Hight

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

17

argues that harmonynamely, the idea that difference can be measured on a

unified, mathematically proportional scalewas an ontological and epistemic
model which influenced European thought about the substance or materiality
of resonating and racialized bodies. However, because it describes an instance of
linear causality rather than mutual articulation, Hights analysis manifests the
bad version of intersectionality discussed earlier.

White Noise/Racial Harmony

In his article Stereo Types: The Operation of Sound in the Production of
Racial Identity, Hight examines harmony as a model or measuring measure
which functioned in the development of music and race in the West.18 Using
Jacques Attalis notion of harmony as an epistemic system,19 Hight views harmony as a global similitude that transcended all disciplines and senses and was
thought directly to reflect the organization of divine nature (Hight, 14); or in
Attalis words, harmony was the isomorphism of all representations (cited in
Hight, 14). As an epistemic paradigm, harmony was a way of analyzing, describing, and, most importantly, positing normative claims about bodies. Its
normative influence was great because musical harmony seemed to have a
sense of intuitive naturalness (Hight, 15). However, as with any supposedly
natural phenomenon, the criteria by which harmony is judged are neither neutral nor given. Thus, the authors main argument is that the idea of harmony or
the harmonic system of representation provided a consensual and preconscious norm for whiteness (Hight, 15), which contributed to the conceptual
organization of the colonial [and postcolonial] world (Hight, 14).
Harmony presents a specific claim about the empirical differences among
bodies, be they resonating bodies or raced bodies. Just as the notion of musical
harmony presupposes that all frequencies can be compared to one another on a
scale because they ultimately share a common term or denominator, any harmonic model reduces all difference to a greater or lesser degree of some common measurement.20 What is significant about musical harmony is its reduction
of all dimensions into one single dimension, as on the monochord. The monochord is a stringed instrument with only one string; it is perhaps more strictly
harmonic than the circle of fifths, which is better described as an element of
tonality or tonal harmony. On the monochord, the relations between pitches can
be expressed in terms of the ratio comparing the length of string above the fret
to the length of string below the fret where a specific pitch is sounded (e.g.,
third, fourth, fifth, etc.). If the string were long enough, one would find that at a
specific point these pitches would be repeated at different octaves. Hence, all
Western harmonic relationships can be expressed as fractions of one common
denominator: the singular axis of the monochord.
For race scientists, this reliance upon a single axisand not on the
us/them binarism common to much racist thinkingmeant that the black body

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Chapter 1

could be measured upon the same scale as the white (Hight 4). In postcolonial
theory, feminist theory, and continental philosophy, difference-oriented models
emphasizing same/other binaries are a quite popular method of analyzing and
explaining relations of privilege and marginalization. While the difference paradigm might be quite appropriate to many contemporary racisms, Hight argues
that the harmonic modelwhich presupposes sameness, a common denominatoris more appropriate for analyzing certain older (although not for that fact
outmoded or absent from contemporary experience) Western racisms. (Indeed,
hypodescent, the idea that one drop of non-white blood in ones ancestry determines ones racial identity as non-white, is a relatively contemporary version
of this harmonic mode of measure.) As a measuring measure or mental model,
harmony was the specific configuration of the sensorium and of concepts
(Hight, 16) which facilitated the construction of a harmonious human race
composed of a scale of increasingly consonant and dissonant specimens. As
Hight explains, according to nineteenth-century physiognomist Mary Olmstead
Stanton, bodies could be classified, ordered, and of course evaluated according
to a rubric of increasing harmoniousness. White bodies (of course) evinced the
most harmonious or consonant combination of elements. According to Hight,
harmony functioned as the conceptual apparatus organizing discourses of music
and race (among others). Hence, the ways in which resonating bodies were understood became patterns whereby racialized bodiesand the very possibility of
their conceptualization as suchwere classified, analyzed, and placed in relationship to one another. While presenting keen insights into the ways in which
musical thought influences the discourse of race, Hights analysis doesnt interrogate the ways in which the discourse of race influences musical thought and
practice.
Unlike Davis account, which describes multiple discourses in multilateral,
multidirectional relations, Hights intersection consists in the flow of consecutive one-way streets. Indeed, Hights argument is that the discourse of harmony
pre-existed the category of race and was the determinative context in which this
latter notion developed. Insofar as notions of race outlived the epistemic prominence of harmony, it became a distinct, independent category in itself, but only
after developing from a mutually-determinative relationship with this notion of
harmony.21 Harmony fails as a model for thinking about the relationship between music and race (and gender) because pitch/frequency is a spectrum, a
single axis whereupon things that may seem to blend into one another are in fact
definitively separable and isolatable. There may be many different shades of
A, such as A440 and A442 (or A441, or A 440.25, and so on), but every decent
electronic tuner can pinpoint minute differences in frequency/pitch. Although
his critique of intersectionality is motivated by the same concerns as mine, Michael Hames-Garcas metaphor of color blending ultimately fails for the same
reason that Hights analysis does: color, like sound, is a frequency spectrum. In
the next section, I explain the strengths and weaknesses of Hames-Garcas theory of blended colors, and then offer an alternative metaphor for imagining the
coincident relationships among music, race, and gender, based on the two main

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

19

senses of the term cooked (molecularly reconfigured and fixed, on the one
hand, and adulterated or corrupted on the other). This metaphor of cooked coincidence adequately captures both the mutually-constitutive status of music,
race, and gender, and demonstrates how these three terms, when used individually, are conjectural categories.

Cooked Coincidence
Michael Hames-Garca argues that social identities do not intersect, but instead blend like colors in a photograph.22 This blending, he argues, represents
the way that memberships in various social groups combine with and mutually
constitute one another (Hames-Garca, 103). While I certainly agree with
Hames-Garca that social identities mutually constitute one another and that the
idea of intersection doesnt encourage an accurate representation of this mutual constitution, I dont think his color-blending model does, either.23 When he
says that colors blend, Hames-Garca means that the character, indeed, the
color (or shade or tone) of a hue is dependent upon the other colors (and
shades, etc.) that surround it and of which it is composed. What, for example,
yellow looks like depends not only on its own shape and density but also on the
shape and density of the red and the blue and their position in relation both to
the yellow and to each other. Thus yellow next to red looks different from yellow next to blue (Hames-Garca, 103).

According to Hames-Garca, the various colors, hues, and tones in a photograph

all produce one another as such, just as social identities all make one another in
their coincidence. However, if you examine both the manufacture of photographs and the physics of colors in greater depth (that is, if you take the metaphor a bit more literally), Hames-Garcas metaphor breaks down and doesnt
accurately represent social identities. Digital photographs printed from a computer are composed of various blends of red, yellow, blue, and black ink (assuming theyre printed on white photographic paper). Unlike race and gender, these
primary colors (and black) do indeed exist as separate/separable phenomena. In
fact, the very idea of blending, like intersecting, implies the coming together of
two or more things that were necessarily separate and independent prior to their
blending. Primary colorsred, blue, yellowdo actually exist in pure form.
Even if we take light, rather than paint or ink as our color medium, we find that
each color in the spectrum is relatively isolatable and separable from the others.
(The fact that we cant even perceive infrared or ultraviolet colors/frequencies
without assistance is evidence of the separability of the colors.) So, even though
lights constituent colors are perceivable only after some mediation (a prism,
raindroplets, etc.), they are nevertheless separable andif not rigidly distinct
meaningfully separate.

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Chapter 1

Separability and a priority are exactly what Hames-Garca thinks his

blended color metaphor avoids. He explains:
The crucial error here comes from asking how the two separate identities come
to intersect, instead of starting from the presumption of mutual constitution.
This is like assuming that one can have pure essences of blue and yellow and
that green is nothing more than the combination of the properties of each. Besides the question of whether green might be something more than this, it begs
the question of how to determine which yellow (or blue) represents the true yellow (or blue). Yellow (or blue) against a white background, or a black one?
Brightly lit, or dimly? (Hames-Garca 104).

While Hames-Garca thinks that it is impossible to definitively determine a precise or true shade, hue, tone, or color, this is something commercial designers
and artists do without a second thought, every single day, using Pantone products to help them determine the exact frequency of specific colors. Pantone, an
American company, determines what is truly each specifically recognized
shade of yellow, blue, green, chartreuse, meyer lemon, cobaltwhatever color
one can imagine within the spectrum visible to humans.24 They pick out specific
frequencies, and assign identification codes to them. Like sound, but unlike
identity, color is a measurable, parseable spectrum that we access and interpret
through various forms of culturally and technologically specific mediation (e.g.,
the diatonic scale, Pantones Color Cue device, the Dorian and Ionic modes,
etc.).25 Green is not, as Hames-Garca argues, a blend of yellow and blue, but
a point on the spectrum somewhere between them. Even though subtle differences in pitch and color may not be perceptible to the unassisted human ear or
eye, the differences nevertheless do exist. Nothing on a spectrum is really ever
blended; each shade, tone, and mix is perceptible as such because it is a precise, distinct frequency of light. Thus, Hames-Garcas metaphor breaks down
here because we can and do specify distinct colors with a clarity and definitiveness that defy accurate accounts of social identities. Ironically, then, HamesGarcas re-imagining of intersection as blending reduces all difference to a
single axis (or continuum), and thus performs the very move it aims to critique.
Social identities are not identifiable points on a continuum (as are color and
pitch).26 Identity categoriesrace, gender, class, etc.never actually exist in a
pure, unblended form (either prior to or after their blending), and it is impossible to accurately depict or analyze any identity category in isolation from all
the others. Relatively privileged groupse.g., white women, working-class
men, and men of colorhave tended to be the ones that established identitybased political and theoretical programs; this is a point Hames-Garca makes,
and I think hes correct here.27 Because of their relative privilege (whiteness
and/or maleness and/or bourgeois-ness), the founders of identity-based movements have found it easy to mistakenly view the identity around which they organize in isolation from all their other social identities. The middle-class white
feminists at the vanguard of the early- and mid-twentieth-century womens

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

21

movements were able to misperceive their gender in isolation from their race
and their class because these latter two identities were, in their case, dominant,
and thus normal and invisible (but nonetheless present). This is, however, a
mistaken perception. Identity categories always exist in combination, because
they do not persist independently of the lived experiences of real, existent people.28 The metaphor of blending does not evoke an image of parts that are in
fact separable and extricable only heuristically, and then only at a (perhaps significant) cost. You can often extract elements out of something once it has been
blended (if only through the magic of Photoshop). Mayonnaise will separate out
again after it is mixed, just as one can pick, strain, or centrifuge out different
ingredients in a batter or any other sort of blend. You cant, however, unbake a
cookie (or a cake, or a croissant, or any baked good).
What I am suggesting is that we experience our embodied identities more as
an inseparable whole (like baked cookies) than as a mixture of isolatable parts
(as with blended batter, or paint, or ink). Our identities are cooked in both
senses of the term: on the one hand, their parts have disappeared into them
and cannot be separated out again, and, on the other, they are impure, contaminated, adulterated concoctions that are never, ever identical to one another. This
cooking is the chemical/physical process of lived experience. We can never
return to and examine a state or a self prior to and outside of history and experience, which would be analogous to the merely blended and uncooked cookie
dough. The cooking/baking process induces chemical changes in the composition of the cookie dough, transforming it into a finished product wherein the
ingredients molecular structures are reworked into new molecules whose composition and structure result from the interaction of all the ingredients of the
dough and the ovens heat with one another. The baked cookies ingredients
mutually constitute one another as such. When we taste a cookie, we note the
presence and interplay of what were formerly separate ingredientsbutter or
margarine, vanilla, white or brown sugar or molasses, flour, salt, other flavorings (like cocoa), nuts, chips, and so on. We can only taste these ingredients
together, in their mutually-constituting interplay. This interaction is most evident in the texture of the cookie: sticky dough becomes a crisp, chewy, or cakey
cookie. The texture results from the fusing and/or reconfiguration of the chemical structures of the ingredients: crisp cookies come from the interaction of
sugar, eggs, and butter, whereas cakey cookies usually result from the use of
shortening instead of butter. You can crumble a cookie, you can puree it, you
can digest it, but even the digestion process doesnt break the cookie back down
into flour, butter, sugar, and eggs. In the same way that you cant bake or digest
the flour, butter, sugar, and eggs out of a cookie, you cant separate out identity
categories from one another without fundamentally misunderstanding and misrepresenting them.
The coincidence of music, race, and gender (or of social identities generally) is more accurately described by this cooking metaphor than by metaphors
of either intersecting or blending. Because we are always-already in a world, in
a body, in a particular context and standpoint, our identities always come pre-

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Chapter 1

cooked. The dough, where all the ingredients are separable and chemically untransformed, is equivalent to Rousseaus state of naturea prior state that is
knowable only on the basis of inferences we make about it based on our experiences as cooked. In our world, the chemically untransformed ingredients
separable identity categories like race or genderdont actually exist. When we
speak of them, we are, to a degree, misrepresenting our experiences. Social identities are thus cooked in the second sense: any reference to race as such or
gender as such is always a greater or lesser misrepresentation of ones mutually constitutive and coincident social identities. Every time we separate out
social identities, were cooking the books, so to speak, highlighting some aspects of an identity while overlooking others. This second sense of cooking is
fleshed out in the following comparison of the structure and perception of social
identities to the structure and perception of process music.

Its Gonna Rain

Steve Reichs theory of process music, particularly as exhibited in his
early phase-shifting pieces, is a useful metaphor, or even analogue, for the phenomenology of social identities.29 There are (at least) two features of phaseshifting process music that also accurately characterize the lived experience of
coincident social identities: (1) the absence of a macro-level formal structure
that organizes micro-level events, and (2) the predominance of indeterminate,
irrational relationships that we tend to perceive only when they briefly coalesce into landmarks.
First, process music is characterized by its lack of predetermined, overarching structure. Process pieces do not have a predetermined form because the entire point of such a work is to let the process unfold of its own accord in order to
see what sorts of unexpected resulting patterns (Schwartz, 387) emerge.30 A
pieces large-scale, general structure evolves or emerges from a sequence of
micro-level events. There are no causal relationships in this series: each new
sound event follows from neither the previous event nor some overarching plan.
Rather, micro-level sound events generate a pieces logic. In Reichs terms,
musical processes determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and
the overall form simultaneously.31 As K. Robert Schwartz explains, in Reich,
structure cannot be a framework which supports an unrelated faade of sounds;
rather, sound and structure must be identical. Take, for example, Reichs first
phasing piece, Its Gonna Rain. In this piece, Reich loops a snippet of found
sounds (an excerpt from San Francisco street preacher Brother Walters sermon
on Noah and the sound of a pigeon flapping its wings in the background, which
Reich recorded in Union Square in 1964), and records two identical tapes full of
these loops. The tapes are placed on two identical players, and they begin in
complete unison, repeating the vocal Its gonna rain! over and overuntil
eventually, due to slight variances in the playback speed of the two recorders,

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

23

the two tapes move very gradually but increasingly out of synch. As the process of phasing progresses, Schwartz explains, new and unexpected polyrhythmic configurations, resulting harmonic combinations, and melodic patterns
evolve, since the two channels of tape constantly change their relationship to
one another (Schwartz, 384). Particularly in the Reich phasing pieces that utilize tape, the unpredictable and irregular behavior of the tape players makes it
impossible to predict exactly how the note-to-note details will unfoldthere
is no logic or regularity to it (as, for example, in the phasing of windshield wipers). In other words, there is no overarching structure to a process piece because
the micro-level evolution of the piece is, to a certain extent, random. The gradual increase of one tracks speed does not occur at a consistent rate; it has no
measured or measurable tempo or meter.
Because the rate of time-shifting of a phase piece is both inconsistent and
very, very gradual, most of the piece consists in irrational relationships between the two tapes. That is to say, the shifting doesnt occur at easily recognizable intervals: it doesnt jump along by thirty-second note intervals (or eighthnote intervals, or any regular, measurable interval), but speeds up gradually and
irregularly. A majority of the time, the two tapes are somewhere between recognizable time intervals; they sound out of synch, but this out-of-synchness is not
metered. This is the main way a phase-shifting piece differs from a canon or a
round: in these formats, the different voices or (in a fugue) subjects are separated by regular intervals (e.g., a measure or a beat). In a phase piece, most of
the time the voices are between recognizable intervals; it doesnt sound like a
pattern, but like gobbledygook. There are, however, brief moments when the
voices lock into a recognizable relationship. As Paul Epstein explains,
During phasing the ear will identify certain discrete landmark situationsthe
splitting of a unison, the doubling of tempo at the midpoint. Even though it is
apparent that these have been arrived at gradually, the ear identifies them
within only a narrow margin of error, and this results in a feeling of abrupt
changeIn such cases the discontinuity is purely perceptual, the actual change
being merely one of degree.32

Discrete social identities are like the discrete landmark situations in a phase
piece. We see these landmark situations (i.e., separate social identities) as individual only because of our perceptual habituation to see them this way. There
is a certain point at which we perceive race or gender as the most prominent
feature of an experience, but that is only because this specific configuration of
events has arrived at an arrangement we have pre-identified as a landmark.
But, these landmarks arent really, experientially, landmarks. We tend to perceive them as determinate (indeed, Reich uses the term rational) points in an
otherwise indeterminate (what Reich calls irrational) and undifferentiated
block of sound. Most of a phasing piece consists of the indeterminate or irrational parts; the rational parts are transient. We should imagine social identities similarly: their relations to one another are indeterminate and irrational.

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Chapter 1

With social identities, we tend to take these momentary, transient landmarks

as representative of the entirety of experience, when, in fact, they are anything
but representative. Social identities dont come into clear focuseither individually or in their relationships to one anotherbecause they are not separate
or separable.
Our bodies are not raced or gendered, i.e., our experience is not composed
according to a predetermined logic of race, or gender, or any other social identityall we are is the note-to-note details, the ground-level experiences where
everything oozes about irrationally like primordial goo or undifferentiated
stem cells. Bodily experience is irrational or un-decomposable because it, like
process music, is not composed in the first place. A traditional composition
arranges fixed entities (such as pitch, rhythm, etc.) in determinate, regular relations to one another. In process pieces, the relationships and patterns are generated by a pieces performance. Our social identities are the unexpected resulting patterns (Schwartz, 387) from our repeated yet constantly evolving
interaction with our social and material environments. We compose what we,
upon reflection, understand as our social identities from the micro-level unfolding of our experiences in the particular bodies we have, inhabiting our specific
contexts. Because each individuals life unfolds a different sequence of note-tonote details, there will not be exact consistency among the unexpected resulting patterns that emerge from lived bodily experience.
Because they impose regularity and consistency across instances and populations, broad categories like race or gender are thus cooking or overlooking/misrepresenting both the structure and the phenomenology of social identity.
In the same way that the landmarks in a phase-shifting piece are only brief,
unrepresentative moments in an otherwise irregular and illogical work, the separate ingredients that go into cookie batter are unrepresentative of the composition of a baked cookie. Corporeally, social identities behave analogously to
process pieces: they dont pre-exist and determine experience; rather, they are
the unexpected resulting patterns that we reflectively abstract from experience. These patterns themselves vary from performance to performance, and
even from moment to moment within the same performance. Most importantly
for my purposes here, these patterns materialize from the interplay of elements
that do not exist independently of, but are themselves generated by, the works
unfolding.
After this excursion into social identity and avant-garde art music, I now
shift back to thinking about popular music.

High and Low, or Serious versus Pop 2.0

The nature/culture problem always seems to come back to a contestation of the
domain of serious culture, or what is proper to a specific group, its practices,
and its canon. In analyzing the role music has played in postcolonial theory, it is

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

25

imperative to focus on popular musics, or musics that are hierarchically opposed

to some serious or authentic form of creativity and/or expression. Because
the discourses of music, race, and gender mutually constitute one another, any
claim about what, in music, is real and what is fake or superficial is always
also a claim about what kinds of people are given the most epistemic credibility
and social privilege.
Noting that black intelligentsia associated with the Harlem Renaissance
tended to treat this music as a rather primitive folk art that needed to be elevated to the level of high art in order to take its place as a meaningful element of
African-American culture (Davis 149), and, accordingly, that their effort to
assert an African-American identity and race consciousness was ambiguous at
best, pervaded by the contradictions emanating from an uncritical acceptance of
elitist cultural values (153), Davis points us to the primary implication of a
claim (such as mine) which points to the racist, (hetero)sexist, classist, and
Eurocentric foundations of traditional Western aesthetic values. In this particular
instance, class, race, and gender intersect to produce a situation where the work
of William Grant Stilla classically trained male composer living a relatively
bourgeois lifestyleis viewed as a more authentic example of art than the
oeuvres of working-class blues women. If the criteria by which we distinguish
art from kitsch (or evenin VH1s termsthe awesomely bad from the
downright insipid) reflect various intersecting systems of social, political, and
economic privilege, how then do we make judgments about (in this instance)
music which refrains from reinforcing problematic systems of privilege? Davis
poses the question in these terms: How can we interpretwith and against?
(163; emphasis mine).
In working with what one might be tempted to condemn as superficial,
unoriginal, or a sell-out, we find that commodity music is popular precisely because it is pleasurable to many people in a very real way. Music, because it intersects with ideologies and experiences of race, class, gender, and sexuality, is a
technology of the selfthat is, it educates our desires, physiological and psychical. Consequently, musics strong ability to produce affect (either pleasure or
disgust) arises from its coincidence with the various systems of privilege within
which our identities are articulated and experienced; in other words, music
works with race, gender, class, and sexuality to produce and reinforce both the
boundaries of the self (i.e., identity), as well as the sociopolitical hierarchies
through which this self emerges. When pronouncing judgments about a piece of
music, one must be aware of exactly what it is one is judging: not the music
itself, but a whole complex of phenomena that interact with and come to constituteand be constituted bymusical structures. Further, when one makes a
claim about musicabout whether it is good music or bad music, serious
music or trivial musicone is also making a judgment about what counts as
authentic and what as fake, what is socially valued and what is socially
marginalized.
This is not to say that we should stop making musical judgments and rather
adopt a sophomoric relativism. Every day we make, and, I think, inevitably

26

Chapter 1

make, judgments about good and bad music. However, as I have argued, it
is somewhat misleading to call these musical judgments, for what is being
evaluated is a whole set of coincident relations and phenomena, not just musical
structures. Jason Lee Oakes argues that just as there is no positive content to
good music, [t]he category of bad music is produced, then, in the interplay
between discourse and musical soundbad music could never be identified
solely in reference to the sounds themselves.33 Thus, when we do make judgments about music, it is important that we dont do so in bad faithbad faith
meaning the attempt to pass off ones judgments as purely musical, the failure
to admit that the claims made about musical structures are also claims about
identity and sociopolitical values. Race, ethnicity, and nationality, in their coincidence with gender, sexuality, and class, are not external factors that can be
expressed by or represented in music; rather, via the contested relationship between what have been variously called essentialism and pluralism, expression
and convention, the material and the social, these discourses coincide with those
surrounding the study and practice of music such that, in their coincidence, the
concepts and experiences of race and music crystallize into the configurations in which we find them today.
Having argued for the cooked coincidence of resonating, raced, and gendered bodies and the conjectural status of social identity, I flesh out this idea of
conjecture in the next chapter. My model of cooked coincidence requires us
to think of a state seemingly impossible to think: i.e., a state in which race,
class, and gender are both separate and not separate. Given the exigencies of
epistemology and language, it is impossible not to make conceptual distinctions
among them; we need the analytical distinctions between race, class, and gender
in order to even think about the phenomena they are intended to (mis)represent.
Similarly, in Rousseaus inquiry into the origins of inequality he discovers he
must make use of a termnaturethat is itself impossible to comprehend. He
thus argues for a conjectural account of Nature, a necessary misrepresentation of
a phenomenon of which we can never have certain knowledge, but one nonetheless essential for making sense of current political problems. Reading Rousseaus claims about the necessarily conjectural account of the state of Nature
alongside his early musical writings, I argue that, contrary to Derridas reading,
Rousseaus claim for the original unity of music and language is not a metaphysics of presence, but is precisely proof that immediate purities such as the
state of nature are fictions. Thus, although we need a concept of nature and the
body to understand our present condition and make political interventions in it,
this account should not be a static essence used for reactionary normative appeals, but a flexible concept adaptable to changes in task and context. Or, put in
the terms of non-ideal theory, we need to account for the body as a historicized
materiality. When beginning ones analyses from the actual rather than the
ideal, we cannot overlook the complexity of what presents itself to us as, say,
an actual body, and the extent to which the actual is a state that we distance
ourselves from in our very examination of it. The more we discuss race, gender,

On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory

27

class, and sexuality, the more we rely on individuating terms that belie the conjecturally coincident nature of these phenomena.

28

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies:

On Political and Musical Nature in Rousseaus Early Writings

It is by means of the song, not by means of the chords, that sounds have expression, fire, life; it is the song alone that gives them the moral effects that produce all of musics energy.1

Jean-Jacques Rousseaus early musical writings are more philosophically interesting and important than his well-known and overtly philosophical later work.
Even though, as Rousseau says, I would have quite a bad opinion of a Peoplewho made more of their Musicians than of their Philosophers, and among
whom it was necessary to speak of Music with more circumspection than of the
gravest questions of morality,2 Rousseaus early political works were motivated
by the philosophical problems that arose in his even earlier musical writings,
namely, Western ideas of nature and the rights and values derived from this concept. Rousseaus early writings, both political and musical, all begin from the
claim that his interlocutors have a false conception of nature and that this incorrect view is then improperly used to justify or rationalize socio-political and
aesthetic hierarchies. All his interlocutors attempt to legitimate culturally specific political and aesthetic systems by positing their preferred norms, values,
and assumptions as natural; in other words, Rousseau finds all his interlocutors to be committing a naturalistic fallacy. Instead of disavowing natures
role as a social norm, Rousseaus theory of conjecture foregrounds this fact.
According to Rousseau, the specifically human nature which differentiates us
from all other animals, as well as the specifically musical nature which differentiates it from noise and from other forms of expression, are not physical or
empirical, but morali.e., social norms.
This chapter develops the notion of conjecture mentioned in chapter 1. I
read the conjectural histories presented in Rousseaus early political writings
alongside his (in)famous quarrel with Jean-Philippe Rameau about the relationship between music and language, because the political philosophy taking place
in the former is, if not motivated, at least strongly influenced by the latter. Consequently, in order to fully comprehend the theory of conjecture presented in the
29

30

Chapter 2

early political writings, we need to understand whats going on in the musical

writings that precede and coincide with them. Indeed, as I argue later in the
chapter, it is precisely Derridas lack of consideration for the musical context of
The Essay on the Origin of Languages that causes him to misinterpret the significance of Rousseaus distinction between melody and harmonya distinction
which, I argue, can only be fully appreciated when considered alongside the
then-contemporaneous development, from Baroque opera, of tonal harmony and
purely instrumental or absolute music.
Taken together, Rousseaus early writings offer compelling arguments as to
why and, more importantly, how to re-imagine materiality in an empirically and
politically just way. In an era where there is burgeoning academic interest in
fields that attempt to find biological, physiological, even genetic explanations
for gender differences and human responses to and judgments about music (e.g.,
music cognition), it is necessary to argue and emphasize why the material/physiological body is produced by (and not external or resistant to) social
norms.3 This how, then, serves as the inspiration for my notion of the conjectural body, for, like Rousseau, I believe it is necessary to maintain the material
as a category of experience and analysis, but equally necessary to refrain from
getting too caught up in its naturalness or reality, for such claims are both
empirically false and can often be politically exclusionary and/or oppressive.
Rousseaus account of nature is valuable because it provides us with a way to
imagine the material as the result of various socio-historical forces such as patriarchy and white supremacy, and a way to incorporate physiology into our analysis of the construction of the body as an object of knowledge and experience, yet
avoid the pitfalls of biological foundationalism. While Rousseaus later political
works may rely upon a notion of nature tied to a metaphysics of presence (i.e., a
nature that is neither historicized nor mediated), his early musical writings employ a thoroughly deconstructed, historicized account of nature. Similarly, even
though his later writings are rife with patriarchal and Eurocentric assumptions
and arguments, these early works are quite hospitable to feminist and postcolonial sensibilities.
Ultimately, I think that Rousseau the musicologist is of greater relevance to
contemporary political philosophy than Rousseau the political philosopher, because his early accounts of musical nature (which are on occasion tied to political analysis) are more robust and useful for progressive analyses of gender
and race than are his later, more well known political writings. Indeed, I will
argue that my early-Rousseau-inspired notion of conjecture is an important supplement to non-ideal theory, and not the sort of obfuscatory idealization or
ideal-as-idealized-model that non-ideal theory rightly critiques. I thus examine
the concept of nature elaborated in Rousseaus musical writings (specifically,
Letter on French Music, Examination of Rameaus Two Principles, and Essay
on the Origins of Languages) in order to understand how Rousseau thinks both
the specifically musical and the specifically human in a way that both (1) forefronts material actuality in order to avoid obfuscatory idealization, and (2) situates that materiality as the product of complex historiesi.e., conjecturally.

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

31

Since I have saved my detailed discussion of the relevance of my project to

current debates about non-ideal theory for the end of the chapter, it will be helpful, I think, to briefly sketch out some of the details here, so that readers can
have a more cogent sense of how and to what end the overarching argument of
this chapter progresses. Given his well-known work on white supremacy and
social contract theory, Charles Mills might seem to be an odd interlocutor for
Rousseau. Indeed, Millss notion of non-ideal theory as a return from traditional
political theories that idealize or abstract away from structural oppression to the
actuality of racism, sexism, and classism seems to stand in direct opposition to
a theory which emphasizes conjecture and conjectural history. According to
Mills, the problem with ideal theory is its reliance on idealization to the exclusion, or at least marginalization, of the actual.4 Taking the experiences of privileged groups as an idealized model of everyones experiences, ideal theory,
Mills argues, abstract[s] away from gender and race (Mills, Ideal Theory,
173). Classical contract theory, both in its account of the idealized social contract and its idealized state of nature, is guilty of such abstraction away from
the actuality of systematic oppression. In order to redress the racist, sexist, and
classist foundations of much of Western political philosophy, Mills claims we
must begin theorizing not from the ideal, but from the actual, namely, the actuality of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. While Mills rightly finds that
the conjectural histories often deployed in Western politics do in fact obfuscate
the actuality of oppression (indeed, I agree that Rousseaus later political writings are ideal in the sense that Mills condemns), I argue that non-ideal analysis is not only consistent with, but requires, some notion of conjecture. Present
actuality is not a mono-dimensional, self-evident state of affairs: present actuality is insofar as it has come to be through the interplay between the material and
the social. A notion of conjecture is necessary to contextualize and fully appreciate the historical stakes of the all-too-present actuality of oppressive regimes
such as white supremacy and patriarchy. As I argue later in the chapter, the obfuscatory move is not necessarily part of thinking conjecturally, because conjecture, as it is deployed, for example, in Rousseaus early musical writings, can
and in fact should begin with an honest assessment of the actual and the way it
is ordered by relations of socio-political privilege. Based on this assessment of
the actual, one then uses conjectural terms to put into play concepts like the
body that are absolutely necessary for thinking rigorously and carefully about
systems of domination and oppression. Since race and gender are primarily
about bodily differences, anti-racist and feminist theories need the concept of the
body. However, since obfuscatory ideologies such as white supremacy and patriarchy have significantly shaped even our most apparently neutral and objective means of thinking about materiality and corporeality (e.g., physics, physiology, genetics), our understanding of the actual must be one that is sensitive to
the ideological history that has produced the real/material as such.5 When conjecture starts from idealized models, it is obfuscatory in the way Mills identifies;
when conjecture offers a theory about how the actual came to be such, it is a
powerful descriptive and diagnostic tool.

32

Chapter 2

In what follows, I will first discuss Rousseaus conception of human nature

and the natural origin of language as presented in the early political writings
(i.e., the Discourses and the Essay on the Origin of Languages) that are contemporaneous with his musical writings. The distinction between northern and
southern languages in Essay is motivated by, as I demonstrate in the next section, Rousseaus attempts to distinguish between French (northern) and Italian
(southern) opera. Because the French language supposedly originated out of
sheer material need, it cannot properly express what is most human about human
beings, i.e., sentiment and passion, the cultural life that exists above and beyond
material need or satisfaction. I then move on to a detailed analysis of Rousseaus
critique of Rameau, which, like his critique of natural law theorists in the Second Discourse, demonstrates that what Rameau takes to be the nature of
sound (i.e., the overtone series as a fact of physics) is in fact significantly culturally mediated. Having demonstrated that Rousseaus early musical and political
writings are motivated by the same attempt to re-imagine the concept of nature as an ideological device (but a device that is also necessary for ideology
critique), I then turn to Derridas reading of Rousseau in Of Grammatology.
Reading Derrida with a full understanding of the musical context of Rousseaus
early work, it becomes clear that the two authors are largely in agreement and
that Derridas concept of arche-writing can be used to complement Rousseaus
notion of conjecture and conjectural history. Finally, I consider of what musical
arche-writing might consist and how twentieth-century avant-garde and popular
works have, in their exploration of the relationship between music and noise,
interrogated this notion of musical arche-writing.

Human Nature and the Natural Origin of

Languages
Rousseaus notion of nature aims to rectify what he finds to be a common but
serious misconception in both music theory and political philosophy. Commonly, and for Rousseaus interlocutors, nature denotes an unadulterated,
originary, pure state which is then conflated with objective material fact (i.e.,
biology, physiology, bodily needs, ones relationship to the environment). Rousseau acknowledges that human beings are inalienably physical entities, but he
claims that this physical nature is in no sense immediate, unadulterated, or objective; ones specifically human nature is moral, sentimental, and social, just as
what is musical about music arises from its relation to language, not some foundation in the supposedly universal and objective science of harmonics. This is
not to say that the physical and moral aspects of humanity do not interact with
and influence one another: indeed, the inextricability of nature from society
is Rousseaus main point both in the Essay and the Second Discourse.6 In this
section, I examine his discussion of the natural origins of language/society in
light of his analysis of human nature in order to demonstrate the foundational

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

33

role that history and social context play in what Rousseau understands both
human nature and the nature of music to be. History and society are inalienable elements of human nature and the nature of music, so much so that Rousseau excludes the solely physical and uni-dimensionally physiological (what is
commonly thought of as nature or natural) from consideration as natural.

We Are Deceived by the Appearance of Right: Faux Nature

in the First Discourse
Rousseaus First Discourse argues that the Arts and Sciences are necessarily inhibiting, but only for that fact are they also empowering.7 As mechanisms
of perfectibility, it is only through these disciplines (both in the conventional
and the Foucaultian senses) that the possibility of both freedom and enslavement
is opened to humanity. Thus, as agents of civilization, the Sciences, Letters,
and Artsspread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which [civilized
people] are laden, throttle in them the sentiment of that original freedom for
which they seemed born, make them love their slavery, and fashion them into
what is called civilized peoples (D1, 6). Even though the arts and sciences are
frequently used toward inhuman ends, the domestication and civilization of a
human being is, at best, empowering, for it is only through education that one
can most fully and effectively employ ones natural talents. Just as, for Rousseau, pity must be awakened by imagination, ones capacity to act as a free
agent and effectively participate in the political sphere needs to be solicited and
shaped by the educative aspects of culture.8 When subjects refuse to express
their freedom, such learning becomes a passive assumption of the status quo and
a poor representation of human nature. The right which, according to the epigraph, we misperceive to be the virtue of education, is not meant to produce
docility and obedience, but to teach human beings to recognize and exercise
their freedom to think and to act. One is not born with the capacity to think and
act freely; custom and culture must intervene to develop these theoretical and
practical faculties. Accordingly, Rousseaus argument in the First Discourse is
that the arts and sciences do not necessarily corrupt humanity, and that their
genuine vocation is to evoke what is most distinctly and properly human in us.
When properly educated, they allow us to give the most clear and uninhibited
articulation to and expression of our human naturei.e., free agency.9
If human nature can be brought to its most clear and uninhibited manifestation only through the disciplinary and educative forces of the arts and sciences,
it is evident that Rousseau understands both human nature and its most natural means of expression to be artificial and socially mediated. As a preview to
the conjectural histories he will offer in later writings, Rousseau elaborates the
following description of pre-cultural humanity: Before Art had fashioned our
manners and taught our passions to speak in ready-made terms, our morals were
rustic but natural; and differences in conduct conveyed differences of character

34

Chapter 2

at first glance (D1, 7). Although this time appears to be one of transparency,
one when men found their security in how easily they saw through one another (D1, 8; emphasis added), Rousseaus claim is that we are deceived as to
the appearance of the state of nature as a state of purity and clarity. This image
of immediacy and purity is a false one. In order for humans to see one another as
human, we must be able to make an imaginary identification with our fellow
humansi.e., to be able to imagine ourselves in the place of others. Thus requiring social interaction and all its accoutrements, the recognition operative in this
supposedly pure and unadulterated time is far from immediate. The impossibility of purity and transparency implies that there is no state of nature in which
one is fully present to oneself or others; in fact, the most complete and accurate
representation or expression of oneself is the product of significant adaptation to
cultural norms. Human naturei.e., that which is properly and specifically humanis necessarily infused with and structured by culture. (We also see that
Rousseau is not endorsing an ideal of originary immediacy and transparency
this fact will be important later in the chapter.)

Human Nature as Perfectibility

Rousseaus point is that the nature/culture dichotomy, as it appears in political philosophy and music theory, is an empirically inaccurate and politically
motivated mode of analysis. It is unclear where, for Rousseau, the line between
physical and moral, body and mind, existsif there is in fact any demarcated
separation between the two. Indeed, his claim that although the language of
gesture and that of the voice are equally natural, the first is easier and less dependent on convention (EOL, 248; emphasis mine) indicates that Rousseau
does not view nature and convention as exclusive. As the original language,
gesture is not as strongly influenced by culture; however, Rousseau is careful to
indicate that its status as the original form of language does not mean that it is
untouched by civilization: what is more natural is less dependent on convention. Furthermore, Rousseaus emphasis on the moral or social aspect of human
nature is an attempt to develop a non-determinist understanding of nature. Society, morality, sentiment, politicsall these are things which are relative and
changing. By locating true human nature here, Rousseau avoids the kind of
biological determinism characteristic of many sexist, racist, and classist discourses (including his own later work).
More precisely, Rousseau locates human nature in perfectibility, which is an
ateleological capacity to exercise ones freedom. Freedom is, for Rousseau, the
possibility of acting and choosing either well or poorly, for if one necessarily
made good decisions, one would be pre-determined to do so, and thus not free.
Accordingly, perfectibility is more properly thought of as the opening from
which humani.e., freethoughts and acts enter the world. Although it is the
origin of human nature, this opening is not thereby found in physical nature;

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

35

rather, it must be awakened by imagination and pityby the capacity to imagine

oneself in the position of ones fellow human beings.10 Arising from ones
imaginary identification with others, perfectibilityhuman natureis inalienably social. Indeed, stating that conventional language belongs to man alone,
and that [t]his is why man makes progress in good as well as in evil, and why
animals do not (EOL, 252), Rousseau identifies perfectibilitythe specifically
human capacity to excel or errwith convention.
As perfectibility implies the capacity for improvement and corruption, it is
far removed from any originary and pure state of nature; thus, the claim that
society and perfectibility are elements of human nature seems rather paradoxical. Rousseaus account of speech in the Essay on the Origin of Languages is
helpful here, for it illustrates more precisely how he understands society to be
natural. Since speech is the first social institution, argues Rousseau, it owes
its origin to natural causes alone (EOL, 248). This natural cause which leads
the first speaker to utter his or her first word is the desire or the need to communicate to him his sentiments (EOL, 248). If the desire to become social is the
natural cause of language, then nature already contains within it some notion
of sociability and civilization. Sheer, immediate human physiology is, for Rousseau, incapable of producing language because the bare body lacks both the motivation and capacity for speech. If we had never had any but physical needs,
we might very well never have spoken (EOL, 251). Rousseau thus concludes
that the natural origin of language must be moral (i.e., social), for the first
language already presupposes some social life and needs engendered by the
passions (EOL, 256).
As I discuss later in the chapter, my reading of this passage (indeed, the entire Essay) differs significantly from Derridas, for I do not find a binary opposition between nature and culture in Rousseaus text. Just as Kristeva argues that
the semiotic appears only in and through symbolic aspects of language, Rousseau claims that the natural elements of language emerge in concert with its
social and rational aspects; the fact of possessing a larynx, lips, and tongue is in
no way determinative over whether or how one will speak. Furthermore, the
passionate and extra-rational frequently appear in language. Rousseaus argument is that this purely physiological aspect of humanity (its material cause, if
you will), while perhaps purely natural, is alien to human (moral) nature.
Rousseau never argues that the passions are absolutely separate from need, nor
that culture/civilization does not at some point arise from biology; his point is,
however, that (1) biological origin is not the only force shaping language, and
(2) that the category of the biological and our understanding of it are themselves the products of language and society. While Rousseau will not deny that
humans are significantly shaped by their biological existence, they are never
simply biological (this is why, as I argue later, the pre-human history must be
conjectural).

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Chapter 2

Real Language, Passion, Sentiment

Rousseaus notion of human nature as moral-social is reflected in his geographical account of the origin of language. The various climates gave rise to
different forms of human interaction, and it is out of this (living in relative isolation in the north, gathering around the well in the south) that language was born.
In the north, where the first words were aidez-moi, language was born out of
relatively physical need. However, this language, because it arose from sheer
physical necessity, is not fully language; because French is a language of reason
and precision, it is alienated from the expressive, affective aspects of language.11
While need may give rise to cries of aidez-moi!, these plaints are only a faux
speech.12 Rousseau suggests that if we had never had any but physical needs,
we might very well never have spoken (EOL, 251), and implies that the northern languages, arising from physical needs, lack the power to communicate affect and sentiment, and thus do not do the moral work that real language is supposed to do. True language emerges from the passions, from the desire to share
ones sentiments with ones fellow humans.13 Beginning with the cry aimezmoi!, southern languages (e.g., Italian) do arise from need, but a need that is
moral and which arises from contact with other people, not from brute physical
lack. This moral origin is, for Rousseau, far from a pure or unadulterated condition. Passionate language, he claims, already presupposes some social life
and needs engendered by the passions (EOL, 256). Melodic southern languages
arose from desires which would appear only in the context of society: the desire
for recognition and/or love.14
According to Rousseau, our sense for music, or the power which music
exercises over our souls is not the product of sounds; rather, these sounds
have moral effects [which] also have moral causes (EOL, 284). As the product
of acculturation, discipline, and education, this sense is not physical stimulation, but the comprehension of specific stimuli within an interpretive matrix.15
Insofar as one must hear something as significant (either verbally or musically)
in order to hear it at all, it is not so much the ear that conveys pleasure to the
heart as the heart that conveys it to the ear (EOL, 290). Language and music
move us not due to the physical power of sounds, but as a result of the ways in
which we have learned to hear these sounds and the meanings we associate with
them. Each of us, Rousseau argues, is affected only by accents with which he
is familiar; his nerves respond to them only insofar as his mind inclines them to
it: he has to understand the language in which he is being addressed if he is to be
set in motion by what he is told (EOL, 289). Language here signifies not just
the text of a song, but the grammar of expectations16 and musical syntax that
allows music to convey complex ideas, affects, and associations. Because the
origin of language/music is moral, or more precisely, social, there is no universal interpretation of sounds; in fact, we will not all hear the same frequencies as
sounds. Untouched by language, by itself a sound has no absolute character by
which it might be recognized (EOL, 291). Expression originates not in physio-

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

37

logical stimulation, but in sentiment, in ones moral and specifically human facultiesfaculties which vary according to ones socio-geopolitical situation.
Hence, Rousseau asserts that
[i]f the major impact of our sensations upon us is not due to moral causes, then
why are we so sensitive to impressions which are meaningless to barbarians?
Why is music that moves us but an empty noise to the ear of a Carib? Are his
nerves of a different nature from ours? Why are they not excited in the same
way, or why do the same excitations affect some people so strongly and others
hardly at all? (EOL, 289).

Interestinglyand perhaps even astonishingly given the Eurocentrism that pervades even this short quotationRousseau does not use the perceived inability
of non-Europeans to fully appreciate European art music as music as evidence of
their physical difference and justification for their subordination. Instead, he
assumes that every human shares a relatively similar physiological composition,
and that differences in sound perception arise from varying social norms and
cultural contexts. Anatomically, at birth our ears are all more or less identical.
However, insofar as these ears are trained to recognize specific sounds, timbres,
and pitches as significant, each society produces radically different organs. For
example, the European ear, cultivated to a system which divides the octave into
twelve semitones, recognizes only twelve different pitches; the South Asian ear,
however, shaped by ragas which utilize a variety of quartertones, hears perfect
pitches where the European ear hears only out-of-tune squawking.17 In a similar
fashion, southern and northern climates give rise to different social systems, and
out of these various systems arise two entirely separate languagesor rather, as
Rousseau argues, a genuine language and a faux one (the more conventionally
European one being the least genuine!).18 This distinction between northern and
southern languages is informed by and parallels the distinction Rousseau draws
between harmony and melody.

Melody and Harmony: Genuine and Faux Music

Physical observations, Rousseau notes, have occasioned every kind of absurdity in discussions of the fine arts (EOL, 290). For Rousseau, the nature of
music is its unique ability to express and elicit human passions.19 [G]enuine
Music, he claims, is one made to move, to imitate, to please, and to convey to
the heart the sweetest impressions of harmony of song (LFM, 148). Sounds
considered only in terms of their frequencies, i.e., in their bare physicality,
arent even potentially meaningfulthey arent even categorizable or recognizable as sounds. Rousseau demonstrates this point with the claim that a musician must render noise with song, that if he wished to make frogs croak he
would have to make them sing (EOL, 288). Common sense would seem to dictate that noise is some preexistent raw material which is then refined into

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Chapter 2

song, so Rousseaus claim that one must render noise with song has inverted
the proper order: the historicized discourse of song is a prerequisite of the materiality of sound. As he repeatedly emphasizes in the preface to the Second Discourse, naturein this case, noiseis a concept produced by a specific
civilization and its particular epistemic and moral values.20 In order that there be
unmusical noise, we must first recognize what counts as musical. Just as nature is a historicized concept, so is sound.
Jean-Philippe Rameaus empirical analysis of frequencies and their overtones attempts to understand music as a purely physical phenomenon. A science
of harmony (i.e., of the intervallic relationships among diatonic pitches expressed in the overtone series), Rameaus model locates musical meaning in the
nature of sound, a sphere independent of cultural practice. Prior to the seventeenth century, Western music had no autonomous or purely musical means of
organizing pieces: the compositional structure (what music theorists call form)
of a piece was generally based on its lyrical text, or on an established dance
form (rondo, tarantella, etc.). In the seventeenth century, however, European
music theoristsnotably Rameau and C.P.E. Bachderived a system of musical organization from the acoustic properties of sound waves. Each tone is itself
composed of overtones, or sub-frequencies within the main frequency. A
pitchs overtones appear in a sequence that reflects both their mathematical relationship to the main frequency (the main frequency doubled, then tripled, then
quadrupled, and so on), and the strength of their audibility in the overarching
tone/overtones sound. Rameau and like-minded theorists developed this sequence of frequency relationships into what we now know as tonalitythe
system of keys and chords that continues to dominate Western musical practice.
The supposed merits of tonality were (1) its basis in the nature of sound itself,
and thus its universality and irrefutability, and (2) its autonomy, or its ability to
provide a logos or organizing principle that referred to nothing other than the
properties of sound itself.
After parodying the theorists who, like Rameau, think that if we are to philosophize properly, we must go back to the physical causes (EOL, 285), later in
the Essay Rousseau argues that if this were all there were to [music], [it] would
be a natural science, not fine art (286). Analyzing music in terms of the physical properties of sound, Rameaus positivistic model focuses on the unmusical
aspects of music, namely, its physical nature. Accordingly, Rousseau emphasizes how far the musicians who account for the impact of sound solely in
terms of the action of air and the excitation of nerve fibers are from understanding wherein the art consists (EOL, 293).21 Because this science of harmony
separates song and speech (EOL, 287), it cannot be an accurate theory for or
description of Western music.
In opposition to Rameaus position, Rousseau argues that a musical system
based on the physics of sound is not fully music, for it grounds music in only
physical nature and does not account for the ways in which moral nature alwaysalready shapes the physical world into meaningful aspects of human experience.
In other words, naturalistic accounts of music such as Rameaus dont account

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

39

for the (ahem) heart and soul of music: the social practices which shape and are
shaped by music. As we know from the Second Discourse, and as I will discuss
at length in the next section, any knowledge we can have of physical nature is
possible because it is highly mediated by social and epistemic convention. Thus,
even the fact that we understand audio phenomena to be a source of meaning is
a social custom. In order for us to hear, frequencies must be domesticated,
shaped, or processed into forms we recognize as audible, consumable, comprehensible.

Harmony vs. Melody, or Formalism vs. Expressivism

While music is, for Rousseau, grounded in human nature, it is far from a
natural phenomenon unmediated by artifice, language, and cultural practice.
Rousseau explains:
It hardly seems that song is natural to man. Savage man never sings; mutes do
not sing, they form unarticulated and hideous sounds, which need wrests from
them. Children scream, cry, and do not at all sing. The first expressions of nature in them are only those of pain, and they learn to sing as they learn to
speak: after our example. Melodious and appreciable song is only a possible
and artificial imitation of the accents of the speaking voice; one cries out or one
complains without singing, but one sings by imitating cries and complaints.
And as of all imitations the most interesting is that of the human passions, of all
the ways of imitating the most pleasant is singing (ETP, 287; all emphasis
mine).

Music is not natural in the sense of belonging to physical nature or to the realm
of the amour de soi. Utterances that follow from neither speech nor convention
are just a-social, contextless sounds. These need-driven utterances are not song
because they are not meaningful: song is melodious and appreciable only in
the context of linguistic and socio-cultural convention. Sounds arising from
physical need, then, are mere sounds, for there is no audience to render them as
meaningful and thereby musical (or noisy).22 Such an audience is essential because song, like speech, engages with a set of rules and practices to which it
conforms more or less precisely. One must learn these guidelines and traditions
by imitating the example of others: like the infant who learns to speak by imitating his or her parents, a student learns counterpoint by copying the works of J. S.
Bach (a common practice in Rousseaus day that persists in modern universities). The significance of the song arises from the singers manipulation of these
conventionsi.e., in adherence to and, more importantly, departure from common practice. It is by means of the song, not by means of the chords [i.e., by
means of the semantic system, not by means of any natural resonance or
quasi-Pythagorean natural harmony], that sounds have expression, fire, life; it is
the song alone that gives them the moral effects that produce all of Musics energy. In a word, the physical part alone of the art is reduced to very little and

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harmony does not pass beyond that (ETP, 279). The physical or supposedly
natural part of music is not expressive. Harmony is merely physical, operating
only at the level of sense perception. Perhaps the best example of harmony in
this sense is the way one feels reverberations in ones chest when standing too
close to the speakers at a concert. Understanding harmony in this way, it is not
only not music, but is not even recognizable as noise.23
Harmony, the physical aspect of music, can arouse only physical pleasure.
Mere titillation of the senses, this pleasure is not moral because its stimulation is
meaningless, i.e., it does not express anything. [H]armonylacking real beauties, is, for Rousseau, only capable of portraying conventional beauties, which
would have almost no merit but the difficulty overcome (LFM, 145). Refusing
to account for the expressive content (i.e., words, concepts, etc.) of music, harmonic analysis is an empty formalism: evacuated of all meaningful and communicative content, purely harmonicthat is, non-programmatic instrumental musicand judgable and comprehensible only in terms of technical mastery or
virtuosity in composition and/or performance. Rameau and his followers (those
who view music in purely scientific and formalist terms) produce learned or
faux music. Thus Rousseau accuses, Instead of a good Music, they would
devise a learned MusicThey would believe they were making Music, and they
would be making only noise (LFM, 145). Music which expresses nothing but
its structure is, for Rousseau, a learned and faux musicthat is, noise.
Here we see the influence of the First Discourse: learnedness or technical
mastery is rejected as corrupting and degenerative, for it is deaf to the most musical aspects of music, namely, the power to create and arouse meaningful ideas
and emotions. Just as, in the First Discourse, [w]e are deceived by the appearance of right (D1, 5), the Letter on French Music and The Essay on the Origin
of Languages argue that we are deceived by the appearance of what constitutes
the musical. Overly formalist or learned theories of music misperceive the
nature of music as something distinct from language and culture, as something
purely physical and lacking moral or social content. The more refined our understanding of the physics of sound, the further that our music is perfected in
appearance, the more it is ruined in actuality (LFM, 162). In focusing narrowly
on the scientific aspects of harmony, we forget that which makes music a meaningful, human endeavor. Melody, on the other hand, is capable of conveying
meaning, of speaking to ones soul, because it arouses our passions by tuning
into that which is specifically human in the particular listener (i.e., it operates
within and speaks to meaningful social contexts). Thus, Rousseau concludes
with the remark that the imitation of the passionsi.e., of humanitys moral
natureis more interesting and more meaningful than imitating cries that arise
from physical need. Aidez-moi! draws our attention, but aimez-moi! holds it.

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

41

Genuine Music
Rameau wants to divorce music from its subjective powers of persuasion
and its ability to arouse emotion and physical movement by locating it in the
supposedly objective realm of intellection, theory, and science. Rousseau, on
the other hand, believes that musics uniqueness and force arise from its ability
to elicit not only intellectual, but, more importantly, emotional and physical responses in listenersall responses which are possible only within the context of
social convention and cultural practice. Here we see that Rameau is the one
committed to a model of immediate presence, and Rousseaus aim is to demonstrate the fallacy of the notion of music in itself or the purely musical.
According to Rousseau, M. Rameau has all harmony derived from the
resonance of the sounding body. And he is certain that every sound is accompanied by three other concomitant or accessory harmonic sounds, which with it
form a perfect Major Third Chord (ETP, 273). Claiming that harmony (consonance, the order of consonances, their expressive force) is grounded in physics
and empirical nature, Rameau is articulating a primitive version of the overtone
series.24 Even though the overtone series for a particular pitch continues infinitely, producing all 12 notes diatonic to the root, Rameau only identifies three
harmonics: the octave, fifth, and third (the components of the major seventh
chord). Rousseau, however, notes that each principle sound produces many
others which are not at all harmonics and do not at all enter into the Perfect
Chord...there are an infinity of those [overtones] that can elude our senses, but
whose resonance is demonstrated by induction and is not impossible to confirm
by experiment (ETP, 273). As one moves up the overtone series, one encounters intervals other than those of the octave, fifth, and third. Rameaus inability
to hear them, that is, his unwillingness to account for their existence (for the
existence of pitches other than those identified by convention), leads him to misrepresent empirical nature. As Rameau rejected them from Harmony, it is here
that he began to substitute his rules for those of Nature (ETP, 273). Rameau
codified contemporary musical practice, and, grounding it in the science of harmonics, claimed the universality of this musical tradition. Thus, in a very ethnocentric move, he claims that this set of conventions and practices is the nature of
music itself.
Turning specifically to Rameaus privileging of harmony and formal analysis of objective natural musical elements, Rousseau provides another proof
that Rameaus supposed universals are false. [W]hat is, for Rameau, called
song then takes on a beauty of convention which is not at all absolute, but relative to the harmonic system, and what is more highly esteemed than the song in
this system (ETP, 274). Rameau grounds musical beauty in a universal, absolute, first principle of harmonya Schenkerian Ursatz, so to speak.25 According
to Rameau, this particular harmonic progression is universal because it is inherent in the physical nature of music: the principles of tonal harmony (the functions of chords relative to one another) are derived from the science of acoustics.

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However, as Rousseau rightly objects, this universality is not, in fact, universal, for it is relative to convention. Yet again, Rousseau demonstrates that
Rameau posits his limited perspective as a universal and objective perspective.
Making an observation that will not arise again until the 1920s with the
Second Viennese School, Rousseau calls Rameaus bluff: drawing on ancient
Greek and non-Western musical conventions and practices, Rousseau demonstrates that Rameaus theories are far more normative than they are simply descriptive. Noting Western musics arbitrary privileging of certain pitches, or
ways of identifying intervals and pitches, Rousseau argues that the peculiar
prerogative given to the intervals which make up the major triad, their supposed naturalness, is only a property of calculation (ETP, 273), that is, a
privilege which does not arise from nature, but from convention. Rousseau explains, It is, therefore, neither because the sounds that make up the perfect
chord resonate with the fundamental sound, nor because they correspond to the
aliquots of the entire String,that they have been exclusively chosen to make
up the perfect chord (ETP, 273). More simply, Western music theory privileges
the octave, major third, and fifth not because they are inherent within or natural to frequencies we recognize as sound, but because these are the most obvious
to us, given our methods and instruments of analysis and their predispositions
and limitations. Due to the specific characteristics of their musical instruments
and philosophical systems, our Western forbearers the ancient Greeks found the
fourth and the fifth most consonant, for these are the intervals produced when a
single string is divided in half or in thirds. Furthermore, just as Rameau argued
that the major triad is most consonant because it contains the most naturally
occurring intervals, Pythagoras argued that the fourth and fifth were the most
powerful and consonant intervals because these were the most naturally occurring intervals. As we can see, what counts as (most) natural has nothing at all to
do with nature, but with the tools and methods with which we articulate the distinction between nature and artifice.
Indeed, Rousseaus strongest proof against the naturalness of Rameaus
system lies in the fact that the more famous theorist cannot account for other
conventions like the minor mode (and its lowered third), the Neapolitan chord,
voice leading, and various other widely used musical practices. As Rousseau
notes, I have spoken only of the Major Perfect Chord. What shall be done when
one must show the generation of the Minor Mode, of the dissonance, and the
rules of Modulation? I instantly lose sight of nature, arbitrariness riddles every
part, the pleasure of the ear itself is the work of habit (ETP, 274; emphasis
mine). Juxtaposing the ear (a physiological organ) and habit, Rousseau explicitly
claims that seemingly natural phenomena like hearing are necessarily educated by habit, convention, and culture.
To further explain his critique of Rameaus naturalism, Rousseau turns to
Rameaus argument that every person has an innate sense of the octave, major
third, and fifth, and can accurately recognize and produce them at will. M.
Rameau claims that an ignorant person will naturally intone the most perceptible
fundamental sounds, as, for example, in the key of a do [the root] a sol [the

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

43

fifth] (ETP, 276). It is not so much the results of Rameaus survey that Rousseau disputes, but his sample. Given Rameaus Western European subjects, it is
probably true that all had a relative sense of do-mi-sol intervallic relationships;
even the most rural and poor populations were exposed to and educated by
church hymns. Because people in Tokyo, Delhi, and Cairo practice music which
does not necessarily utilize this system of harmony, the question remains: What
subjects has he used for this test? (ETP, 276). Obviously, it is Parisians, or
those from the provincethat is, Westerners, [p]eople who, without knowing
music, have heard Harmony and Chords a hundred times, so that the impression
of the harmonic intervals and the progression corresponding to the Parts in the
most frequent passages had stayed in their ears, and were transmitted to their
voices without even suspecting it (ETP, 276). Even though many of us may be
able to sing a sol-do interval like it was second natureindeed, most without
even knowing what a fifth-relationship even isthis vocal capacity is the culmination of significant, if informal, ear training. As we walk through town and
hear the bells toll the hour, as we watch television and listen to an unending glut
of advertisements, as we listen to music on our commute to work, as we wander
through the grocery store, as we perform even the most mundane tasks of daily
life, we are literally bombarded with examples of octaves, thirds, fifths, and
chords consisting in their combinations. This voice, then, the voice of singing
speech (and, notably, the voice that Derrida wrongly puts forth as Rousseaus
index and epitome of pure presence) which appears to be innate and natural to human beings, is in fact the coincidence of various cultural forces, habits,
and conventions. Rousseaus argument here is that music is not a natural phenomenon so much as it is a social product and cultural force. He explains,
[M]ere noise says nothing to the mind, objects have to speak in order to make
themselves heard (EOL, 288).
From a Rousseauian perspective, one could say that nature is not at all
found in Rameaus arguments, for this nature is theorizable only in hypothetical terms. What Rameau posits as a factual claim is in fact a moral claim
indeed, as I discussed above, one of Rousseaus main objections to Rameaus
theory is that it is an inaccurate account of the physics of sound, an ideal that
obfuscates empirical fact. Rousseaus point in the Essay and the First Discourse
is that it is impossible to make appeals to nature that are not already moral;
this is why his histories are always emphatically conjectural. Rousseaus claims
about the always-already-social materiality of music set the groundwork for
hisand mynotion of conjecture, which I develop in the later sections of this
chapter.

Harmony, Absolute Music, and the Metaphysics of Presence

I take a brief detour through Derridas reading of Rousseaus Essay in Of
Grammatology because clarifying how my Rousseau differs from his Rousseau

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is key to establishing the notion of conjecture that Im borrowing (and developing) from Rousseaus early musical and political writings. Insightful and rigorous in many respects, Derridas reading misses the force of Rousseaus argument about the unity of music and speech. Taking this unity of speech and music
as an expression of pure presence, the voice of Nature, or a kind of direct and
immediate communication, Derrida aligns Rousseau with the metaphysics of
presence. However, the radicality of Rousseaus argument is precisely the inverse of this: privileging the alliance of speech and music over the seemingly
objective science of harmony, Rousseau demonstrates that music is anything
but pure presence or unmediated expression. Although his later political writings will abandon this position, Rousseaus argument in all of his works up
through the Essay is that the State of Naturewhether in music or in politics
is a social construction which reflects the values and structures of the theorist
elaborating its characteristics. Accordingly, we see that Rousseaus point is in
fact virtually identical to Derridas: any time we speak of nature or origin or
pure presence, we must do so conjecturally or, in Derridian terms, under erasure.
Derrida concludes that The Essay on the Origin of Languages opposes
speech to writing as presence to absence and liberty to servitude (G, 168).
While this logic is indeed at work in the Essay, Derrida misunderstands where
speech and writing, harmony and melody, fit into this scheme. Mapping melody
(what Rousseau defines as mediation and social construction) onto speech and
harmony (what Rousseau considers to be the mistakenly pure science of
acoustics) onto writing, Derrida misunderstands Rousseaus use of the terms
harmony and melody. If speech represents full presence and self-reference, then
it is harmony that functions as Western musical speech, for music can be selfreferential only insofar as it divorces itself from all extra-musical associations
(text, words, program). In the West, this has been accomplished through the
systemization of harmony, and through a formalism grounded in a faux naturalism or disingenuous objectivityi.e., by Rameaus project.26 Demonstrating
that music is a function of language, and thus of culture, geography, and history,
Rousseau believes that the unity of the melody (melody, for Rousseau, signifies the unity of music and language, as in the vocal line of a song) is anything
but the voice of pure presence.
Indeed, from a Rousseauian perspective, one could say that nature is not at
all found in Rameaus arguments, for this nature is theorizable only in hypothetical terms. What Rameau posits as a factual claim is in fact a moral claim. If
nature is never knowable except through significant cultural mediation, why
then keep giving detailed accounts of the State of Nature, as Rousseau does in
both the discourses and in the Essay?

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45

Rousseau, Harmony, and Conjecture

Rousseau's position on the "naturalness" of harmony is closely tied to his discussion of physical and moral inequality in the Second Discourse. Here, Rousseau
claims that injustice occurs when socially constructed inequalities are naturalizedwhen, for example, ones physical strengthsomething apparently natural and givenbecomes a sign of ones character.27 The problem with naturalizing differencesor any account of nature or the naturalis that the
concept of nature itself is a retroactively constructed fiction. For political histories, this means that any account we give of humanitys original state can only
be given in language, from a starting point which is already structured by an
epistemic regime: Rousseau makes the accusation that political theorists have
transferred to the state of Nature ideas they had taken from society (D2, 132).
Thus, if the State of Nature existed as anything but a myth, an accurate, unbiased
account of it would be unavailable to us. For music theory, this means that what
Rousseau understands by harmony is an organizing myth; the purely musical is a fictional concept arising from the perspective of a musical culture with
a vested interest in the metaphysics of presence.
Even though his first task in investigating the origin of inequality is to understand how humans were in the State of Nature, prior to socially instituted
privilege and oppression, Rousseau repeatedly emphasizes that such understanding is impossible. He takes several different approaches to argue this point. First,
he returns to a theme of the First Discourse: namely, the misleading and corrupting character of scientific knowledge. In attempting to gain objective, scientific evidence about the state of Nature, we actually further remove ourselves
from it and, ironically, thwart our own aims. [I]n a sense, explains Rousseau,
it is by dint of studying man that we have made it impossible for us to know
him (D2, 124). This irony results from the fact that there is no neutral, objective, unbiased epistemic model with which to approach Nature, a claim which
forms Rousseaus second approach. All forms and means of knowing are possible because habitually-concretized filters allow us to make sense of the infinite
data with which we are presented; these filters reflect the biases, presuppositions, limitations, strengths, and idiosyncrasies of their situation. Accordingly,
Rousseau claims that there is no view from nowhere, but that all the scientific
booksonly teach us to see men as they have made themselves (D2, 127). Nature is unknowable because reflection upon this state returns our own image
one which we have sketchedto us. If we can never have certain knowledge of
Nature, Rousseau acknowledges in his third approach to this problem, we cant
be sure that Nature is real and not, in fact, a figment of our imaginations. Nature is a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never did exist, which
probably never will exist (D2, 125; emphasis mine). Devoting the entirety of
the preface to deconstructing his contemporaries claims about the state of Nature as one of originary purity and pure presence, Rousseau clearly believes that
nature is at best a myth. This is why he offers the caveat that, regarding Na-

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Chapter 2

ture, he shall form vague and almost imaginary conjectures on this subject
(D2, 134; emphasis mine).
If nature is basically a retroactively constructed fiction used to explain and
justify present conditions, then even if harmony is an empirical phenomenon,
part of the physical world, it is not for that fact the origin of musical systems,
nor is it useful as a normative or regulative standard (for the science of harmony,
like any science, reflects the values of its creator and his or her society). It only
teach[es] us to see men as they have made themselves (D2, 127). Studying
harmonyi.e., the purely musicaltells us nothing about music, per se, but
only about us, our society, and our socially constructed relations to and ideas
about music.
Accordingly, when Rousseau states that harmony, having its principle in
nature, is the same for all Nations (LFM, 144), he is not claiming harmony is in
fact natural or universally uniform; rather, his point is that if harmony were in
fact universalgoverned by consistent laws of physicsand if music were in
fact natural phenomenon, then every society would recognize the same frequencies, intervals, consonances, and dissonances. Even a quick foray into the
work of Pythagoras will demonstrate that this is not, in fact, the case. If there is
a natural melody derived from harmony, Rousseau argues,
it should be one for all men, since harmony, having its source in nature, is the
same in all the countries of the world. But the songs and tunes of each nation
have a character that belongs to them, because they all have an imitative melody derived from the accents of the language (ETP, 288).

Repeating his earlier point more succinctly, Rousseau illustrates that the
purely musical is a fiction, for it is impossible to understand the particularity
of music without taking into account its relationship with extra-musical phenomena, namely, words. Music does not exist as a fact of nature and the physics of sound, but as a production of a very specific set of social, political, environmental, and economic relations. Because it does not and cannot exist in some
rarefied, pure form completely unadulterated by language and convention, any
account of harmony that one might attempt to give is just as conjectural as the
genealogy of language Rousseau recounts in the first part of the Essay.
Thus, to gain significant insight into musical compositions and practices, it
is insufficient to investigate generalizing, universal questions such as those
about its biology and physics. Rather than the positivist approach common to
Rameau and many contemporary musicologists and philosophers of music,
Rousseaus genealogical approach assumes that every musical question is first a
question of and for ethnomusicology. Music in itself is found among the
specificities of musical practice both in relation to other forms of expression as
well as among the various national music traditionsin, that is, musics relationship with language, not in any sort of immediacy or pure presence of musics essence. [T]hus, Rousseau explains, it is from melody alone that the
particular character of a National Music must be derived; all the more so as its

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

47

character being produced principally by the language (LFM, 144). Claiming

that the chief influence on a song's characterits specificity both as a song and
not a painting, and also as that song and no otheris the language in which it is
sung, Rousseau demonstrates that musical specificity is a function of its relationship with language.
Even though the Letter on French Music was Rousseaus preliminary account of the relationship between music and language, his argument here is
much more specific than in the Essay. Alluding to the fact that tonal harmony
arose from the repetition of and our habituation to the practices of Baroque opera, Rousseau locates the possibility of meaningful instrumentali.e., nontextedmusic in songs unification of speech and melody. He notes, As vocal
Music long preceded instrumental, the latter has always received from the former its melodic character and its meter (LFM, 145-146). If, as Rousseau
claims, vocal music is the first music, then music is always, from its origins,
beholden to language. Rousseau is consistent with current understandings of
Western music history, which hold that the roots of tonality are in chant and
Baroque opera. Musical propertiese.g., meterarise from linguistic practice,
not from theoretical fact.28 For Rousseau, then, the most natural music is that
in which prose, poetry, and music are relatively united.29 Furthermore, just as
Rousseau claims that our knowledge of the State of Nature can only be conjectural, it is impossible to have these three elements in perfect correspondence.
This is why Rousseau qualifies his claim with the statement that these three meters should concur as perfectly as possible (LFM, 145-146; emphasis added).
In Italian, the prosodic, poetic, and musical meters are more closely related than
in French; this is why Rousseau claims that Italian music is more properly musical than French.
If music is never perfectly unified with language, then, Rousseau argues,
composers must make use of artifice to bring the two into as close a correspondence as possible. The compositional practices this entails are just as varied as
the languages within which they work; not only is the phenomenon of music (or
rather, what counts as music) dependent on and shaped by linguistic and cultural
conventions, but within each system musical practice will vary widely. French
and German, while both northern European languages, are markedly different
takes on Western European art music (the former leaning to the side of Neoclassicism and gallant style, the latter toward contrapuntal and harmonic complexity). Thus, according to Rousseau, with whatever artfulness one sought to cover
up the defects of such a Music, it would be impossible for it ever to please ears
other than those of the natives of the country in which it was in use (LFM,
146). Even among cultures which recognize the same kinds of sound-structures
and practices as musical (e.g., France, Italy, and Germany), the significance,
affectivity, and effectiveness of musical expression are tied up with its relationship to the vernacular and to the musical practices particular to that language/nation. This is why compositional technique renders pleasure only to
those educated by and culturally acclimated to the tradition within which these
techniques arose. The best music is the one whose language is most suited to

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it (LFM, 148); in other words, the best music is the one whose structures are
most coherent with other social conventions.
Locating musical pleasure in the coherence between words (i.e., social conventions) and music, Rousseau can easily account for the fact that I know no
Italian, yet rather enjoy operas whose libretti are in Italian. Rousseau claims that
melody is not part of a strictly representational economy in which there is, more
or less, a correspondence between signifier and signified. His point here is that
the representational content of the words in a libretto has little or no influence on
their expressive capacity. Their affectivity and significance lie not so much in
their symbolism, but in their semiotic forcethat is, in accent, inflection, dynamics, and so on. However, through habit and standardization, the semiotic
aspects of music themselves become representative of ideas and affects (e.g., the
minor third as sad or scary, the Baroque Doctrine of Affects, etc.). Like any
symbol, these semiotic symbols are meaningful only because we are habituated
to associate them with specific emotions or ideas. We understand musical languagea language of mere tonesonly because musical sounds are endowed
with conceptual associations. There is no natural or inherent significance to
any musical sound. Furthermore, a semiotic is not universal: it is expressive in a
non-representational way, but its dynamic is capable of conveying meaning because it engages in a form of symbolism. Just as an opera makes sense, to a degree, via the musical content alone (the orchestra and the voice, but not the libretto), language can be comprehensible for its saying as well as its said, so
to speak. Music only appeared to be more universal than verbal languages because musical systems were relatively standard across Western Europe.
With this understanding of the universality of musical pleasure, we must
understand Rousseaus claim that the most natural music is the most pleasing
music to be something other than an argument for a music which is fully present
to itself. If musical pleasure is a function of the relationship between music and
language, and if music is pleasing only because it exists as a function of cultural
practice, then the most pleasurable, most musical music is necessarily dependent
upon and enriched by extra-musical referents and influences. When music is
divided into vocal Music and instrumental Music, Rousseau claims that giving different characters to these two types of music creates a monstrous
whole (LFM, 147). Separating non-programmatic music from texted song and
programmatic works, one could claim to establish a realm of pure music free
from the influence of words or other extra-musical phenomena. This conception
gives birth to a monstrous whole, for in attempting to abject words and cultural particularities from music as a means of establishing a proper or pure music, this view seeks to purge from music that which renders it significant and
expressivei.e., its very musicality. This solopsistic music refuses to acknowledge the ways in which its inside is constituted by supposedly external phenomena and is like a zombie: a walking, soulless corpse.
Accordingly, Rousseau views formalist analysesthose which attempt to
account for music in itself and on its own termsas a waste of time, for they
ignore the specifically musical elements of music and focus only on musics

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

49

physical and formal features. Rameauian formalism proceeds by taking away

the knowledge of the words, whereby the most important part of the melody is
taken away, which is the expression; and all that can be decided by this route is
whether the modulation is good and whether the song possesses naturalness and
beauty (LFM, 151). Describing a piece in terms of interval-calculus and chord
progressions gives insight into its anatomyits physical and formal characteristicsprovided we remember that there is nothing thereby natural about anatomy, and that these empirical analyses are socially constructed and highly biased discourses. Formalist models can even evaluate the degree to which music
will accord sensory pleasure (naturalness and beauty) within a certain context
and within a specific population. Such an analysis is, however, deaf to the very
musicality of music, for it ignores the ways in which music works to convey
meaning and arouse the passions of its listeners. Thus, in contrast to harmonic
formalism, Rousseau analyzes music in terms of melody. Melody is the relationship between music and words by virtue of which music is expressive. Rousseau
uses melody not so much in its literal, technical sensei.e., the primary voice
in a homophonic texturebut as a metaphor for that within music which performs the work of expression. The most important part of melody is not a technical or formal device, but expressive force. Further, melody is the contaminated aspect of music: that which is infected by and beholden to extra-musical
influences like words, narrative structures, concepts which refer to extra-musical
phenomena, and so forth.

Flipping Derridas Script

Given this understanding of absolute music, Rousseaus identification of the
coeval birth of music and speech, and his continued emphasis on the inseparability of music and language, it becomes clear that he is critiquing the notion of
self-presence, not reinforcing it, as Derrida would have. Grammatology falsely
attributes to Rousseau a classical ideology according to which writing takes the
status of a tragic fatality come to prey upon natural innocence, interrupting the
golden age of the present and full speech (G, 168). Although his later political
works flagrantly contradict them, Rousseaus early musical writings are, as I
have demonstrated throughout this chapter, an urgent and polemic critique of the
possibility of present and full speech. Even though Rousseau argues that some
languages are more musical and expressive than others, he never claims that
there is some sort of unmediated voice of nature; in fact, he manifestly states
the opposite: some sort of discourse must always complement the voice of nature (EOL, 288). The voice of nature is not, for Rousseau, some sort of immediate and pure expression; as song, the voice of nature is the effect of the most
perfect combinations of words and accompaniment (book and score, so to
speak). Near the end of the Essay, Rousseau clearly locates the power of the
voice of Nature in its morali.e., conventionaleffects. Music, he argues,
restricted to the exclusively physical effect of the combinations of vibrations,

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came to be deprived of the moral effects it used to produce when it was doubly
the voice of Nature (EOL, 298). The voice of nature is characterized by the
unity of the melodythat is, by a musicality that is thoroughly infused with
linguistic conventions.
Derridas main problem or mistake in his reading of Rousseau is what, precisely, Rousseau means by unity in his notion of the unity of the melody.
After an extended discussion of the place of the Essay in Rousseaus oeuvre,
Derrida ultimately interprets it in terms of the later Rousseau (indeed, he begins
the chapter with a discussion of Emile), who fails to heed his own caveats regarding claims made about nature and its purity.30 As I have shown in earlier
parts of this chapter, in Western music, pure presence, a classical and metaphysical unity, is possible only when speech and song are separated, and music
then becomes the science of harmony. Insofar as music is meaningless when
separated from language, Rousseaus discussion of melody is a prime illustration of supplementarity at work in criture. The extra-musical is a constituent
supplement to the specifically musical. This argument is not latent within the
text and contrary to Rousseaus intentions, as Derrida claims. Asking the usual
deconstructive question What does Rousseau say without saying, see without
seeing?, Derrida claims that Rousseau unintentionally and in contradiction to
his main claims discovers [t]hat substitution has always already begun; that
imitation, principle of art, has always already interrupted natural plenitude; that,
having to be a discourse, it has always already broached presence in difference
(G, 215). Derrida argues that Rousseau never makes explicit the originality of
the lack that makes necessary the addition of the supplementthe quantity and
the differences of quantity that always already shape melody (G, 214). If he
had fully understood what Rousseau meant by the concepts melody and harmony, Derrida would have seen that Rousseau explicitly and intentionally
demonstrates that music is necessarily mediated by language and other extramusical phenomena (geography, familial relations, etc.). Focusing on the unity
of speech and language, Rousseaus main endeavor in his early musical writings
is to argue that there is no objective means of parsing frequencies into pitches,
or of distinguishing music from noise: by itself, a sound has no absolute character by which it might be recognizednor is a given sound by nature anything
within the harmonic system (EOL, 291). Contrary to what Derrida finds, Rousseaus claim is that harmonythe nature of soundis always already lacking
some inherent order/organization that necessarily determines what counts as a
pitch, as out of tune, as musical, as mere sound, etc. This lack is why music
must always be accompanied by speechthat is, by social forces, conventions,
and values which function to filter through infinite amounts of empirical data
and make sense out of our sense perceptions.
Rousseaus accounts of the coeval origin of music and language are conjectural historiesmythsused to speculate and hypothesize precisely how convention supplemented and domesticated natural phenomena, and thus offer a
hypothesis as to why Western musical systems are the way they are. Derridas
reading is further led astray by his failure to account for the conjectural status of

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51

Rousseaus histories. According to Derrida, the genealogy of languages offered

in the Essay shows that the opposition north/south [is] rational and not natural,
structural and not factual, relational and not substantialNo language is from
the south or the north, no real element of the language has an absolute situation,
only a differential one (G, 216). Yes, precisely. This is what it means to be conjectural: because we can never theorize about the state of nature with any certainty, we can have knowledge of neither the origin of inequality, nor the origin
of languages. The southerly scene is described, though not declared, by Rousseau to be the origin of languages (G, 216) because Rousseau knows it is impossible for him to have any definitive knowledge about nature or of how language then arose from it. Thus, Rousseau offers this dual-polar myth as a way to
structure and make sense of, ultimately, his claim that French music is profoundly lacking and that Rameau is completely misguided as both a composer
and a theorist.31 Rousseaus claim that originally, historically, voice and song
were unified is not an empirical claim, per se. This is a conjecture used to explain the present state of European music theory, a myth used to illustrate (1) the
dependence of pure music on social convention, and (2) that music moves us
not through some biological or physical cause, but in that it speaks to us
albeit through the work of writing, social convention, etc. The important thing
for Rousseauand for meis that musics effects are precisely affects: that
music is interesting and meaningful because of the way it modulates and is
modulated by power relations, i.e., the way it intersects with raced and gendered
bodies. But that is a topic for discussion later in the book. Now, having illustrated the notion of conjecture and conjectural bodies in Rousseaus early musical writings, I analyze Of Grammatologys conception of arche-writing as an
instance of considering actuality and embodiment conjecturally.

Arche-writing as Conjecture
The Derridian notion of arche-writing is an illustration or example of conjecture, specifically, the role that the concept of conjecture plays in thinking the
relationship between the material and the social. While Derrida focuses almost
exclusively on linguistic arche-writing, he does mention that it is operative in
other media:
beyond the signifying face, the signified face itself...cinematography, choreography, of course, but also pictorial, musical, sculptural writing...All this to
describe not only the system of notation secondarily connected with these activities but the essence and the content of these activities themselves (G, 9).

What might Derrida mean by musical writing? How is the essence and content of music writing in the Derridian sense? How is musics construction
and expression linked to its materiality (materiality both in the sense of the concrete physical properties of sound, of instruments and recording technology, of

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the bodies of human beings who make music, and also the historico-material
conditions of musics development, e.g., philosophy, politics, economy, etc.)?
Or, more specifically: (1) How are musics formal conventions in a given tradition related to the physics of sound and the physiology of bodies producing
these sounds, and (2) How is this relationship between structure and matter
linked to the meaningful content one hears in music?
The link between the material and the social is, as Derrida explains, found
in the literary elementtying the play of form to a determined substance of
expression. If there is something in literature [or, more broadly, music] which
does not allow itself to be reduced to voice [i.e., natural structure]one cannot
recapture it except by rigorously isolating the bond that links the play of form to
the substance of graphic expression (G, 59). Substituting the musical for literary element, we see that this elemental bond is the interaction of the how and
the whatthat is to say, the technique whereby form is elaborated, and the materiality or concreteness of the actual representations. A rather paradoxical notion, this bond, this link between two or more distinct phenomena, is elemental
precisely because it is the source or origin of both form and matter. More precisely, it is the origin of and the condition of possibility for the material/social
distinction. The specificity of music, then, lies in the manner or style in which
the difference between musical form and musical expression is articulated. It is
this irreducibility which Derrida calls arche-writing, the writing behind
both speech and writing in the common sense, which makes the difference between the material and the social possible.
Even though music is aural, and not (primarily) graphic expression, it is
possible to discuss music in these terms because it, too, is already and fundamentally arche-writing. Opening the difference(s) between aural and visual,
between ideality and materiality, between structure and ideology, [t]his archewriting, as Derrida explains,
would be at work not only in the form and substance of graphic expression, but
also in those of nongraphic expression. It would constitute not only the pattern
uniting form to all substance, graphic or otherwise, but the movement of the
sign-function linking a content to an expression (G, 60).

As a movement, arche-writing is the bi-directional journey from content to

form and form to content; that is, arche-writing traverses both the way in which
the content gives meaning to the means of expression and the way in which the
means of expression invests the content with significance. At an even more elemental level, arche-writing is the conjectural history which accounts for the way
in which the material emerges through the social and the way in which customs
face resistance from concrete materiality. In specifically musical terms, archewriting is the process whereby certain ideas are shaped by their transposition
into audio frequencies and resonating bodies, and is how certain sounds take on
first their status as sounds, then their specific meanings. Arche-writing is the
movement or relationship between content and form, materiality and sociality,

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53

because it is the very opening within language that renders these distinctions
intelligible; paradoxically, however, it is a bond which ruptures, which introduces diffrance. As an agent of diffrance, arche-writing cannot, as the condition of all linguistic [or musical] systems, form a part of the linguistic [or musical] system itself and be situated as an object in its field. (Which does not mean
it has a real field elsewhere, another assignable site (G, 60). Being neither
the extra-musical (i.e., existing elsewhere, in another assignable site) nor the
purely musical (an object for musical analysis), arche-writing is instead the dynamic relationship between these two things. Musical arche-writing links the
material and social aspects of music by introducing the possibility of their diffrance.
To say that music represents or signifies the movement of diffrance would
remain within the very logic (presence/absence) which the concept of diffrance
critiques. Rather than expressing the lack from which signification and significance arises, musical meaning plays itself out in, through, and on the field
opened by the movement of diffrance. Because signification is formed only
within the hollow of difference, we are faced with, argues Derrida, the impossibility that a sign, the unity of a signifier and a signified, be produced within
the plenitude of a present and absolute presence. That is why there is no full
speech (G, 69). Because diffrance is the shifting ground of the presence/absence, nature/culture, and signified/signifier distinctions, any representational matrix which construes meaning and value based on the relative purity
or self-presence of form to content collapses. Indeed, the continued opposition
between form and content or music and words is an eminently metaphysical
gesture: as Derrida states, It is precisely these concepts that permitted the exclusion of writing: image or representation, sensible and intelligible, nature and
culture, nature and technics, etc. They are solidary with all metaphysical conceptuality and particularly with a naturalist, objectivist, and derivative determination of the difference between inside and outside (G, 71). A words/music binary most definitely falls within Derridas etc., for it presupposes this absolute
and reified distinction between the inside and outside of music and musical
meaning. Diffrance, on the other hand, does not set structure and ideology in
opposition to one another, but is, as discussed earlier, the elemental bond between them. The dynamism of diffrance is the permeability of the membrane
separating the inside from the outside of music, musical virtuosity from
extra-musical content. The membrane maintains some separation between the
two areas, while simultaneously allowing communication between them. Understanding musical arche-writing as the elemental bond of diffrance, one does not
collapse the musical into the extra-musical, but attends to the ways in which the
two are already affected and infected by one another. In the language of chapter
1, the musical and extra-musical are coincident with one another; indeed, this is
an excellent example of the coincidence I described in the previous chapter, because the notion of musical arche-writing demonstrates that the coincident terms
cannot precede it as independent entities. Given this conception of musical
arche-writing, one can never experience music in its purity or fullness, for

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this would not even be heard as music, but as nonsense. Music is significant
both in the sense that the category music itself is meaningful, and in that music is expressive of a meaningful contentonly insofar as difference/diffrance
works in, through, and on it. Thus, in Derridas own terms we see that Rousseaus insistence on the unity of music and languageor of matter and artificeis not beholden to some metaphysics of presence, but instead deconstructs
the music theory that claimed to express the voice of nature in its purity.
If, as Derrida claims, the signified is originally and essentiallytrace, it is
always already in the position of the signifier (G, 73), then the symphony, perhaps the most absolute of musical forms, read in terms of the trace, illustrates
the breakdown of representational logic into the movement of diffrance. For
example, in Beethovens Fifth Symphony, the signifiedi.e., the musical idea
expressed in the story of the fate narrativeis precisely the eighth-rest-eightheighth-eighth-quarter signifier. Unlike literature or visual arts, so-called absolute music, music that creates meaning only in reference to purely musical
conventions/techniques/elements, illustrates how meaning arises from both the
differences among signifiers and the ultimate deferral of reference to a (transcendental) signified (music that isnt about anything but its own construction). That is to say, the propagation of differences defers any totalization: The
appearing and functioning of difference presupposes an originary synthesis not
preceded by any absolute simplicity. Such would be the originary trace (G, 62).
According to Derrida, what permits such articulation of signs among themselves within the same abstract ordera phonic or graphic text for example (G,
62) is what he calls the trace. Rather than offering some unity of which music
and words are elements or expressions, the trace is the very working-out of the
differences between them, the diffrance which renders each meaningful.32
The trace is the condition for the possibility of the difference between music
and words; however, it does not describe a state in which music and words were
unified (e.g., ancient Greek poetry is not the perfect and originary synthesis of
music and words). It is in terms of this idea of the trace that we should understand Rousseaus unity of the melody. As a critic of the idea that ancient
Greek theater presented the most perfect unity between words and music (Florentine Camerata, etc.), Rousseaus claim about the unity of words and music is
not an argument for some transparency and full presence; rather, it is an attempt
to illustrate via conjectural history the ways in which musical and linguistic
conventions articulate one another.
Understanding the text as a fabric of differences and deferrals, we see that
musical text-ture, which is both graphic (physical, programmatic, extramusical) and phonic (metaphysical, non-programmatic, purely musical), must
be thought as coincident, because the very specificities of musical expressions
and practiceswhat makes them musical and not, say, poetic or athleticlie in
the style or pattern of the performance in which these categories are articulated
and displaced. In this sense, musical arche-writing is the fabric in which these
relations among phone and graphe, sound and sense, musical and extra-musical,
are woven. It is in the arche-writing of the trace, in the temporalization of a

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55

lived experience which is neither in the world nor in another world, which is
not more sonorous than luminous, not more in time than in space, that differences appear among the elements or rather produce them (G, 65). What better
expression of the temporalization of lived experience than music? Musical writing, then, would be the specifically musical element(s) which is both purely
musical and purely human, which is both musical (sonorous) and verbal (luminous, the light of reason), both temporal and spatial (what is frequency but
the unfolding of a wave over a specific distance/space in a determinate period of
time?): musical writing is the elemental bond among these various dimensions. Even though it is elemental, musical arche-writing is constituted as an
object for us, for grammatology, only after the fact of its inscription. As Derrida explains, arche-writing is a fortiori anterior to the distinction between regions of sensibility, anterior to sound as much as to light (G, 65). Although it is
the condition of difference between the graphic and the phonic, the extramusical and the purely musical, arche-writing is not an origin per se because it
exists only in retrospect, only in reflection upon the text in which it is articulated. It is, in other words, conjectural because it can be articulated only in terms
of the differences it makes possible.
Inarticulable in terms of presence, anterior to signs, sight, and sound, the
trace seems to be a sort of silence or invisibility. If presence is thought in
terms of seeing/being seen or hearing/being heard, then one might be led to
think of the trace as the absence of sight or sound; statements such as, the unheard differenceis the condition of all other differences, of all other traces,
and it is already a trace (G, 65) appear to reinforce this interpretation. However,
this interpretation of the trace remains within the presence/absence matrix which
Derrida uses the concept to deconstruct. Thus, it is not that the trace is silent
and/or invisible, but that its aural and visual manifestations must be heard and
read under erasure, i.e., as the spacing in and of diffrance.
In both the temporal space of deferral and the more general space of difference, the strange movement of the trace proclaims as much as it recalls: diffrance defers-differs (G, 66). Thus, while the trace is unheard, it is not
purely silent, for while it defers vocalization, it also articulates differences. This
movement is very similar to the gesture made in thinking something under erasure. Just as the trace is both a proclamation and a retraction, [t]hat mark of
deletion is not, however, a merely negative symbolUnder its strokes the presence of a transcendental signified is effaced while still remaining legible, is destroyed while making visible the very idea of the sign (G, 23). While Derrida is
committed to deconstructing the privilege of the absolute or transcendent signifier, he does not want to regress into a literalism, a nave objectivism that fails
to recognize the diffrantial nature of writing. Put differently, Derrida seeks to
go beyond the alternative of immanence or transcendence (i.e., a literal or positivist truth and a metaphysical truth). Instead, Derrida proposes a transcendence
of the transcendental, a hyper-transcendential truth which goes beyondboth
prior to and in excess ofthe transcendental model of truth expressed within a
metaphysics of presence. Derrida explains his engagement in this double move-

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ment of writing and erasure, proclamation and retraction, as follows (and I will
quote at length):
It is to escape falling back into this nave objectivism that I refer here to a transcendentality that I elsewhere put into question. It is because I believe that there
is a short-of and a beyond of transcendental criticism. To see to it that the beyond does not return to the within is to recognize in the contortion the necessity
of a pathway. That pathway must leave a track in the text. Without that track,
abandoned to the simple content of its conclusions, the ultra-transcendental text
will so closely resemble the precritical text as to be indistinguishable from it.
We must now form and meditate upon the law of this resemblance (G, 61).

This hyper-transcendental truth, then, is not so much found in the simple content of a text as it is in the style in which the text is written and read, specifically, in the pathway (or Spur) which the trace leaves throughout the text. This
pathway or trace could, in some senses, be understood as the mark of erasure
under and through which we read writing. Thus, while we cannot but think musical arche-writing in terms of distinctions such as materiality and sociality, the
musical and the extra-musical, we must always be mindful that we are not looking to find the absolute separation of these things, but their elemental bond, the
diffrance between/among them. As Derrida explains, this trace is the opening
of the first exteriority in general, the enigmatic relationship of the living to its
other and of an inside to an outside: spacing (G, 70). Focusing on spacing over
presence (or absence), one reads what the text does against what it explicitly
says in order to make evident the warp and weft of diffrance.33
This notion of conjecture that I am developing from Rousseau can be understood as a sort of mark of erasure: it acknowledges experience and history,
and by doing so it keeps us from falling into nave objectivism or an equally
nave idealism (of what Mills would call the idea-as-idealized-model type,
which I discuss at the end of the chapter), for it allows us to see how the actualwhat we perceive to be the physical materiality of a sound wave or a
strand of DNAis crossed and constituted by both ideals and ideology (or, in
other words, by history). When we hear music under erasure and listen for the
way spacing functions within the musical text(ure), we can consider it in its bare
material actuality while also accounting for the stakes and significance, both
past and present, of claiming a specific state of affairs as actuality.

Spacing: Hearing Music Under Erasure

Arche-writing as spacing cannot occur as such within the phenomenological
experience as presence. It marks the dead time within the presence of the living
present, within the general form of all presence. The dead time is at work (G,
68).

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

57

In order to think of musical arche-writing, we must attend to musical dead

time, to that in music which works under erasure. The most obvious dead
time, in music is the rest; thus, I propose the rest as a metaphor or a model for
thinking of musical arche-writing.34 Musical arche-writing is more properly a
rest than either silence or noise that lacks musicality, because musical
arche-writing must not be thought of as the absence of sound or music, for this
model relies on the very presence-absence binary it is intended to deconstruct.
Indeed, if spacing as writing is the becoming-absent and the becomingunconscious of the subject (G, 69), then the erased word or note is neither fully
absent nor fully presentit is the elemental bond between these two phases. The
rest could be seen as a musical version of the Durchstreichung (i.e., the mark
of erasure): it indicates music (the rest is a musical symbol, a musical concept, is
a rest proper only in the context of a musical work), but it tells us not to hear
or read a musical sound in its presence, just as the X over a word indicates that
we should understand it as related to, but prior to and in excess of what Derrida
would call its metaphysical denotation(s). Functioning as the symbol of silence in music, the silence indicated by the rest does not occur as either presence or absence of music, but rather as music-under-erasure. Indeed, as John
Cage demonstrates in 433, a rest is never tranquil, and silence is full of both
noise and musicor, more directly, that noise is music.35 In this piece, it is as if
the notes on the staff were erased, and this very active silence is the archewriting that arises from the space revealed in erasure. This so-called silence can
include everything from coughs, rustling programs, squeaky chairs, ventilation
noises, street noises, the swish of fabric, to people practicing in rooms adjacent
to the recital hall, uncomfortable silence, etc. Cages point, then, is that these
sounds are not mere noises, but, because they would be there behind and in
excess of any sounds the pianist could make, are also themselves part of the
musical performance and piece. This rest, then, opens up the space in which the
difference between music and noise will be delineated, where sound is classified as either musical or non-musical. All these phenomena occur prior to and
in excess of any notion of music, Western or otherwise.
Leading the listener to contemplate the distinction between music and noise,
the metaphor of the rest indicates that it is more proper to think of musical
arche-writing as the space between the inside and the outside of the musical, i.e., the diffrance between the purely- and the extra-musical. The grammatological inquiry would seek to find out how this space is mapped, how the
properly and the extra musical come to be constituted as such. This quasigenealogical investigation is what Rousseau does in his conjectural history of
the origin of music and language: how, he asks, did we begin to recognize sound
as such, and then specific sounds as representative of specific expressions, objects, and ideas?
It remains to be asked, however, what is at stake in musical spacing.
Since musical spacing is the articulation of what counts as music and what
doesnt count as music, what is at issue here is precisely the separation of what
are considered to be the strictly musical from the programmatic, political, or

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contextual factors. These are eminently political decisions, for the ways in which
these distinctions play out depends upon who makes these decisions, i.e., whose
values define what counts and what doesnt count as music. The question of
spacing then becomes: How are these inclusions and exclusions made, and what
is at stake in them?
One acquires a sense of spacing only through the training or normalization
of ones ear, in which one learns to hear rhythms and pitches as such, to hear
music as music and noise as noise, etc. Thus, one thing at stake in these
inclusions and exclusions is power: pitch and rhythm are spaced differently in
different cultures and subcultures. What is at stake in the spacing of music is
privilege, both the privilege of a certain notion of music, and that of a certain
group of people. In a capitalist patriarchy, the distinction between the musical
and the extra-musical, between civilized and uncivilized sounds, reflects
gender and class hierarchies, among others (race, sexuality, education, ability,
etc.). Essential Logics Music is a Better Noise illustrates how the articulation
of the space between music and noise is an intentional but non-subjective
agent of power inequities present within late-twentieth-century Western civilization. The musical and verbal arguments of this song claim that there is no qualitative distinction between music and noise, and that any distinctions we make
between what counts as music and what doesnt reflect an explicitly gendered
and classed privileging of mind over body, culture over nature. As the lyrics
interrogate the way some sounds are considered serious and others trivial, the
music questions the smoothness, linearity, melody, and harmonythings that
make music seem natural and inevitable, and thus inherently different than
noise.
After a two-bar saxophone introduction, Laura Logics vocals begin with
the statement, Life to death, I want to hear thoseviolins. This line is delivered in a voice deeper and differently accented than what Logic presents as her
own voice throughout the rest of the song. Indeed, the line expressing a desire to
hear literally the master of orchestral instruments (Concertmaster is the title of
the first violinist) is presented in a much deeper and huskier voice than the rather
wispy, high-pitched, feminine voice with which Logic delivers the rest of the
song. The gendering of these voices reflects the typical gendering of serious
and popular music. Serious or intellectual music is masculine, for all the
same stereotypical reasons why masculinity is associated with thinking, reason,
etc.; on the other hand, noise is associated with a feminine position, for the
feminine is usually the representative of nature as opposed to culture, irrationality as opposed to reason, immaturity as opposed to enlightenment. Thus, this
position that violins make the best musici.e., Western art musicis the
position against which Logic sets herself and her position that music is close to
noise.
The main argument of the song is that Music is close, music is a betternoise/Than the rumbling catapults, than bumbling cranes. As she enunciates catapults Logic makes a catapult-like noise with voice, which is sometimes accompanied by a guitar string plucked in the manner of a slingshot, and

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

59

when she says cranes, her voice dips and rises, which is evocative of a wrecking ball swinging (dipping and rising) from a crane; this suggests that these
noises are only arbitrarily separated out from music. Music is close to noise,
but somehow a hierarchy has been constructed. This hierarchy has nothing to do
with essential, natural, or structural qualities of either kind of sound. The rumbling of catapults and the bumbling of cranes are both sounds produced by humans with the aids of very complex and expensive instruments just like a
Steinway or a Lore or a Stradivarius. One could argue that music is systematically organized sound, whereas these noises are random, but such a claim ignores the fact that the shooting of a slingshot and the operation of a crane are
very precisely calculated activities. However, the latter are activities performed
by rough-and-tumble youngsters or by equally rough but more well-worn construction workersthat is, by children and the working class, not by a welleducated and highly trained performer clad in formalwear. Excepting ageist and
classist prejudices, the only distinction between the Beethoven and the Bobcat
seems to be that music is organized as sound, while the rumbling and bumbling
Logic mentions are the aural byproducts of other activities of which the telos is
not acoustic. Even with this qualified position, two problems remain:
1) Cages 433 deconstructed the boundary between music and
acoustic byproducts of nonmusical activity (the rustling of
clothes and programs, the hum of the ventilation system, the sound
of people walking on the floor above or practicing in the rooms below). If even these secondary sounds count as music, is there any
way to distinguish between death metal and demolition crews?
(Einsturzende Neubauten, indeed!)
2) If there is no structural difference between music and noise, and
the difference is, as Logic suggests, only one of context, we seem
to be faced with the musical version of the question: What makes
Duchamps urinal on the gallery floor at MoMA different from the
ones in the mens restroom? In answer, the difference is completely ideological or contextual.
This brief detour into British post-punk helps illustrate how musical archewritingi.e., the ever-deferred difference between music and noiseis the social construction of the space between the inside and outside of music; accordingly, while it is prior to musical composition and performance per se,
arche-writing appears as musical only after the fact of its articulation, for it is
only in view of preexistent systems of privilege and the hierarchical categories
based upon them that arche-writing can be identified as musical or nonmusical
(be it language, painting, noise, etc.). Understood in terms of arche-writing, musical specificity is found in the ways in which diffrance unfolds the space between the inside and the outside of music, between nature and culture. Thinking
about music in this way, one does not ask What is music? (the metaphysical
question), but How and why did the difference/diffrance between the inside

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and outside of music come to be articulated as such? Musical arche-writing,

then, is the elemental bond of sound and sense (noise and music), not one to the
exclusion of the other.
In less Derridian jargon, my point here is that what is most fundamentally
real or natural about materiality is the constant negotiation between the material and the social, the context of which is necessary to see either the material or
the social as such. Claims about materiality or nature are always, in this sense,
logically anachronistic (i.e., if it is posited as existing before, logically, it is possible for it to exist) and hence conjectural.

Conclusions: Thoughts on Aesthetics and Politics

Having thus demonstrated the naturalistic fallacy of Rameaus attempts to posit
one very idiosyncratic harmonic system (Western tonality) as the universal, irrefutable, and natural essence of music, Rousseau challenges what was then
and for centuries to come the standard modus operandi of musicologists and
music theorists: that is, analyzing and judging music based on objective factors like harmonic relationships, contrapuntal complexity, and other physical/empirical elements of music in itself. Understanding music as primarily a
moral and social phenomenon, Rousseau, not unlike Derrida, offers us a means
by which to account for the various and complex relations, values, and events
which shape our musical judgments and thus influence the kinds of music a particular society or person practices. Unlike Milton Babbitt (the composer who
authored the manifesto Who Cares If You Listen?), Rousseau thinks music is
valuable, is musical, only insofar as it is registered as meaningful by a listener or
group of listeners.
Why, then, is Rousseaus more subjective view of music a valuable theoretical tool? As I see it, there are at least two advantages to this Rousseauian
perspective. First, it both acknowledges the existence of non-Western musical
practices, as well as acting as a form of analysis that can be applied to them. In a
way, it treats all musicology as ethnomusicology, for it asks of all musical
practices the same quasi-anthropological questions that are traditionally the domain of ethnomusicology. Indeed, because we can no longer ground music in
physical nature, Rousseaus argument demands that we ask genealogical, moral,
and political questions of Western music so that we may then begin to understand how and why we Westerners find this specific form of music meaningfulhow and why, for example, J.S. Bachs Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
sounds spooky. It also demands that we historicize our epistemological, theoretical, and methodological modes at use in examining music both through traditional forms of empirical analysis and through more sociologically grounded
analyses. This task has been undertaken, to a large extent, by New Musicology, a relatively recent movement which has taken up feminism, postcolonial
theory, post-structuralism, critical theory, and postmodernism in reaction to the

Conjectural Histories, Conjectural Harmonies

61

positivism which dominates mainstream musicology and philosophical aesthetics.

The second advantage I find in Rousseaus understanding of music is that,
in addition to the standard objections to the hierarchization of art music and pop
music, Rousseau offers a further means of critique. If so-called serious music
remains economically and/or intellectually inaccessibleif, to paraphrase Babbitt, no one listensall its objective merit (technical mastery, complexity,
etc.) is futile, for it has failed its moral mission to convey meaning and affect.
As Plato well knew, music is a powerful means of channeling, educating, and
arousing desires and ideas; however, if no one is there to listen to it, if no one
practices it, it might as well be a language as dead as Platos Greek. Because
music does not exist in itself, it is not valuable in itself; rather, music is a human activity which is important insofar as it expresses influences, creates, and
dissolves relationships of meaning, knowledge, power, and desire. Since pop
music impacts far more people (begrudgingly or enthusiastically) than so-called
serious music, it is at least as meaningful and valuable a moral agent as its
more scholarly and elite counterpart. As cited in the epigraph to this chapter, It
is by means of the song, not by means of the chords, that sounds have expression, fire, life; it is the song alone that gives them the moral effects that produce
all of musics energy (ETP, 279; emphasis mine). Music should not be judged
solely on its objective or purely musical qualities, but, more importantly, on
its ability to effect listeners and performersthat is to say, on its ability to install itself as a meaningful element in human relations.
Accordingly, this distinction between moral and physiological nature provides an eminently valuable means of understanding music, for it allows us to
make musical judgments that more easily avoid ethnocentrism and elitism. It
also, I believe, offers a firm grounding for political judgment, and this is where I
would like to return to the question I left unanswered earlier in the chapter. If
nature isnt really pure, originary, or any of those other qualities we commonly associate with natural, why continue, as Rousseau does, to utilize nature as an analytical category? Why continue to produce elaborately detailed
accounts of the State of Nature if we know that it probably didnt ever exist, and
even if it did, we would have no means of gaining anything resembling accurate
knowledge of it? Why does Rousseau emphasize the importance of these obviously conjectural histories?
This notion of conjecture that I develop from Rousseau and, in the next
chapter, from Julia Kristeva, contributes to a non-ideal account of nature and
human embodiment. When we speak of the materiality, particularly when the
physical materiality under question is the raced, gendered human body, our notion of the material must be robust and complex enough to account for all the
social work that makes/has made it possible for us to even perceive what we
take to be materiality as such; in Derridian terms, we need a notion of the material that accommodates and acknowledges the work of arche-writing. While
racist, sexist, and classist ideologies might encourage abstraction away from the
empirical fact of oppression, in order to construct an ideal-as-descriptive-model,

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there is, particularly in the case of nature/human embodiment, going to have to

be a robust and not strictly empirical notion of the material that is being described. As Rousseau has demonstrated, there are some phenomena, such as
nature or the body, that, in order to start with an actual investigation of [phenomenon Xs] properties (Mills, Ideal Theory, 167; emphasis mine), we are
going to have to move somewhat away from the demonstrably actual and toward
the ideal or idealizing. In acknowledging that a simple empiricism will not
work as a cognitive strategy one has to be self-conscious about the concepts
that spontaneously occur to one, since many of these concepts will not arise
naturally but as the result of social structures and hegemonic ideational patterns
(Mills, Ideal Theory, 175). Mills does suggest that some concepts like nature or
the body will need quite a bit of unpacking or genealogical deconstruction in
order to be put to effective feminist, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist use. Mills
does not, however, inquire further into this claim; this is what my notion of conjecture does. Rather than abstracting away from realities crucial to our comprehension of the actual workings of injustice in human interactions and social institutions (Mills, Ideal Theory, 170), my theory of the conjectural body attends
to precisely these realities by describing how the material and the social interact
to produce empirical actualities that themselves normalize status-quo relations
of privilege and powerput simply, to how nature and culture interact to
produce real stuff that normalizes social hierarchies. Rousseaus early musical
writings are a productive place to begin thinking about a historicized, non-ideal
account of embodiment because, as I have shown, his whole disagreement with
Rameau is grounded in Rousseaus problematization of the way in which
Rameaus concept of nature is the result of social structures and hegemonic
ideational patterns. Rousseaus use of conjecture is problematic insofar as he
bases his assessment of political actuality on an ideal-as-idealized-model; importantly, when he conjectures about musical nature, his understanding of
musical actuality is grounded in an ideal-as-descriptive model. Indeed, it is possible to read Rousseaus critique of Rameau in terms of non-ideal theory: because of Rameaus Eurocentrism, he abstracts away from important empirical
and cultural facts about the ways in which sound waves interact with human
sensory faculties.
With this understanding of why conjecture is an important aspect of theorizing raced, gendered, and resonating bodies, I turn to Kristevas notion of the
thought specular as an initial step in my analysis of the intersection of gender,
race, and music in the articulation of what counts as structural or authentic
and what counts as ideological or fake. Attending to the prehistory of the
nature/culture distinction, Kristeva focuses on the moment Rousseau claims can
be known only conjecturally, and, through her notion of the thought specular
and her use of it to analyze Schoenbergs Moses und Aron, fleshes out a vocabulary or a metaphorics with which to think and talk about this conjectural category we call nature or the body. Although it is ultimately flawed, her notion of
irony offers an example of how to apply this notion of conjecture to contemporary problems in politics and aesthetics.

Part 2
Fetishism, Abjection, and the Feminized Popular

Chapter 3

Conjecture and the Impossible Opera:

From the Thought Specular to the Society of the Spectacle

The visual arts do not dare confront this density of seductive fantasy that the
image is afraid of making banal and that the thought specularif it existed in
this regardwould render unbearable. What would seduction passed through
the sieve of thought specular be? I dream an impossible film: Don Juan by
Eisenstein and Hitchcock, with music by Schoenberg. As you may remember,
Schoenberg sought the solution to the debate he himself described as a false
one between his Aron and his Moses: between the jubilation of idol worshipers
seduced by the golden calf (followers of the image?) and the divine threat of
exploding thunder, imageless. For this is indeed the problem of the thought
specular: how to remain in idolatry (fantasy) while at the same time exhibiting
symbolic truth (the imageless divine thunder). Imagine the result! Invisible! An
empty theatre. But what terror, seduction, and lucidity!1

In discussing Schoenbergs 12-tone opera Moses und Aron, this passage from
Kristevas Intimate Revolt calls upon the primary and most widely debated issue
of the opera: Mosess intellectuality, and his obsession with truth and its conflict
with Arons physicality, materialism, and penchant for fantasy. The opposition between the brothers represents Western philosophys struggle to both separate and reconcile the intelligible and the visible worlds. Schoenberg poses the
problem in terms of idolatry: Is it really Aron, the builder of the golden calf,
who misrecognizes the artificial as the real, or is not Mosess rejection of fantasy in his worship of an abstract truth just as idolatrous as Arons ignorance of
the material in his immersion in the social? Claiming that this dichotomy between fantasy and reality is a false one, Kristeva finds that to posit an absolute
separation between the material and the social, or what she calls drive and meaning, is itself a form of idolatry. Psychoanalysis is, for Kristeva, a cure for such
idolatry, because it is grounded in the theory of the coincidence of drive and
meaning. Specifically, Kristevan psychoanalysis emphasizes this coincidence in
her elaboration of the theory of the thought specular, a term which is itself a
confrontation between the intelligible and the visible, the ideal and the material.
63

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In this chapter, I examine Kristevas conception of the thought specular as a

means to further develop my theory of the conjectural body. While Rousseau
poses the problem of conjecture in terms of the spacing between nature and culture, Kristeva uses psychoanalysis and the history of philosophy to demonstrate
that what is at work behind the nature/culture distinction is a set of assumptions
delineating a specific relationship between reality and fantasy. These assumptions act as prerequisites in determining where and how the distinctions
between nature and culture, the material and the social, are drawn. As in her
work on the semiotic and the abject, Kristeva here uses the thought specular to
focus attention on the prehistory of the nature/culture distinction; accordingly,
she demonstrates that this distinction is always-already a judgment about what
should count as original and what should count as fake. Given Western philosophys tendency to attribute reality to thought and deception/error to physical phenomena, Kristevas analysis highlights the roles played by the body and
embodied experience in the articulation of the relationships between the material
and the social. Like Rousseau, Kristeva draws together resonating bodies with
privileged and marginalized bodies in order to illuminate a theory of the conjectural body which, in Kristevas case, is named the thought specular.
This thought specular, then, is the idea that the relationship between drive
and meaning must be thought conjecturally. Kristeva offers an example of how
to think conjecturally in her notion of irony. I argue, however, that her notion of
irony is ultimately an unproductive and even risky use of the idea of conjecture,
for, as is particularly evident in Kristevas writings, it institutes problematic serious/popular culture hierarchies, hierarchies indebted to the mind/body dualism
the thought specular is meant to critique. Like a hipster wearing a trucker hat
and a mullet, Kristevas deployment of ironic appropriation functions precisely
because of hierarchies grounded in systems of social privilege.
Looking to the Fantasy and Cinema section of Intimate Revolt, I focus my
analysis on Kristevas comments on Mozarts Don Giovanni and composer
Arnold Schoenberg. My motivations for this are multiple. First, as is demonstrated in the epigraph of this chapter, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron,
along with many of his theoretical and philosophical writings, raise a question
identical to Kristevas, namely: What is the relationship between intellect and
body, the Musical Idea and the sounds through which it is manifested? Although
I will, at times, examine Schoenbergs compositions, I also treat Schoenberg as
a philosopher. Almost as prolific in prose as in music, Schoenberg routinely
took up imminently philosophical problems, such as the status and nature of the
new, and frequently engaged the history of metaphysics in elaborating his notion of the Musical Idea [Gedanke] and its relationship to concrete aural phenomena. I thus engage Kristeva and Schoenberg as two philosophers developing
complementary theories of the conjectural body.
Second, I want to unpack the claims Kristeva makes in her allusions to and
otherwise rather amateurish discussions of music, because I believe that the nuance these passages on music provide to her elaboration of the thought specular
are significant, if inadequately articulated. Throughout her corpus, Kristeva calls

Conjecture and the Impossible Opera

65

upon music as an example to elaborate various conceptsthe semiotic, maternal

authority, foreignness, and racewhich, in their diversity, all attempt to complicate the easily dichotomized relationship between real and artificial, structure and ideology.2 As I argued in the first chapter, music is so often exemplary
because the issue of the relationship between the material and the social is fundamentally the question not only of subjectivity and its raced, gendered vicissitudes, but of music as well. Kristevas work highlights the coincidence of gender, race, class, and music in the idea of conjecture, and brings the nature/culture
debate into the terms of perhaps its most significant contemporary manifestations: the way gender, race, class, and aesthetics converge to articulate various
systems of serious and popular or high/low hierarchies.
In spite of my tendency to read Kristeva sympathetically, this chapter is, ultimately, critical. While Kristeva does provide interesting and useful tools for reimagining the relationship between the material and the social, and the kinds of
oppression which rely upon their separation, Kristeva all-too-frequently abandons her most radical ideas and returns to the systems which she at times vehemently critiques. Although the concept of the thought specular does, in some
ways, offer a reworking of the nature/culture opposition, there are numerous
points throughout the text in which Kristeva reproduces and reinforces the hierarchy between a more authentic form of expressionwords, ideasand a less
reliable oneimages, perceptions. These lapses into conservative positions are
most evident in Kristevas condemnation of the society of the spectacle in
favor of a culture of words, of avant-garde poetry, and also in her identification
of women with feelings, emotions, and the physical. Some aspects of Kristevan
theory are politically useful, yet the politics of Kristeva, the theorist, are ironically and dangerously neoconservative. Kristevas condemnation of the society
of the spectacle is grounded in a serious/pop hierarchy. Chapter 4 will discuss
why such hierarchies are problematic. Nevertheless, the more radical aspects of
Kristevas thought, specifically, the theory of the thought specular, offer important contributions to our understanding of the body as conjectural.

Specular/Thought Specular
Throughout the history of Western philosophy, the difference between the mind
and the body is frequently explained through visual metaphors: Descartes uses
the wax passage to demonstrate that the minds eye is more accurate than his
physical eye; and in the Republic, Plato explains metaphysics in terms of his
theory of the divided line, whose two main divisions are the visible (physical)
and intelligible (metaphysical) realms. More important than this sight/thought
distinctions descriptive function is its normative one, for Western culture has
always valued intellectual phenomena over those that are merely physical.

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Thought is more certain, more true, more real than the inherently deceptive
realm of extension.
Kristevas concept of the thought specular not only immediately juxtaposes
these two categories that white Western culture has worked so hard to separate,
it posits as normative the coincidence of the two spheres. Using this concept to
demonstrate that the minds eye, the gaze of theoretical contemplation, is infused with a degree of corporeality even more radically primal than the faculty
of sight, Kristeva renders ambiguous the border between psyche and soma.3 Although [t]he separation between the two registers (acted drive/representation;
sadomasochistic body/paternal eye prefiguring the symbolic) initiates at once
the autonomy of the subject and access to thought and language, Kristeva uses
the thought specular to argue that nothing guarantees that this separation will
ever be clear and definitive in any of us (IR, 71). The separation is unclear and
lacks definition because, in the end, the two registers (mind/body,
drive/representation, nature/culture, etc.) are not separate at all, but coincident.
Fascinating and terrifying, this knot of fear and seduction (Kristeva, IR,
73) called the specular is Kristevas reworking of her concept of abjection. Both
the specular and the abject function even before the mirror stage (Kristeva,
IR, 70) to establish a preliminary, ambiguous, and unstable separation between
me and not-me. [T]he gaze by which I identify an object, a face: mine, that
of another [the specular] offers me an identity that reassures me, for it delivers
me from vacillations, unnamable fears, sounds prior to the name, to the image:
pulsations, somatic wave, waves of colors, rhythms, tones (Kristeva, IR, 73).
Primarily a sort of identification with some form of parental authority (both the
ideal, satisfying mother, and the paternal eye, the eye of the law (Kristeva, IR,
72), specul-ation, like abjection, aids me in distinguishing between my proper
self and things within me which threaten to contaminate and destabilize that
self. At this stage, however, the boundary between me and not me is quite
tenuous.
Like the abject, which is the eruption of me into not me (e.g., vomit),
and vice versa, the specular is the farthest frontier (if it is proper to speak of
borders at all) of the drive (what I call the material) into language (what I call
the social): Chronologically, in the development of the child, and logically, in
the functioning of the adult, the specular remains the most advanced medium for
the inscription of the drive (Kristeva, IR, 72). The site where the drive erupts
into and interrupts language, the specular is an intermediary between the internal, incommunicable drive and the ability to communicate my thoughts and desires to others (i.e., an intermediary between materiality and sociality). Blurring
the boundary between inside and outside, the specular is the link which negotiates between what is most specifically and irreducibly me and the ideas and experiences I share with others.
Understanding the specular as a possible point of convergence where a series of always incomplete images converge, in which I is finally constituted as
identical to itself (IR, 72), Kristeva ascribes to the specular many of the same
tasks she claims are accomplished by abjection. As both the abject and the

Conjecture and the Impossible Opera

67

specular are prior to the existence of a self-identical subject, neither the abject
nor the specular are relations to objects proper. The specular has nothing to do
with seeing an object, or with an imagistic sign or a verbal word; rather, it
makes what is behind identification identifiable: the drive, not symbolized,
not caught in the object, neither in the sign nor in language (IR, 74). By calling
into question the Cartesian logic whereby I identify myself (preferably, my
thoughts) as a subject against external phenomena which I identify as objects,
the specular, like the abject, draws attention to the drives and corporeality that
set the stage for my assumption of subjectivity.
Primary among these tasks, however, is the first quasi-organization of undifferentiated drives/bodies into unstable constellations, which are in turn taken
up in the mirror stage and used to constitute the boundaries of my self as distinct
from the external world. Like the abject, which is, for Kristeva, primarily ambiguity, The seductive and terrifying specular endlessly celebrates our identity
uncertainties (Kristeva, IR, 72). Through the specular, I establish the tenuous
bounds of my proper identity. A trompe-loeil (Kristeva, IR, 73), the specular renders borders ambiguous just as much as it establishes them. Kristevas
analysis of the thought specular, particularly in cinema, demonstrates
however incomplete this apprenticeship of symbolism is in the precincts of
the visible and the instinctual[, and] how language is striated by the image itself
and suspended at instinctual pleasure (Kristeva, IR, 71). One does not magically outgrow or shed ones dependence on instinct, feeling, or sensation and
leave the semiotic for the symbolic without looking back. Rather, the material
and the social are always already immersed in relations of mutual cooperation
and resistance. Like Rousseau, Kristeva claims that nature and civilization do
not exist in a linear relationship (first nature, then civilization), but a coincident
one. As a revision of Lacans mirror stage, the thought specular illustrates how
nature or instinct appear not as effects of language, but as effects that resist
the functionality of the very language that produces them. Even though instinct and the body are socially constructed categories, Kristevas argument
is that they are not fully determined by cultural forces. Much like Foucault
claims in the first volume of The History of Sexuality, where there is power,
there is resistance: where the social works upon the material, the material
thereby becomes a social force, and resists other forces which would determine
it. What results from this process is not a clear point of separation between nature and culture, but a constant negotiation between what has come to be
material and the social forces that are exerted upon it.
Similarly, as Kristeva has discussed in earlier writings, one is never definitively castrated, because it is impossible to completely resolve ones oedipal
conflicts. Psychoanalytic healing can occur only because oedipal relations are
constantly reevaluated and revised. Thus, insofar as the timing of oedipal conflicts is one of the primary differences in the development of masculinity and
femininity, the instability of oedipal resolution implies, for Kristeva, the instability of binary gender categories. Much like Butlers theory of gender perfor-

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Chapter 3

mativity, the concept of gender which follows from the thought specular is one
in which gender is the process of negotiating the mutual resistances of material
and social forces. Whatever names one assigns the two categories
drive/meaning, body/mind, masculinity/femininitythe important thing here is
that the division between the members of these pairs is never absolute, for it is a
division created in the performance of speaking as a gendered subject.
The two sides of this division are not mutually exclusive phases in which
the entrance of one requires the exit of the other. The two spheres (semiotic/symbolic, material/social) intersect with and are infused by one another. In
the Freudian unconscious, drives and sensations became not reducible to language but tributaries of language, accessible to and through language (Kristeva,
IR, 50). Even though this level of the semiotic and the timeless is prior to language, it is available to us only through language. On this point Kristevas is
very similar to Rousseaus claim that nature is itself accessible only via language and its conventional, constructed categories. Nature (drives, the semiotic)any supposedly pure or immediate physical stateexists qua conjecture. That is, although logically and chronologically prior, its reality and
significance exist in the present. Thus, one is never rid of or done with a
supposedly more infantile stage.
Here, then, we have a subtle critique of Freuds model of normative masculinitya model that he himself concedes is, if ideal, by no means really normativeas well as the more general philosophic and social convention of masculinizing reason and infantilizing women (a concept which is key to the
discussion of popular music in chapter 4). Emphasizing the more radical and
revolutionary aspects of his writing on gender, Kristeva is critiquing a conservative reading of Freud. At his most conservative, one of the main differences
Freud can be read to posit between the masculine and feminine oedipal configurations is that the castration complex (because it was the culmination of the
oedipal stage) allowed boys to come to closure regarding their oedipal anxieties
and, resolving the gender ambivalences present in the oedipal/pre-oedipal
stages, to leave this phase behind and mature into adult men. Girls, however,
were forever mired in these ambiguities and anxieties, for as this reading goes,
the castration complex precedes the oedipal stage in girls (it is what makes a
normali.e., masculineoedipal configuration possible for girls), but they
lack the tool necessary for bringing closure and definition to oedipal conflict. If
we assume that in upsetting metaphysical dichotomies we upset heteronormative and mutually exclusive gender identity roles, then Kristeva demonstrates an alternative reading of Freud. If it is the case that one never fully exits
the realm of drive, body, and murky, deceptive affect, one can never fully accede into a state of unquestioned symbolic mastery. Like the girl, who is marked
by her immaturity, one is, according to Kristeva, always an apprentice to
language. Thus, if everyone attains a degree of mastery or maturity, but is still,
at bottom, an immature apprentice, each of us occupies both masculine and
feminine positions, as well as positions which escape classification in this rubric. We are not clearly one gender or another, but are, as Kristeva says, bisex-

Conjecture and the Impossible Opera

69

ual. It could be said that Kristevas reading of Freud does not go far enough,
for she still maintains the rather essentialist notions of masculine maturity and
feminine immaturity. Her use of these concepts is, we should note, ironic.
That is to say, she repeats these terms in order to demonstrate their absurdity.
Using this distinction in her discussion of ambiguous borders and the necessary
coincidence of body and mind, Kristeva points out that everyone exists at the
intersection of linguistic mastery and preverbal babbling. If everyone bears traits
of both masculinity (maturity, mastery), and femininity (immaturity, body),
then this division is false. Furthermore, if ones relation to language and gender
is fundamentally ambiguous, a continued allegiance to the term bisexual is
also inadequate, for this term implies the combination of two distinct terms similar to an additive model of difference (race + gender + class + ). Just as race
and gender are not independent attributes accrued by an individual, the semiotic
and the symbolic are not separate terms that can be mediated, but rather forces
which, in their coincidence, mutually determine one another. Thus, if the specular is the intermediary between drive and language, it is such insofar as it is the
node in and through which the semiotic and symbolic constitute one another as
such.

Operatic Lektonic Traces

The main function of the specular is not, in Kristevas argument, to demonstrate
that the world of signs, symbols, and thoughts is not clearly and distinctly separate from the drives and bodily phenomena which both subtend and exceed it
this implies an additive rather than a coincident relationship between mind and
body. Rather, its function is to demonstrate that in their coincidence they both
subtend and exceed one another. All specular is fascinating, because it bears
the tracein the visibleof this aggression, of this nonsymbolized, nonverbalized, and this nonrepresented drive (Kristeva, IR, 74; emphasis mine). These
nonrepresentable drives are present in the visible or the representable, but they
appear precisely as traces (in the Derridian sense of the term). The specular,
then, is the term Kristeva uses to describe the coincidence of the material and
the social. As that which supplements and subtends representation or symbolism, the lektonic tracea nonsymbolized, nonverbalized, nonrepresented
driveis both foreign to and dispersed within language proper. This coincidence of the drives exile and immanence in language is, according to Kristeva,
what is operatic about the thought specular. In other words, all language is operatic: it is both the Word of Moses, and the sensuality of Aronboth libretto and
score.
Lektonic traces are not like the music that supplements the words of the
libretto, for this in a way assumes that ones response to language is intellectual
and to music, affective. Since the specular identifies what is behind identification as these lektonic traces (Kristeva, IR, 74), Kristeva concludes that in the

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end there is only a certain musiclogic, the movement that associates, displaces, condenses, and thereby judges (Kristeva, IR, 74; emphasis mine). Associating music first with logic, Kristeva implies that the affective dimension is
not pre-logical or without logic, but is precisely the order (logos) of both conceptual and extra-conceptual aspects of language. Thus, just as the affective dimension of language is infused with conceptual and extra-conceptual logics, the
intellectual aspect of language is grounded by and infused with the intuition and
affect often associated with the non-conceptual responses we have to music.
Like the semiotic, which Kristeva also characterizes by its musicality, lektonic
traces offer a sort of proto-organization to drives and body that facilitates ones
ascension into language and subjectivity; however, because one never fully exits
the valence of their influence, the lektonic/semiotic logic also disrupts and destabilizes the very codes and systems it aids in establishing.
Executing an unconscious judgment (Kristeva, IR, 74), lektonic traces are
agents of parsing, categorizing, discrimination, augmentation, diminution, and
emphasis, both setting the stage for and rearranging the stage of language/the
symbolic. As Kristeva explains,
it is essentially a matter of introducing supplementary displacements and condensations to the raw image, associating tones, rhythms, colors, figures; in
short putting into play what Freud called the primary processes (the semiotic in my terminology) underlying the symbolic, this primary seizure of
drives always in excess in relation to the represented and the signified (IR, 74).

Such excess of the semiotic in relation to the symbolic demonstrates that the
former is not exclusive of the latter, but the semiotic is reinforcing to and disruptive of the symbolic. On the one hand, the displacement and condensation elicited when these lektonic traces interrupt symbolism and representation give
more nuance and expressive depth to the signifier. This is what operaand song
in generaldoes: combining our intellectual response to words and music, and
our affective response to music and words, opera emphasizes the intersection of
intellect and affect requisite for linguistic communication. Ones understanding
of language is not purely intellectual, nor is ones understanding of music exclusively affective. Kristevas analysis of the role and function of lektonic traces
illustrates that all language is operatic, that is, is the combination of affect and
intellect, drive and meaning. On the other hand, the rearrangement and disruption of the symbolic makes evident the contingency and constructedness of its
code; more importantly (from a psychoanalytic perspective), it is through these
supplementary bits of information, lektonic [expressive] traces (Kristeva,
IR, 74), that one can reconstruct and rework symbolic figures and organizations.

Das Verltnis zum Text

Conjecture and the Impossible Opera

71

Kristeva finds modern art to be similar to psychoanalysis in that both capitalize

on the transformative and revolutionary capacities of lektonic traces. Just as
the psychoanalyst looks for supplementary bits of information (e.g, slips of
the tongue, negations, free associations, symptoms) in the speech and behavior
of the analysand and uses these as catalysts and tools in the reworking of the
analysands relation to drive and meaning, the modern artist, according to Kristeva, uses lektonic traces in order to reconfigure artistic codes and conventions.
That modern artpainting, sculpture, musicfound its favored domain in the
distribution of these lektonic traces (to the detriment of the image-sign of a referent) is somethingKleeSchoenberg, and Webern are there to remind us of
(Kristeva, IR, 74; trans. modified). Klee and Schoenberg worked together on
Der Blaue Reiter, and Webern studied serial composition under Schoenberg.
These men collaborated on various projects aimed at re-distributing lektonic
tracesthat is, at deconstructing the conventional affect-symbol associations, as
well as the conventional grammatical and syntactical orders in, for example,
tonal music. In both free atonalism and in serialism, Schoenberg explored new
ways of organizing and distributing pitches; creating new signs, he also had to
develop new ways of organizing these signs into meaningful wholes.
Published in 1912 by Wassily Kandinsy and Franz Mark, Der Blaue Reiter
was a manifesto of sorts dealing with the historical and theoretical foundations
for expressionist painting and music. To this collection of treatises, Schoenberg
contributed the essay Das Verhltnis zum Text, which dealt with the relationship
between the purely musical part of a piece and its programmatic contents
(text, concepts, representations, etc.)between the music and the text the music supposedly expresses.4 Schoenberg seduces us with the argument that music
and text are two highly distinct entities, only to thwart our expectations and
claim that great art demonstrates the falsity of this dichotomy between symbol
and sensation. Schoenberg begins with the remark that The assumption that a
piece of music must summon up images of one sort or another, and that if these
are absent the piece of music has not been understood or is worthless, is as
widespread as only the false and banal can be.5 Here, Schoenberg reproaches
the overly nave and ignorant belief that music is meaningful because it expresses or represents some sort of idea, emotion, or object distinct from the
music itself. As most people lack basic musical training, one stands absolutely helpless...in the face of purely musical effect, and therefore prefersmusic which is somehow connected with a text: about programme music,
songs, operas, etc. (Schoenberg, S&I, 142). Schoenbergs point is valid: pieces
with an ostensibly representational or expressive content are more easily accessible than those which either discourage or lack one altogether. Pierrot Lunaire
is more accessible than the Five Pieces for Piano because the former piece was
composed around a set of poems, while the latter is not about anything, except
perhaps the compositional structure of the pieces.
When using language to explain what music has to say, purely in terms of
music (Schoenberg, S&I, 141), this attempt to translate details of this lan-

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guage which the reason does not understand [i.e., music] into our terms
(Schoenberg, S&I, 142), the specifically musical character of music is lost
(S&I, 142). That is, when one attempts to put musical phenomena and what they
mean into words, what is lost in translation is precisely the musicality of the
piece. Schoenberg seems to be claiming that music is irreducible to words or
conceptswhich, in many ways, it is. According to Schoenberg, it is impossible
to translate music into rational/conceptual discourse, but within a texted piece,
the linguistic and musical aspects are neither separable nor opposed. Although
there is no need for an outward correspondence between lyrics and book (e.g.,
for the music to represent or express the concepts and images in the text as in
programmatic music), an inward correspondence at the level of Musical Idea
is inevitable (Schoenberg, S&I, 145).
Even though Schoenberg would like to claim that music is irreducible to
language, it is not, for that reason, absolutely distinct from it. Rather, Schoenberg is forced to conclude that the work of art is like every other complete organism. It is homogeneous in its composition insofar as an organism possesses
various different parts which are, nevertheless, interdependent (Schoenberg,
S&I, 144). For example, the brain and the heart are two vastly different functions with widely different purposes; the brain could not function without oxygen pumped to it by the heart, nor could the heart continue pumping if it did not
receive signals from the brain indicating when to beat. Thus, because he assumes in the beginning of the essay that words and music are separate, Schoenberg uses the term homogeneity to describe the organic relationship between words and music; Schoenbergs organic model indicates that he is
describing a phenomenon relatively similar to Kristevas conception of the coincidence of the symbolic and musical aspects of language. Just as Schoenberg
believes words and music are two indissociable parts of a greater whole, Kristeva argues that language, subjectivity, and the psyche consist in both drive and
meaning. More than a decade before he would begin writing Moses und Aron, in
this essay Schoenberg has already acknowledged the main conceptual flaw of
the operathat is, as Kristeva mentions in the epigraph to this paper, that the
debate or dichotomy between the material and the social is, at bottom, false.
It should be noted here that Schoenberg set up both his philosophical and
compositional work for this conceptual flaw because he firmly believed in the
existence of die Gedanke. The Musical Idea, not unlike a Platonic Idea, is the
metaphysical essence of the piece which inspires the composer to realize it
in concrete musical procedures. The Blaue Reiter itself is an attempt to theorize
how all arts could be more like music, insofar as music is supposedly extraconceptual and does not need to rely upon the limitations of representation and
representational thinking. Music is, for Schoenberg and his collaborators, pure
Idea, prior to and unadulterated by the principles of reason, and thus cannot be
captured in finite, rational, linguistic terms. In other words, the Musical Idea is
much like the Word of God which Moses is called to translate into human terms.
Mirroring the Moses/Aron and Word/Image hierarchies present in the opera,
Schoenbergs essay in the Blaue Reiter institutes a surface/depth hierarchy be-

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73

tween the real content of a Schubert song and the surface of the mere
thoughts expressed in words (Schoenberg, S&I, 144). Musical Ideas participate
in a higher reality (Schoenberg, S&I, 145) for which representational language, beholden to the limitations of symbolizing sensory phenomena, is inadequate. However, just as the failure of Moses und Aron indicates the failure or
impossibility of the purely musical Idea or, in psychoanalytic terms, a musical
real, Schoenbergs claim about the organic or inner correspondence of words
and music can be read deconstructively as an indication of the impossibility of
maintaining any strict separation between image and pure Musical Idea. If,
especially at the level of inner correspondence, the Musical Idea is organically
related to non-musical material (concepts, words, images) as the brain is related
to the heart, then, even at this most inward and metaphysical level, the Musical Idea is not some pure ding-an-sich, but is instead a thing that gains its significance and specificity from its participation in a heterogeneous system. Thus,
if the purely musical quality, or inwardness, of the Idea is in fact part of an
organic system, i.e., one in which parts are dependent and thoroughly interrelated, any sort of inner/outer bifurcation is clearly false. As I have shown, in
both the musical and philosophical works where a nature/culture hierarchy is
established, Schoenbergs intentions are foiled: what is demonstrated in the
pieces is the opposite of what Schoenberg intended to posit, namely, that any
such hierarchical opposition is false, for pure structure or pure Idea are impossibilities. This tendency for Schoenbergs intentions to escape him is noted
by Kristeva in the epigraph to this chapter, and is also the subject of Adornos
meditation on Moses und Aron titled Sacred Fragment.

Adorno: Fragment
Like my analysis and Kristevas analysis, Adornos essay Sacred Fragment claims that Schoenberg, in the failure of his dodecaphonic opera, demonstrates the falsity of any hierarchical opposition between idea and image or
between the material and the social.6 While for Schoenberg the impossibility
presented by Moses und Aron was the reconciliation of the pure Musical
Idea/Word of God with the inevitably representational nature of any sort of expression (even music), Adorno identifies the operas impossibility as arising
from its injunction to present objective truth in the form of a subjectively
willed creation. As he explains, the impossibility we have in mind is historical:
that of sacred art today and the idea of binding, canonical, all-inclusive work
that Schoenberg aspired to (Adorno, SF, 227). Sacred art presents Truths
universal, serious, indeed, canonical: a cultic action is one which obeys a law
that goes beyond the mental capacity of those involved in the cult, in accordance
with the idea of something which is not just surmised, but is actually revealed in
the language of truth (Adorno, SF, 229). However, at the historical moment in
which Schoenberg was attempting to compose Moses und Aron, the conditions

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necessary for the emergence and maintenance of great art and metaphysicotheological truths are not present.
Primary among those conditions is, to use Nietzsches term, a certain willto-truth, i.e., the general consensus that such a thing as pure, objective, metaphysical Truth exists. Put differently, the condition for a binding, canonical
work is the existence of some whole in view of which all the various individual parts have significance (this is also what, in Aesthetic Theory, Adorno deems
necessary for great art). After Auschwitzi.e., in a world where the specific
human being has, in the age of the H-bomb and post-industrial capitalism, lost
his or her specificity7[t]o assert that existence or being has a positive meaning constituted within itself and orientated towards the divine principle (if one is
to put it like that), would be, like all the principles of truth, beauty, and goodness
which philosophers have concocted, a pure mockery in face of the victims and
the infinitude of their torment.8 Mass annihilation and the mass production of
the human/laborer render any attempt toward positive, canonical Truth meaningless; indeed, any faux claims to such Truth do the injustice of rendering human
suffering meaningless.
Lacking the objective, social, and ideological conditions necessary to present a sacred work as such, the only possibility left to Schoenberg is to pen an
impossible opera: by conjuring up the absolute, and hence making it dependent
on the conjurer, Schoenberg ensured that the work could not be made real
(Adorno, SF, 227). As absolute Truth cannot exist objectively, the only way to
make it appear in his opera is for Schoenberg to create it himself; ironically,
however, just as Moses inevitably only presents an image of Gods Word,
Schoenberg can only ever present a subjective rendition of trans-subjective objectivity. Thus, Adorno explains, an immense gulf opens up between the transsubjective, transcendentally valid that is linked to the Torah, on the one hand,
and the free aesthetic act which created the work on the other (SF, 227). This
gulf, this irresolvable tension, is what maintains the operas fragmentary status.
As a fragment, Schoenbergs composition does the absolute the honour of not
pretending that it is present, a traditional reality that cannot be lost, but instead,
of feigning it as accessible only in the work, even if it thereby negates it
(Adorno, SF, 227). This supposedly objective Truth is but the fantasy of the
composermuch in the same way that Pappagano and Pappagena are the products of Mozarts imagination. By presenting objective Truth not only as a subjectively created work, but as something possible only under this circumstance,
Schoenberg and his opera fragment unintentionally posit a conjectural account
of the real or pure Truth. Attempting to make the form or structure of the
operathe pure Musical Ideaidentical with its representational content,
Schoenberg feigns the existence of divine, transcendent, pure Truth; however, the fact that such an idea can be present in the world only in the form of
artifice thereby negates or demonstrates the impossibility of such a concept,
and thus of the opera itself.
Accordingly, Adorno argues that the significance of Moses und Aron lies in
its fragmentary naturei.e., the fact that the opera negates its very form and

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75

concept (or Schoenbergs original intentions). Important works of art such as

this one are the ones that aim for an extreme: they are destroyed in the process
and their broken outlines survive as the ciphers of a supreme, unnamable truth
(Adorno, SF, 227). This truth, however, is not that of the Torah or the Musical
Idea, nor is it a truth about society. Rather, the supreme truth revealed by
Moses und Aron is that the opera deconstructs itself and reveals the impossibility
of the purely Musical Idea or objective, trans-historical truth. Thus, according to
Adorno, Moses and the Dance round the Golden Calf actually speak the same
language in the opera (SF, 241). In presenting the conflict between objective
truth and subjective will as the clash between Moses Idea and Arons sensuality, the tension between expression and constructionwhich is thematized in
Moses und Aron (Adorno, SF, 246) causes the opera to shatter into fragments
to deconstruct itself. In its fragmentary state, the opera reveals the impossibility
of pure structure devoid of contamination by subjective intention or ideology.

Mille e tre: Thought vs. Seduction

Because his compositions and his writings complicate the distinction between
the visible and the intelligible, Schoenberg is, for Kristeva (albeit unintentionally), a thinker of the thought specular. There is another modality of the
specularthe seductive specularwhich Kristeva also explains in terms of a
composer and his opera. In the case of the seductive specular, Kristeva utilizes
the example of Mozart and his Don Giovanni. Returning to themes taken up in
her discussion of the same opera in Tales of Love, Kristeva uses Don Juans defiance of law and his serial seductions to illustrate her concept of the seductive
specular. The differences between Mozarts and Schoenbergs compositional
stylesspecifically, Mozarts Classical tonality and Schoenbergs break from
its demandsallow us to better understand the difference between the seductive
specular and the thought specular.
Like the thought specular, the seductive specular deals with the intersection
of semiotic and symbolic, drive and meaning. Specifically, seduction rises from
the tension between law and transgression, terror and fascination (Kristeva,
IR, 78). The specular is seductive when drive is no longer meaningless but its
meaning is not yet reified by law/convention. Mozarts Don Juan is the emblem of the seductive specular because he refuses to renounce his ties to the
semiotic and to the ideal mother whose province it is.9 Don Juan remains the
ideal specular hero: a seducer, because he is a master who defies the fathers, and
a connoisseur of women, who counts them one by one until mille e tre (Kristeva, IR, 78; translation modified). Just as the seductive quality of Mozarts music arises from the prolonged deferral of tonal resolution (the sense of closure
and finality achieved by a perfect authentic cadence in the primary key and
obligatory register of the opera), Don Juans seduction is the effect of the disso-

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nance between his behaviorprolonged resistance to monogamy and oedipal

castrationand the demands of the patriarchal laws of his community. Refusing
to identify with the oedipal father and join the fraternity of patriarchal authority,
Don Juans allegiance remains with the ideal mother. He transforms the silent passion for his motherinto a series of mistresses, and passion for his father not into self-deprecationbut into reciprocal murder (Kristeva, IR, 78).
The Don continually puts off the demands of monogamy (i.e., oedipal resolution
through the acceptance of the castration complex) by taking a seemingly infinite
series of lovers. His seductionand Mozartsconsists in his willful defiance
of the law. He is not ignorant of the law; indeed, his pleasure and the listenersarises from the dissonance created from the friction between his desires
and the limitations the law attempts to place on them. Rather than cede to the
demands of the statue (the ghost of the father of one of the Dons conquests,
whom Don Juan murdered earlier in the opera), which are the demands of the
paternal eye of the law and of the symbolic order, Don Juan chooses to join
the statue in hell.10 The seductive specular is a fantasy world, one which is incompatible with reality and its requirements. Because one of these requirements is masculinity and the behaviors/values associated with and attributed to
it, the seductive specular carries connotations of immaturity and femininity. Insofar as one refuses to grow up and accept the responsibilities of civil society,
one is immature. Similarly, this immaturity has historically been coded as feminine: insofar as one is irrational and/or undisciplined, one isnt a real man
(e.g., Platos Phaedo, where philosophy is defined as the souls mastery of bodily desires through the exercise of manly virtues). This mode of the specular is
seductive, then, because it teases us with the fantasy of transgression without
punishment. That is to say, the seducer is aware of the law, but willfully ignores
it; remaining in relatively blissful ignorance, the seducer does not have to confront the horrific, untenable thought of any sort of ambiguity between law and
transgression.
In this opera, terror is always overcome by fascination, horror by seduction.
This density of seductive fantasy (Kristeva, IR, 78) that Mozart has created
opens out the distinction Kristeva makes between the seductive specular and the
thought specular. The seductive specular ultimately comes down on the side of
either law or transgression. The Don must decide whether to accept or reject the
law, for the thing which is most forbidden is that he remain somewhere ambiguously between the two. One can either accept the law and resolve ones oedipal
conflicts via identification with proper masculine models, or else remain in
transgression, a feminized, raced, and classed state of immaturity. The lack of
ambiguity is why this type of specular is seductive, and not bound up in the fascination/horror matrix which characterizes the thought specular. Even though
Don Juan was far more defiant of (and unsettling to) dominant mores than most
heroes, Mozart was still bound to the demands of tonality; thus he had to put an
end to the Dons dissonance and resolve his conflict with the laws of monogamy
and tonality. As I have already discussed, the thought specular, on the other

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77

hand, emphasizes the intersections of law and transgression, affect and intellect,
feminine immaturity and masculine rationality.
In her rethinking of the relationship between the seductive specular and the
thought specular, Kristeva dreams of Don Juanwith music by Schoenberg
(IR, 78), for Schoenberg took the Dons task one step further and overthrew the
obligations of tonality. In Kristevas terms, Schoenberg recognized that it was
impossible to completely separate desire from law, drive from meaning. After a
very difficult free atonal period, Schoenberg came to the conclusion that the
greatest freedom and depth of expression were achieved not in the absence of
the law, but at the coincidence of seduction with law. As you may remember,
Kristeva explains, Schoenberg sought the solution to the debate he himself described as false between his Aron and his Moses: between the jubilation of idol
worshipers seduced by the golden calf (followers of the image?) and divine
threat of exploding thunder [i.e., law], imageless (IR, 78; emphasis mine, translation modified). Schoenbergs solution was to writean unfinished opera. Although he wrote a three-act libretto, Schoenberg spent years attempting to score
the third acta task which he ultimately found impossible (hence Kristeva calls
it an impossible film [IR, 78]). Unlike Mozart, who ultimately brings an end
to the conflict between seduction and obedience, Schoenberg cannot foreclose
the always ambivalent relationship between law and transgression (Kristeva, IR, 78).
Precisely how to go about facilitating this ambivalence is indeed the problem of the thought specular: how to remain in idolatry (fantasy) while at the
same time exhibiting symbolic truth (the imageless divine thunder) (Kristeva,
IR, 78; emphasis mine). Since one of the thought speculars main functions is to
question and make ambiguous the boundary between the visible and the intelligible, the elaboration and maintenance of the coincidence of these two realms is
also part of its work. Kristeva claims that the best way to account for the coincidence of the intelligible and the visible is to approach both ironically: that is, to
maintain what one could call a critical distance from oneself, from a work of art,
from any phenomenon, in order that one have the vantage or perspective necessary to comprehend the ways in which the boundaries between the intelligible
and the visible are articulated and called into question. The awareness of the
gap between sound and imagehold[s] the spectatorstill plunged in fantasy
at a distance from fascination (Kristeva, IR, 80; emphasis mine). The ambiguous and ever-changing border between the Word of God and the sensuousness of
the golden calf (or, in more Derridian terms, between the spoken word and the
written word) is at the heart of Kristevan irony. The ironic spectator utilizes
these categories as if they were distinct, but is nevertheless cognizant of their
coincidence. Even though one recognizes the relationship between the visible
and the intelligible as much more complex than a simple binary opposition, one
still employs the distinction between the two as an organizational structure.
If Don Juan is the ideal seductive hero, then Schoenberg is the ideal representative of irony, for Moses und Aron is a prime example of an ironic regard for

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the dichotomization of body and mind. Schoenberg structured the opera around
their polarity, i.e., the mutual exclusivity between the one who speaks in imagesto the heart, and the one who speaks in ideasto the mind.11 However, in the end, Aron remarks that when Mosess imageless ideas and words
destroyed Arons golden idol, yet was the marvel an image, not more, when
your word destroyed my image [Und doch war das Wunder nicht mehr als ein
Bild: als dein Wort mein Bild zerstrte] (M&A, II:v). The intelligible is never
completely independent of the visible, for as Aron explained, the symbolic is at
its most powerful precisely when the semiotic ruptures through it. Aron points
out the irony in the fact that Mosess Word (the Ten Commandments) is, both in
the force of its meaning and in its inscription on the stone tablets, always also an
image. While the idolatrous spectator idolizes either Word (meaning) or image
(drive) each to the exclusion of the other, the ironic spectator understands that
the two are irreducible yet inseparable. Furthermore, as irony demystifies the
seduction to idolize either Word or image, fear and its seduction explode in
laughter and distance (Kristeva, IR, 80). Through a recognition of the contingency and constructedness (albeit the retrospective necessity) of the visible/intelligible split, Kristeva demystifies the evil of metaphysics with irony.
This ironic demystification, this recognition that the two dissonant strains need
never be brought into harmony and that the gap between structure and ideology
need never be closed, is the degree zero of Kristevan freedom. Like Rousseau,
Kristevas vision of individual and political justice begins from a conjectural
understanding of the body and its relation to intellectual and social forces. Thus,
next I want to look at Kristevas notion of irony as a suggestion as to how to
employ the notion of conjecture. To do this, I must first tease out her notion of
freedom, the freedom Kristeva posits in contrast to the thrall and passivity characteristic of the society of the spectacle. As an active, contemplative stance in
the face of mass culture, irony is central to, if not completely constitutive of,
Kristevas notion of freedom. Further, as the opposite of the society of the
spectacle, the practice of irony is, for Kristeva, the practical elaboration of her
theory of the thought specular.

Irony: Specular Freedom

In Intimate Revolt, Kristeva contrasts the idolatrous relationship with the society
of the spectacle with an ironic, critical approach to the world that privileges not
spectacle, but the thought specular. This contrast between idolatry and irony
generally maps on to her contrast between an inferior causal freedom and a
superior disclosing freedom. Although there are some merits to Kristevas
account of ironic freedom, it ultimately relies upon problematic notions of
taste and anti-commercialism, and thus (ironically) continues to privilege the
masculine bourgeois norms that often coincide with these sentiments. After
elaborating Kristevas distinction between the idolatrous and ironic specular and
their relation to her theory of freedom, I flesh out the aforementioned argument

Conjecture and the Impossible Opera

79

that Kristevas actual discussions of high and popular culture do not take into
account some of the most significant insights to be derived from her conception
of the thought specular.

Idolatry and Irony

Kristeva argues that the society of the spectacle,by exhausting representation, being bored in representation, suffocating from its falseness in the
ballet of those who govern us (and who trade planes for human rights, for example) (IR, 79), prevents individuals from modifying codes in accordance with
their own specificitiesthat is, from exercising freedom.12 Kristeva thinks that
in a culture of mass-produced images with overdetermined meanings, one is
relieved of the responsibility for creating and maintaining ones own relation to
meaning. We rely on the pacifying virtue of the imageas compensation for
anxiety and [as] cultural project (Kristeva, IR, 79). That the image is capable of
pacifying anxiety (namely, the identity anxieties that specular seduction elicits)
is, in the West, due to the fact that the image and its coherence in the end guarantee a form of unity and stability. The mode of the specular at work in the society of the spectacle encourages conformity and the unquestioning acceptance of
external authority. (In bemoaning the pervasive but all-too-passive relation to
mass culture, Kristeva is here very close to Adornos critiques of fetishized
commodity music. As I will discuss at length in chapter 4, one of the main characteristics of commodity music is the supposedly passive and unthinking response of the listener, which is to be contrasted with an active, intellectual response to serious music.)
For Kristeva, this disempowering specular is idolatrous, while the empowering specular is ironic and demystifying. An idolatrous relation to the specular
involves unthinking submission to the society of the spectacle, or, being carried
away in the maelstrom of our calculus thinking and by our consumerism.13 Because the society of the spectacle encourages passivity and instrumental reason,
in a world more and more dominated by technology, freedom becomes the capacity to adapt to a cause always outside the self, and which is less and less a
moral cause, and more and more an economic one (Kristeva, TLDT, 31). Idolatry, then, is the freedom to conform more and more perfectly to socioeconomic norms, namely, to what Kristeva thinks is the calculating logic that
leads to unbridled consumerism (Kristeva, TLDT, 30)i.e., to the society of
the specular.
Irony, on the other hand, is the ability to negotiate what Kristeva established as the problem of the thought speculari.e., how to remain in the realm
of fantasy yet still hold on to a notion of truth. This is possible through a degree
of ironic self-awareness which allows one to b[e] protected from it [fantasy]
while demonstrating it (Kristeva, IR, 75). The reflective distance created by
irony allows me to deploy drives and lektonic traces, but because I call upon

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them from the perspective of a thinking, speaking subject, it is impossible for

me to regress into some purely semiotic or pre-symbolic state.14 In its strident, discordant, ironic logic (Kristeva, IR, 73), the thought speculars demystification of the complex and ambiguous relationship between the mind and the
body opens up a kind of reflective distance. The fantasy is called on to find or
recognize itself, to perpetuate or empty itself, based on the ability of the specular
to distance itself from itself (Kristeva, IR, 74). It is in this demystified/demystifying reflectionor ironythat Kristeva locates her conception of
freedom. According to Kristeva, irony is a double vision, or images in which
fantasies are referred to as such; they exercise their power of fascination while
at the same time mocking their fascinating specular (IR, 74). Irony is what allows us to use fantasy without being swallowed up in it.
In contrast to our supposedly passive relation to mass culture, Kristeva offers irony as a means of active engagement with the society of the spectacle. As
it, like the thought specular, keeps the boundaries between visible and intelligible ever in question, ironic distance endows one with the capacity for revision
and renewal. It is the freedom of beginning again. Specifically, the doubleness
or coincidence of an ironic perspective is what maintains the agonism or permanent conflictuality (Kristeva, IR, 11) which is the condition for the possibility of revolt. In contrast to idolatrous causal freedom, ironys eternal questioning (Kristeva, TLDT 30) leads to not instrumental, but critical and
disclosing (Kristeva, TLDT 35) knowledge. Rather than idolatrous conformity, irony offers the possibility of revolutionary self-beginning (Kristeva,
TLDT 29). While her ultimate employment of irony against pop culture (i.e., the
society of the spectacle) is, as I discuss at length in the next chapter, highly
problematic, I do wish to preserve the notion of an agonistic interpretation
whose most important feature is the perpetual possibility of its recommencement. This, I believe, is key to thinking the conjectural body in a fruitful and
successful fashion, for its emphasis on recommencement highlights both the
hypothetical nature of conjecture as well as the fact that the theory of the conjectural body is intended to help describe and understand present experiences and
thus must be re-fashioned and reconfigured to adequately account for everchanging and ever-contingent states of affairs.

Freedom
For Kristeva, freedom is fundamentally recommencement (IR, 238); the
great infinitesimal emancipation [is] to be restarted unceasingly (IR, 223). Due
to the conflictual coincidence between law and transgression, or mind and body,
freedom is not a form of independence from external (or internal) determination.
Ironically, as Kristeva demonstrates, freedom arises only at the intersection of
the social law and individual transgression: I can exercise my freedom only in
response to and against codes, conventions, and other phenomena which in some

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way resist and confine me. This freedom in restriction, then, is the ability to
change my position within power relationshipsto begin again, not ex nihilo,
but from the specificity of my location.
Kristeva first explains this ironic notion of freedom in terms of psychoanalysis. Although freedom is not a psychoanalytic concept (Kristeva, IR,
223), strictly speaking, Kristeva believes that psychoanalysis offers an invitation to anamnesis in the goal of a rebirth, that is, a psychical restructuring
(Kristeva, IR, 7). Psychoanalysis opens up the capacity of renewal, the ability to
re-mobilize what has become stagnant and reified; accordingly, it does not seek
to liberate subjects from constraint (e.g., from personal history, social conditions, etc.), but to allow subjects to reconfigure their relationships to those constraints. That is to say, psychoanalysis recognizes that subjects gain agency only
through submission to law, convention, and regulation. For example, it is not
that desire needs to be liberated from the ways language and social convention
limit, construct, and channel it; rather the freedom of desire [is] structured by
language (Kristeva, IR, 228). I can gain all the freedoms that arise from the
ability to speak, think, and want only by agreeing to follow the laws of language, just as the jazz musician has the freedom to improvise only because
he/she follows a relatively strict set of chord changes and phrasing patterns.
Thus, as Kristeva explains, only in the regenerative revolt against the old law
(familial law, superego, ideals, oedipal or narcissistic limits, etc.) comes the
singular autonomy of each, as well as a renewed link with the other (Kristeva,
IR, 7). Freedom in our relations with ourselves and in our relations with others
occurs only in the context of restriction.
If we are always indebted to some old law, argues Kristeva, freedom is
not a kind of independence from external determinants. Thus, psychoanalysis
indicates that freedom is not, negatively, an absence of constraint but that it
is, positively, the possibility of self-beginning (Kristeva, IR, 262). The negative
notion of freedom is associated with freedom as choice: power is repressive,
thus freedom is the state in which there are no limitations on my choices and my
ability to choose. This negative notion of freedom is very similar to what Foucault characterizes as juridical power: power functions prohibitively, thus freedom is found in liberation from power. If we view power productively (e.g.,
functioning through disciplines that maximize the subjects faculties), power is
desirable, not something from which we should seek to liberate ourselves. Thus,
in contrast to the negative conception of freedom-as-choice, Kristeva posits a
positive form of freedom: freedom of self-beginning (e.g., Arendts notion of
natality) is the ability to revise the very laws which restrict oneself. For Kristeva, the most valuable freedom is that of beginning, or that of beginning again,
of re-volt and re-naissance. Each has the capacity to begin again, for every
human being is, by virtue of the fact of being born as a unique being, a beginner.
Because of an emphasis on the specific beginning that is the birth of each human being, in his irreconcilable singularity, the simple fact of his singular birth
[is] the guarantee of the singular freedom of his thought-will-judgment to come,

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to protect, to favor (Kristeva, IR, 234). If every human being is irreducibly

unique, then all people have the potential to modify the codes and conventions
of the systems which restrict them in order to adapt these generalized systems to
their own needs. It is not that one is free to adapt to a particular system (e.g.,
capitalism), but that ones freedom lies in the ability to adapt that system to oneself.
What appears to be one of the most immediate and intractable systems of
constraint faced by the subject is his or her own facticity, physicality, and embodiment. Kristeva, however, claims that the body appears to us only through
socially constructed systems of language, science, morality, and so on. Indeed,
the point of her theory of the thought specular is to demonstrate that the body
is always coincident with the intellect in all its forms, and thus is a fantasy
which must be understood as the oversimplification that it is. Hence, if the
body is not some pure, immediate, inaccessible fact, the biological limitations on ones subjectivity are not, in fact, immutable or absolute. Because
drives are intersected and interrupted by language, language can be used to
modulate drive; this is the basic thesis of psychoanalytic healing. The capacity
to create, give, and receive meaning arises from both biological and psychological development. As Kristeva explains,
the aptitude of human beings to produce meaningstarting with a certain neurobiological maturation and the mythic event of the repression of the drive
through murder-assimilation-identification with the fatheris what seems to
me, as a psychoanalyst, to constitutethis higher side of man that modulates
and models the energetic urge into a dynamic of meaning with the other and in
which the freedom of subjects is inscribed (IR, 234-235).

The freedom that arises with this mastery of meaning is the freedom to continually readjust and refashion the relationships between drives (energetic urges)
and their meanings, both in terms of myself and in terms of my interactions with
others. Physical existence, although it does impose very real limits on our spontaneity, is nevertheless open to renaissance. Juxtaposing restriction with license,
determinism with creativity, Kristevas notion of freedom is, at heart, ironic:
freedom is the very irony that because of these constraintsour bodies, society,
languageone has the potential to exercise choice. In other words, the notion of
freedom Kristeva presents us here is centered around the possibility of reconfiguring the relationship between what counts as nature and what as culture,
but always in such a way as to keep them in a relationship open to further
change.15
Freedom arises from the ironic relationship between law and transgressionor, in Adornos terms, between the transcendent truth of Schoenbergs
Musical Idea and the composers subjective, creative will. Irony renders the
boundary between law and transgression, or psyche and soma, or any of the
terms of any other supposedly binary pair, ambiguous. Kristeva claims that it is
possible to satisfy this taste for freedom, not only in private life or in church but

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in public life itself (IR, 265; emphasis mine). By deconstructing the public/private opposition alongside her rereading of the concept of taste, a term
with physiological, cognitive, and cultural connotations, Kristeva illustrates the
coincidence of psyche and soma, public and private life, necessary for freedom.
It is not the case that the private, the realm of the body (and, traditionally, of
women), is that of necessity, while the public, the realm of the intellect (and,
traditionally, of men), is the only sphere in which one can exercise freedom. It is
the case, rather ironically, that freedom arises from the coincidence of public
and private, mind and body, necessity and spontaneity.

Taste
The work accomplished by Kristevas concept of the thought specular
namely, demonstrating and explaining the coincidence of the material and the
socialis also performed by her reworked notion of taste. While Kant offers
taste as an example of the universality of aesthetic judgments, Kristeva proposes
taste as an alternative to the specular/speculative economy of metaphysics.
While metaphysics seeks universal and absolute truths, taste is always the taste
for the singular life (style) (Kristeva, IR, 52). Taste, connoting both the physical sensation and the aesthetic disposition, bridges the rift metaphysics has created between psyche and soma. Taste becoming vision through style is, according to Kristeva, a parable of the intimate (Kristeva, IR, 52); through style
my irreducible specificity and singularity confronts the generalizations and conventions of language, politics, and any other phenomenon that involves interaction with other humans. Style arises when memory tries to repeat the most intimate inner states in discourse[;] thought is confronted with the autistic
voidand seeks to modify language in order to make it include its singularity
(Kristeva, IR, 53). Ones taste opens rules and generalizations to modification
by ones particular style such that these conventions accommodate, to a greater
or lesser degree, the specificities of ones experiences. Since Kant, the phenomenon of taste has been associated with universalizing and disinterested
aesthetic judgment. Claiming that it is less judgment than a stylethat is capable of revealing and communicating the secret intimacy of taste (IR, 52), Kristeva reinterprets taste; for her, it is the apex of irreducible difference, the point
at which the particular holds sway over the general. The ability to preserve this
singularity in the face of dominant norms involves the capacity for the creativity of thoughtand languagewhich appears to be a simple stylistic feat but
which in reality is the intimate itself as singular psychical life (Kristeva, IR,
53). Creativity, the ability to exercise ones freedom through the modification
and modulation of convention, is Kristevas ultimate value. It is only through the
exercise and assertion of my own creativity that I save myself from conformity
and consumption in/by mass culture and the society of the spectacle.
Ultimately, Kristevas use of taste to legitimate a condemnation of the
society of the spectacle in favor of an historically European culture of cri-

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tique is problematic on many levels, not the least of which is the way in which
it re-inscribes conventional metaphysical hierarchies in all their gendered, raced,
and classed glory. However, I do believe that there are certain aspects of theory
of the thought specular that are useful, valuable, and worth separating out from
the problematic aspects. Specifically, the idea of irony is a useful description
of what I have earlier called the coincident relationship between materiality and
sociality. Kristevas notion of irony also captures and refines Rousseaus notion
of a conjectural account of the state of Nature. Is it not precisely ironic to
write, as Rousseau did, several essays which make detailed claims about somethingnamely, the state of naturethat one has also specifically and systematically demonstrated is impossible to know (and is probably entirely fictional).
Rousseaus notion of conjecture emphasizes the coincidence of nature and
culture; Kristevas concept of irony adds to this the element of change
specifically, the possibilityindeed, the factof the constant reconfiguration of
the relationship between mind and body, materiality and sociality. The point of
thinking the body conjecturally, then, is to understand how the material and the
social work and have worked to create a concrete situation about which there is
little that is inevitable or immutable.

Problems
Although creativity is her highest value, Kristeva privileges certain kinds of
creativity over others, and thereby establishes a hierarchy between authentic
and faux creativity. Claiming that the thought specular can be found in a certain cinema, an other cinema [than pop cinema],[in c]inemawhen it is great
art (IR, 69; emphasis mine), Kristeva argues that thought specular is productive
of great arta better kind of image than the banal/popular ones put forth by
the film industry. Like Plato, she seems to be saying that some kinds of images
or representations are better or more authentic than others; just as thoughts are
more true representations of the Forms than shadows or objects, avant-garde art
is supposedly a more clear depiction of or forum for fantasy.16 Kristeva has
clearly established a hierarchy between true art and mere entertainment.
One of the main characteristics of great art is that it requires active intellectual engagement; the society of the spectacle, however, demands of its consumers only passivity. According to Kristeva, even though we inhabit a veritable paradise of fantasy today thanks to images in the media, (IR, 66), we are
not stimulated to produce them and become imaginary creators in returnThe
so-called society of the spectacle, paradoxically, is hardly favorable to the
analysis of fantasies or even to their formation (Kristeva, IR, 66). The massproduced images and pop-culture icons which invade schools and even the doors
of restroom stalls (in the forms of advertisements) are not adequate, for they do
not, in Kristevas mind, entail any creativity or active relationship with the image. Here, Kristeva fails to take her own advice, instituting rigid oppositions

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where there are none: her condemnation of the society of the spectacle relies on
an active/passive binary that she understands literally rather than ironically.
Kristevas discussions of contemporary society sound strikingly similar to
Moses condemnations of Aron and his followers as they reveled in sensory and
material pleasure. She complains that
an essential component of European culturea culture fashioned by doubt and
critiqueis losing its moral and aesthetic impact. The moral and aesthetic dimension finds itself marginalized and exits only as a decorative alibi tolerated
by the society of the spectacle, when it is not simply submerged, made impossible by entertainment culture, performance culture, show culture (IR, 4).

Arguing that contemporary society is one of ignorance and complacency in front

of images of authority, Kristeva claims that the society of the spectacle robs
humans of their freedom of their creative capacities and of their selfdetermination. Here she is taking the side of Plato, Descartes, and Moses by
hierarchizing a superficial and an authentic image: avant-garde poetry is
acceptable, for it points to some higher truth (namely, the capacity for revolt),
whereas music videos are alienating, for they promote conformity.
Suggesting that verbal expression is superior to visual communication,
Kristeva offers her cure for the uncritical and passive appropriation of images
which (she believes) plagues contemporary culture:
Alongside and in addition to the culture of the imageits seduction, its swiftness, its brutality, and its frivolitythe culture of words, the narrative and the
place it reserves for mediation, seems to me to offer a minimal variant of revolt.
It is not much, but we may have reached a point of no return, from which we
will have to re-turn to the little things, tiny revolts, in order to preserve the life
of the mind and of the species (Kristeva, IR, 5).

Claiming that the verbal narrative of transference/counter-transference is some

sort of cure for the society of the spectacle, Kristeva seems to be setting up the
Moses/Aron binary of word/image, truth/opinion, metaphysical/physical. Describing words as alongside and additional to images, one must wonder
whether she has forgotten her entire discussion of the necessary coincidence of
the two registers. There are instances in her text where words are clearly privileged over deed. For example, Kristeva claims that [w]e are inundated with
images, some of which resonate with our fantasies and appease us but which, for
lack of interpretive words, do not liberate us (IR, 66). Passivity before the image, that is, the failure to translate image into words, is, according to Kristeva,
the worst kind of domination. In typical psychoanalytic fashion, the soma is the
territory where symptoms unfold, while speaking is the technique whereby one
is cured. For Kristeva, The role of language is essential for the formation of
fantasies: without the possibility of telling them to someone (even if I do not
use this possibility), my desires do not become fantasies but remain encrysted

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at a prepsychical level and risk spilling over into somaticization and acting-out
(IR, 68). Psychic health and freedom depend on the word, just as in the case of
Moses and his tablets. Also, her emphasis on the talking part of the talking
cure seems to overlook her discussions of the importance of Kleinian play therapy. Consistently throughout her most recent works, Kristeva privileges serious
culturebe it critique, avant garde art, or the rational aspect of language
over and against the society of the spectacle. For all her theorization about the
coincidence of drive and meaning, body and mind, her more practical discussions of aesthetics and politics re-inscribe the hierarchical binary between the
two.
As one of the semiotics main features is to stir up the metaphysical dichotomies (body/soul, psychical/psychical) (Kristeva, IR, 260), Kristeva views
herself to be critiquing the metaphysical tradition. As she claims, the semiotic
seems to me to stir up the metaphysical dichotomiesWhich is to say, my preoccupation with the sacred is ultimately an antimetaphysical preoccupation and
only by derivation a feminist one (Kristeva, IR, 260). However, I think her
rather conservative position on women and popular culture further undermines
her antimetaphysical project, for insofar as metaphysics and patriarchy developed in such a way that they mutually reinforce and rearticulate one another,
bodily enjoyment has historically taken connotations of femininity and triviality,
while serious endeavors have connoted masculinity and truth. I discuss this at
length in the next chapter. However, insofar as Kristeva privileges serious
culture and the European tradition of critique over and against the society of the
spectacle, she repeats and reinforces patriarchal and metaphysical privilege.
Perhaps most problematic about the convergence of Kristevas antiantimetaphysics and her treatment of women/femininity is her tendency to essentialize femininity. On the one hand, Kristeva seeks to rehabilitate the physical, visible, drive, etc., especially when she discusses the contribution of women
to the overturning of metaphysics. The arrival of women at the forefront of the
social and ethical scene has had the result of revalorizing the sensory experience...The immense responsibility of women in regard to the survival of the speciesgoes hand in hand with this rehabilitation of the sensory (Kristeva, IR,
5). Here Kristeva is associating women with the sensory, with intimacy, intuition, the bodyall the usual stereotypes. Later on in the text, she identifies
femininity with maternity, stating that there exists an other logic of a feminine
maternal that defies normative representation (Kristeva, IR, 259). In a patriarchal culture, femininity and femaleness are non-normative. Beauvoir, among
others, has clearly elaborated womens position as the other in Western, i.e.,
metaphysical, thought. However much I might agree that her argument is correct
in the context of contemporary society, its infusion with metaphysical and patriarchal values and structures makes Kristevas claim problematic on many levels.
First, she posits a logic of a feminine maternal as though there were some essential and unchanging content to femininity, as well as to maternity (if, that
is, Kristeva is not implying that the two are the same). Second, this feminine
essence is essentially non-normative, and in every case occupies the position of

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the other. Unless we are necessarily in a patriarchal culture, womanor better, femininityis not necessarily abnormal, unrepresentable, deviant, or
marginal. In associating women with the body, sensation, and emotion, Kristevas essentialism places her back within metaphysics (there is an essence
shared by all women or some phenomenon labeled feminine). Her rehabilitation of the physical comes at the cost of essentialism.
Thus, while her theoretical work can be fruitfully applied to analyzing particular aesthetic and political problems, her own thought on these matters is, at
least in Intimate Revolt, highly problematic. Between the hierarchization of
word and image, and a latent essentialism, Kristeva seems to contradict or
forget the main points of her analysis of the thought specular. However, it may
be the case that the terms in which she poses the problem of drive/meaning coincidence are themselves the cause of this problem. The term thought specular
seems to connote more of a dualism than a true coincidence of the intelligible
and the visible. The abject seems to be a more fruitful way of thinking this
drive-meaning coincidence, because it places much stronger emphasis on the
ambiguity of the me/not-me, of quasi-psyche and soma. It (the abject) is much
more firmly grounded in the body, in visceral, physical reactions, and more
clearly illustrates the ambiguity of the line separating psychic and physical phenomena, as well as the dynamic whereby society takes up various intersecting
relations of privilege and marginalization to establish the boundary between
serious and pop culture.
Hence, in the next chapter I examine the construction of the category of
popular music and its production, reception, and criticism in terms of abjection. Because it highlights both the impossibility of any real, and accounts for
the fact that a variety of forces and relations intersect to determine what comes
to count as real and what as fake, abjection offers a better model for thinking the conjectural body than either irony or fetishism.

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Chapter 4

Smells like Booty:

Pop Music and the Logic of Abjection

Smells like Booty is the title of a rock-pop mash-upa track made by laying
the vocals of one single over the instrumentals/beats of another. This track
mashes Destinys Childs vocal harmonies on Bootylicious with the guitar and
rhythm section from Nirvanas alt-rock classic Smells Like Teen Spirit.1 This
mash-up in particular is more than just an ironic juxtaposition of two songs that
would never be programmed on the same radio format; more importantly, it is
mashing up the various social conventions, practices, and preconceptions we
have about commodity music and serious music. Smells Like Booty pits
well-groomed (indeed, bootylicious) female pop icons against a bunch of men
whose publicists would like us to think they are too wrapped up in their music to
get haircutsor perhaps even bathe. By demonstrating that, at the level of composition and structure, a song that was meant to appeal to appearance-obsessed
(and minority) teenage girls is basically identical to the canonical and revolutionary single from an iconic band consistently praised by music critics, this
mash-up points out that the distinctions between pop and serious music, between
music by and for pop fans and music by and for serious musicians, has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual music. Rather, these distinctions, this
spacing between high and low art, arises from the coincidenceor, the
mashing up, if you willof musical practices alongside various other systems
of privilege: race, class, sexuality, gender, etc. This chapter focuses on the
mashing up or coincidence of musical values and social privilege. Because
music and social identity are coincident, the notion of conjecture is a better way
of thinking not only our relation to nature, as Rousseau argued, but to culture as
well. Specifically, the idea of conjecture and the conjectural body helps illuminate the complex and often convoluted ways in which various popular musics
are devalued. Going back to the preface, where Frere-Jones equivocates between
musical practices and social identities, we see that social identities such as race
and gender are often the very terms in and according to which music is evaluated.
91

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Although it has been nearly twenty years since New Musicology brought
social identity to bear on the study of music, philosophers have paid insufficient
attention to the role of social identity in music aesthetics. As I discussed in the
first chapter, even theorists of social identity tend to view music as exemplary of
social identity rather than coincident with it. In this chapter, I read Adorno
through Irigaray to open out an analysis of the coincidence of resonating and
raced/gendered bodies. Adorno couches his critique of commodity music in
terms of hierarchical, heterosexual gender norms: commodity music is always
feminized, and this feminization is, for Adorno, both evidence for and the source
of regressive listening. Following Irigarays argument that women are, in fact,
the logically and chronologically primary commodities, it becomes clear that the
systematic trivialization of commodity music is linked to the devaluation of
women and femininity in a patriarchal society. Following Irigaray, I argue that
Western patriarchys devaluation of women and femininity is inextricable from
Adornos modernist critique of commodificationindeed, commodification is a
form of feminization, and vice versa. Thus, the discourse of commodity fetishism alone is a perhaps necessary, but decidedly insufficient approach to understanding Western music aesthetics.
Musicologists have long recognized that there is nothing in the music itself,
in its objective, observable properties, that consistently distinguishes between
serious and popular music. One eras pop is another eras classic, one eras
authentic work is another eras commodity: the same piece occupies both categories (Adorno himself makes this argument). The one thing that is consistent
throughout all serious/pop or authentic/commercial hierarchies is the feminization of the devalued term. The discourse of fetishism cannot account for this
consistent devaluation of femininity. The concept of abjection helps us do precisely that. In Kristevan psychoanalysis, abjection is prior to fetishism; I demonstrate below how abjections behind-the-scenes work establishes some social
identities as more privileged and desirable than others, thereby setting the stage
upon which music will be judged authentic or merely commercial.
I begin this chapter by looking at Irigarays reading of the discussion of
commodities in Marxs Capital. I then apply this reading to Adornos writings
on commodity music in order to highlight and examine his feminization of
popular/commodity music. After arguing for the utility of Kristevas notion of
abjection for explaining how and why the popular becomes feminized, I conclude the chapter by arguing that a re-valuation of popular and commercial music is both a necessarily feminist project, and a project necessary for an inclusive
feminism.

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Commodity Fetishism and the Feminized Popular:

Irigaray, Adorno, and a Re-(e)valuation of
Regressive Listening
The economyin both the narrow and the broad sensethat is in place in our
societies thus requires that women lend themselves to alienation in consumption, and to exchanges in which they do not participate, and that men be exempt
from being used and circulated like commodities.2

Luce Irigarays Women on the Market is an analogical reading of Capital,

specifically, of the sections in chapter 1 which introduce the notion of the commodity and trace the workings of commodity fetishism. As she does not follow
Marxs text systematically, hers is basically a re-reading of more or less famous
passages from Capital in which the concept women is substituted for the term
commodities: Marxs analysis of commodities as the elementary form of
capitalist wealth can thus be understood as an interpretation of the status of
women in so-called patriarchal societies (TS, 172). Irigarays point is that in
Western patriarchal capitalist societies, women are commodities. Framing several of Adornos essays on commodity music in terms of Irigarays reworking of
commodity fetishism illustrates the limitations of the discourse of fetishism in
general. If we see the commodity as marked not only by class, but also by gender and other factors, the coincidence of aesthetics, gender, sexuality, class, and
race demonstrates that the commodity is not just fetishized, but is also structured
by processes of abjection.
Most of my attention will be devoted to the piece On the Fetish Character
of Music and Regressive Listening, as this essay offers some of the most explicit examples of the ways in which Adorno abjects the popular by ascribing
stereotypically (white) feminine characteristics to commodity music. The popular and all that is associated with it is not just a fetishized commodity, but is
also and primarily accorded the status of the abjecti.e., neither fully subject
nor object, but most certainly the phenomenon on whose constitutive exclusion a
particular set of social values and privilege rests. Both in Adornos writings and
in the contemporary marketplace, women in popular music are commodities and
alienated consumers, performing and buying the sounds and myths that record
company executives think they should find pleasurable (i.e., buying into norms
defined in terms of white heterosexual masculine bourgeois privilege). The
standard philosophical understanding of alienated consumption assumes an absolute passivity on the part of the consumerthis passivity is precisely what it
shares with stereotypical white femininity. This understanding is problematic
because consumerseven and especially the teenage girls at whom the poppiest
of pop music is aimeddo exercise some forms of discrimination, judgment,
and self-determination. Moving beyond Adorno into more contemporary territory, I argue that insofar as feminists continue to hold the view that participating

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in the market economy is inherently regressive and disempowering, they will be

unable to fully and accurately analyze questions of gender and popular music.
Popular music is, in fact, a domain in which men are offered as commodities to be consumed by both women and other men. Complicated by both the
feminization of male pop/rock/hip-hop stars (boy bands, glam rockers) and the
need to constantly reinforce a hyperbolic bermasculinity, the commodification
of male/masculine bodies needs to mask itself in order to be socially acceptable.
Thus, taking popular music as an instance in which women are active participants in capitalist exchange and underprivileged masculinities offered as objects,
I argue that although Irigarays diagnosis of the feminization of commodities is
correct, it is not sufficient, for like Marxs text that it mirrors, its exclusive emphasis on one system of privilege fails to account for the existence of coincident
systems of privilege. Fetishism alone is an inadequate theoretical model for
thinking about systems of aesthetic evaluation, particularly the relationship between serious music and abjected pop. There are several conceptual limitations in both the Marxian and psychoanalytical discourses of fetishism, the primary of which is the assumption that there is an authentic/inauthentic
hierarchy. As a result of this hierarchy, fetishism also falls into active/passive
binarisms (e.g., real vs. regressive listening) that, while privileging the intellectual over the embodied, do not accurately describe the various behaviors and
experiences of those who perform and appreciate popular music. Blurring the
boundary between (active) subject and (passive) object, the abject not only
avoids oversimplified active/passive binaries, but, more importantly, it also illustrates how the serious, authentic, canonical, and proper body is constructed via the repeated rejection and expulsion of some internal threat. The
greatness of Bach or Nirvana rests upon the triviality of Brittney or Beyonc, so
to speak.

Women = Commodities
First, I want to unpack this claim that women are commodities. Reading
Capital alongside Irigarays critique of it, I will, on occasion, go back to Marxs
text to clarify the first term in Irigarays analogical reading (commodity : Marx
:: woman : Irigaray). Several key concepts are implicated in the notion of the
commodityuse and exchange value, the riddle presented by money (emphasis mine), and, most importantly, commodity fetishism.3 By analyzing these
concepts we gain a clearer understanding of what it means for woman to be a
fetishized commoditythe commodity and the fetish par excellence.

Use and Exchange Value

His debt to Hegel evident, Marx argues that the value of an object is measurable both in terms of qualitywhat it is useful forand in terms of quantityits worth relative to a common standard.4 The former measure he names

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use value, the latter, exchange value. While a coat is useful for warmth, and
20 yards of linen are useful for making all kinds of garments, when considered
in terms of their exchange values one coat can be said to be worth 20 yards of
linen (MER, 308, 314). Objects in their materiality have use value; socially, i.e.,
abstracted from their physical characteristics, commodities have exchange value
in their reference to some unitary standard. Similarly, [a] commoditya
womanis divided into two irreconcilable bodies: her natural body and her
socially valued, exchangeable body, which is a particularly mimetic expression
of masculine values (TS, 180). According to Irigaray, the female body is abstracted from its existence as an active material being and translated into terms
that make it readily appropriable by phallogocentric science, religion, literature,
and philosophy.
Like the coat, which I ultimately buy in order to keep me warm and/or make
me appear fashionable, women do have a use value to society. Unlike the coat,
however, womens use value is unacknowledged or dismissed, for the consumption of the products of womens work is necessary to the reproduction of
the labor force.5 One of the strengths of Marxist feminism is its attention to this
issue. Laundry, cooking, childrearingall those tasks typically delegated to the
unpaid housewife, the overworked supermom, and the underpaid domestic
servantassure the daily renewal of the laborer, as well as the replacement of
that worker with his or her child. Teachers train us to be good workers who always follow directions, and nurses rehabilitate the body so it can return to work.
Women are the class of workers whose reproductive use value (reproductive of
children and of the labor force) and whose constitution as exchange value underwrite the symbolic order as such, without any compensation in kind going to
them for that work (TS, 173). Thus, even though teachers, nurses, and domestic servants are compensated, they are recompensed even less equitably than
male laborers for the work they perform.
Just as women and womens workthe oikos, per sehave traditionally
been relegated to the private sphere, an objects gross materiality, its utility as a
thing with specific qualities, is not admitted into the market economy proper.
Accordingly, in the same way that the Modern subject emerges when Descartes
supposedly thinks away his body and sense perceptions and makes recourse only
to Reason, the commodity is first produced when an object is divested of all its
tangible, useful properties and considered only in terms of its reference to some
common denominator. Women-as-commodities, Irigaray explains, are thus
subject to a schism that divides them into categories of usefulness and exchange
value; into matter-body and an envelope that is precious but impenetrable, ungraspable, and not susceptible to appropriation by women themselves; into private and social use (TS, 176). The body and its care, and, more importantly, the
specificity of the female body, cannot be brought into social relationships, for
this would necessitate a reconfiguration of the normatively masculine Western
subject and a reconsideration of what Marx considers abstract human labor.6 If
it is only when we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities,

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that they appear to share one common property, that of being products of human labor (MER, 305),7 then accounting for the utility of womens work
would also mark abstract human labor as concretely masculine.
Abstract human labor is precisely what is expressed in a commoditys exchange value. Not only is the particular quality of the objects use-value overlooked, but the specific, embodied quality of the labor performed in the manufacture of the commodity is equally insignificant to its exchange value. All kinds
of labor, from that of the songwriting team, performers, the recording engineer,
the iTunes programmer, or even Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple, as of this writing)
are reduced to one and the same sort of labor, human labor in the abstract
(MER, 305). This abstract human labor is not in fact abstract or neutral
rather, it is a masculine, white, heterosexual, bourgeois standard: real work is
a white middle-class mans worklawyer, manager, accountant, etc. Just as for
Freud there is one sex/sex organ, there is in capitalism only one standard of
value: the phallus. It is thus not as women that they are exchanged, but as
women reduced to some common featuretheir current price in gold, or in
phallusesand of which they would represent a plus or minus quantity. Not a
plus or a minus of feminine qualities, obviously (TS, 174). Women are the
commodity in which value is being expressed, while it is men whose value is
being expressed (MER, 314; emphasis mine). Importantly, Marx attributes to
the former a passive function, and an active function to the latter (MER,
314).
Viewing human labor in these abstract terms allows for the establishment of
a (supposedly) meritocratic society among those who produce and exchange
commodities, for it gives them a common currency in which to measure their
achievements and through which to transact their social relations. A commodity
economy can satisfy the manifold wants of the individual producer himself,
only in so far asthe private useful labor of each producer ranks on an equality
with that of all others (MER, 322; emphasis mine). The exchange of women
and the consumption of womens use value allows for a democratic society of
men: relegating all the base tasks to the private sphere and/or to womens
work, all mens labor can be viewed as one and the same in kind (human labor
in the abstract), even if it differs in degree (e.g., blue collar/white collar).8
Excluding all difference from the economy proper, the playing field is thus
(supposedly) leveled, and the players all face (supposedly) equal opportunity in
a (supposedly) meritocratic free market. All particularities are removed from
considerationthe subject is disinterested, a person devoid of specificity. If
the commodification of women makes the hom(m)osocial society of equals possible by allowing men to view themselves as owners of labor, what does it mean
that, as Marx explains, labor itself becomes commodified?

Enigmas: Commodity Fetishism

While an object considered in terms of use-value is transparent and concrete
in its vulgarity (at least for Marx we might want to question this), a commodity

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abound[s] in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties and man, by his

industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by Natureso soon as it
steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent (MER,
319-320). In the patriarchal and Eurocentric economy of the West, it is of prime
importance to mark the transition from nature into culture: from raw matter or
pure structure to something into which man has alienated himself/his labor and
thereby tainted with ideology. Although an object is, in its use value, transparent, mystery appears when one sheds the trappings of nature: The mystical
character of commodities does not originate, therefore, in their use value
(MER, 320), but in their expression or reflection of a certain quantity of human
agency and actiona subjectivity which transcends the mere quiddity of the
useful object. A super-natural, metaphysical origin is substituted for its material
origin (TS, 178). It is precisely this rejection and veiling of material (maternal) origin for which Irigaray takes Western philosophy to task.
The standard critiques of commodity fetishismboth Adornian and feministfind fault in the substitution of illusion for the real, and in the failure
to recognize the impossibility or illusory nature of the real. As I will discuss
later, metaphysics is not instituted at this moment of substitution; rather, metaphysics must have already been present in order to first forge the natural/metaphysical distinction. Accordingly, any critique of commodity fetishism
which seeks to unveil or liberate matter/maternal origin from the domination of
civilization still remains thoroughly bound by the norms and presuppositions of
metaphysics. This complicity is particularly significant to feminist critiques of
popular culture, fashion, and beauty norms, which deride the alienation and
artifice supposedly found in these systems. Valuing authenticity and naturalness above all, these versions of feminist theory restate and reinstate the
same binary, hierarchical system that attributes privilege according to the very
material/social axis they critique as elemental to gender oppression.
As Irigaray and other feminists assert, the distinction between metaphysical
essences and material/maternal origin permits and is organized by the
hom(m)osocial structure of patriarchy. That is to say, it both creates patriarchy
and is subtended by it. In more Marxist terms, it is through the relations among
commodities/women that men perceive and transact their social relationsthe
commodity economy is created and facilitated by patriarchy just as much as it
creates and facilitates patriarchy. Both in the case of women (Freud) and of
commodities (Marx), fetishism is a definite social relation between men, that
assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things (MER,
321). The commodity economy requires the pre-existent category men (as
distinct from women/commodities), while also having the effect of clarifying
and reinforcing gender categories.
It is not for their paradoxical temporality, however, that Marx finds commodities enigmatic. Commodities are mysterious not because they are both
cause and effect of metaphysical/patriarchal binaries, but because they are in-

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herently fetishistic, i.e., they misrepresent (or, as Irigaray might say, render unstable) the metaphysical opposition between real and ideal. As Marx explains,
A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social
character of mens labour appears to them as an objective character stamped
upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the
sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing
not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the
reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose
qualities are at the same time perceptible [use-value] and imperceptible [exchange value] by the senses (MER, 320).

Operating along the rift between perceptible and imperceptible, the exchange of commodities reinforces the metaphysical hierarchy between visible
and intelligible. [T]his type of social system, Irigaray explains, can be interpreted as the practical realization of the meta-physical (TS, 189). Fetishism is
inaugurated when what is conjectural and contingent is mistaken for the real and
necessary, or when what is a socially constructed network is passed off as an
empirical fact about the relations among objects. To those who participate in the
process of production and exchange, their own social action takes the form of
the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them
(MER, 323). In other words, commodities are mysterious and enigmatic
because they become the vehicles for the articulation and transaction of alienated social relations; we no longer relate to one another as subjects, but interact
vicariously through the commerce of commodities. Indeed, Marxs language
here explicitly indicates that commodity fetishism is instituted when humans
become passive objects and the commodities seem to take on the character of
authority and agency. As I discuss later, this assumed passivity is one of the
fundamental problems with the discourse of commodity fetishism.
In its transfer of agency from human to commodity, commodity fetishism
creates a society not of people, but of things (i.e., commodities). Indeed, Marx
defines commodity fetishism as the phenomenon in which the mutual relations
of the producers, within which the social character of their labour affirms itself,
take the form of a social relation between the products (MER, 320). Just as the
womans foot, for example, becomes a substitute onto which phallic investment
is transferred, the relations among commodities become the fetish onto and
through which social relations are invested. In a strange inversion, relations
among commodities substitute for relations among people, and vice versa:
commodity fetishism describes the situation in which there exist material relations between persons and social relations between things (MER, 321).
It is from this substitution that the commodity derives an additional layer of
mystery. From the moment at which the exchange of commodities allows for the
equation of all forms of labor, there arises the question of the enigmatical
character of the product of labour (MER, 320; emphasis mine). Like a commodity, whose existence as pure exchange value appears as a supplement representing the commoditys super-natural quality (an imprint that is purely social

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in nature) (TS, 179), labor, when considered as abstract human labor, possesses
some mysterious metaphysical essence which allows society to express in the
same quantitative terms kinds of labor which are qualitatively very different.9
This abstraction from the material to the socialthat is, the fetishistic substitution of the super-natural for the concrete, the intelligible for the visible
is what Marx deems the form of the commodity. Accordingly, the enigmatic
character of the product of laborcomes, obviously, from that form [the form of
the commodity] itself. Then where does the enigmatic character of women come
from?...Obviously, from the form of the needs/desires of man (TS, 182). Associating the enigmatical character of commodities and alienated labor with
the enigma of woman or riddle of femininity, Irigaray argues that women
pose such mysteries to phallogocentric modes of inquiry (psychoanalysis, medicine, philosophy) because these modes of inquiry all reduce empirical, material
qualities to one single, abstract human value. That is, by using abjection to
establish an absolute, universal, disinterested subject of inquiry, phallogocentric
modes of inquiry deny difference in the same way that Freuds first fetishist
denies the womans lack of the phallus. Emily Apter notes Marxs conception
of the fetish as socioeconomic hieroglyphic and opaque verbal sign
emerged[as] curiously comparable with Freuds sense of the strangeness of
fetish consciousness: a state of mind divided between the reality of noncastration and the fear of it all the same. Both enigmas, in turn, seemed to arrange
themselves around a third term.10 This third term is the abject, frequently
figured as femininity, the paradigmatic enigma. Thus it can be seen that this
enigmatic place occupied by the feminine is perhaps the strongest link between
Marxist and Freudian accounts of fetishism.
The riddle of femininity, then, arises from this movement of commodification: femininity is the material quality (use-value) specific to womens
bodies which must be eliminated or abjected in the calculation of exchange values and the installation of social relations. The common denominator behind all
exchange values is, according to Irigaray, the phallus, and everything that is not
reducible to this transcendental value remains unknowable.11 [I]ndeed, Irigaray explains, the enigma of value lies in the fact that women,
uprooted from their nature,no longer relate to each other except in terms of
what they represent in mens desire, and according to the forms that this imposes upon themThe value of a woman always escapes: black continent, hole
in the symbolic, breach in discourseIt is only in the operation of exchange
among women that something of thissomething enigmatic, to be surecan
be felt (TS, 188; 175-176).

In another variation on the primary theme of her earlier works, Irigaray here
expresses the idea that the commodification of women contributes to their silencing by phallogocentric discourse; due to the lack of a positive definition of
woman/femininity in its various specificities (i.e., to her existence solely as ex-

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change value), the woman question appears as a void, a hole in the symbolic,
a breach in discoursethe enigma par excellence.
Riddlesome, evasive, mysterious, and lacking, woman/femininity is a representative of the phallus and its valuewhich is, after all, precisely what is expressed in her exchange value as a commodity. However, as a lack, hole, or
void, her representation is inauthentic, unreliable, in a word, faux. Even though
woman/femininity is the mirror in which men recognize themselves as subjects
and the medium through which men locate and assert themselves in patriarchal
power relations, she is never capable of providing man a completely accurate
and realistic portrait of himself. In more Marxianor rather, Adornian
terms, women, as fetishized commodities, cannot represent true or complex
ideas: alienated from their own individuality, their mirror cannot provide any
depth, but only the alienated superficial pleasures afforded by light or popular
music/art/entertainment. Irigaray explains: commodities thus share in the cult
of the father, and never stop striving to resemble, to copy, the one who is his
representative. It is from that resemblance, from that imitation of what represents paternal authority, that commodities draw their valuefor men (TS,
178). Value is computed according to a logic of representation, imitation, and
mimesis. The more closely it resembles masculine and patriarchal idealse.g.,
rigor or virtuositythe more value a phenomenon is accorded. Thus, Radiohead, an intellectual band, and the Ramones, a rebellious band, are considered
better and more important than The Village People, who performed several classic pop tunes, or Cindy Lauper, who was also quite the rebel. Irigarays claim
here is that patriarchy institutes a representational hierarchy according to which
phenomena that appear in accordance with patriarchal values will be read as
normal or correct, and phenomena whose appearance does not accord
with/confirm these values will be read as distortions and misrepresentations.
Following Irigarays reading of this representational hierarchy in Capital,
we see that commodity fetishism, and the discourse of fetishism generally, operate via an authentic/fake hierarchy. This split between real and illusory
can be found in Marxs Capital. At its simplest, fetishism, the objective appearance of the social characteristics of labor (MER, 327), is the false substitution or misrecognition of something contingent and relational for something
given and concrete. Similarly for Freud, fetishism is the misrecognition of a fact
(e.g., womens lack of a penis) and the consequent substitution of a counterfactual reality for true reality (the investment of a fetish object as a penissubstitute, for example). Thus, assumed within the logic of fetishism is a norm
in light of which fetishistic behavior is a distortion or perversion; in Marxs
case, that norm is the existence of some clear, immediate relationship among
kinds of labor and between laborers and their products. If this were not assumed
as the norm, then the substitution of material for social relations would not be a
perversion of some normal or natural state of affairs. Marx posits service
in kind and payments in kind as the particular and natural form of labour, and
not, as in a society based on production of commodities, its general abstract
form [or] the immediate social form of labour (MER, 325; emphasis mine). In

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feudalism, as in the case of Robinson Crusoe, Marx finds a natural relationship among labor, laborers, and products. Because nothing in these situations
requires labor to assume the form or be understood in terms of value, everything
appears as it is naturally: the social relations between individuals in the performance of their labour, appear at all events as their own mutual personal relationships and are not disguised under the shape of social relations between the
products of labour (MER, 325). Now, even though he is no proponent of feudalism and allows for the fact that the apparently natural immediacy of these
social relations is constructed as natural and normative, Marxs choice to use
the concept of fetishism to describe commoditized social relations implicitly
posits the apparent immediacy of feudal social relations as a norm. Thus, for
Marx there exists some sort of normative and undistorted or unperverted state of
economic and social relations.12
Marxs tree metaphor confirms the normative character of this state. Discussing the transformation of a tree into a commodityspecifically, a table
Marx establishes a proper, normal orientation or state which the commodity
form then perverts via fetishization. Marx explains that the commodified tree
not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque
ideas, far more wonderful than table-turning ever was (MER, 320). Clearly,
to stand on ones feet (or roots, as it were) is healthy and normalwithout extensive hydroponics, a tree cant really grow with its roots in the air, nor can a
human function particularly well standing on his or her head. Thus, once the
commodity is produced and the table turned, the natural transforms into the
grotesque, fetishized commodity. In this passage and throughout Capital, fetishism assumes the existence of and relies on some normal or healthy, unperverted and undistorted state, which is constructed specifically for the purpose of
establishing it as the privileged term in a real/fake hierarchy. Especially characteristic of these hierarchies is, as Irigaray points out, their gendering: the feminized term (pleasure, enjoyment) is abjected in the name of the masculinized
term (intellect, contemplation). I would like to briefly detour into Susan Cooks
article on Feminist Musicology and the Abject Popular in order to expound on
this notion of gendered representational hierarchies and their manifestation in
discussions of commercial popular music.13

I Was a Girl, and My Music Sucked by Definition14

We already know that the commodity, like the sign, suffers from metaphysical dichotomies (TS, 179); however, Cooks analysis emphasizes that
these dichotomies are always coincident with social hierarchies. [F]ictional
categories like popular and classical, Cook explains, are almost always set
up in inequitable relationships of power and prestige wherein the popular gives
the classical its worth; the classical is worthwhile only if the popular is
worthless (Cook, 142). The logic of Cooks argument parallels Irigarays: the
popular, commodity music, commodities, womenall these are stripped of

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their value in order that the classicalthe authentic, high culture, the in-andfor-itselfis established as worthy of its canonical, universal position. Cook
emphasizes that this popular/classical hierarchy is articulated through various
processes of abjection, and that this hierarchy both reiterates and is reinforced
by white, bourgeois, patriarchal gender relations. That is to say, she finds serious/pop hierarchies to be coincident with social privilegeeach both creates
and is subtended by the other. The popular, as the lesser category, has been so
thoroughly feminized, not just because popular music is, in one of its many
roles, a commodity, but also because it carries with it a staggering cultural baggage, a trunk full of social codes that have been historically attached to womankind and underprivileged men (Cook, 142). Ephemeral, commercial, accessible, subject to the immature and fickle tastes of teenagers, appropriate for ( la
Destinys Child) jelly-shaking and headbanging rather than contemplation,
popular music is characterized as being everything that proper music is not.
The negation, void, or lack against which the singular pole of music is defined,
popular musicis the abject, something that must be expelled by culture, left
behind quite literally on the dung heap (Cook, 142). Just as woman/femininity
is an imperfect reflection through which man/patriarchy comes to recognize
him/itself, the popular is that imperfect rendition via which culture or high
culture articulates its position of superiority. This logic is at work not only in
Adornos praise of Arnold Schoenberg over Tommy Dorsey (i.e., with what we
typically think of as classical music), but is reproduced at multiple levels
within the classical and the popular domains themselves. Just as Mahler is a
more serious composer than either Bernstein or Gershwin, rock (a genre associated primarily with white men) is seen to have more musical integrity than
disco (dance music with roots in black gay clubs).15 The abjection of the feminized popular from masculinized culture proper calls on gender hierarchies to
support the devaluation of popular music and, in so doing, affirms and establishes binary gender and masculine privilege.
It is essential that feminized, non-white, and non-bourgeois bodies and
sounds do not enter into the domain of culture proper because
[w]omenassure the possibility of the use and circulation of the symbolic
without being recipients of it. Their nonaccess to the symbolic is what has established the social order (TS, 189). The exclusion of women/femininity from the
exchange of symbols and the exchange of commodities is constitutive of patriarchal culture; this process of constitutive exclusion is what Cook describes in
terms of the abject. Similarly, Kristeva explains it as [w]hat I permanently
thrust aside in order to livethe place where I am not and permits me to be.16
Since that which is expelled, excluded, or rejected is first a part of or contained
within the agent of expulsion proper, the process of abjection entails, above all,
the articulation of a very ambiguous boundary between subject and not-subject,
phallus and not-phallus, culture and not-culture, etc. Indeed, as a vortex of
summons and repulsion places the one haunted by it literally beside himself
(PoH, 1), abjection complicates distinctions as much as it sets them up. An expulsion or rejection of something internal, the process of abjection establishes

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the very boundary (albeit a very permeable and tenuous one) between inside and
outside, same and other: It is no longer I who expel, I is expelled (PoH, 3).
To use Cooks and Kristevas example of the dung heap, feces are abject in the
sense that they were once inside of and contained within a body, but, having
been expelled, are now an element of that body that is external to it, a seemingly
independent and distinct substance. According to Kristeva, it is through this (at
first) very bodily process of rejectionand not, notably, through the visual
techniques of the mirror stagethat the infant first gains a sense of his or her
existence as a physically and psychically distinct being. Just as the body proper
(propre) is established by rejecting those parts of itself which it deems undesirable or poisonous, proper culture is defined negatively through the abjection
of certain forms of cultural production. It is as if dividing lines were built up
between society and a certain nature, as well as within the social aggregate, on
the basis of the simple logic of excluding filth, which, promoted to the level of
defilement, founded the self and clean of each social group if not of each subject (PoH, 65), argues Kristeva. Thus, patriarchal society is founded on the
exclusion of that which is identified as feminine and European bourgeois culture receives its dominance and legitimacy via various exclusions of non-white
and non-bourgeois others, just as art receives its status through the abjection
of commercial, popular forms of creativity.
Patriarchal society and its canonical art require the proliferation of commodities and commodity music while also desperately attempting to distance
themselves from these supposedly vacuous and potentially alienating phenomena. Claiming that [c]ulture, at least in its patriarchal form, thus effectively
prohibits any return to red blood (TS, 192), Irigaray, like Cook and Kristeva,
uses a metaphorics of bodily fluids in order to describe the process of constitutive exclusion that is abjection. Corporeality, concrete material quality, usevalue all these things represented by red blood are, like blood, essential to
the proper functioning of white heteropatriarchy; however, they must all be aspirated from proper culture in order that all (men) be sufficiently and equally
white. This language, which equates color with the abject, illustrates how it is
never just femininity that is abjected, but one or more specific forms of femininity marked by race, class, sexuality, and so on. Since abjection itself is a composite judgment and affect (PoH, 10), a particular coincidence of gender, race,
age, and class modulates the process of abjection in ways unique to that specific
configuration. For example, record label Black Swanns choice of the more refined (read: lighter-skinned and bourgeois-mannered) Ethel Waters over the
more accomplished (but darker-skinned and working-class) Bessie Smith to be
their first star indicates that even within African-American musical cultures,
feminization/femininity always works in coincidence with systems of race,
class, and other privileges. In most discussions of commodity music, and in Irigarays reading of the feminized commodity, it is white, bourgeois femininity
that serves as the model of the abject. Specifically, it is the passivity characteristic of stereotypical white femininity that is the main target of abjection in seri-

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ous/pop hierarchies. This passivity is what makes regressive listening regressive; it is mere indulgence in entertainment rather than active appreciation of art.

The Problem of Pleasure

Pleasureor rather, those pleasures marked as feminine, non-white, or lowclassis abjected from patriarchal power relations and from the cultures that
grow out of them. In this book, I deal mainly with the Western popular as received in Western nations. Obviously, every society has developed its own
popular and its own specific set of relations to that popular (and to globalized
American pop culture). However, in the West, just as contemplation and judgment should be objective and disinterested, pleasure is not a criterion by which
one judges serious artnor is it supposed to be admitted into philosophic
thought. From Platos Symposium onward, painstaking effort has been made to
separate the love of wisdom from those kinds of love involving and motivated
by pleasure. Indeed, Freud argues that artistic production occurs through the
sublimation of sexual libido. True, Kant does allow for one to experience intellectual pleasure in the play of imagination and understanding, but bodily pleasureand the consideration of bodies in their specificityis the primary hindrance to ones capacity to make judgments of beauty (these judgments are, for
Kant, necessarily universal). Put differently, the phallus (the intellect, the symbolic) can serve as a source of pleasure, but the penis cannot. As Irigaray explains, Once the penis itself becomes merely a means to pleasure, pleasure
among men, the phallus loses its power. Sexual pleasure, we are told, is best left
to those creatures who are ill-suited for the seriousness of symbolic rules,
namely, women (TS, 193). As something which particularizes an otherwise
unremarkable (and therefore equal) individual, pleasure cannot be admitted
into the domain of serious culture. It, then, is allotted to femininity due to its
association with the body, sexuality, and other forms of physicality (e.g., enjoyment in Levinass Totality and Infinity qua the enjoyment of food and the
domestic space, both of which are products of womens work).
This dismissal of pleasure and trivialization of female consumption is another way to exclude women from the marketplace and the public sphere generally. The fact is that women do participate in the exchange of commodities as
subjects; this high/low hierarchy is a mechanism that maintains the exclusivity
of phallic/symbolic economies. As Cook remarks, In the dismissive comments
frequently made about boy bands and Brittney, there exists real fear of dealing
with female desire and female consumption, of valuing women, and especially
girls, as thinking, knowledgeable consumers and critics who have enormous
power in the commercial and aesthetic marketplaces (Cook, 143). Women are
allowed to produce and exchange commodities, provided that these goods are
given no cultural significance. Thus it is that commodities speak. To be sure,
mostly dialects and patois, languages hard for subjects to understand (TS,
179).17 Women may be allowed a degree of agency, but never full access to the
highest domains of intellect and culture; they may speak, but only a derivative,
immature, unrefined discourse.18 This trivialization is one of the most common

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ways in which feminized/female cultural production is abjected from real or

serious culture. Thus, in a rather circular fashion, because the subject of abjection is eminently productive of culture (PoH, 45), dominant discourses must
constantly reinforce the abject status of these cultural products in order to legitimate their own privileged status.
The abject is never merely passive or trivial. Kristeva emphasizes the active, resisting character of the abject: from its place of banishment, the abject
does not cease challenging its master (PoH, 2). Thinking popular music in
terms of abjection highlights the ways marginalized practices and the groups
identified with them (e.g., girls) constantly call into question social norms and
create alternative spaces in which these people and practices are celebrated in
their own right. If popular music is completely vacuous, why the need for the
idea of the guilty pleasure, or, as Kristeva describes it, the abjects shame of
compromise, of being in the middle of treachery (PoH 2)? If society values the
ways in which it socializes girls to act, why the constant derision of screaming
and swooning fans? Why? Because these aesthetic and social values challenge
the dominant white heteropatriarchy; because women, especially teenage girls
apparently put in the position of passive objects, are none the less felt to be
wily powers, baleful schemers from whom rightful beneficiaries must protect
themselves (PoH, 70).
Indeed, Antigonea teenage girl who is punished for behaving as society
socializes her to behaveis, as the criminal with good conscience (PoH, 4),
paradigmatic of the abject qua what does not respect borders, positions, rules
(PoH, 4). Burying her brother is the duty that Antigone, occupying the social
roles of woman and sister, is bound by convention and divine law to perform.
However, this dutyin a way, her duty to fulfill her gender role as a female
contradicts the law of Thebes and challenges the sovereignty of the patriarchal
figure, Creon. Centuries after Sophocles, teenage girls remain a threat to and
primary target of abjection. The claim of idol-musics inherent invalidity is
merely a front for what critics really consider invalid: young girls, the single
least respected group among middle-class whites (Nash, 148). By associating
clearly commercial music with what are supposedly the most unrefined, uneducated, overly emotional and wantonly hormone-driven musical judgments,
Euro-American culture carefully polices what is considered significant and worthy of cultural value. Among the various styles and genres of popular music, all
readily available on iTunes (or BitTorrent), teen pop is categorically viewed as
the most simplistic of music and, accordingly, the biggest sell-out. Rock, hip
hop, bluegrass, electronica, dub, gospel, even musical theater and cabaret, are all
generally considered to produce authentic pieces of artwork. Unlike music
made by and for black and white teenage boys or poor urban and rural adults,
music made by and for white girlse.g., Adornos jitterbuggers, Miley Cyrus,
etc.is thought to be absolutely vacuous, even and especially when it isnt.19
The way Adornos writings on commodity music perform this abjectionvia-feminization is particularly illuminative. While his misogyny is evident, an

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unthematized racial aspect of his criticism of jazz helps demonstrate how the
feminization of popular music entails a specific fear/devaluation of white femininity.

Adorno
Adornos essay On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of
Listening clearly exhibits the feminization of popular and commodity music;
interestingly, this essay is one of the first products of his exile in the United
States.20 His analysis of the commodification of both serious and light music explicitly but unintentionally makes evident the abjection of commodities
and certain stereotypes of white bourgeois and working-class femininity. Needless to say, Adornos aims in associating girls and commodity music draw on the
systematic devaluation of qualities considered feminine in order to emphasize
the trivial nature of popular music. In light music, Adorno argues, sight is lost
of the totality in which bad individual immediacy was kept within bounds in
great music (FCM, 288); too intimate, too concerned with mere sensory pleasure, such music is as nonsensical as if it had originated in a girls school
(FCM, 288, emphasis mine).21 Girls, including those privileged enough to go to
private all-girls schools, represent for Adorno the most frivolous, immature, and
illogical kind of humans, those utterly incapable of complex aesthetic judgments. Accordingly, regressive listening is an infantile approach to music:
for the American listener, ones taste for popular music stems from [ones]
earliest musical experiences, the nursery rhymes, the hymns [one] sings in Sunday School, the little tunes [one] whistles on [ones] way home from school.22
Just as one who throws like a girl23 is accused of wimpy, weak, untrained athletic performance, one who listens like a girl stands accused of facile, infantile, uneducated musical taste.24 Uncompelling and superficial in nature, girls
music is trash served up for the ostensible or real needs of the masses (FCM,
289).
Articulating his own version of the public/private distinction, which identifies the feminized private sphere with consumption and the masculinized public
domain with commerce and production, Adorno illustrates one of the main ways
in which class and gender coincide in post-industrial Euro-American society.
The needs of the masses are those identified with stereotypical white femininity:
the masses are capable of only a passive relation to music grounded in irrational
emotional responses to sensory stimuli.25 As Adorno argues,
if the moments of sensual pleasure in the idea, the voice, the instrument are
made into fetishes and torn away from any function which could give them
meaning, they meet a response equally isolated, equally far from the meaning
of the whole, and equally determined by success in the blind and irrational
emotions which form the relationship to music into which those with no relationship enter (FCM, 283).

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Commodity music meets what Adorno presumes consumers needs to be: passivity and superficiality. These feminized consumers of commodity music are
incapable of active listening that synthesizes the various parts of the piece into a
meaningful whole, so their pleasure is one of being acted upon by the most base
and bodily (i.e., non-intellectual) aspects of music. Thus, as he claims in On
Popular Music, the pop music fan can be classified as one of two types: the
rhythmically obedient type, or the emotional type (OPM, 312), obedience
and emotion being traits stereotypically dissociated from intellect and ascribed
to femininity and marginalized masculinities. In the commodification and fetishization of music, the rational, dynamic masculine listener is put into a passive
position lacking in intellectual activity, i.e., a feminized position: The listener
is converted, along his line of least resistance, into the acquiescent purchaser
(FCM, 279), for in pop music, the composition hears for the listener (OPM,
306). In the same way that Disney Princesses dont or cant rescue themselves,
but need to be saved by a Prince Charming, consumers of commodity music
need the piece to do all the work for them. Placed in this position of passive
consumption, the listener belongs to the product and not the product to him; as
the listener occupies the place of property, of the commodity, the listener assumes, for Adorno, a stereotypically feminine position.
Moreover, as this femininity is passive, and sexually and intellectually immature in character, it is more a white, middle-class Donna Reid femininity
than that of Sapphire or Carmen Miranda.26 In a later essay titled Commodity
Music Analysed, Adorno articulates a position similar to Freuds notion of
feminine activity with passive aims.27 Identifying consumers of commodity music with the adolescent girl who writes in her diary that she will now get a crush
on a particular teacher (CMA, 51), Adorno admits that popular music fans or
jazz enthusiastsare not the mindlessly fascinated people they are claimed to
be, and which they see themselves as. A particular act of will is required to
submit to an ordained pleasure. You decide to go wild with excitement, just as
you decide to have a good timeFor people to be transformed into insects
they require as much energy as might well suffice to transform them into human beings (CMA, 50-52).

Adorno claims that jitterbugs, fans of specifically dance-oriented jazz music,

like teenage girls, possess sub-human intellects.28 Even though teenage girls and
jitterbugs arent completely passive, their only activity is, according to Adorno,
to decide to place themselves in this passive, submissive, not-fully-human (indeed, buggy or defective) position. Similarly, a capitalist system forces the
laborer to alienate his or her laborthat is, to perform tedious, arduous activity
for another person, corporate or otherwise, and to transform him/herself into an
object.
With this claim about sub-human bodies, I turn to discuss Adorno and race.
First, there is the oft-made claim that jazz is a black art form and Adornos un-

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ease with jazz is due at least partially to the fact of its origin in the AfricanAmerican community. This, however, couldnt be more incorrect. Anything but
a jazz connoisseur, Adorno drew his observations about this jazz thing not by
keeping tabs on Charlie Parkers every album, but by listening to the radio.
What was being played on the radio? Swing: Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman,
Tommy Dorsey, name your (passably) white jazz orchestra leader. Indeed,
Adorno always rails against jitterbugs, people listening not to free jazz or hard
bop (a term obviously fraught with its own attempts to associate itself with
some authentic phallic form of jazz), but to, as I mentioned earlier, specifically
dance- and youth-oriented music. In fact, at the very same time that Adorno is
railing against commercial jazz, black avant-garde jazz musicians (e.g., Monk
and Gillespie) are developing bebop as, at least in part, a way to separate their
work from what they also perceive as watered-down, mass-marketedthat is,
whiteswing.29 As Jeffrey Nealon notes, Adornos characterizations of jazz
are more or less parallel to Amiri Barakas pro-bebop critique of swing: the
swing that Baraka rails against is the jazz that Adorno hates insofar as
swing[as] commodified whitenesshas been hermetically sealed and packaged for white listening audiences.30 Just as vegetables are blanched to make
them more tender and less bitter, swing is but another means to blanche bluesbased musical forms: gone are the vulgar lyrics, rough, chain-smoker voices,
untrained instrumentalists, creased faces, and dark skin; in their place are
smooth, almost syrupy timbres and big bands full of men in suits, and plenty of
lindy-hoppers in saddle shoes and bobby-socks. Thus, as Eminem well knows,
what is being commodified here is white youth culturethats why the Elvis
phenomenon (putting a white face on black music and making mad profits
from it) works in the first place. Although there is no explicitly racial language
in Adornos critique of commodity music, it nevertheless elides stereotypically
feminine passivity with the stereotypically white blandness of mainstream
swing. Commercial jazz cant perform the negation and rebellion characteristic
of authentic art because it is too feminine and too white.31
For Adorno, white feminine blandness and passivity characterize not only
commercial jazz, but commodity music as a whole. The thing that sets Adornos
essay apart from a typical elitist and reactionary condemnation of popular culture is his claim that Western art (a.k.a. classical) music has become a fetishized commodity as well. Even listeners of ostensibly serious music are no
longer concerned with the synthetic meaning of the whole piece, but with isolated elements: the cult of the composer, the virtuoso, the work as star, the
voice, and the master violinists. According to Adorno, authentic enjoyment and
understanding of music is impossible, for the consumer is really worshipping
the money that he himself has paid for the ticket to the Toscannini concert
(FCM, 282) or recording. It has become impossible to apprehend the specific
quality of a piece or a performance, for, given their commodity form, all are
reduced to expressions of a varying quantity of exchange value. Thus, argues
Adorno, Where they react at all, it no longer makes any difference whether it is
to Beethovens Seventh Symphony or to a bikini (FCM, 283). Again express-

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ing frivolity, superficiality, alienation, and commodification with reference to

femininity and female sexuality, Adorno chooses to compare commodity music
to the (at that time) risqu display of the bikini-clad female body. He goes even
further in the opening of Commodity Music Analysed, using the voyeuristic
titillation of gazing at naked women as a metaphor for the kind of regressive
listening characteristic of commodity music. Doubly emphasized by appearing
in English and in italics, the second half of the first sentence of the essay reads:
Put three half-naked girls on a revolving stage. Then play the organ (CMA,
37). Not only is Adorno assuming a heteronormative masculine subject/listening
position (albeit one corrupted by its passive, fetishistic relation to music), it
seems as though the listeners positionwhether regressive or intellectualcan
exist only in relation to some abjected commodity and/or body.32 Indeed, when
the C-Major theme from Beethovens Seventh Symphony is heard as a commodified piece taken in isolation from its purely musical context, the second
theme would be disrobed into insignificance (OPM, 302, emphasis mine).
In Adornos essays on popular music, serious music always stands in opposition to some representation of an alienated, non-intellectual relation to music/listening; this representation consistently takes the form of femininity, embodiment, and/or pleasure. If classical music is equally as meaningless as
popular, the only serious music left is atonal or serialthat is, the difficult
and distinctly unpleasurable music of the Second Viennese School, the style in
which Adorno was trained and which he consistently champions. If in nothing
else, explains Adorno,
Schnbergs music resembles popular songs in refusing to be enjoyedBetween incomprehensibility and inescapability, there is no third way;
the situation has polarized itself into extremes which actually meet. There is no
room between them for the individual.The liquidation of the individual
[i.e., use value, the intellectual or purely musical content of a piece] is the
real signature of the new musical situation (FCM, 280-281).

Schoenberg represents the incomprehensible, commodity music the inescapable; there is no room for enjoyment because the former is inaccessible to all
but the specialist, whereas the latter is meaningless in its ubiquity. It is impossible for all but a few to have an appropriate relationship to serious music because they do not possess the intellectual faculties or musical training necessary
to comprehend atonal and serial music, and it is downright impossible to have
any kind of authentici.e., intellectualrelationship with commodity music.
As neither serious nor light music provide the majority of listeners with the opportunity to relate to music in any sort of intellectual fashion, it is impossible for
individuality, Adornos prime value, to enter into the equation of musical
pleasure, for individuality is a qualitative measure like use-value, derived
from the specificity of ones identity as a relatively self-present thinking thing.
Commodities, however, exist only at the level of abstraction, so even the pleas-

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ure elicited by commodity music, however sensory it may be, speaks to the body
only in the abstract, via generalized, standardized, and empty conventions.
Thus, just as serious music should not be enjoyed, alienated consumption has
prevented light music from being enjoyable. As two extremes in the impossibility of enjoyment, serious and popular music meet insofar as the flight from
the banal becomes definitive (FCM, 281), and serious music exists only in its
negative relation to popular genres. The logic of abjection between popular and
serious proceeds uninterrupted through Adornos essay: pleasure, embodiment,
and femininity are always rejected in order to establish the integrity of serious
music and active, intellectual listening.
Thus, looking carefully at the various ways in which Adorno abjects commodity music, we see that, despite his claims to the contrary, the distinctions he
draws between genuine and commodity music are, in fact, judgments about
relative complexity or superficiality. It is not, however, the music about which
this judgment is being rendered, but the listener or the kind of listening. Adorno
argues that
the difference between popular and serious music can be grasped in more precise terms than those referring to musical levels such as lowbrow and highbrow, simple and complex, nave and sophisticated. For example, the difference between the spheres cannot be adequately expressed in terms of
complexity and simplicity. All works of the earlier Viennese classicism are,
without exception, rhythmically simpler than stock arrangements of
jazzStandardization and nonstandardization are the key contrasting terms of
difference (OPM, 305).

Even though standardization and nonstandardization appear to be judgments

about the music, they are really descriptions of its reception. Indeed, music can
be viewed as standardized only by analyzing its location in the social processes of production and consumption where musical structures become obviously inflected by various ideological practices. It is not the musical structures
found within Beethovens Seventh Symphony or Nirvanas Smells like Teen
Spirit, but the ways in which they are situated with regard to performance and
listening contexts that determines their status as popular song or serious music. Thus, while Adorno claims that music itself is neither trivial nor profound, careful study of his systematic abjection of commodity music demonstrates a clear hierarchization of real or progressive listening and a system
of response mechanisms wholly antagonistic to the ideal of individuality in a
free, liberal society (OPM, 305).

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The Limitations of Fetishism and the Excesses of

Regressive Listening
Considering commodity music both in Adornos writing and in general, we see
that Irigarays analogical reading of Marx is an accurate description not only of
the feminized fetish, but of femininitys abject position in capitalist exchange,
minus some nuances and details (particularly those pertaining to race).33 Moreover, it is not that femininity is offered only as an object, or as the only object.
Rather, feminine/feminized voices do participate as producers and consumers,
albeit of trivialized and worthless frivolities; further, male/masculine bodies
are also offered as commodities, albeit faced with the constant chore of remasculinizing this otherwise feminine position. As Gayle Wald and Joanne
Gottlieb put it, the exaggerated masculinity of certain rock performances may
attempt to recoup the gender discomfort that ensues when men openly display
sexuality and assume a to-be-looked-at position among men.34 Because the
performer is a commodity, the performance position is a feminized one. In order
for a male/masculine body to occupy this space, either his effeminacy must be
ridiculed by real men, or the performer must constantly reassert a hyperbolic
masculinity (e.g., Mick Jagger, Isaac Hayes, Tupac, or Dee Snyder, who can
have long frizzy platinum locks, more eye shadow than Barbie, and hot pink
football shoulder pads only if he incessantly rants about how hes not gonna
take it anymore, or how much he hates his mother/girlfriend/ex-wife).35 As
these examples demonstrate, fetishized commodities, although intensely compelling, are regarded as a perversion; they are fascinating and desirable, yet
terrifying and inadmissible. This pleasure has to be filed under the category
guilty because the presumably normal (straight, white, masculine, middleclass) spectator wouldif he didnt know any better, that isbe participating in
numerous activities society deems abnormal, taboo, undesirable, or at least improper for someone of his status.
Many of the limitations of Irigarays and Adornos analyses of commodity
fetishism are the result of limitations in the discourse of fetishism itself, namely,
(1) its tendency to assume an absolute active/passive binary, and (2) its positing
of a norm against which devalued, abnormal phenomena are situated as such.
First, just as Irigaray claims that women serve only as objects/commodities and
men absolutely cannot be objectified, Adorno assumes that the regressive listener, he or she who adores fetishized music, stands in a completely passive relation to music, unlike the lover of serious music, who is actively engaged in
parsing the significance of difficult pieces. Secondly, the discourse of fetishism assumes the existence of some immediate or truly individual relation to
looking and listening, as well as to the object of this gazing and audiation. The
fetish is an incorrect view of some real situation (ones masculinity), just as
commodity fetishism is the substitution of product relations for social relations,
thus affecting alienated or disingenuous relations among men. In order for the

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fetish to be a substitute for something, there must be some normal relation

e.g., use-value, immediate social relations, female castrationwhich the fetish masks. The primary limitation of the discourse of fetishism is that it unproblematically assumes dominant social norms as such, and cannot address why and
how these norms came to be. It establishes as real a norm which, through coincident relations of privilege and marginalization, comes to be taken as (second) nature.
Insofar as the discourse of fetishism has been primarily one of looking, my
critique of fetishism is framed in terms of Lacans mirror stage and his concordant notion of the empty signifier. I will, however, take a brief detour from the
visual into contemporary rap/hip hop in order to analyze both (1) the normative
whiteness of the fetishizing subject and (2) the ways non-white artists rework
commodification into a discourse of empowerment. I then turn to Kristevas
reworking of the mirror stage in terms of abjection because it is, as Susan
Cooks article indicates, the most productive way of rethinking the way fetishism has come to presume and normalize whiteness and masculinity. Kristevas
concept of the abject questions any strict opposition between activity and passivity, acknowledges the empty yet over-determined nature of the signifier in a
more complex way than Lacan, and, most importantly, allows us to examine the
cultural and conceptual work that occurs prior to (and sets the stage for) the idea
of fetishism.
Before I get into my critique of fetishism, a qualifier: Taken in view of his
non-musical writings, Adornos adoption of the fetishized commodity as the
basis of his analysis of popular music seems a bit out of character. In several of
his treatises on philosophical method and critical theory, Adorno clearly posits a
notion of fantasy as fundamental to philosophic analysis and to the actuality of
philosophy and its projects. Critical theory, according to Adorno, does not claim
to discover the truth about the real world; rather, it uses fantasy or invention
to analyze relationships among concepts and categories that are themselves produced by these fantasies. Hence the actuality of philosophical processes and
the objects of their analyses arises from the mediation and mutual resistance of
social and material forces. Practicing philosophy thus entails, for Adorno, the
recognition that second nature is, in truth, first nature.36 In his essay The Idea
of Nature-History, Adorno traces the terms nature and history through their
various treatments by then-contemporary philosophy, ultimately to demonstrate
that these categories and their assumed binary relationship amount to what is a
false problem. According to Adorno, we are to understand history where it is
most historical, as natural being, or if it were possible to comprehend nature as
an historical being where it seems to rest most deeply in itself as nature (INH,
117). Here it is clear that Adorno understands nature as fully mediated by history; materiality is ultimately sociality and vice versa. It is only in the idea (or
philosophical analysis) of natural history that these are determinate, mutually
exclusive categories. Given these remarks regarding the impossibility of any
pure, unmediated nature, it seems that commodity fetishismand its reliance
on an unfetishized natural stateis out of place in and inconsistent with

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Adornos own overarching philosophical project. This inconsistency might arise,

I believe, out of his failure to interrogate the idea of genderspecifically, the
privileged position of heterosexual masculinity in patriarchal capitalismand
the ways in which assumed gender hierarchies arise, to legitimate his critiques
of commodity music. In other words, Im hypothesizing that Adornos overt
misogyny and latent assumption of normative patriarchy have impeded his ability to think clearly about the feminized attributes of commodities and fetishized commodity relations. From the perspective of psychoanalysis or deconstruction, this apparent inconsistency between Adornos work on commodity
music and his non-musical writings is precisely one of those slips that reveal a
new level of latent meaning in the text. Because he doesnt recognize gender and
masculine privilege as historical philosophico-political concepts, his use of gendered reasoning proceeds without the scrutiny to which he subjects his other
analyses. This problem in Adornos work is symptomatic of the larger failure of
fetishism as a critical discourse: both rely quite unreflectively on existent systems of social privilege, and neither can adequately reflect on or critique this
reliance.

From Fetishism to Abjection

The oversimplification and all-too-easy opposition of passivity and activity
seem to be characteristic of Adornos understanding of Marxist fetishism. Psychoanalytic accounts of fetishismwhen not themselves oversimplified
provide a more nuanced account of subject/object or active/passive relations.
While Freudian fetishism oversimplifies the fetishist-fetish relationship in a
fashion very similar to Adorno, Joan Copjecs appropriation of Lacan opens up
a reading of Marx that deconstructs fetishistic relations. The notion of fetishism
relies upon an authentic/inauthentic opposition. Just as Saussurean models of
language assume the existence of an accurate correspondence between signifier
and signified, Marxist commodity fetishism assumes an authentic mode of
social relations for which commodity fetishism is substituted.37 However, if we
follow Lacan and understand the signifier to signify precisely the lack of any
real or authentic signified, then this enigmatical and mysterious character of
the commodity reveals the nonexistence of any true or immediate relation
among exchangers/men. Hence the determinate negation of fetishism: precisely
because the commodity is enigmatic in its metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties, it indicates the emptiness of the signifier and the impossib[ility of
the] real.38

Freud

In Freuds 1927 essay Fetishism, the fetishist is not a passive spectator.39

Here Freud describes the fetish as a penis-substitute (199); in more Marxist
terms, the fetish substitutes for actual phallic relations among men. If the fet-

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ish is a substitute, the fetishist must be substituting it for something else. It is

important to note that, for Freud, the fetish is not a substitute for any chance
penis, but for a particular quite special penis that had been extremely important
in early childhood but was afterwards lostThe fetish is a substitute for the
womans (mothers) phallus which the little boy once believed in and does not
wish to forego (Freud, 199). The fetish is a faux phallus for the woman/mother.
Recognizing, and for this fact admitting, that the mother lacks the phallus and its
accoutrements, the male child invests an objecta foot, a glance at the nose
as he would the phallus, and is thus able to deny the mothers deficiencies.
Freudian fetishism, in falsely attributing a phallus to women and thus assimilating them into normative masculinity/maleness, is akin to the fetishization of
commodities insofar as a commoditys value is measured in terms of phalluses.
In both instances, the phallus is the thing in terms of which everything is measured and expressed. Just as the commodity form is necessary to capitalism because it enables society to, on the one hand, view all labor as equivalent, yet also
exploit the surpluses created by the differences among various types of labor,
Freudian fetishism allows the fetishist to unconsciously admit yet consciously
deny differences among bodies and in levels of access to power and privilege.
Accordingly, the commoditys exchange value (value in terms of phalluses) is
the intentionally mistaken attribution of phallic value to women or the feminized
commodity.
Given Freuds gendered language when discussing the fetishist (boy, not
child), we must wonder, what about the little girl? By leaving the little girl out
of the discussion of fetishism (as though girls never developed fetishes, when, in
fact, Adorno attributes fetishistic listening to a primarily feminine/feminized
subject), is Freud also associating femininity with a passive position? This is
possible; however, because at this stage the little girl is, according to Freud, basically a little boy, one can assume that the boys experience speaks also for that
of the girl. Not that this conflation isnt in itself problematic (Irigaray discusses this at length in Speculum): indeed, the implication is that girls can engage in the fetishistic exchange or substitution of phalluses only when passing as boys. Girls, because they experience a different relation to the castration
complex and to the phallus, are not capable of the activity of fetishism so long as
they function as girls. Thus, contrary to Adornos position, which feminizes the
fetishist by characterizing fetishistic listening as passive, the Freudian account
views the act of fetishization as far from passive (indeed, Freud describes the
fetishist as one who refused and rebels (Freud, 199)), and as engaged in a
very energetic action (Freud, 201). For Freud, the fetish is feminized and objectified, not the fetishist; this stands in neat opposition to Adornos discussions of
commodity fetishism, because Freud feminizes the listeners of commodity music, not the art object or cultural artifact. However, even though Freuds account
of the fetishist or regressive listener is more nuanced than Adornos, it still
reproduces a troublesome and overly simplistic reliance upon some normal or
original state that is then perverted.

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Copjec, Bhabha, and hooks

For Freud as for Adorno, fetishism is primarily a relation to an aesthetic
impression: viewing female anatomy, listening to girls music. Indeed, for
Freud, fetishism is a function of gazing.40 Consequently, film theory has picked
up this notion of fetishism and thought it alongside notions of voyeurism and
Lacans mirror stage. The common conception of fetishism operating in feminist
film theory is that, as Ann Kaplan explains, the camera (unconsciously) fetishizes the female form, rendering it phallus-like so as to mitigate womans
threat.41 Here we see the repetition of the Freudian notion that the fetish always
occupies the place of the feminine/female body, and the fetishist is always a
masculine subject position. The gazing, fetishizing subject is always masculine,
and the gazed-upon fetish is always feminine. This basically reproduces the
Freudian conception of fetishism.
There is, however, a tendency within recent feminist film theory to question
the strict separation of active and passivei.e., the subject and object of the
gaze. Addressing the role of the gaze (fetishistic and otherwise) in film theory,
Joan Copjecs article The Orthopsychic Subject argues that while the concept
of the gaze is central to film theory, the particular kind of gaze iswrongly,
according to Copjecassumed to be panoptic.42 The gazing subject is, even in
his or her own activity, determined by the gaze of external authority. The
panoptic gaze, Copjec explains,
obliges the woman to monitor herself with a patriarchal eye. This structure
thereby guarantees that even her innermost desire will always be not a transgression but rather an implantation of the law, that even the process of theorizing her own untenable situation can only reflect back to her as in a mirror
her subjugation to the gaze (288).

The subject of the panoptic gaze (i.e., subject in the sense of subjectivized) is
thoroughly determined by socio-symbolic conventions or laws. Accordingly, it
is easy to understand the panoptic subject as passive in relation to absolute laws.
In panopticism, everything is visible, thus knowable, thus controllable.43 Resistance is absent from the panoptic gaze because this gaze is all-encompassing,
mono-directional, and assumes a singular, uni-dimensional spectator. Further,
this paradigm assumes that the spectator (movie-goer) exists as the single Renaissance-vanishing-point perspective: rather like the Kantian transcendental
ego, the panoptic film spectator is the passive locus whereupon all screen images converge. Panoptic gazing is a one-way street: images from the screen are
received and absorbed by the spectator.
Copjec contrasts the panoptic gaze with the orthopsychic gaze, arguing
that the latter, as described in Lacans understanding of photo-graphy, is a
better representation of film-viewing because it illustrates a bi-directional process of gazing. According to Lacan, I am not simply that punctiform being
located at the geometrical point from which the perspective is grasped (cited in

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Copjec, 298), for my recognition of myself as this singular transcendental

vanishing-point is fundamentally a misrecognition of my position in relation to
vision and to other things and people. Not only is the film viewer receiving images from the screen, this viewer is also interpreting (via misrecognition) those
imagesin a way, the viewer is inserting his or her very specific self onto
and/or in relation to the screen. That is to say, there is not only photoscopic activity, but also the work of graphing or interpreting the images one sees. Thus,
explains Copjec, the process is conceived no longer as a purely positive one but
rather as internally dialectic. Lacan does not take the single triangle drawn by
geometric perspective as an accurate description of its own operation. Instead,
he re-diagrams this operation using two interpenetrating triangles (Copjec 299).
As the image of two interpenetrating lines of sight indicates, the gaze, for Copjec, is never monological or unidirectional. Because the signifier/object of gaze
is devoid of meaning (or rather, is enigmatic), it destabilizes the certainty of
the gazer, and forces him or her to doubt the credulity of his or her perceptions
and interpretations. If the object/signifier is not transparentif the object does
not give itself completely (because there is nothing to give, no natural reserve
of content)the gazer must ask, What is being concealed from me? What in
this graphic space does not show, does not stop writing itself? (Copjec 300).44
In the case of fetishism, what is being concealed is precisely the roles of normative whiteness, masculinity, and heterosexuality. More precisely, what fetishism
conceals is initial abjection, which determines what counts as real (the phallus/penis) and what as illusion (female genitalia). To put this point back in
Copjecs terms, fetishisms gaze is spoken of as though it is panoptic, when it is
in fact orthopsychic. Marx, Freud, and Adorno assume the to-be-looked-at object as a given, and consider neither that this scopic object is constituted through
abjection, nor how this abjection (specifically, the abjection of femininity)
looks back at and impacts the fetishistic gaze.
Arguing for an analysis of stereotypes as fetishes, Homi Bhabha similarly
problematizes the unidirectional looking relations that characterize traditional
notions of fetishism. Bhabha claims that The stereotype is not a simplification
because it is a false representation of a given reality. It is a simplification because it is an arrested, fixated form of representation that, in denying the play of
differenceconstitutes a problem for the representation of the subject in significations of psychic and social relations.45 As there is no authentic reality
that fetishes/stereotypes either represent or misrepresent, the fetishistic logic of
privileging (the phallus, whiteness) and marginalization (female genitalia, dark
skin) is revealed to be not a function of truth, but a strategy for the reproduction
and distribution of power. Accordingly, the main problem with stereotypes is
not that they misrepresent some fact (e.g., Asians are good at math, science,
and the piano.), but that, given their presumption of a panoptic gaze, they attempt to deny agency to those subject to their judgment. Stereotyping installs
certain people in the position of viewer and others as the viewed by preserving a strict dichotomy between subject and object: there is the active gazer, who
exerts his (or her) purview on things. Stereotypes actively conceal the fact that

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their objects return the gazeindeed, what they disavow is the very agency and
subjectivity of their objects. This problem of representation that Bhabha identifies is the same as that raised by Copjecthat is, that the gaze is never singular
or static, but rather, In the objectification of the scopic drive there is always the
threatened return of the look (LC, 81). In Copjecs terms, there is never only
one triangle, but a second (in this instance, the gaze of the racialized other) always menaces the first from behind the scenes. This keeping something behind the scenes is not just the simultaneous admittance and denial of some fact;
rather, it is the systematic exclusion of some term whereby what counts as fact
and what counts as fiction are legitimated. In other words, it is not merely fetishism of the stereotyped identity; it is the abjection of it.
This screen-behind-the-mirror, which refracts, distorts, and disturbs ones
gaze, destabilizes the gazer because what he wants to be a perfect reflection of
himself is, in fact, not. This is precisely Irigarays point in her discussion of the
mirroring function of the feminized commodity: because the gaze is objectifying
a woman, one who can in fact return the look, 1) the gaze of the masculine
viewer is always necessarily threatened by the return of the look, and this gaze,
because it is mirrored in a body which is in fact different from his own, never
returns an undistorted image; and 2) her attempts at looking must be systematically trivialized and proven to lack the rigor of real looking/listening/judging.
That is to say, girls music must suck by definition in order to contain this
threat of the returned gaze. If feminine/feminized gazing is not a real looking/listening/judging, then it cannot threaten the stability and reliability of the
transcendental egos renaissance-vanishing-point. Accordingly, the fact of the
existence of these trivialized and marginalized forms of aesthetic production and
judgment indicates that this screen behind the mirror must also exist: if it
wasnt a threat, why go to such lengths to protect oneself from it? The abjection
of the popular indicates the excesses of fetishistic appropriation of cultural productsnamely, the activity, agency, and resistance hovering behind the mirror/veil that challenges the sovereignty of the gazer.
bell hookss notion of the oppositional gaze highlights the roles gender,
race, and class have in both (1) facilitating the misrecognition of the self (i.e.,
the failure to identify with the screen image) that fractures the Renaissancevanishing-point perspective, and (2) the return of the look, the development of
alternate interpretations that resist the dominant aesthetic and social norms. Noting that When most black people in the United States first had the opportunity
to look at film and television, they did so fully aware that mass media was a
system of knowledge and power reproducing and maintaining white supremacy,46 hooks argues that the misrepresentation and/or utter absence of black
female characters in mainstream cinema has caused black women to approach
films from a highly critical perspective. As it was difficult or impossible to identify with any of the characters in the film, hooks argues, black female spectators
were less likely to suspend their disbelief and adopt the films perspectives and
presumptionsin particular, the perspective of the male gaze, wherein white

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females are offered as sexualized objects for the visual pleasure of white and
black male spectators.47 Looking at films with an oppositional gaze, hooks
explains,
black women were able to critically assess the cinemas construction of white
womanhood as object of phallocentric gaze and choose not to identify with either the victim or the perpetrator. Black female spectators, who refused to identify with white womanhood, who would not take on the phallocentric gaze of
desire and possession, created a critical space where the binary opposition
[Laura] Mulvey posits of woman as image, man as bearer of the look was
continually deconstructed (OG, 213).

Since black women are situated outside the white scopophilic politics of Mulveys theory of the male gaze, their spectatorship fractures the Renaissancevanishing-point perspective of Mulveys theory and opens up the numerous
screens behind the mirror of dominant constructions of gendered looking relations. Due to their exclusion from and consequent inability to seamlessly identify with Hollywood films, the black women hooks discusses already recognize
and practice a form of active (i.e., non-passive, non-fetishized) spectatorship.
For hooks, it is precisely this attempted objectification or silencing that incites the desire to return the look. Remarking that the politics of slavery, of
racialized power relations, were such that the slaves were denied their right to
the gaze (OG, 207), hooks claims, with a nod to Foucault, that in spite (and
perhaps, to a certain extent, because) of this prohibition, I knew that the slaves
had looked. That all attempts to repress our/black peoples right to gaze had
produced in us an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze (OG, 208). Even though the slaves, objectified and commodified,
existed in the worst circumstances of domination, they nonetheless retained
the capacity (if not always the concrete means for realization) of subjective
agency: the ability to manipulate ones gaze in the face of structures of domination that would contain it opens up the possibility of agency (OG, 208). Indeed,
to claim that people in positions under domination (e.g., commodification) are
utterly passive objects incapable of any agency further oppresses them insofar as
this claim refuses to recognize any agency at allrather infantilizing, it seems.
Attending to the ways in which race intersects with gender, hooks notion of
the oppositional gaze complements Copjecs attempts to re-think the dynamics
of psychoanalytic film theory. Both theorists point to the ways in which the feminized, non-white object is anything but passive or silent, and to the fact that
monological accounts of gazing only further marginalize those put in the position of object by failing to recognize the ways in which they transform and
resist the power exerted on and through them. With this in mind, I examine JayZs claim of self-commodification as an instance of oppositional looking.
Given his position as a racially (and formerly socioeconomically) underprivileged man, I argue that his self-commodification is a transformative mimesis: he

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adopts an apparently disempowering position as a means of agency in resisting

the forces that marginalize him.

Behind the Screen Shines a Roc

Kanye Wests Diamonds (Are from Sierra Leone) offers an instance in
which commodification, from the position of a multiply underprivileged masculinity, becomes a source of agency and empowerment.48 Two thirds of the way
through the song, Jay-Z makes the following remark: Im not a businessman,
Im a business, man/So lemme handle my business, damn. His claim here is
that he is not a subject, a man, who engages in certain sorts of social and economic relations (i.e., business), but that he, Jay-Z (who bears some unarticulated
relationship to Sean Carter, the person who claims Jay-Z as a stage name), is a
business, an object or type of socioeconomic relationship. However, this apparent self-objectification does not prevent Jay-Z/Sean Carter (?) from conducting
his own business (from exercising agency). Moreover, given the context of the
songwhich alludes to chattel slavery and discusses at length the exploitation
of child laborers in African diamond minesthis instance of commodified
Black masculinity seems distinctively empowering. In spite of all the keep it
real rhetoric of and debates about authenticity in hip hop, we have someone
glorifying the fact that he, as Jay-Z, artist and president of Def Jam records, isnt
an agent conducting business (a businessman), but is himself a commodity.49
In this song, the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality within the
aesthetic and economic marketplaces encompassed by hip hop help to illustrate
the subversive repetition of the norms of capitalism, specifically, the subjectobject relation and the notion of commodity fetishism. First, the sample off
which West builds the track offers an index of the conventional attitudes
of/toward commodity fetishism. The female vocalist (Shirley Bassey) lusts after
diamonds (not human companionship) because they are everlasting and reliable in a way human relationships cannot be.50 This is orthodox commodity fetishism: relations among commodities substitute for real social relations, thus
rendering the fetishist passive.
Now, the first hint of Wests and Jays intent to subvert this clichd narrative arrives near the beginning of the song when West indicates that, while following our chanteuses advice to hold one up, the kind of diamonds he intends
to throw in the sky are not rocks of compressed carbon, but the jewels of
Rock-A-Fella records (which is, not coincidentally, Wests label, founded and at
that time run by Jay-Z). Claims for the timelessness of hip hop also suggest that
these artists are as aesthetically and culturally significant as, say, Mozart. Then,
the more radical subversion: namely, Jay-Zs deconstruction of the subjectobject relationship characteristic of capitalism and capitalist relations. Rejecting
the role of businessman, Jay argues that he is not a subject or man overand-against or separate from his business. The distinction between human and
thing, property owner and property, is rendered ambiguous by his claim that he,
Jay/Sean is a business, man. He is a subject insofar as he is always-also an ob-

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ject: or rather, given his situation within systems of race and class privilege in
the U.S., he is, to an extent, always already objectifiedhis agency and subjectivity necessarily exist in the context of this objectification.51 Subverting the
conventional logic that objectification is bad and an impediment to if not the
opposite of agency, freedom, and humanity, Jays lyric contrasts this so-called
objectification with two other examples of concrete oppression described in
Wests portion of the piece. Indeed, Jay argues that his form of objectification
isnt disempowering, as was the objectification that produces systematic social
and economic marginalization of African Americans (such as the legacy of slavery in the United States, the intersection of race and class that would lead the
black persons soul to rock that gold) or the objectification of those shorties
in Sierra Leone. Indeed, his self-commodification seems to be celebrated as one
of his many hard-fought battles for success, and as distinctly different from the
literal commodification of African Americans as slaves.
Perhaps the reason why this self-objectification on Jay-Zs part is meaningful is because of the vicissitudes of underclass Black masculinity in the latetwentieth- and early-twenty-first-century United States. Indeed, insofar as discourses of hip-hop authenticity tend to essentialize African-American male experience and to market a false image of ghetto life to middle-class whites, this
explicitly commercial confession could be read as a radical statement of selfdetermination: I, Sean Carter, create the brand Jay-Z as a vehicle for creativity, self-advancement, experimentation, leadership, and entrepreneurship. People
expected me, some dumb rapper from the streets to fail at this business venture, but the fact is, Ive been doing this all my life, and Ive had to overcome
more challenges than, say, many Ivy League MBAs.52
So, Wests and Jays celebration of themselves as a businesstheir selfcommodification, if you willis not, given the intersection of race, class, gender, and history, the all-kinds-of-bad we well-meaning white liberals and continental thinkers are supposed to believe it is. You could say they are signifying on the idea of commodification, subversively repeating the invisible
whiteness of capitalism. They take its traditional connotations of alienation,
objectification, and disempowerment and turn them on their heads, transforming these notions into something ill. This example illustrates that perhaps
commodity fetishism is only disempowering if one assumes the subject is, at
the outset, privileged; underprivileged artists like Jay-Z adopt this supposedly
regressive position as a site of resistance, opposition, and empowerment.

Regressive Listening/Toward Abjection

Reading Copjecs notion of the doubled, conflicted (Copjec, 302) orthopsychic gaze in terms of Kristevas concept of abjection helps clarify how socalled regressive listening and Jay-Zs self-commodification are overdetermined by discourses of race, gender, and sexuality. Copjec and Kristeva
demonstrate that the emptiness of the classical and the ultimate contingency of

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any norm are the very conditions of an active, rather than regressive, listening.
When the signifierthe work, the phallus (signifier of masculine privilege)is understood to be hollow, void of any real or authentic content, the
image, the entire visual field, takes on a terrifying alterity. It loses its belong-tome aspect and suddenly assumes the function of a screen (Copjec, 300). No
longer a property or a commodity I can appropriate or exchange, and thus, as
Irigaray argues, no longer a mirror through which subjects recognize themselves as brokers in the phallus market, the piece/film no longer indicates me
(the masculine subject) as the transcendental telos of the Renaissance-vanishingpoint perspective, but calls the stability of this viewpoint into question by introducing uncertainty, doubt, and excess into the scene (or, shall we say, screen).
Just as Lacan claims that the mirror stage is both reassuring (it provides the
gazer with a precocious sense of agency) and disquieting (the gazer is not, in
fact, as adept and agile as the mirror image would indicate), we can see that the
fetishistic gaze is also crossed by this double movement. So while Adorno
would argue that the fetishist is only impeded by his or her fascination with feminized cultural products, Copjecs and Lacans work indicates that the regressive listening is also affirmative and enabling. If looking/listening is a conflictual place (Copjec, 302) for all the subjects visions and revisions
(Copjec, 303), fetishism proves to inadequately account for this gazing and listening that escapes easy subsumption under active/passive binaries. Fetishism,
insofar as it separates out viewer from viewed, high from low, authentic from
fetishistic listening, fails to account for the complex relations we have with cultural products. For example, this failure to account for the way in which commodities can, in fact, speakalbeit in a trivialized, unrefined fashionis due
to the tendency within the discourse of fetishism to posit an absolute separation
between active viewer and passive object of the gaze. Accordingly, even claiming that women are fetishized commodities does not adequately attend to the
problem of the feminization of the fetish/commodity and why certain forms of
expressionas well as femininity itselfare systematically abjected through
associations with a trivialized popular. Why? Because women do in fact speak,
because low art is, in fact, meaningful. Further, the thesis that women are objects of fetishization fails to recognize that women are regarded, objectified, and
subjectivized differentially according to race, class, sexuality, and any variety of
other factors.
Copjecs account of Lacan, in admitting of the impossibility of some
authentic real, does allow for the fact that feminized people and products do
say meaningful and powerful things. Because, for Lacan, the signifier does not
correspond to or represent an existent signified, the listener is always presented with both a void and excess of meaning; because there is no real meaning to which ones interpretation must correspond, there are also an infinite
number of possible interpretations. To put it in more Hegelian-Adornian terms,
the void is immediately the excess of meaning. That is to say, Where the Fou-

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cauldian and the film-theoretical positions always tend to trap the subject in representation[,]to conceive of language as constructing the prison walls of the
subjects being, Lacan argues that the subject sees these walls as trompe loeil,
and is thus constructed by something beyond them (Copjec, 300). Because
there is no necessary or determined signified, a signifying work (music, film)
presents the listener with a multitude of potential responses and interpretations.
Politically, the determined signified, the trompe loeil, is normative white hetero-patriarchybut more on this in the next section. No longer bound by a strict
signifier-signified correspondence, the listener stands in an active relation to
musical works, for it is in the very relations of listening that the signified is
realized. If every signifier is the signifier of a lack, Copjec argues that this
point at which something appears to be missing from representation, some
meaning left unrevealed, is the point of the Lacanian gaze. It marks the absence
of a signified; it is an unoccupiable point, not, as film theory claims, because it
figures an unrealizable ideal but because it indicates an impossible real (Copjec, 300; emphasis mine). No authentic, immediate representation is possible;
thus the beyond of the Lacanian gaze is not that of a transcendent metaphysical immediacy, but one of conjecture, namely, the realization that access to this
real is itself a myth produced by the symbolic. The aspiration toward an unrealizable ideal of the pure, intellectual, disinterested relation to cultural products is transposed into the recognition that notions such as the classical, and
the universal judgments of beauty that are accorded to canonical works, are
mythsmyths which are tenable only when the classical is articulated against
an abjected popular.

Kristeva: Abjection and the Impossible Real

Copjecs re-examination of fetishisms gaze points to serious shortcomings in
the discourse of fetishism, most notably its failure to account for the contingency and constructedness of what it assumes as true or normal. While Copjecs analysis remains within the reworked terms of fetishism, it is my claim that
this new fetishism is best understood in light of what is both assumed by and
in excess of it: abjection. Using Copjecs notion of the impossible real as my
point of departure, I read Kristevas Powers of Horror as a means to explore in
more detail the reasons why abjections emphasis on the impossibility of the real
and the coincidence of social identities make it an essential companion to the
discourse of fetishism. Because abjection provides a more explicit conceptual
structure for thinking the conjectural status of gendered, raced, and resonating
bodies, it helps us articulate the ways in which coincident systems of privilege
and marginalization come to establish and legitimate fetishisms norm as
normal.
Abjection is in many ways Kristevas term for the intellectual tactic Rousseau labels conjecture. Just as conjecture is used to describe the state of nature,

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abjection is used to mark humanity off from animality, on the one hand, and the
speaking subject off from maternity/femininity on the other. Something becomes abject only if it is a border between two distinct entities or territories. A
boundary between nature and culture, between the human and the non-human
(PoH, 75). In other words, the tale of abjection is a tale of the originor rather,
the onsetof language in the speaking being and in society. Kristevas account
of the abject is, in its own way, an essay on the origin of language. Kristeva examines the work of anthropologists like Claude Lvi-Strauss and Mary Douglass
alongside the more ontogenic writings of Freud (e.g., Totem and Taboo, Moses
and Monotheism) in order to get behind the various narratives of the origin of
the split between nature and culture and demonstrate that this division is possible and thinkable only from the perspective of language/culture. Like Rousseau,
Kristeva argues that her analysis of the origin and economy of language in the
subject does not unfold without a share of fiction, the nucleus of which, drawn
from actuality and the subjective experience of the one who writes, is projected
upon data collected from the life of other cultures, less to justify itself than to
throw light on them by means of an interpretation to which they obviously offer
resistance (PoH, 68).
Abjection is a reworking of the psychoanalytic Oedipal narrative which, in
shifting emphasis from Oedipus Rex to Oedipus at Colonus, also shifts the emphasis in the psychoanalytic account of the origin of the speaking being from
disavowal (the operation by which fetishism proceeds) to exclusion (the operation by which abjection proceeds). While Oedipus Rex revolves around Oedipuss denial or disavowal of the truth of his parentage and the fact that he is the
source of Thebess contamination, in this second play, there is, first of all, a
spatial exclusion. Oedipus must exile himself (PoH, 84). Thus, while the first
play ends with Oedipus ending his disavowal of the facts and blinding himself
to symbolize the force of this enlightenment, the second one offers exile and
excision of the abnormal and undisciplined as a solution to the situation. According to Kristeva, what Sophocles presents in Oedipus at Colonus is not a
model of the disavowal and then recognition of castration (i.e., a model of fetishism), but the workings of a spatial model whereby the very boundary between
what counts as actual and what counts as false/wrong is negotiated. In other
words, Oedipus at Colonus illustrates that the transition into civil society and
into language occurs through building the wall, reinforcing the boundary that
wards off opprobrium, which, because of this very fact, is not disavowed but
shown to be alien (PoH, 84). It is not fetishism, with its focus on the disavowal
of castration, but abjection, which attends to the spacing between proper and
improper that best describes the subjects origin as such.

Abjection, Conjecture, and the Screen Behind the Mirror

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Kristevas discussion of the origin of language highlights several specific

differences between abjection and fetishism. Even though language is based on
fetishist denial (I know that, but just the same, the sign is not the thing, but
just the same) (PoH, 37), fetishism already assumes the existence of a selfpresent subject for whom objects appear and are experienced as such. Indeed,
the ability to calculate equivalences implied in the just the same a judgment
common to both psychoanalytic and Marxist notions of fetishismrequires two
assumptions that the process of abjection does not: first, that there is a clear distinction between a subject and the objects to which it relates, and second, that
there is some object and its supposed truth or reality available for misrecognition. At work in the claim that some one thing is just the same as another is
the assumption that there are at least two entities that are distinct from each
other and from me; in order for one to deny the distinction between the fetish
and that for which it substitutes, this distinction must first be in existence. Furthermore, in order for the fetishist to judge these objects to be equivalent, he or
she is assuming that they contain content about which a truth claim can be made;
what is denied is that the truth or reality or use-value of these objects is,
in fact, unique.
So, while language might require the denial of difference between signifier
and signified, more fundamental to the possibility of signification is the construction of the myth of the signified, the myth that behind the sign is a true,
actual, existent reality available for representatione.g., use value or the state
of nature. While Rousseau would call this activity myth-making or conjecture,
Kristeva describes this gesture as a hallucination of origin (or of the real)
brought on by the fear experienced in the face of the impossibility and lack
made evident through abjection. Horrified that neither truth nor origin is pure
and/or definable, the abject constructs for him or her self indexing value, pointing to something else, some non-thing, something unknowable. The phobic object is in that sense the hallucination of nothing[or] the impossible object (the
maternal phallus, which is not) (PoH, 41). This hallucination, then, is of the
truth or origin of present experience in some immaterial, inscrutable, and most
importantly, normative spherea state which in some fashion rationalizes
and/or justifies existing social, political, and ideological structures. Because the
hallucination is not just the misplacement, misidentification, or misjudgment of
some existing phenomenon, but is in fact the creation of its object, Kristeva emphasizes that the object of this brand of hallucination is impossiblei.e., is
nothing. The privileged example of this impossible object is the maternal phallus, which symbolizes two related ideas: maternal phallus as the non-civilized
state of nature (often described as a matriarchy, where either Mother Earth or
human mothers rule), or maternal phallus as the fetishized penis/phallus of the
mother.
The impossibility of the abject is thus tied to its association with the
enigma or inscrutability of femininity. Though a slippery elision of the impossibility of nature/the real with the impossibility of comprehending the enigma
of femininity, the feminine body, the maternal body, in its most un-signifiable,

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un-symbolizible aspect, shores up, in the individual, the fantasy of the loss in
which he is engulfed or becomes inebriated, for want of the ability to name an
object of desire (PoH, 20). Nature is abjected; it is the constitutive exclusion
whereby the boundaries of what is knowable and unknowable are founded.
Thus, in a patriarchal system, things associated with femininity will fall into the
category of the unknowable, for epistemic structures are not developed for this
purpose (and indeed are meant to keep femininity out of the domain of knowledge proper). Further, in a system that privileges logos, things that are not subsumable under or controlled by it will either become threatening or intoxicating
in the mystery they seem to present the thinker.
This fictional state of natural/maternal authority is impossible because abjection, although prior to fetishism, never occurs in a space outside culture and
language. Completely within the being of language, (PoH, 45) abjection, the
founding division [which] is the establishment of the subject/object division,
occurs from within the discreteness of the phonemic chain up to and including
logical and ideological constructs (PoH, 46). The foundation of the subject/object structure, the division between nature and culture, is already within
the domain of language, convention, and ideology. Just as Rousseau argued in
the Second Discourse, any notion of nature, up to and especially including the
very existence of nature as a concept, always results from and thus reflects the
predispositions and incorrigible positions of the discourses in and among which
it is situated. Kristevas account of abjection posits the same relationship between nature and society. Sense does not emerge out of non-sense [nature,
irrationality], she argues. On the contrary, non-sense runs through signs and
sense, and the resulting manipulation of words is not an intellectual play but,
without any laughter, a desperate attempt to hold on to the ultimate obstacles of
a pure signifier that has been abandoned by the paternal metaphor (PoH, 50).
This desperate attempt takes the form of the aforementioned phobic hallucinations.
While Kristeva begins her analysis of the abject with the discussion of the
abjection of self, i.e., the abjection experienced by and/or within a single subject, she notes that it commonly appears at the socio-cultural level. For example,
this form of abjection is an artist who practices his art as a business. Corruption is its most common, most obvious appearance. That is the socialized appearance of the abject (PoH, 16). The rejection/trivialization of commodity art
as corrupt, inauthentic, or untrue is one of the most frequent manifestations of
this socio-cultural abjection. However, what abjections foundation in emptiness
and impossibility reveals is that all art is always-already corrupt, in the sense of
lacking any true or authentic position from which art can fall.53 Insofar as the
subject undergoing the process of abjection finds the impossible within; it
finds that the impossible constitutes its very being (PoH, 5; emphasis mine), it
is evident that the idea of some pure, true, uncorrupted state is a mythis an
impossibility.

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As I have mentioned earlier, Kristeva agrees with Rousseau that any description of the State of Nature or the nature of humanity (even a single human being) is necessarily conjectural. A descent into the foundations of the
symbolic construct [i.e., language] amounts to retracing the fragile limits of the
speaking being, closest to its dawn, to the bottomless primacy constituted by
primal repression [i.e., abjection] (PoH, 18). Like Rousseau, who claims that it
is impossible to know nature because the concept of nature is a myth created
by society in order to justify its present state, Kristeva argues that any prelinguistic state is an empty set, i.e., a state whose truth can never be known
because it is above all a retroactively instituted fiction that thus has no so-called
truth. Kristeva explains: all abjection is in fact recognition of the want on
which any being, meaning, language, or desire is founded (PoH, 5). This is to
be contrasted with abjections more or less fetishized product, the object of
want (PoH, 5). Abjection is the process whereby lack is established, the process through which separations and distinctions begin to be made, and thus is the
creation of the loss of/want for any sort of pure, unmediated state. While abjection founds the initial same/other and subject/object boundaries and thereby
brings into being subjects and objects, fetishism requires an already existent
object to be fetishized. Fetishism requires complete immersion in the systems of
meaning and conventionhow else would the little boy know that his mother
lacks a phallus, and that a phallus is something worth having? In the case of
abjection, however, even before things for him arehence before they are signifiablehe drives them outand constitutes his own territory, edged by the
abject (PoH, 6).
The function of exclusion by which abjection operates is specifically not
negation, denial, or repudiation, which (especially denial) are associated
with fetishism. Repression, negation, denialand thus fetishismall require
some thing or object to be denied, repressed, and/or negated. According to Kristeva, abjection challenges the theory of the unconscious because the latter
presupposes a repression of contents (PoH, 7). In other words, the claim that
something is repressed in the unconscious assumes that there exists some latent
truth that is prevented from manifesting itself completely. Fetishism, which is
grounded in denial, thus also makes this assumption of a hidden or veiled truth,
which it is then the analysts job to uncover. Abjection, as the process whereby
what will count as true is separated out from what will count as false, does
not call upon some hidden truth or real. Kristeva repeatedly emphasizes that
abjection is a sort of primal repression, that is, a form of psychic splitting prerequisite for actions like repression and denial. What lies at the core of abjection, the proto-object from which the pre-subject rids itself, is emptiness (PoH
6); thus, abjection is an attempt to tear the veil of infinity but also to set up its
object as inoperative. As jettisoned (PoH 9, emphasis mine). This inoperative
object is what Copjec describes as the impossible real.
Kristeva uses the notion of abjection to demonstrate the fallacy of accounts
that, like the psychoanalytic Oedipal narrative, claim to describe the transition
from some pure, unmediated natural state to self-consciousness and civilization.

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No sooner sketched out, argues Kristeva, than such a thesis is exploded by its
contradictions and flimisiness (PoH 32). Rather than a clearly demarcated
boundary between nature and culture, Kristeva argues that we find a whole
gradation within modalities of separationa gradation constituting, in Lacans
brilliant formulation, the object relations, insofar as it is always a means of
masking, of parrying the fundamental fund of anguish (PoH 32). The boundary
between nature and culture is a gradation because, as the ambiguity of abjection indicates, nature is the effect or product of culture, a concept meant to abscond the fact that nature is itself a fiction, a lack.

Abjection Before Fetishism

Since abjection itself is a composite judgment and affect (PoH, 10), it allows us to account for the coincidence of various social and material forces.
Even though commodity fetishism can be opened up to display the ways, for
example, capitalism and patriarchy work together, fetishisms focus on exchange (just the same) encourages an analysis in which coincident systems of
privilege are reduced to or subsumed under a single processe.g., class, relations of production, gender. Indeed, as I discussed earlier, Irigarays analogical
reading of Capital precluded her from discussing the relationships between gender, race, and class (the latter of which is present in other chapters of the same
text). Because abjection is, among many things, a process whereby distinctions
are drawn and boundaries are made, it highlights the ways in which, for example, class hierarchies and serious/pop distinctions are articulated through concurrent contestations in discourses of gender, race, sexuality, age, etc. The conflict
and concurrence of the negotiations through which systems of privilege and
marginalization are articulated and maintained determine what, during the process of abjection, counts as taboo or dirty, and what will be allowed to constitute the realm of the proper. For instance, as capitalism developed out of other
forms of political and economic organization, those behaviors that came to be
considered savvy businesscompetitiveness, assertiveness, rationality, selfinterestaccrued such value because capitalism developed within and alongside
patriarchal systems of power and privilege. Similarly, those behaviors and attitudes considered masculine in the West were determined by capitalist structures; providing for ones family, being competitive, doing real work (i.e.,
working in the public sphere, not the private, where women and non-white, nonbourgeois and homosexual men work), among others, came to be considered
masculine because these were behaviors that contributed to success (read:
privilege) in a capitalist system. Thus, while fetishisms operation of recognition/denial relies upon an already-established determination of what counts as
real (genuine social relations; male anatomy) and what as fake (material
relations mistaken as social relations; maternal phallus), abjection is the process
whereby coincident social and material forces parse out what accedes to the
status of true and what is rejected as taboo.54

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The discourse of commodity fetishism does not have the analytical resources necessary to examine how it is informed by and coincident with discourses of gender and race. As I have just demonstrated, commodity fetishism
deploys real/fake and active/passive hierarchies; while these hierarchies are
structured by white, masculine privilege, the discourse of commodity fetishism
is unable to account for this in its own language. True, class is frequently identified as the determining factorbourgeois music is serious, whereas that performed for and by the working classes is pop. However, class alone is insufficient for explaining the logic whereby the status of musical works and
listeners is determined. Not only does this class-only model overlook the coincidence of social identities (i.e., the fact that class never appears isolated from
race, gender, sexuality, etc.), it is particularly inadequate to a historical moment
wherein classical music has become commodified and certain forms of rock,
hip hop, and country music have become canonized. In the same way that it is
overly simplistic to posit one primary social identity (e.g., class) onto which all
others are then mapped, it is equally incorrect to think that social hierarchies
pre-exist aesthetic hierarchies, and that the latter merely express or reflect the
former. Aesthetic values are one example among many coincident relations of
power and privilege that, in their coincidence, co-produce one another. Thus,
discourses including (but not limited to) patriarchy, heterosexism, white racism,
colonialism, and ageism work in concert with capitalism and the arbiters of musical expertise to establish certain musical practices as belonging to the privileged, and certain otherse.g., those most closely identified with profit and
embodimentas those of the masses.
Artistic experience, argues Kristeva, is rooted in the abject it utters and
by the same token purifies (PoH 17). Hierarchies are established through abjection: in the same movement, two supposedly exclusive terms are both articulated
and invested with social privilege on the one hand or disgust on the other. For
Kristeva, abjection is the co-articulation of social privilege and aesthetic values;
indeed, insofar as abjection separates out the clean from the disgusting, its
work is aesthetic (i.e., disgust is related to the gustatory is related to taste).
These aesthetic categoriesdisgust and the clean/properdo not and cannot
pre-exist the process of abjection, if only for the fact that their functioning requires the separation accomplished in abjection (between subject and object,
inside and outside). I need to be able to distinguish something as other in order to invest it with a taboo, just as my disgust requires an object. Thus, because
this process of abjection describes the coincidence of the aesthetic with the social, it provides a more accurate account of the interactions among social identities and aesthetic values than the discourse of fetishism, which assumes existent
social hierarchies and (both consciously and unconsciously) maps aesthetics
onto them. Im not arguing that commodity fetishism doesnt happen. Rather,
my claim is that abjection is a prerequisite to fetishism: you cant substitute a
fake for a real thing until the process of abjection has delimited what counts
as real in the first place. Fetishism alone doesnt give us a complete or fully

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accurate account of the aesthetics social dimension, or, more narrowly even, of
commodity music. Fetishism must be supplemented by abjection.
Because the forms of abjection discussed above have centered around the
exclusion and devaluation of the feminized popular, it seems to follow that a
re-valuation of traditionally denigrated feminine identities would also require a
re-valuation of mass culture and commercial art. In the next section, I argue that,
in spite of many feminists anti-capitalist leanings, the devaluation of commercial popular music as such both (1) marginalizes and trivializes the accomplishments of many women in one of the few domains in which women have had
significant cultural impact, and (2) often institutes hierarchies among women
based on age, race, class, and educational attainment.

Pop as Feminist Project

To revalue regressive listening, we must take seriously the merits of the cultural products marginalized by their classification as an abjected, feminized,
trivialized popular. Modes of listening that acknowledge the value of enjoyment,
of physical as well as intellectual engagement with music, must be recognized
and respected.55 Insofar as all music is devoid of any real (in the Lacanian
sense) or purely musical content, it lacks any use-value (in the Marxist
sense). A significant part of arts value is its social value (or what Marx would
call its exchange value).56 To somewhat flip Adornos script, it is in this sense
that all music is commodity music. Instead of following Adornos lead and
viewing this as a tragic regression in listening (or, a resignation to the impossibility of active listening), it is my contention that, within and because of fetishized commodity relations, people do exercise agency and creativity in their
relations to commodities and to one another. Its not a loss, but a positive thing
that we transact our social relations through and in terms of art, or that art is one
modality of the social. For feminists, then, our task is to constantly interrogate
what the supposed presence of arts impossible real is attempting to cover
over, and why.57
The re(e)valuation of commodity music and regressive listening is a
feminist project not only because women dominate both the performance and
consumption of popular music, but also because of the historic feminization of
the popular. The devaluation of popular musicmusic made by and for feminized, abjected subjectsboth reflects and reinforces the systematic devaluation of girls and those things considered girl-like. As Ilana Nash argues, The
claim of idol musics inherent invalidity is merely a front for what critics really
consider invalid: young girls, the single least respected group among middleclass whites.58 Enjoying and advocating the pleasures of pop music is part of a
feminist consciousness because it asserts the values of an oppressed group and
demands that girls subjectivities be heard (Nash, 148). Thus, while feminists

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such as Irigaray might want to condemn the exchange of commodities as part

and parcel of the capitalist patriarchy, we should be careful not to thereby condemn those people and cultural products which have been situated within capitalism as commodities. For example, we would avoid idiot reader constructions, such as those assumed in Kristevas critique of the society of the
spectacle, whose very articulation attempts to render passive and powerless
artists and consumers who are generally quite engaged in cultural production
and criticism. As I have shown in my reading of West and Jay-Z, commodification is not necessarily disempoweringin fact, it may seem to be so only from
the perspective of a relatively privileged subject. Following Copjec, we see that
the ideal of the autonomous, self-determining, panoptic subject is nothing but
a mytha myth produced by and in support of the privileged white heteromasculine bourgeois subject. Anti-racist, anti-homophobic feminisms committed
to economic justice cannot perpetuate the assumption that commodification and
mass culture are inauthentic and disempowering, because this view is inconsistent with the philosophical and political commitments of such feminisms. In the
epilogue, I flesh out in further detail why feminist philosophers need to concern
themselves with popular culture.
In the following chapter, I turn to Sarah Kofmans reading of Nietzsche,
which suggests an argument for the philosophical value of popular music.

Chapter 5

My Foot Feels the Need for Rhythm:

Nietzsche and the Feminized Popular1

Like Rousseau, Nietzsche is concerned with the relationship between music and
language, and uses a notion of conjecture to critique a prevalent musicians false
idea of musical immediacy. While Nietzsches rejection of Wagner is closely
tied to his deconstruction of singular Truth and Western metaphysics, what particularly interests me in Nietzsches music aesthetics is his use of the body as a
basis for the re-valuation of a specifically feminized popular music. Because, for
Nietzsche, music is primarily a corporeal, affective discoursein other words,
because music both is and is about resonating bodiesrhythmic, accessible music whose telos is dancing is superior, both physiologically and aesthetically,
to complex, indecipherable music whose telos is posing.2 That is to say,
Nietzsche argues for the value of music that entertains (dances) above music that
makes a philosophical claim (strikes a pose). Often directly associated with the
figure of woman and/or femininity, stereotypically feminine traits such as superficiality, charm, affect, embodied response (indeed, dancing), and pleasure as an
end in itself are what Nietzsche values most in music. Not only does Nietzsche
provide us with an interesting historical example of an aesthetic that explicitly
values feminized popular music (such as Opera Buffa), his work also suggests
some productive avenues for addressing contemporary popular music.
In this chapter, I take up Sarah Kofmans reading of Nietzsche in Nietzsche
and Metaphor in order to further examine the role of the body in Nietzsches
critique of Wagner. Wagners music is to be faulted because it is more interested
in striking poses (i.e., making Truth claims) than in dancing; in other words,
Wagners music is motivated by a specious will-to-truth, while superficial, light
dance music realizes, like woman, that Truth is itself an error. Accordingly,
after my discussion of Nietzsches critique of Wagner, I then examine his argument for the positive valuation of Italian opera (Opera Buffa, or comic opera)
over German opera (Muskidrama, Die Gesamtkunstwerk). Nietzsches advocacy
of popular music is intimately tied to the conceptual work accomplished by his
metaphorical use of woman and femininity; Nietzsche is not just asserting
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the aesthetic value of popular music in general, but a specifically feminized

popular. I conclude the chapter with some reflections on contemporary issues
emerging from the coincidence of music and social identity.

Resonating Bodies: The Case of Wagner

Nietzsches main objection to Wagners music (apart from his other ideological
differences with the composer) is that Wagner is more of a rhetorician than a
musician, and that he subordinates an operas music to its libretto. In other
words, Nietzsche faults Wagner for believing that music can express or represent an idea. As Kofman argues in Nietzsche and Metaphor, "This is what
Nietzsche will later condemn in the music of Wagner: as a musician he was a
rhetorician, making the music serve the text and seeking above all to be expressive, to give a commentary on an idea using a thousand symbols (NM, 10).
For Nietzsche, music is not expressive in a representational manner: it does not
re-present the ideas of the libretto in the same way that words and concepts do
not re-present material objects and events. Nietzsche rejects Wagners music
aesthetics as one aspect of the broader will-to-truth that he critiques throughout his oeuvre; thus, just as truth arises from error, the original exists only as
an after-effect of the copy. In the same way that feminists argue that gender is
performativei.e., it neither subtends nor pre-exists behavior, but is created
through this behaviorNietzsches theory of music is performative. It is only
through the process of expression that any expressed content arises. Nietzsche
argues that music should be, above all else, musical (rather than, say, philosophical); moreover, music should be judged on how it is performed and on the
affective responses it generates, not on the content it expresses. Claiming that
My objections to the music of Wagner are physiological objections, and that
aesthetics is nothing but a kind of applied physiology, Nietzsche frames his
critique of Wagners expressivism in terms of two opposed types of bodily comportment: posing (striking a pose, positing a claim) and dancing (performing,
being entertained).3

Wagner: The Poser is a Poseur

Asking, What is it that my whole body really expects of music?,
Nietzsche establishes the body as the measure of musical merit.4 Whether music
is good or bad is determined by ones physiological response to it. According to Nietzsche, Wagner makes music sick, because he is more interested in
positing philosophical claims, i.e., in posing, than in writing music.5 [I]f it was
Wagners theory that the drama is the end, the music is always a mere means,
Nietzsche claims that his practice was always, from beginning to end, the pose
is the end; the drama, also the music, is always merely a means to that (GS,

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sec. 368).6 To strike a pose is to make a philosophical claim; it is a statement

wherein the desire for being prompted creation (GS, section 370). Wagner
thought he could write operas that represented The Truth behind existence; that
is to say, he desired fixed, stable, permanent truths, Being in all its metaphysical
rigidity. The poses his works struck supposedly expressed this Truth. A
performative music, on the other hand, would be motivated by the desire for
destruction, for change, for future, for becoming (GS, section 370). Genuine
music, in Nietzsches view, cant stay stillit has to move around, to dance.
Nietzsche explains,
I no longer breathe easily once this [Wagnerian] music begins to affect me; that
my foot soon resents it and rebels; my foot feels the need for rhythm, dance,
march; it demands of music first of all those delights which are found in good
walking, striding, leaping, and dancing. But does not my stomach protest, too?
my heart? my circulation? my intestines? Do I not become hoarse as I listen?
(GS, section 268; emphasis mine).

Given Romantic notions of genius and creativity, one would think that the most
serious and important objections to a composers work would pertain to matters of artistry, virtuosity, creativity, and executionmatters which are usually
considered feats of the intellect. One might find Wagners harmonies innovative
and challenging, his instrumentation original, and the vision and virtuosity required for completing such massive works super-human. Nietzsches critique
here is, on the contrary, physiological. Grounded in musics affective character,
this analysis takes issue with the real corporeal affects and effects of Wagners
music and the ideas within it. In attempting to realize metaphysical concepts in
music, Wagner has created pieces which are, judged on the basis of affect, bad.
Not only does he forget the body, his music corrupts and atrophies itit is, in
Nietzsches terms, fundamentally undanceable. Indeed, it is nowadays common
knowledge that prolonged periods of inactivity (such as long plane trips) can
lead to serious health problems (such as blood clots). In subordinating the actual
performance of music to the staking of a (in Nietzsches mind, specious) philosophical claim, Wagner ceases to be a musician: privileging the pose over the
dance, Wagner is a musical poseur.

Cold Baths: Swimming and Dancing

Nietzsche further elaborates his applied physiology by contrasting dancing, which characterizes well-structured and pleasurable music, with swimming,
which he says is characteristic of badly-composed music. Swimming is the
movement exhibited by extended tonality and infinite melody (aspects we might
admire for their harmonic innovation and technical complexity), whereas dancing is appropriate to the light, measured, regularly cadential pieces characteristic

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of classical tonality and the popular dance music from which this originated.
Like Tristan und Isolde, in which the listener spends nearly the whole first act
floating along unending sequences of leitmotifs while wading through thick,
dense harmonic progressions, before being firmly grounded by a root-position
tonic, swimming is an activity where participants must find their way through an
amorphous mass.7 What is called infinite melody, argues Nietzsche,
can be clarified by an illustration. One walks into the sea, gradually loses ones
secure footing, and finally surrenders oneself to the elements without reservation: one must swim. In older music, what one had to do in the dainty, or solemn, or fiery back and forth, quicker and slower, was something quite different,
namely, to danceRichard Wagner wanted a different kind of movement; he
overthrew the physiological presupposition of previous music. Swimming,
floatingno longer walking and dancing (NCW, 666).

In the baroque and early classical periods (the infancy of tonality), instrumental
music was structured according to renaissance dance forms such as the minuet,
chaconne, tarantella, and many others. As these dances were forms of popular
entertainment, in order for this music to be danceable to the general public it
must be accessible. Hence, regular phrases and periods, regular cadences, balance, and measure were all required.8 To be creative within such strict formal
demands necessitated, according to Nietzsche, a much greater degree of talent
and intelligence than that demonstrated by composers of more complex music.9 Thus, there exists a distinction between
[b]eing profound and seeming profound.Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd
strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of
something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water
(GS, section 173).

Wagner, who writes in a harmonically complex and texturally dense style, believes that he is more profound than, say, Mozart, who wrote in short, clear,
phrases and brilliant, relatively transparent textures. Although empirically more
simple, works that are accessible, danceable, and entertaining evince a greater
degree of artistry, for their composers had to possess the intellectual and technical acuity to clearly, concisely, and precisely realize their ideas. This is why we
are dissatisfied with the operatic composer who cannot find melodies for the
highest sentiments but only a sentimental natural stammering and screaming
(GS, section 80; emphasis mine). Its not easy, after all, to write a catchy hook
or a hit track.
In contrast to the crowds desire for nonexistent profundity, Nietzsche
voices a preference for quick baths over swimming, and the superiority of
light, superficial music over Wagners seriousness. He explains:

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I approach deep problems like cold baths: quickly into them and quickly out
again. That one does not get to the depths that way, not deep enough down, is
the superstition of those afraid of the water, the enemies of cold water; they
speak without experience. The freezing cold makes one swift. And to ask this
incidentally: does a matter necessarily remain ununderstood and unfathomed
merely because it has been touched only in flight, glanced at, in a flash? (GS,
section 381).

Used to describe the experience of extended tonality and infinite melody,

swimming evinces a lack of foundation, regularity, and measure, for it is mired
in inaccessible depths; dancing, on the other hand, is like a cold bath, for it requires nimble, precise movement and aims for only the most superficial engagement. Nietzsches privileging of cold baths and light music follows
from his critique of Wagners expressivism. Would it not be rather probable,
Nietzsche argues, that precisely the most superficial and external aspect of existencewhat is most apparent, its skin and sensualizationwould be grasped
firstand might even be the only thing that allowed itself to be grasped? (GS,
section 373). The point of music is its affective pleasure, skin and sensualization. If one is quickly in and quickly out of the water, there is no time to strike
poses or to get carried away. [L]ong before there were any philosophers,
Nietzsche explains, music was credited with the power of discharging the emotions (GS, section 84)e.g., the theories of Pythagoras. Music should be
judged on its ability to produce and shape affect, i.e., as a performance, not an
expression. Accordingly, Nietzsche argues that applied physiologists should
be more concerned with what is beautiful in it than with what is proved in it
(GS, section 81). Importantly, beauty is often seen as a superficial, passive sort
of pleasure; Kant, for example, considers the beautiful to be less aesthetically
valuable than the sublime for just these reasons. Beauty, superficiality, supposed
passivity, corporeality, and mere pleasure are also strongly associated with
stereotypical femininity, both in Kantian aesthetics and in Western culture generally.10 In the next section, I examine Nietzsches re-valuation of pop musics
superficiality and affectivity in the context of his use of the metaphors
woman and femininity. Because the feminine is denigrated and devalued by
European philosophy for the same reasons and in the same way that popular
music is, Nietzsches music aesthetics advocates popular music precisely because it is a feminized cultural discourse.

Pop Is the Tops

According to Schopenhauer, music was valuable precisely because it could
illustrate or express the Truth (i.e., the Ideas) with less interference/mediation
than any other art form. Consequently, Nietzsche characterizes German opera as

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primarily expressive and motivated by conventional Romantic theories of aesthetic value: virtuosity, innovation and originality, profundity, and so on.
Nietzsche privileges Italian opera (Opera Buffa, or comic opera) over the German tradition precisely because the former makes no claims to be concerned
with anything other than beauty and entertainment. Rather than attempt to express profound truths or demonstrate virtuosic mastery, Italian opera is motivated by delight masks and the good conscience in using any kind of mask
(GS, section 77). Italian opera aims after exuberant enjoyment of art as art (and
not as philosophy): the point is to construct a beautiful mask, to perform, not to
express or reveal some profound reality.

Opera Buffa vs. Die Gesamtkunstwerk

As Nietzsche sees it, Italian operas, are the self-proclaimed heirs of the
Greek theatrical tradition, and thus evince a fundamental unnaturalness and artificiality. In Nietzsches analysis, the ancient Greeks
endured the unnaturalness of dramatic verse with raptureThanks to the
Greeks, all of us have now become accustomed to unnatural stage convention
just as we tolerate, and tolerate gladly, thanks to the Italians, that other unnatural convention: passion that sings (GS, section 80; first emphasis mine).

The primary accomplishment of Greek tragedy was its invention of a highly

artificial and counterintuitive (at least for native speakers of non-tonal European
languages) forms of expression: singing, recitative, and carefully-crafted oratory. In other words, they invented non-re-presentational performance. From
this,
we have developed a need we cannot satisfy in reality: to hear people in the
most difficult situations speak well and at lengthwhere life approaches
abysses and men in reality usually lose their heads and certainly linguistic felicity. This kind of deviation from nature is perhaps the most agreeable repast for
human pride: for its sake man loves art as the expression of a lofty, heroic unnaturalness and conventionThe Athenian went to the theater in order to hear
beautiful speeches (GS, section 80).

In Nietzsches mind, the end of Greek tragedy was to convey not truths, but affect and pleasure. If the Greeks had been strictly concerned with mimesis, then
the chorus would never have played such a large role in the action or narration
of their theater pieces, for nothing like either of these phenomena exists in the
everyday world. Hence, this ancient Greek art was judged not by its profundity or realism, but by precisely its unnaturalness. Those Greeks were superficialout of profundityAre we not, precisely in this respect, Greeks?
(NCW, 683). In eliding the Italian tradition with that of the ancient Greeks,
Nietzsche argues that the former manifests the same recognition of and delight
in unnaturalness as Nietzsche purports to find in the latter.11 Genealogical facts
aside, the crux of Nietzsches argument is that all opera is in principle unnatural:

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although they are caricatures of reality, the characters in an opera dont behave
as real people. In instances of great passion, emotion, and profundity, how often
do you break out into song? The very principle of operathinking and communicating in songis contrary to lived experience; it is fundamentally artificial.
Thus, it should be obvious that opera is not capable of providing an accurate
representation of human existence. The point of the songs is their beauty, their
affective dimension, not their content. Thus, Nietzsche argues that,
with just a little more impertinence, Rossini would have had everybody sing
nothing but la-la-la-laand that would have made good, rational sense. Confronted with the characters in an opera, we are not supposed to take their word
for it, but the sound! That is the difference, that is the beautiful unnaturalness
for whose sake one goes to the opera (GS, section 80; emphasis mine).

If music is incapable of expressing content, and if its primary aim is enjoyment

and entertainment, then it doesnt matter what is sung, only how beautifully it is
sung. In this sense, then, Italian opera never posesit only dances. Indeed, the
argument, the good, rational sense of the Italian opera is precisely its unabashed, celebratory vulgarity, its privileging of delight and beauty above all
else. Most importantly for my purposes here, it is precisely Italian operas vulgarityits accessibility and its emphasis on entertainmentthat Nietzsche values.12
Like Italian opera, woman/femininity is also associated with masks, superficiality, and artifice throughout Nietzsches work. For example, Nietzsche says
that women consider the superficiality of existence its essence, and all virtue
and profundity is to them merely a veil over this truth (GS, section 64).
Nietzsche claims that music is a woman (NCW, 668) because what he values
in musicbeauty, corporeal affect, entertainment, superficialityis identical to
what is represented by his metaphors of women and femininity (particularly in
the works where he extensively discusses music). Nietzsches music aesthetics
champions popular music because it is a feminized cultural discourse.

The Feminized Popular

Nietzsches use of femininity and woman is inconsistent; Derrida,
Kofman, and others have extensively treated this idea. However, for my purposes in this book I focus on his use of femininity/woman only insofar as it pertains to his critique of serious music.13 Calling upon ancient associations between femininity and popular musicmusic, for example, performed by female
flute players, which serves to bracket the discussion of love in Platos SymposiumNietzsche exploits European cultures trivialization of music by, for, or
like women (i.e., reflects stereotypical notions of femininity), to elaborate his
notion of active, affirmative musical practice.14

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As I have discussed in the previous chapter, girls music is devalued because it is assumed to be overly simplistic, sentimental, and evocative of bodily
response. Nietzsche, similar to some second- and third-wave feminisms, embraces these stereotypically feminine traits as a sign of excellence and enjoyment. Arguing that We say the strongest things simply (GS, section 226),
Nietzsche claims that simplicity and accessibility are signs of willpower, discipline, and genius. Those who write overly complex, overwrought pieces are
incapable of imposing upon themselves and/or following strict stylistic rules. It
could be argued that Nietzsche is merely inverting privilege: genius is signaled not by complexity, but by simplicity. However, intellectual and creative
strength are not themselves sufficient to qualify a piece as genuinely worthy of
musical merit. For Nietzsche, the best music, the most preferable music, is also
accessible, affective, and enjoyable to the body as well as the mind. Anticipating, in a way, George Clintons well-known pronouncement free your ass and
your mind will follow, Nietzsche locates the transformative, active character
of music in its ability to work on and through the body:
One has to suffer the fate of music as of an open wound.Of what do I suffer
when I suffer the fate of music? That music has been done out of its worldtransfiguring, Yes-saying character, so that it is music of decadence and no
longer the flute of Dionysus (EH, 317; emphasis mine).

From the beginning of this passage, Nietzsche posits the problem of music as a
physiological problema wound in need of treatment. The nature of this
wound? The excision of active, affirmative qualities from music. Moreover, the
symptom of this wound is that it is no longer like the flute of Dionysus. In
both Greek mythology and Nietzsches own writings, Dionysus is associated
either directly with women (e.g., the maenads) or with stereotypically feminine
characteristics such as embodiment and irrationality (the foil to Apollos masculine rationality). While the instrument associated with the god Apollo (and
also the Apollonian) was the kithara, a harp-like instrument primarily used to
accompany texted song, the instrument of Dionysus was the flute-like aulos,
which obviously could not be played while singing and was often used to accompany dance. Unlike its counterpart, associated with words, language, and
rationality, the flute of Dionysus was used to move the body and incite frenzy
all characteristics stereotypical of femininity. What Nietzsche finds problematic about European art music is that these so-called feminine traits
embodiment, enthusiasm, simplicity, accessibilityare absent.15 Like the serious, reactive will-to-truth subject to critique in the Genealogy, a serious attitude toward music perverts it, ignoring musics distinctive qualities while positing an impossible expressivity as its telos.
As is suggested in Derridas reading of Nietzsche in Spurs, Nietzsche advocates that we all approach art as women doskeptical of the notion of truth,
and thus resistant to claims that art represents either a visible or intelligible
real.16 According to Derrida, Nietzsche derives womens attitude toward art (dis-

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tinct from a feminine perspective) from womens experiences with patriarchal

culture in general. The utter failure of patriarchal discourses to represent women
(both in the political and symbolic senses) gives them grounds to doubt the legitimacy and accuracy of the other truths it purportedly proffers: to be a
woman in Western patriarchal culture is to know its claim to the truth of
woman/women is obviously incorrect, and thus to suspect that this might not be
its only error. As Derrida explains, she is woman precisely because she herself
does not believe in truth itself, because she does not believe in what she is, in
what she is believed to be, in what she thus is not (Derrida, Spurs, 53). This
description of the relationship of women spectators to patriarchal culture is in
some ways similar to bell hookss notion of the oppositional gaze. I do not
mean to suggest that women in general or Nietzsches or Derridas woman
occupy the same relation to looking as black women do; however, all these theorists elaborate conclusions that touch on the same general ideanamely, that
womens positions of exclusion from mainstream society give them potentially
radical perspectives on what their society takes as given or normal. Because
black female filmgoers saw neither themselves nor their experiences accurately
represented (when present at all) in mainstream cinema, hooks argues that they
were less likely to suspend their disbelief, swept away by the film, assume that it
is a plausible reflection of reality.17 The source of these inaccuracieswithin
both mainstream cinema and feminist film theoryis an ignorance of the ways
in which concepts and experiences of aesthetic pleasure coincide with concepts
and experiences of race, gender, class, and sexuality. (Indeed, it is not only Mulveys account that fails to recognize the coincidence of gender with race and
class, but Nietzsches and Derridas as well.)
Nietzsches music aesthetics values everything traditional European aesthetics devalues: affective pleasure, entertainment, superficiality, accessibility, simplicity, beauty for its own sake, and, of course, femininity. Practicing aesthetics
as applied physiology, Nietzsche locates embodiment and physiological response as the basis of his musical and philosophical evaluations. Insofar as ones
body must be trained to respond to music according to accepted cultural practices and values,18 Nietzsches re-valuation of the popular requires a revaluation of femininity. It stands to reason that much of the music produced by a
normatively masculine culture would both produce and be produced by dominant masculinity (indeed, the entirety of this book would stand as evidence for
this claim). So, to unreflectively engage in aesthetics as applied physiology,
one would be applying standards and assumptions of normative masculine bodily comportment to music. As Christine Battersby and others have argued, this
is, essentially, what Western aesthetics has done for much of its history.19
Nietzsches turn away from intellect-centered aesthetics (such as Kants) to a
corporeal aesthetics indicates a change in aesthetic values themselves (and not
just in epistemology or methodology) only because he is, in the same move, decentering normative masculinity and adopting a stereotypically feminized (and
de-valued) bodily comportment. That is to say, Nietzsches popular is a specifi-

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cally and intentionally feminized one (and thats a good thing, both for him and
for us).

The Conjectural Body and the Feminized Popular

In this book, I have argued that race, gender, and music do not exist independently and a priori of their coincidence, and it follows that these terms themselves are conjectures about nonexistent but theoretically and politically useful concepts. While previous chapters have focused on arguing for this claim, I
now want to think about some general practical concerns regarding my theory of
the conjectural body.
Using the disciplined, educated, and acculturated body as our measure, we
are able to make more honest and accurate aesthetic judgments as well as political decisions. Recognizing that our aesthetic judgments arise within complex
socio-political systems of privilege, one might be tempted to abandon any and
all such evaluations. This is, however, impossible: we do and should make
judgments about music. Similarly, we do and should act as though we have bodies marked by gender, race, class, and sexuality. Recognizing the complex coincidence and mutual constitution of resonating, raced, and gendered bodies, the
theory of the conjectural body provides a framework for describing and analyzing music as a necessarily political and embodied phenomenon. Aesthetic
knowledge is not a solely cognitive or intellectual exerciseit is one of the nonthematized physiological knowledges that constitute ones corporeal schema, or
what Linda Alcoff calls interpretive horizon. According to Alcoff, ones interpretive horizon is the unconscious physical shorthand that integrates and
unifies our movements.20 While Alcoff argues that ones interpretive horizon is
shaped by ones social identity (i.e., by race and gender, among other things),
my theory of the conjectural body indicates that this unconscious physical
shorthand also includes aesthetics, e.g., ones sense of or for music. In the same
way that gender and race are embodied discourses, aesthetic perception and
preference are part of (and thus inform) our bodily comportment. The work of
aesthetic discernment and judgment occurs on, in, and through our bodiesthis
is what Nietzsche recognized in his claim that aesthetics is applied physiology.
If we judge music in terms of its effects and affects on the body, then the
determination that this is good or this is bad music is not the positing of a
claim about the piece in itself. Rather, to confer aesthetic value on a work is to
recognize its significance for people whose desires are educated in a particular
way, such that the work registers as meaningful for themor for oneself. Insofar as good music is usually evocative of pleasure (which does not necessarily
correspond to beauty: Schoenbergs Pierrot Lunaire and Sonic Youths Daydream Nation are grating and noisy, but are intensely pleasurable for many
listeners) and bad music elicits contempt, disgust, and even abject hatred or
fear, the education and discipline of ones body (e.g., perceptual faculties; the

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ability to recognize pitch) and its desires (tastes) is a logical foundation for aesthetic evaluationif only for the simple fact that it seems to already serve as
this basis. Aesthetic judgments have always assessed modes of embodiment; the
theory of the conjectural body just makes this explicit.
Jay-Zs 2009 track DOA (Death of Autotune) overtly takes music to be a
form of bodily comportment and assesses the use of Autotune as a mode or style
of bodily comportment (and not as a musical phenomenon).21 Specifically, Jay
argues that Autotune is to be rejected because it is soft, easy, popular, and nonconfrontational, whereas real hip hop is hard, violent, and masculine. Gendered language and imagery abound in DOA. Feminized terms (Autotune, melody, tight pants) are contrasted with masculinized terms (violence, male anatomy, hardness as bodily comportment and hardness as in un-melodic
difficult listening). Autotune is consistently feminized throughout the track, and
is set in contrast to Jays macho sound and stylings. Jay characterizes users of
Autotune as both dressing and sounding like women, as though Autotune itself
engendered feminine bodily comportment. According to Jay, users of Autotune
dress and sound like women because they lack male genitals (thus, no need to
tuck, and no deep voice).22 The use of Autotune is evidence of not only a feminine voice, but a lack of properly masculine aggression. Jay is equating Autotune with the lack of balls in both the literal and metaphorical senses. To use
Autotune is to be soft, easy, light, and trendy; it is the opposite of masculine
aggression, toughness, difficulty, virtuosity, and expertise. Thus, sounding
something like an uncanny latter-day Adorno, Jay feminizes commercially successful pop music by opposing it to hard masculine/macho corporeal styles.
He also argues that chart-topping popular music is easy in a number of senses:
easy to digest, easy to listen to, easy to make, etc. As such, these #1 records
arent properly masculinethey need to grow some balls and become a little
more difficult to make and digest. Jays consistent devaluation of femininity
and, indeed, a feminized popular music, is thoroughly problematic. However,
DOA remains interesting because it takes aesthetics as a matter of bodily comportment and evaluates musical practices as forms of gendered embodiment. It is
an instance of aesthetics as applied physiology.
If the conjectural body is imagined as the basis for or instrument of aesthetic judgment, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain serious/popular
hierarchies and the stereotypical passivization of the latters consumers and producers. First, if it is the conjectural body that informs aesthetic judgment, then
the mind-body dualism that makes possible such fictions as disinterested contemplation or mere sensory titillation is untenable. In this case, then, each
and every act of aesthetic creation and judgment arises from this coincidence of
what we conjecturally term mind and body. Consequently, devaluing and
dismissing someones creation of or response to music as unthinking or passive is no longer an option, for this conjectural understanding of the body demonstrates that acculturation, education, and indeed thought are internal to physical and/or emotional responses to music. All aesthetic activity is precisely that

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an act, an instance of agency. Insofar as it reconfigures conventional notions of

aesthetic agency, the theory of the conjectural body might serve as a useful resource in examining the nature of creativity and authorship in the era of the
readymade, mixtapes, sampling, mash-ups, and even video game mod(ifying)
culture.
I have offered just a few suggestions as to how my theory of the conjectural
body could be applied to issues both political and aesthetic, for it is this pragmatic dimension that motivates the theory in the first place. While it is undeniable that race and gender have no purely empirical foundation (e.g., there is
no race gene), and that music has no necessary basis in the physics of sound, it
is also irrefutable that, empirically, raced bodies, gendered bodies, and resonating bodies do exist as the effects of social policy, individual identity/subjectivity, convention, and the everyday relations among humans. If I
want to engage problems concerning raced, gendered, and resonating bodies, I
must engage these terms. The theory of the conjectural body presented in this
book allows me to do precisely that: to engage these terms in ways which (1)
allow for an accurate representation of their complexly coincident relationship,
and (2) engage the social to both historicize the material and to check our ideological blind spots. A concept both theoretically accurate and politically expedient, the conjectural body is an important instrument for understanding, experiencing, and acting upon the intersection of raced, gendered, and resonating
bodies.

Epilogue

Gimme [no] More of the Flute-Girls:

On the Intersecting Marginalization of Women and Pop Culture in
Philosophy

I next propose that the flute-girl who came in just now be dismissed: let her
pipe to herself or, if she likes, to the women-folk within, but let us seek our entertainment today in conversation (Plato, Symposium 176e).1

In the autumn of 2007, The Chronicle of Higher Education published one article
about the severe paucity of women of color among the ranks of tenure-track and
tenured philosophers2 and one article about philosophys problematic relationship with popular culture.3 Also around this time, Britney Spearss comeback
single Gimme More was released.4 I would like to suggest that the two aforementioned problems are related. In the United States, philosophy is, as a discipline, largely unwilling to take pop culture as a source/domain of serious philosophical interrogation for many of the same reasons that it is largely unwilling
to take women and people of color (particularly women of color) as capable of
serious philosophical analysis. Many of the points I raise in this essay are new
to philosophy, even if old and taken for granted in other disciplines in academe.
However, that these twenty-plus-year-old argumentswhile fundamental to
feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and the various other disciplines in
which they were developed (e.g., musicology, art history)continue to remain
so far outside the philosophical mainstream is itself evidence of philosophys
active (if largely structural and unconscious) resistance to and/or ignorance of
these ideas. Just as feminist art historians have argued that there are no great
women artists because the definition of art and artistry precludes
women/femininity from consideration as such, the problem here lies with the
definition of philosophy and philosophical activity itself.
I focus my analysis specifically on the United States because its racial and
cultural politics has been and continues to be overdetermined by a black/white
binary wherein white culture appropriates aspects of black cultural production in
an attempt to reinvigorate or rejuvenate what are perceived to be staid or
143

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Epilogue

inaccessible/unaffective forms.5 This logic is reproduced in Stephen Asmas

review of the Philosophy and Popular Culture book series insofar as pop culture is considered to be the sugar or spice that invigorates philosophical
problems, making them palatable for non-specialists. Asma notes that, for the
books in the series, the show or band to which a volume is devoted is not an
intellectual end in itselfthe goal is to give us a better understanding
ofphilosophy. Assuming (wrongly) that pop culture has no properly philosophical content, both Asma and William Irwin, the editor of the book series, think
that pop cultures only possible contribution to philosophy is to capture peoples
interest. In his collection of essays on philosophy and popular culture, Irwin
describes both this book and the Blackwell series as a spoonful of sugar to help
the medicine go downWe need to start with popular culture and use it to bring
people to philosophy,6 and says that his books are like training wheels on a
bicycle,7 the bicycle being properly philosophical texts (like Descartess
Meditations). If philosophy suffers from a terrible image problembeing dull,
dry, staid, stodgy, more like Thales than the Thracian maid who laughed at
himthen using pop culture to unpack important philosophical claims and
problems is a good marketing tool. The book series is presented as using pop
culture only as a particularly exciting example of some bigger or more difficult philosophical issue. Accordingly, pop culture stands as philosophys exotic
otherlike the flute-girls at Agathons party, who are amusing but must be
dismissed before the real heart of Platos Symposium can begin.8 Tellingly,
Irwin sexualizes pop culture by wondering if pop cultures ability to make philosophy more accessible and attractive proves it too dangerous a liaison.9 Just
as Carmens exotic feminine seductiveness overwhelmed and destroyed Don
Jose, pop cultures seductiveness threatens, in Irwins mind, to obliterate any
possibility of serious philosophical reflection. Why is pop cultures threat to
philosophy consistently posed in terms of the supposed threat that female
sexuality, especially the sexuality of non-White women, poses to patriarchy?
And what if (as I have shown in the latter parts of chapter 4) pop culture actually
proffered some interesting philosophical content of its own?
Before I attend to the question of pop cultures philosophical content, I must
address the objection that, with all my discussion of exoticism, the other,
race, and gender, I am engaging cultural studies and not real philosophy, as
this hierarchical distinction is a key aspect of Asmas article and Irwins introduction to (and essay in) his collection. While Asma admits that good scholarship was, and still is, done under the assumption that, say, the blues (to pick a
random example) is as important for academic study as chamber music, it is
unclear whether he considers this otherwise good scholarship to be philosophical. In a rather patronizing tone, Asma characterizes cultural studies as decoding the semiotics of the pop narratives by engaging the margins, negotiat[ing] boundaries or problematiz[ing] discourses, and opposes this to
something much more refreshing and radical:giv[ing] arguments, i.e., doing
real philosophy. Now, I think it is largely uncontroversial to claim that all
good scholarship makes an argument of some sort, whether it is natural scien-

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145

tists providing theoretical and empirical evidence to make a case for a particular
hypothesis, or musicologists offering theoretical and empirical evidence to make
a case for the significance of a particular interpretation of a piece of music. Philosophers also, in the course of their argumentation, engage margins, negotiate
boundaries, and problematize discourses: Kant engaged the margins of what is
knowable, Hegels dialectical methodology involved a lot of boundary negotiation, and Plato problematized ethics, metaphysics, and ontology. Asmas distinction between cultural studies and philosophy is not so much about methodology
as it is about content. Cultural studies, unlike philosophy, emphasi[zes] identity
politics and cultural studieswants the humanities to throw out all criteria of
high and lowbut without [developing] a new language of merit for the
arts (Asma, 2). Feminist philosophers have long addressed the problem that
some analytic [and continental] philosophers discard feminist and multicultural
thought as mere politics (Nye, 102), for philosophy is supposed to address the
universal, the absolute, the abstract, the generalizable; and politics are certainly
local, relative, and concrete, and engage the personal in its intersection with the
political.10 What critics like Asma do not recognize is that political issues, particularly those relating to identity, are the foundation upon which philosophical
concepts, techniques, and values, are drawn. There is so much excellent work on
the way philosophical concepts manifest various forms of identity privilege
that it would be impossible to list even a small sample of them; I am thinking
here of works such as Charles Millss The Racial Contract, wherein he argues
that Western political philosophy is an epistemology of ignorance grounded in
the functional misperception of non-whites as non-human.
Identity is a philosophical issue; however, because feminist and postcolonial scholars often have to look outside of philosophy for their source material
(as philosophy continues to exclude/marginalize such issues), a dividecontinues to exist between materials that have inspired feminist philosophers to new insights (Nye, 102)e.g., stories, music, conversation (Nye,
105) or poetry, history, personal narrative (Nye, 106)and the currently
established canon of philosophy (Nye, 102). Feminist, critical race, and postcolonial philosophers use popular culture because philosophy continues to marginalize issues of race and gender, so these popular texts are, in these instances, more philosophically interesting than the philosophical canon itself. For
example, Angela Davis looks to twentieth-century black female blues singers,
and bell hooks analyzes popular film and music, in order to make claims about
epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, and political theory. Perhaps part of the reason
why philosophy cant seem to recognize that pop culture, at its best, can and
does include philosophical content is that it dismisses these black feminist works
such as hookss and Daviss as not philosophy. Because many of the most
sustained and significant philosophical considerations of popular culture appear
in explicitly feminist, critical race, and/or postcolonial analyses, pop culture is
doubly excluded from philosophy.

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Epilogue

The feminization and racialization of popular culture is, at least in other disciplines, well established. From Susan Cooks 2001 article in Women & Music
on feminist musicology and the abject popular, to Andreas Huyssens 1986
Mass Culture as Woman, scholars have identified and analyzed the intersection of serious/pop culture hierarchies with contemporary and historical gender
(and race, to some extent) hierarchies.11 The same values and logics utilized to
socially, politically, and economically marginalize women and non-whites are at
work in the philosophic ghettoization of popular/mass culture. Cooks article
focuses on the exclusionary logic at work in Western political and aesthetic hierarchies, i.e., the logic of abjection, of the constitutive outside. Abjection is the
process whereby identity is delimited through an excision or expulsion: I clarify the boundaries of my own self by articulating what I am not. Serious
culture and classical music are, according to Cook, defined through this process of abjection: the categories popular and classicalare set into tension
with one another. Theyare almost always set up in inequitable relationships of
power and prestige wherein the popular gives the classical its worth; the
classical is worthwhile only if the popular is worthless (Cook, 3). Similarly,
masculine privilege is maintained by the continual abjection of femininity from
the domain of proper culture. Femininity and pop culture are not merely
analogous in their abjection from serious Western culture, but, as Cook and
Huyssen argue, there is a causal relationship between the terms such that pop
culture is abjected because it is feminized. Huyssen notes that the political,
psychological, and aesthetic discourse around the turn of the [twentieth] century
consistently and obsessively genders mass culture and the masses as feminine,
while high culture, whether traditional or modern, clearly remains the privileged
realm of male activities (Huyssen, 47). Cooks analysis demonstrates that this
process of feminization continues into the twenty-first century, e.g., in the gendered privileging of classic rock over lite rock. Popular culture was and is
devalued through and in terms of its feminization; Western politics and culture
privilege males and masculinity, so one of the most effective ways of justifying
somethings lack of value is to associate it with femininitywhich, as Irigaray
and others have persuasively argued, is the constitutive outside of Western culture in general and Western philosophy in particular. Mainstream analytic and
continental philosophy in the United States is, as a practice, normatively masculine: aggressiveness, competitiveness, assertiveness, withstanding oftentimes
cruel and mocking criticism, the ability to dole out such criticism in a cool and
offhand manner, apathetic scornfulness or scornful disregard for one physical
appearance are just some of the behaviors and attitudes that are both stereotypically masculine and continually rewarded within the discipline.
Art historians Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock famously argued The
sex of the artist matters. It conditions the way art is seen and discussed.12 Even
though the essay that begins with these lines appears in Blackwells anthology
on philosophical aesthetics, the mainstream philosophical community has yet to
apply this dictum to its own ranks and perceptions. The sex and race of the philosopher matter. They condition the way philosophy is read and discussed. A

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person must already be viewed as a philosopher in order for his or her work to
be considered properly philosophical. Sally Haslanger details how, as a graduate student, she was assigned an historical, not theoretical, presentation in her
logic seminar because of the instructors unthematized assumption that women
dont do real philosophical work.13 If we take Parker and Pollocks mainly
institutional theory of art (i.e., that art is what the artworldgalleries, museums, critics, art facultysay is art) and apply it to philosophy, then we see that
philosophy is whatever philosophical institutionsjournals, graduate programs, philosophy faculty, book editors and reviewers, conference program
committeessay is philosophy. Thus the perception of the writer or speaker
as a philosopher is a necessary precondition for his or her work to be considered
philosophy, and not vice versa. If this is the case, then no matter what topic
women work on, the normatively masculine image and behavior expected of
(and by) philosophers will impede their work being taken seriously as philosophy. In the dismissive comments made by my adult colleagues about
girls music and her work on it, Cook notes a distaste for femininity and a
refusal to take womens tastes, interests, and knowledges seriously: I sense a
real fear of dealing with female desire and female consumption, of valuing
women, and especially girls, as thinking, knowledgeable consumers and critics
who have enormous power in the commercial and aesthetic marketplaces
(Cook, 3). Popular music is a domain in which womens and girls tastes are
privileged, and in which there are many successful, powerful women; however,
oddly enough, this field is dismissed by men and women alike as frivolous and
unimportant. Might the same be going on in philosophy? Might womens
achievements be devalued and discounted as also frivolous?
Although Asma seems to think that cultural theorists like me want to resort to relativism and the complete elimination of all high/low distinctions, I am
not at all advocating that we stop evaluating either art or philosophy in terms of
quality or disciplinary relevance. The point is not to eliminate all distinctions,
but to demonstrate how judgments about what is and isnt art or philosophy
arent actually made about or with reference (primarily) to the art object(s) or
philosophical texts/claims, but rather, about and with respect to identity categories of their makers and audience. As Huyssen explains, the problem is not the
desire to differentiate between forms of high art and depraved forms of mass
cultureThe problem is rather the persistent gendering as feminine of that
which is devalued (53). I argue, with Cook and Huyssen, that Irwins difficulty
in identifying the axis around which serious/pop hierarchies turn lies in his refusal to consider race and gender politics. Even if todays lowbrow can be tomorrows highbrow,14 whatever is lowbrow is consistently associated with
femininity and/or non-Whites, and whatever is highbrow is identified with and
accepted by middle-class whites (especially men).
I am not advocating that we abandon aesthetic judgment in the name of political relativism. Its important to make value judgments about art and philosophy; it is unrealistic to expect people not to make such judgments. At a very

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Epilogue

basic level, we need a working definition of what is and isnt philosophy in

order to assess student work and grade papers. However, it is key that these
judgments are made about art or about philosophy, and not primarily about and
in terms of socio-political hierarchies revolving around privileged and underprivileged identities. This is not to say that identity politics, and politics in general, shouldnt play a role in art and philosophy or our judgments about them;
because aspects of a judgment are often overlooked or outright denied, we just
need to make sure that we say, outright, what we actually mean. The desired
clarity about the actual object of ones judgment might be difficult to achieve if,
as I have suggested above, the very categories of art and philosophy have
conventionally been defined in gendered and raced terms. It is nevertheless important to disentangle these intersections because failing to do so would perpetuate the exclusion of women and women of color from being considered as
real philosophers, and popular culture from the domain of real philosophical
analysis. All of these exclusions impoverish philosophy intellectually, and reinforce the perception that it is irrelevant to the real world.
I close with two hypotheses intended to generate further reflection and discussion. First, philosophys hostility to popular culture might stem from the disciplines general devaluation of applied philosophy. Feminists have long noted
the feminization of applied philosophy, i.e., the stereotype that applied philosophy isnt as rigorous as more purely philosophical questions. Not only is
this feminization problematic, but it is further incorrect to conceive of pop culture as something to which philosophy is applied in a unidirectional fashion,
just as it is wrong to assume that applied philosophy shouldnt or doesnt use
real-world cases to reflect back upon theory. Many philosophers of gender and
race have used pop culture to reflect back upon philosophy in rigorous and significant ways, and others argue that many of philosophys problems lie in its
refusal to begin from real-world situations. Secondly, it might well be that
philosophys proud detachment from everyday life is tied up in a unique form of
masculinity. This form of masculinity is discussed on the Feminist Philosophers
blog,15 where Calypso9999 remarks that philosophers
not only as a group are often amazingly socially inept but they almost seem to
pride themselves on it. This can include adherence to what Janice Moulton described early on as the adversary method to the point of downright rudeness
in social contexts, but it goes beyond thisAnd of course ever since Socrates
got away with dressing badly and offending people and not following social
conventions, we have been taught to think that these are all good things and
marks of being a unique and creative, original, deep thinker.

Amy follows Calypso9999s remarks, wondering

why such behavior would be more likely to turn women than men off? It cant
only be that male philosophers tend to be rude and lacking in social skillsI
suspect the rudeness of male philosophers is not mere lack of social skill or unconventionality. Rather, it is frequently a passive-aggressive expression of hos-

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149

tility, combativeness, or machismo. There may be many men (especially nerdy

types who were frequently teased in school), who would positively relish the
chance to be rewarded for acting that way. Women may be less likely to want
to act that way themselves or to be around other people who do act that way.

These remarks suggest that being completely unhip and out of touch with the
everyday world constitutes a special brand of philosophical masculinity that
dates back to Thales and Socrates. In the second volume of The History of Sexuality, Foucault shows us how the ancient Greeks conceived of philosophy (the
practice of virtue, i.e., moderation and self-mastery) as being a man with respect to oneself.16 If this sort of masculine gender identity is tied into a rejection of pop culture, then it seems clear that philosophys gender problem is tied
into its problem with pop culture.
So, what to do? I would unhesitatingly go so far as to suggest that the solution to both the pop culture problem and the women problem comes down to
de-centering this aforementioned passive-aggressive expression of hostility,
combativeness, or machismo as a normal mode of professional comportment
and creating a context wherein ones disdain for and active detachment from pop
culture are not means whereby one performs and reaffirms ones gender identity.
Put differently, one of the reasons that philosophy, a discipline composed primarily of males (statistics show that the number of philosophy Ph.D.s awarded
to women continually hovers around 30 percent annually), remains consistently
hostile to pop culture is because it is no mere matter of disciplinary definition,
but rather concerns the gender identity of the philosophers themselves.17 What
would be changed in a revaluation of pop culture would not be the definition of
philosophy, but philosophers understanding of the gendering of philosophical
practice, and how this impacts/relates to their own personal gender identity.
Honest reflection on the gendering of philosophical practice would in turn illuminate some of the structural barriers that have both prevented women from
advancing in philosophy and turned them off from considering careers in philosophy in the first place. Just as the two problems are interrelated, so are the
solutions.

Notes
Preface
1. Sasha Frere-Jones. A Paler Shade of White, The New Yorker, 2007.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/10/22/071022crmu_music_frerejon
es?currentPage=4 (22 October 2007).
2. I realize that I am making a fineand perhaps largely heuristicdistinction between racial claims and aesthetic claims, insofar as aesthetic claims are and always have
been, at least in the West, tied into systems of race, class, and gender privilege. My point
in making this distinction between a racial claim and an aesthetic claim stands here insofar as it points to a difference in the object of the respective claims. Here I use racial
claim to indicate an evaluation of features/qualities/objects that conventionally denote
racial difference (e.g., skin color, eye shape, bodily comportment, language, cultural
practice, etc.). An aesthetic claim is made in reference to an objects technical, stylistic,
and/or expressive properties as an art object (e.g., beauty, virtuosic execution, affectivity,
etc.). This song does not use syncopation is an aesthetic claim; White people cant
dance because they are white is a racial claim.
3. Cook, Susan, Feminist Musicology and the Abject Popular, in Women and Music, Volume 5 (2001).
4. Battersby, Christine, Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics,
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).

Introduction
1. McClary, Susan Reshaping a discipline: Musicology and Feminism in the
1990s, Feminist Studies. v. 19, n. 2, (31 July 1993): 399.
2. If, as Jacques Rancire argues, politics is fundamentally a distribution of the sensiblei.e., a way of determining what can be seen and what can be said about it and
thereby apportioning who has the ability to see and the talent to speak (Rancire 2004,
13), then this nature/culture debate can be understood as an axis around which a particular form of sensibility (human embodiment) has been distributed in the modern and
postmodern West. The naturalness or constructedness of, for example, racial and
gender identity are quite often invoked in arguments concerning the relationship of a
particular group to power and privilege, of a groups participation in the category of
humanity and its subsequent access to human rights.
3. I use metaphysical and metaphysics throughout the book in the continental
sense of these terms, which largely echoes Derridas use of them. In this usage, they refer
151

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Notes

to the metaphysics of presence that characterizes much mainstream Western philosophy

up through the late nineteenth century. The metaphysics of presence holds what Plato
calls the visible and the intelligible (or what Descartes calls extension and
thought) as binary opposites, and always privileges the latter as holding more truth and
reality than the former.
4. Mills, Charles, Ideal Theory as Ideology in Hypatia 20.3 (2005):165-184; 169.
5. The idealized model is being represented as capturing the actual reality, and in
both cases this misrepresentation has been disastrous for an adequate understanding of
the real structures of oppression and exclusion that characterize the social and political
order. The opting for ideal theory has served to rationalize the status quo (Mills, Ideal
Theory, 181).
6. My theory of conjecture and the conjectural body is sympathetic to the notion of
postpositivist realism developed from Santaya Mohantys work in the late 1990s/early
2000s, but differs from it in one significant way. Postpositivist realists are ultimately
concerned with theory-dependent but empirically-verifiable phenomena. Mohanty argues
that realism about [for example] identity requires that we see identities as complex theories about (and explanations of) the social world, and the only way to evaluate such theories is to look at how well they work as explanations (Mohanty, 65). In other words,
postpositivists empirically test their theories in a fashion similar to the way that scientists
test their hypotheses: by seeing how well they describe instances of the phenomena they
claim to represent. As Paula Moya explains, for postpositivist realist accounts of social
identity the issue is at least partly an empirical one: the different identity claims cannot
be examined, tested, and judged without reference to existing social and economic structures (Moya, Introduction, 11). So, while postpositivism gauges what we can know in
terms of its coherence with what we experience and observe, my theory of conjecture
aims at the empirically un-verifiable, those myths or ideologies that become materialized in experience but are never available for observation in and of themselves (e.g.,
unmediated materiality, the state of nature, race or gender in isolation from one another,
etc.). In some senses the postpositivists and I are approaching the same problems and
concerns from opposite directions, and we often arrive at similar (but not identical) ends.
For example, Michael Hames-Garcas postpositivist critique of intersectionality theory
is, as I argue in chapter 1, subject to the very same limitations that he locates in conventional accounts of intersectionality. So, while I am sympathetic to his critique, I dont
think it actually accomplishes what it sets out to do, largely because it lacks an account of
the conjectural status of individual social identity categories.
7. If the artistic experience, as Kristeva argues, is rooted in the abject it utters and
by the same token purifies (Kristeva Powers, 17), then serious art is not a normal,
natural structure perverted by or lacking in trivial art, but is instead a product of its
intersection with ideological forces. Excising embodiment, femininity, race and class
diversity, and commercial interest from serious music, Western culture establishes a
domain of intellectual, masculine, white, bourgeois, disinterested high culture. Thus,
Western culture allows for and in fact encourages the existence of commercial/popular
music, but, as in Kristevas paraphrase of the Philebus, we leav[e] the doors wide open
with impurity, provided the eyes of the mind remain focused on truth. In such a case,
pleasure, having become pure and true through the harmony of color and form as in the
case of accurate and beautiful geometric form, has nothing in common, as the philosopher says, with the pleasure of scratching (Philebus, 51) (Kristeva, Powers, 27).
8. Nietzsche, Friedrich, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, in The Portable Nietzsche,
trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Books, 1954), 668.

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153

9. See Grahm, Women in Music. Grahm argues that the probability of women
composers is very low because historical evidence demonstrates the fact of the near
complete exclusion of women from any list of important composers of Western art
music (112). If experience is any guide, he explains, women do not make composers.
Even when we allow, rightly, for certain distortions in history, there still seems to be a
major difference between men and women in this respect (Grahm, 113). He glosses over
arguments which demonstrate the gendering of the compositional art (a serious endeavor, as opposed to craft) and which illustrate the inherent limitations and biases of
the Western musical canon. Grahm then states, suppose it should turn out that only
men can compose significant music. Should this depress women who are concerned for
their own respect and standing? It should do so only if the composition of music is regarded as evidence of inherent superiority, and moreover superiority which warrants
different treatment in terms of moral assessment and political discrimination (Grahm,
112). In not so many words, Grahms question here is basically, So what if women cant
make serious music?a question which trivializes both the issue and womens artistic
capacity. Grahms exact words are only men can compose serious musicthus,
women can only create trivial fluff. Even more worthy of our outrage is the flippant who
cares? attitude with which Grahm treats the issue. We should care, precisely because
there is no easy separation between aesthetics, politics, and moral philosophy. Indeed,
even Kant uses the distinction between sublimity (associated with masculine qualities)
and beauty (associated with feminine qualities) to reinforce various claims about the
moral immaturity of women (Battersby, Stages on Kants Way).
10. Dennis Dutton. Lets Naturalize Aesthetics http://www.aesthetics-online
.org/ideas/dutton.html (3 December 2003).
11. In the case of the admiration of technique, the universality of this phenomenon
has as much of an evolutionary basis as the general liking for fatty and sweet foods. Skilldeveloping, skill-admiring peoples survived better than competitors in the Pleistocene
(Dutton, 2). Comparing the admiration of virtuosity to our bodies preference for highcalorie foods, Dutton implies that this mine-is-bigger-than-yours competitiveness is
biologically advantageous to human survival, as is the taste for calorie-dense foods
(given, of course, that it is only in the twentieth-century West that the scarcity of food is
not a general social concern).
12. The gendering of competition and care is of particular interest to feminists concerned with business ethics. If, in a capitalist society, competition is a highly valued virtue and component of success, and women are generally not socialized to value competition, then success in business and success in femininity seem to be mutually exclusive
enterprises. For example, Robbin Derry argues that [w]omen in male-dominated fields,
including most professional-level corporate jobs, are rewarded for their ability to assimilate and adopt the male norms. Unique skills that draw on womens experiences or
strengths are for the most part neither recognized nor welcomed. In this type of environment how is it possible for women to be themselves? (Derry, 14). Her argument here is
that the behaviors rewarded by capitalism are those most often encouraged in males, and
the behaviors females are usually socialized to exhibit are not rewarded by business.
Thus, women are faced with a choice: act consistent with the ways they are otherwise
used to and rewarded for, behaving as women (and thus fail at business), or act in accordance with the conventions of capitalist enterprise, and also be chastised for failing as a
woman.
13. In Fresh Lipstick, Linda Scott argues that the roots of American womens
movements in the Yankee Protestant aristocracy (specifically, Quaker social reform

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Notes

movements) are the source of problematic assumptions about the body, popular culture,
and (post) industrial economies. Her argument that the sectarian origins of American
feminism are perhaps most blatantly visible in its critique of pictures (Scott, 3) is most
pertinent to my concerns in this book: just as the iconophobia of feminism (ibid.) results from Quaker/Puritan/Protestant prohibitions of graven images, personal indulgence, and ornamentation, similar attitudes toward entertainment, the theater, and music
have combined with more recent bourgeois condemnations of mass (working-class) culture to unduly if unconsciously prejudice many feminisms and feminists against popular,
commercial-oriented music. Scott, Linda, Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism (New York: Macmillan) 2005.
14. I do not mean to argue that all popular music is necessarily feminist in nature
indeed, it frequently isnt. However, the activities of females in creating their own relationship to it and within its context do not necessarily reproduce the sometimes problematic assumptions and discourses contained within many aspects of popular music. Realism and belief are not the only possible attitudes spectators and artists can adopt toward
artworks. Many women and girls already engage popular music critically, creatively,
ironicallyand in numerous other ways which are anything but passive.

Chapter One
1. A version of this chapter appeared as On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory,
in Philosophia Africana, Vol. 8, No. 2 (August, 2005): 171-188.
2. Fox, Aaron A, White Trash Alchemies of the Abject Sublime: Country as Bad
Music in Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate, edited by Christopher Washbourne
and Maiken Derno (New York: Routledge, 2004); 57.
3. While Kodwo Eshuns Afrofuturism rejects the humanism implicit in such revaluations of black/African diasporic culture, it nevertheless maintains the same essentialist and hierarchical tendencies for which Hall and Gilroy criticize the humanist position described in the body of the text. Instead of inverting the mind/body hierarchy to
privilege blacks stereotypical association with embodiment, Eshun reconfigures the
white : technology/alienation :: black : nature/keepin-it-real matrix by emphasizing
the fundamental role technology plays and has played in the development of black
music. To Eshun, what is essential to black culture is its mediation by and exploitation
of technology. Accordingly, he maintains the privilege of technology, progress, and intellectual complexity, but identifies it with the African diaspora rather than with European
high culture. Rejecting todays ubiquitous emphasis on black sounds necessary ethical
allegiance to the street, he argues instead for AfroDiasporic Futurismwhere postwar
alienation breaks down into the 21st C alien (Eshun, 00[-003]). While I am highly sympathetic to his critiques of the humanist ideal, which motivates a search for the real,
his completely constructionist view of the bodyhyperembodiment via the Technics SL
1200 (Eshun, 00[-002])is, as I have argued throughout this book, inadequate for analyzing the relationship between race and music, as well as between structure and ideology. See Eshun, Kodwo, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (London: Quartet Books) 1998.
4. Hall, Stuart, What is this black in black popular culture? in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. Ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London:
Routledge) 1996. 468-478; 471. This is not Halls own position, but a summary of a position he problematizes.

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5. See Chapter 3 of Rose, Tricia, Black Noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary America (Middletown, Conn.: Weslyan University Press) 1994.
6. Gilroy, Paul, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) 1993. Hereafter referred to as BA.
7. According to Gilroy, music functions as a crucial term in the debate between
those who see the music as the primary means to explore critically and reproduce politically the necessary ethnic essence of blackness and those who would dispute the existence of any such unifying, organic phenomenon (BA, 100).
8. McClary, Susan, Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form (Berkeley:
University of California Press) 2000; 39. Hereafter referred to as CW.
9. McClarys analysis is also helpful in recognizing the fact that the development of
the blues and other forms of stereotypically black music is intertwined with their commodification: it is important to keep in mind, she argues, that recording and its commercial distributing networks did not merely preserve [the blues]; it also actively shaped
the blues as we know it (McClary, CW, 37).
10. This feminist injunction to attend to differences among women sometimes
takes questionable forms. I will argue that feminist efforts to avoid gender essentialism
sometimes result in pictures of cultural differences among women that constitute what I
will call cultural essentialism. Narayan, Uma, Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism, in Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World, edited by Uma Narayan and
Sandra Harding (Bloomington: Indiana University Press) 2000, pp. 80-100; 81.
11. According to Narayan, this insistence on Difference is problematic because its
logic mirrors that of the colonial encounter[, which] depended on an insistence on Difference; on sharp, virtually absolute, contrasts between Western culture and Other
cultures (Narayan, 83).
12. For an extended discussion on the difference between performative and expressive models of gender, see Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge) 1990.
13. Nicholson, Linda, Interpreting Gender. In Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality: The Big Questions, edited by Naomi Zack, Laurie Shrage, and Crispin Sartwell
(Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers) 1998, pp. 187-211.
14. This is true of many if not almost all streets. The one street I can think of that actually illustrates my coincidence model is the main road near my house in North Carolina. It is simultaneously Idlewild Road, Rama Road, Sardis Road, Fairview Road, and
Tyvola Roadthe same street, but with different names in different parts of town (and
you can bet that the different names correspond to different socioeconomic situations).
All these Roads coincide on the same street, but the distinct(ive) names refer to different modes or ways in which the street is experienced. Theres the posh new urbanism of
Fairview Road, the McMansions of Sardis Road, and the barrios of Idlewild Road. What
we call the street depends on our location on it, our experiences of it, and our purposes in
describing it. The same is true of social identity: race, gender, class, sexuality all exist
together as a lived corporeal experience, but how we refer to this experience depends on
our social location, what we are presently undergoing, and what we are trying to communicate about it. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode
=&q=sardis+and+fairview+charlotte+nc&sll=37.0625,5.677068&sspn=31.509065,56.60
1563&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ll=35.155547,80.795045&spn=0.00793,0.013819&t=h&z=16
&iwloc=A
15. Crenshaw, Kimberl Williams, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity
Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color in Critical Race Theory, edited by

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Notes

Kimberl Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Kendall Thomas, Garry Pellar (New York: The New
Press) 1995, pp. 357-383; 358.
16. For example, as Crenshaw notes, where systems of race, gender, and class
domination converge (CRT, 358).
17. Davis, Angela. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. New York: Vintage Books,
1998. p. xv.
18. Hight, Christopher. Stereo Types: The Operation of Sound in the Production of
Racial Identity, Leonardo, v. 36; no. 1 (2003): 13-17.
19. See Attali, Jacques. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
20. [B]ased on proportional ratios between units places on a single axis of variation (pitch), the harmonic view of the world privileges those things which exhibit an
organic unity of these increments in both pitch and time, and a rich mathematics of their
combinations in whole units (Hight, 2).
21. Indeed, as Platos Symposium demonstrates, even early attempts to think about
social relations in terms of the then-nascent science of musical harmony were done in an
attempt to keep various unequal social groups in their respective places. See Eryximachuss speech (186a-189a), where he discusses the harmony of the body and the soul:
love is the practice of making sure the body (and, by extension, the common, or the vulgar element, as described in Diotimas speech) has/governs what is proper to it, and the
mind (the divine or philosophical element) has/governs what is proper to it. Jacques
Rancire discusses this general notion in several places, notably the beginning of Disagreement.
22. Group memberships do not simply intersect; they blend, constantly and differently, expanding one another and mutually constituting one anothers meanings. HamesGarca, Michael. Who Are Our Own People?: Challenges for a Theory of Social Identity, in Reclaiming Identity: Realist Theory and the Predicament of Postmodernism,
edited by Paula Moya and Michael Hames-Garca (Berkeley: University of California
Press) 2000, pp. 102-132; 104.
23. Politically salient aspects of the self, such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender,
and class, link and imbricate themselves in fundamental ways. These various categories
of social identity do not, therefore, comprise essentially separate axes that occasionally
intersect. They do not simply intersect but blend, constantly and differentially, like the
colors of a photograph. They expand one another and mutually constitute each others
meanings. In other worlds, the subjective experience of any social group membership
depends fundamentally on relations to memberships in other social groups (HamesGarca, 104). I agree with everything Hames-Garca says here except his claim that social
identities blend. So, Im ultimately very sympathetic with Hames-Garcas project and
think his understanding of the relationship among social identities is rightI just dont
think his metaphor captures what he claims it does.
24. For more information on the Pantone Color Cue, see: http://www.pantone.com
/pages/pantone/pantone.aspx?pg=19295&ca=10
25. Pantones Color Cue is a light frequency reader or meter. The user of the color
cue aims it at an object, and the device reads the frequency of light (i.e., color) it emits,
and then compares this to a database of Pantone color-codes in order to name that
color. An image and description of the color cue can be found at this web address:
http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=31&ca=7&s=0.
26. While chromosomal sex may seem the most easily and scientifically definable
(i.e., as either XX female or XY male), not only has recent feminist scholarship questioned the adequacy and accuracy of binary chromosomal sex categories, but chromoso-

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mal sex is itself inadequate to the task of fully and accurately capturing the gendered
aspects of our social identities.
27. This multiplicity of the self becomes restricted so that any one persons identity is reduced to and understood exclusively in terms of that aspect of his or her self
with the most political saliencein terms of the most dominant construction of that identity (Hames-Garca, 104).
28. Identity groups or classes pre-exist the self in the sense that the category
women existed for millennia before I was born as one. However, Im interested in the
individuals experience of social identity, because these groups are composed of individuals with multiple coincident social identities. The groups dont persist above and
beyond the individuals (except as stereotypes). Certainly metadiscourses of, say, race and
gender exist beyond and across individuals lived experiences, but even in these metadiscourses it is neither possible nor desirable to separate out one identity category from another. As Crenshaw explains, The problem is not simply that both [feminist and antiracist] discourses fail women of color by not acknowledging the additional issue of race
or of patriarchy but, rather, that the discourses are often inadequate to the discrete tasks
of articulating the full dimensions of racism and sexism (Crenshaw, 360).
29. Reichs phase pieces (Its Gonna Rain, Come Out, Piano Phase, etc.) are a subset of the broader category of process music. Because I discuss features unique to
phase-shifting compositions, I have narrowed my argument accordingly. However, the
first set of features I examine (the macro form being generated by or identical to the micro form) is characteristic of process music generally, not just phase-shifting pieces.
30. Schwartz, K. Robert. Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process pt. 1 in Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 19; No. (Autumn 1980Summer 1981): 373-392; 379.
31. Reich, Steve. Music as a Gradual Process in Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, edited by Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner (New York: Continuum, 2004)
304-306; 304.
32. Epstein, Paul. Pattern Structure and Process in Steve Reichs Piano Phase,
The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 4 (1986): 494-502; 498.
33. Oakes, Jason Lee, Pop Music, Racial Imagination, and the Sounds of Cheese:
Notes on the Losers Lounge in Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate, edited by
Christopher Washbourne and Maiken Derno (New York: Routledge) 2004, pp. 62-82; 62.

Chapter Two
1. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Examination of Two Principles Advanced by M.
Rameau in His Brochure Entitled: Errors on Music in the Encyclopedia in Essay on the
Origin of Languages and Writings Related to Music: The Collected Writings of Rousseau, v. 7, translated and edited by John T. Scott (Hanover, Maryland: University Press
of New England) 1998, pp. 271-288; 279, emphasis mine. Hereafter referred to as ETP.
2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Letter on French Music, in Essay on the Origin of
Languages and Writings Related to Music: The Collected Writings of Rousseau, v. 7,
translated and edited by John T. Scott (Hanover, Maryland: The University Press of New
England) 1998. pp. 141-17l; 141. Hereafter referred to as LFM.
3. For genealogies of genetic sex and sex hormones, see Fausto-Sterling, Anne,
Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (New York: Basic
Books) 2000.
4. Mills, Charles, Ideal Theory as Ideology in Hypatia 20.3 (2005):165-184; 168.

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Notes

5. To put my argument in Millss jargon, I think that while conjecture has been
poorly deployed in the service of ideal-as-idealized-models, it is, when used properly, an
important kind of ideal-as-descriptive-model. Mills explains the difference between the
two compound terms as follows: an ideal-as-idealized model [is]an idealized model,
an exemplar, of what an ideal P should be like whereas an ideal-as-descriptive-model,
the model of the actual workings of [x] will be quite different from ideal-as-idealized
model, and will need to start with an actual investigation of [xs] properties; one cannot
just conceptualize them in terms of a minor deviation from the ideal, ideal-as-idealizedmodel (Mills, Ideal Theory, 167).
6. I am using moral and social interchangeably, for, as Michael ODea explains,
human culture, or what Rousseau tends to call the moral, that which relates to mores or
les moeurs, [is]a term that encompasses all of human custom, everything that humans
have created, in contradistinction to Nature, the domain of what is given at the onset
ODea, Michael, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Music, Illusion, and Desire (New York: Pallgrave Macmillan) 1995. P. 29.
7. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts or First Discourse
in The Discourses and other early political writings, edited by Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1997, 4-28. Hereafter referred to as D1.
8. The social affections develop in us only with our knowledge. Pity, although
natural to mans heart, would remain eternally inactive without imagination to set it in
motion (EOL, 267). Even though the potential for social and moral sentiment is present
in physiological nature, these do not become actual until acted upon by extra-natural (i.e.,
mental, non-physical) forces. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Essay on the Origin of Languages in The Discourses and other early political writings, edited by Victor Gourevitch
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1997, 247-299. Hereafter referred to as EOL.
9. In a rather precociously Schoenbergian moment, Rousseau critiques a French
recitative because the demands of tonalitynamely, for ending in the same key and register in which one beginsdont allow for the expression of character development and
dynamism. This verse is in the same key, almost on the same chord as the preceding. No
alternation that might indicate the prodigious change taking place in Armides soul and in
her speech. The tonic, it is true, becomes dominant by a movement of the Bass. But
Heavens! It is indeed a question of tonic and dominant at a time when all harmonic connection should be interrupted, when everything should portray disorder and agitationWho would believe that the Musician has left all this agitation in the same key,
without the slightest intellectual transition, without the slightest harmonic distinction
(LFM, 170-172). Just like Schoenberg, who abandoned tonality because he found it too
limiting and unable to express the depths of human emotion and experience, Rousseau
argues that it is fundamentally perverse and unmusical to privilege form and conformity
to convention over the demands of expression. [P]erfect cadences, the adherence to
tonal norms, are always the death of expression (LFM, 172). Rousseau, Jean-Jacques,
Letter on French Music, in Essay on the Origin of Languages and Writings Related to
Music: The Collected Writings of Rousseau, v. 7, translated and edited by John T. Scott
(Hanover, Maryland: The University Press of New England) 1998, 141-147. Hereafter
referred to as LFM.
10. Imagination and pity, the social affections[,] develop in us only with our
knowledgePity, although natural to mans heart, would remain eternally inactive without imagination to set it in motion (EOL, 267). Self-awareness and reflection is required
for the emergence of pity. In other words, I must have some notion of myself as a self in
order to imagine myself in the place of another distinct individual. In psychoanalytic
terms, this identification can happen only after the oedipal crisisi.e., when the child

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recognizes him or herself as a distinct, independent entity from the mother and from other
objects. Thus, when calling pity natural, Rousseau clearly does not mean in some
originary, immediate sense.
11. Rousseau claims that I believe our language [French] to be little suited to Poetry, and not at all so to Music (LFM, 141), for the French language seems to me that
of Philosophers and the Wise: it seems to be made for the organ of truth and reason
(LFM, 142). Truth and reason are, for Rousseau, exclusive of musicality and musical
expressioneven expression in general.
12. Rousseau claims that music associated with a language composed only of
mixed sounds, of mute, indistinct, or nasal syllables, few sonorous vowels, many consonants and articulations (LFM, 144)namely, a northern language such as Frenchis
capable of arousing only fake pleasures (LFM, 144). This music cannot produce genuine pleasure because it is not grounded in a genuine language.
13. In Of Grammatology, Derrida makes a similar argument. Claiming that the opposition of passion and need is operative not in the distinction between different languages, but in the origin of language itself, the emergence of language from nonlanguage; he argues that [w]hether from that north of south, all language in general
springs forth when passionate desire exceeds physical need (Derrida, Grammatology,
217). While I argue that the language arising of need is not fully a language, Derridas
reading proposes that both northern and southern languages arose from passion, but
then one strayed from its origin and oriented itself more toward need, while the other
remained faithful to its original trajectory. [O]nce languages are constituted, he explains, the polarity need/passion...remain[s] operative within each linguistic system:
languages are more or less close to pure passion, that is to say more or less distant from
pure need, more or less close to pure language or nonlanguage (Derrida, Grammatology,
217). Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press) 1997. Hereafter referred to as G.
14. While there is always a kind of private language, a language of the family,
Rousseau argues that language in itself is not actual until it becomes public, common, and
shared. I will grant that private language isnt fully language (students questions about
my grading-shorthand and editorial comments are proof enough), but Rousseaus conflation of the family with nature and his exclusion of the numerous social relations within
the family from the domain of public life is obviously both empirically and politically
problematic. The familys repeated placement as pre-cultural further evinces the fact that
the bourgeois family is the precise locus for the (re)production of social norms (gender,
sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, etc.). Because it is socially constructed, the family structure gains normative force only if it is viewed as necessary, inevitable, and right.
Grounding the structure in a priori nature, immune to transient cultural forces, achieves
precisely this normative authority. Describing the last stage of pre-civilization in terms of
the relations of genders and generations we understand as a family unit, Rousseau falls
prey to the anachronistic analysis of Nature via categories produced by particular social
forces. In other words, he is using ideas developed by his specific cultural milieu to
anachronistically define naturethe very thing for which he chides state of nature
theorists in the Second Discourse. If there is a State of Nature, the family is most certainly not in it; if we understand the family as a metaphor for this private non-language
immediately prior to proper speech, the social quality of the family further evinces Rousseaus claim that nature is always already infused with and structured by social forces.
15. Perhaps this sense is best understood in terms of the French verb entendre,
which connotes both audiation and, more importantly, understanding.

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Notes

16. See McClary, Feminine Endings.

17. This same logic is at work in Rousseaus discussion of the articulation and recognition of linguistic sounds. I have no doubt that many more [vowel sounds] would be
found if habit had made the ear more sensitive [to perceive] and the mouth better trained
[to produce] the various manifestations of which they are capable...To the extent that one
has made oneself more or less sensitive to them by dint of habit, one can single out more
or fewer of these nuances and mark each with its own distinctive character, and this habit
depends on the kinds of vocalizations common in the language to which the organ imperceptibly forms (EOL, 260).
18. Rosseaus romanticization of southern and non-European forms of expression
seems to be entirely consistent withif perhaps an early instance ofthe racialized and
gendered notion of aesthetic receptivity. White culture perceives itself to be too staid and
alienated to experience genuine aesthetic pleasure, and looks to stereotypically primitivized and exoticized non-White vernacular cultures as sources of rejuvenated receptivity. See Gooding-Williams, Look, a Negro! and McClary, Conventional Wisdom.
19. That music both expresses and affects passions itself demonstrates that Rousseau
understands music to be necessarily and congenitally, if you will, subject to the influence of extramusical phenomena. Music and the passions exhibit a mutuallydeterminative relationship: music is determined by the passions it expresses, but these
passions, affected, aroused, and influenced by music, are far from natural, for they are
subject to socio-cultural shaping.
20. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality
Among Men or Second Discourse, in The Discourses and other early political writings,
edited by Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1997, 111-189.
Hereafter referred to as D2.
21. The purely physical analysis of music in terms of frequencies and their relations
tells us nothing, in particular, about music. Indeed, Rousseau notes, [t]he analysis of
sound has revealed the same relations as the analysis of light. Straight away, people enthusiastically seized upon this analogy without regard for experience or reason. The systematizing spirit has jumbled everything and, since it proved impossible to paint for the
ears, it was decided to sing for the eyes (EOL, 290). It is possible to understand both
sound and light in terms of frequencies; however, knowledge of frequencies and their
relations does not translate into insight in plastic or musical arts, for described purely in
terms of their physical properties, music and painting are basically identical
something experience proves false. Accordingly, Rousseau posits not physics but experiencethat is, knowledge about and from everyday interactions with the world and with
societyas the basis of aesthetic judgment and value.
22. Similarly, aidez-moi! is a cry, but it is not yet proper speech, for it arises from
physical need, and not from the habit of seeing a particular person at the watering hole.
23. Indeed, the harmonic function of a particular chord or mode (i.e., its syntactical function as dominant, subdominant, Neapolitan, an inversion, tonic, etc., which is
somewhat similar to the way we describe syntactic function in terms of noun, verb, object) derives not from some specific empirical quality of its resonating frequencies, but
from the associations which have accrued to them from the early Classical period (many
of which arise out of Baroque operas Doctrine of Affects, in which certain chords and
modes are said to most appropriately represent/affect specific passions and moods). Even
the titillation we experience when listening to Bachs Toccata in D minor, and the way
that even the smallest children seem to know that a sudden shift to minor in a movie
soundtrack indicates that something awful is about to happen, are due to our acculturated
expectations, not to some property inherent to the minor mode. This is what Rousseau

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means in the claim that nor is a given sound by nature anything within the harmonic
system (EOL, 291).
24. When a piano hammer strikes its string, it sounds not only a primary pitch (the
one we recognize, e.g., middle C), but an infinite number of overtones (C octave, G, C,
G, E,and so on).
25. The canonical works of Heinrich Schenker note that every piece written in more
or less classical tonality shares a fundamental tonic-secondary dominant-dominant-tonic
progression. This progression is the Ursatz or fundamental line that gives sense and
structure to the piece. Found in every work of classical tonality, this Ursatz functions, in
Schenkerian analysis, like the Platonic Form music: it is the ideal in which each individual piece participates.
26. In musicology and music aesthetics, there exists an historically significant argument that programmatic music (especially texted song) is a bastardization of music in its
pure presence, unmediated by culture and words. In order for music to be pure and
absolute, it must refrain from commerce with concepts, and, more importantly, words.
According to Arthur Schopenhauers The World as Will and Representation, music can
express the inner nature of the world in an exceedingly universal and accurate fashion,
but only insofar as it remains within its own system and does not utilize words or concepts which refer to external phenomena. [M]usic, as he says, expresses in an exceedingly universal language, in a homogeneous material, that is, in mere tones, and with the
greatest distinctness and truth, the inner being, the in-itself of the world (WWRI, 264).
Music is capable of presenting the metaphysical essence of the world because it exhibits
the same self-referential logic of presence as does the Ding an Sich or the Platonic Idea;
just as these concepts exhibit a pure presence, musics homogeneity allows it to remain
fully self-referential and self-present. How can music be expressive and meaningful as a
self-referential discourse? By speaking in mere tones and not relying on words or ideas
for structure and significance. Again looking to Schopenhauer as a representative of this
position, we see that he clearly divorces music from words. If, he argues, music tries
to stick too closely to the words, and to mould itself according to the events, it is endavoring to speak a language not its own (WWRI, 262). In order to understand music in
and on its own terms, music theorists needed to demonstrate music's independence of
socio-cultural factors. (Or, rather, in order to prove Western musics superiority without reference to other more politically contentious issues, Western music theorists needed
to show that music was a discourse independent of external influence.) If music was
purely musical, it could not be infected by or dependent on extramusical phenomena; if
music was absolute, it had to be universally significant and its significance could not be
culturally relative. Thus began the search for the essence or the nature of music. The
most irrefutable way to establish musics absoluteness was to endow it with an unchanging essenceto claim that it was natural and not a social construction. This was precisely Rameau's aim.
27. In the Second Discourse, Rousseau argues that [s]till less does it make sense to
inquire whether there might not be some essential connection between the two inequalities; for that would be to ask in different terms whether those who command are necessarily better than those who obey, and whether strength of Body or of Mind wisdom or
virtue, are always found in the same individuals, in proportion to their Power, or their
Wealth: A question which it may perhaps be good for Slaves to debate within hearing of
their Masters, but not benefiting rational and free Men who seek the truth (D2, 131).
Rousseau does not always take care to follow his own advice. His obvious sexism and

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Eurocentrism manifest Rousseaus own transformation of physical differences into moral

judgments about intelligence, character, etc.
28. For example, common musical meters/rhythms arose from poetic meter. [T]he
different meters in vocal Music could have arisen only from the different manners in
which discourse can be scanned and the shorts and longs can be placed with regard to one
another (LFM, 145-146).
29. Rousseau argues that although one might very well distinguish the measure of
the prosody, the meter of the verse, and the meter of the song in the musical rhythm, it
must not be doubted that the most pleasant Music, or at least the most rhythmic, would be
that in which these three meters concurred as perfectly as possible (LFM, 146).
30. See Of Grammatology 171-192. Derrida gives most credence to the position that
the Essay was originally written as a footnote to the Second Discourse, but was repeatedly revised and expanded. Given the strong parallels between Italian and southern languages, and French and northern languages, the Letter on French Music is surprisingly
absent from his attempts to contextualize the Essay within Rousseaus oeuvre. The genealogy of northern and southern languages presented in the Essay is most obviously Rousseaus attempt to offer a conjectural history that would justify and explain the distinctions
the Letter makes between Italian (a more musical language) and French (an utterly unmusical language).
31. The north/south polarity maps onto the Letters distinction between French and
Italian, respectively. Thus, Derrida is incorrect in his claim that the polar opposition
does not divide a set of already existing languages (G, 216).
32. Derrida states that without a trace retaining the other as the other in the same,
no difference would do its work and no meaning would appear (G, 62).
33. Yet we must not confound the meaning of the architecture with the declared intention of the work (G, 195). Distinguishing between the meaning of the architecture
and the declared intention of the work, Derrida implies that a text can do something
other than what it says it does: the architecture or form of a text can elicit meanings supplementary to the explicitly stated themes of the work. The question of architecture is
thus described as that of the space of its [the texts] structure. Deconstruction, the reading of the text against the book, is thus a matter of spacing.
34. I am not arguing that the rest is or is an example of musical arche-writing, for
the rest is an intrinsic part of music as musical notation. Rather, I use it as a metaphor or
conceptual structure through which to elaborate a notion of musical arche-writing.
35. This is also Jacques Attalis claim in Noise. See Attali, Jacques, Noise: The
Political Economy of Music, translated by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press) 1987.

Chapter Three
1. Kristeva, IR, 77-78. I have modified this translation in two places. First, I have
changed Schnberg to Schoenberg, because once Schoenberg emigrated to the United
States in 1936, he legally changed the spelling of his name (changing the umlaut to an
additional e) so that his new American neighbors and colleagues would have an easier
time spelling and pronouncing his name. Secondly, I have changed Aaron to Aron, as it
appears in the title to the opera, and in the French edition of Intimate Revolt. See Kristeva, Julia, Intimate Revolt: The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis, Volume 2, translated by Jeanine Herman (New York: Columbia University Press) 2002./La rvolte in-

Notes

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time: Poufoirs et limites de la psychoanalyse II (Paris: Fayard) 1997. Hereafter referred

to as IR.
2. For a discussion on the role of music in Kristevas Tales of Love, see James, The
Musical Semiotic: Kristeva, Don Giovanni, and Feminist Revolt. Philosophy Today
SPEP Supplement (2002): 113-119.
3. As the specular represents the coincidence of body and mind, [w]hat I see has
nothing to do with the specular that fascinates me (IR, 73). That is to say, the specular
engages the physical at a far more fundamental level than the highly complex process of
sense perception.
4. Kandinsky, Wassily and Marc, Franz, Der Blaue Reiter (Munich: Piper Verlag
GmbH) 1965.
5. Schoenberg, Arnold, Style and Idea: Selected Writings, edited by Leonard Stein,
translated by Leo Black (Berkeley: University of California Press) 1975, 141. Hereafter
referred to as S&I.
6. Adorno, Theodor W., Sacred Fragment. in Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on
Modern Music, translated by Rodney Livingstone (London: Verso) 1998, 225-248. Hereafter referred to as SF.
7. What meets its end in the camps, therefore, is really no longer the ego or the self
butonly the specimen; the body, or, as Brecht put it, the torturable entity, which can be
happy if it has time to escape that fate by suicide. One might say, therefore, that genocide, the eradication of humanity, and the concentration of people in a totality in which
everything is subsumed under the principle of self-preservation, are the same thing; indeed, that genocide is absolute integration (MCP, 108).
8. Adorno, Theodor W., Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems, translated by Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press) 2001, 101-102.
9. The ultimate seduction, if it existed, would be the ideal mother, the one who
holds up the ideal mirror in which I see myself, sure and autonomous, finally rid of the
narcissistic throes of the mirror stage and the paradises. It is the paternal eyethe eye of
the lawthat takes over for the ideal mother and replaces her destabilizing education by
a call to order (Kristeva, IR, 72).
10. For more on Kristevas reading of Don Giovanni and its implications for feminist theory, see James, The Musical Semiotic.
11. Schoenberg, Arnold, Moses und Aron, on Moses und Aron/Chamber Symphony
Op. 2, no. 38, BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez (London: Sony)
1993, III:i. Hereafter referred to as M&A.
12. In his essay This is My Fault, Schoenberg states, I will gladly admit that your
tonal and modal products are as expressionless as a poker-face (S&I, 147).
13. Kristeva, Julia, Thinking about liberty in dark times, The Holberg Prize Seminar 2004. http://www.holbergprisen.no/images/materiell/2004_kristeva_english.pdf (19
June 2009): 32. Hereafter referred to as TLDT.
14. Indeed, Rousseaus discussions of conjectural history and the state of nature in
the early musical writings and the first and second Discourses, are accompanied by this
unstated wink, wink that indicates his claims about nature are ironic. He is aware that
any attempt to describe a state of nature is futile, yet he does it anyway in order to think
through political problems such as inequality.
15. Although it is beyond the context of this book, it seems that Kristevas notion of
freedom shares important features with the notion of freedom Beauvoir elaborates in her
Ethics of Ambiguity.

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Notes

16. Ironically, Kristeva locates the avant-garde at the beginning of the twentieth
century with Schoenberg and Kleei.e., with movements which, although not popular,
are hardly considered avant-garde nowadays.

Chapter Four
1. See 2 Many DJs, Smells Like Booty (Soulwax Remix), Destinys Child vs.
Nirvana. 2 Many DJs! Pt. 1. Soulwax Records, 2002.
2. Irigaray, Luce, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca, New
York: Cornell University Press, 1985), 172. Hereafter referred to as TS.
3. Just as Marx discusses the money form and the commodity form in terms of riddles and enigmas, Freud uses this same language to describe femininity and feminine
sexuality. Sarah Kofman has extensively analyzed the trope of the feminine enigma in
Freuds writings. Marx, Karl, Capital, v.1 from The Marx and Engels Reader, ed. Robert
C. Tucker (New York: Norton, 1978), 313. Hereafter referred to as MER.
4. Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of
view of quality and quantity (MER, 303).
5. Interestingly, this technique of acknowledgement/denial is, according to Freud,
the procedure whereby fetish-objects are invested. Even though the fetish object serves as
a substitute enabling the illusory denial of female castration, the very practice of fetishism is an implicit acknowledgement that women do in fact lack the phallusotherwise,
why bother?
6. [P]articipation in society requires that the body submit itself to a specularization,
a speculation, that transforms it into a value-bearing object, a standardized sign, an exchangeable signifier, a likeness with reference to an authoritative model (TS, 180).
7. One could argue that the specificity of the female body is brought into the marketplace under the auspices of what Sandra Bartky terms the fashion-beauty complex:
billions of dollars rest upon the sale of cosmetic products and services made specifically
for the feminization of female bodies. However, even in this scheme the feminine/female
body is brought into the economy as the abject. The fashion-beauty complex markets
unattainable beauty norms to which no actual body could conform, thus creating an endless demand for their products. Female and feminine bodies are assumed to be imperfect
and assumed to always be in need of some more or less extreme form of make-over.
Thus, the place of the females and femininity is that of the unacceptable, the taboo, the
imperfect, the not-fully-humanthe abject.
8. As Marx explains, the equalization of the most different kinds of labour can be
the result only of an abstraction from their inequalities, or of reducing them to their
common denominator, viz., expenditure of human labour-power or human labour in the
abstract [i.e.,]the social character that his particular labour has of being the equal of all
other particular kinds of labour (MER, 322).
9. This is the same logic at work in Descartes wax passage: Descartes is able to
equate/compare the two empirical manifestations of wax because he, qua thinking thing,
perceives the concept of waxness with his minds eye.
10. Apter, Emily, Feminizing the Fetish (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press, 1991), 1.
11. [W]oman derives her price from her relation to the male sex, constituted as a
transcendental value: the phallus (TS, 188).

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12. Ewa Ziarek reads Marx along similar lines. For Marx, she argues, there is
nothing mysterious (Marx, 163) about the plain, homey, natural form of use value
(138), even though this form is already an effect of the social negation of nature by concrete labor (Ziarek, Ewa Plonowska, The Abstract Soul of the Commodity and the
Monstrous Body of the Sphinx: Commodification, Aesthetics, and the Impasses of Social
Construction in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 16: 2 (2005): 90).
13. Cook, Susan, Feminist Musicology and the Abject Popular, Women and Music, v. 5 (2001), p. 140.
14. Cook, 143.
15. Thomas, Anthony, The House the Kids Built: The Gay Black Imprint on
American Dance Music, in The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities,
ed. Delroy Constantine-Simms (Los Angeles: Alyson Books, 2001), 328.
16. Kristeva, Julia, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon Roudiez
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 3. Hereafter referred to as PoH.
17. Irigaray continues, stating that [t]he important thing is that they be preoccupied
with their respective values, that their remarks confirm the exchangers plans for them
(TS, 179). Women are preoccupied with, as Sandra Bartky would put it, the disciplines
of feminine beauty: dieting, hair, makeup, etc. Besides the obvious objection that concern
for ones appearance does not therefore make one a bad feminist, Irigaray here fails to
note that these disciplines can be turned against the patriarchal norms of which they are
usually the agents. Here, Irigaray claims that the teenage girls who coo and scream at
Justin and Christina are speaking the lines scripted for them by their exchangers. Obviously, Christina and Brittney are merely reciting the music of others; however, early Madonna was not terribly different, yet she managed to be a thorn in the side of patriarchal
moralityat least for awhile.
18. Although beyond the scope of this paper, it would be interesting to consider Irigarays claim here in light of Fanons and other postcolonial theorists analyses of language and colonial identity.
19. A similar, although not identical, trivialization of lite rockmusic marketed
primarily to middle-aged womencan be interpreted as the continuation of the abjection
of music associated with teenage girls. As lite rock stations usually play a mix of older
pop tunes (i.e., popular songs from when these middle-aged women would have been
teenage girls) and pop music made specifically for adults, the trivialization of lite rock
can be viewed as the abjection of both the figure of the teenage girl, as well as of the
mother.
20. Adorno, Theodor W., On the Fetish Character of Music and the Regression of
Listening, in Cultural Resistance Reader, ed. Stephen Duncombe (London: Verso,
2002), 277-303. Hereafter referred to as FCM.
21. Although there were a few relatively well known composers who were at one
time employed at girls schools (Antonio Vivaldi, Ralph Vaughn Williams), given the
time at which Adorno wrote this essay there is a good chance that he is referring to British composer Gustav Holst, who is quite well renowned for being one of the first composers to write serious music for wind band (i.e., it was written for band first, and is not
an arrangement of a piece that was primarily intended for orchestra); indeed, his two
most famous pieces, the First Suite in Eb and the Second Suite in F, are the cornerstones
of wind ensemble literature. So, when Adorno speaks of music originating in girls
schools, he could be implicitly commenting on the frivolous or inferior character of
wind bandand its strong working-class connotations, especially in Britain and North
Americain relation to the more elite and erudite orchestral tradition. Cook briefly

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Notes

discusses this feminization of band and wind ensemble, claiming that within the classical you uncover the further delineation of populars that can similarly be dismissed or
discounted. Thus, for example, the symphonic wind ensemble, with its connections to the
marching band (extraordinarily popular and woefully understudied), is the less valuable
popular to the symphony orchestra (2). For more information on both Holst and the
history of the symphonic wind ensemble, see Battisti, Frank. The Winds of Change: The
Evolution of the Contemporary American Wind Band/Ensemble and its Conductor.
Meredith Music, 2002. I am grateful to Emily Power for her assistance with my questions
on this topic.
22. Adorno, Theodor W., On Popular Music, in On Record: Rock, Pop, and the
Written Word, ed. Simon Frith (London: Routledge, 1990), 307. Hereafter referred to as
OPM.
23. Young, Iris Marion, On Female Body Experience: Throwing Like a Girl and
Other Essays (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
24. Indeed, in a patriarchal society which devalues female sexuality, except when
viewed as a lack thereofe.g., in terms of girlish innocence and virginity (indeed, as
Brittney Spears Oops, I Did It Again video demonstrates, girls are most sexually attractive when emphasizing their youth and immaturity)there continues the belief that
teen-idol music was intrinsically bad and that our consumption of it proved our immaturity: just as it supposedly signaled our unreadiness for real males, so it supposedly
signaled our unreadiness for real music (Nash, 146). This unconscious correlation between immature sexuality and immature musical tastes is evident in Spears re-tooling of
her Oops single in her 2004 Onyx Hotel Tour: here, where all the visuals, costumes,
and stage settings emphasized frequent and implicitly kinky sex, Spears sang Oops
as though it were a jazz standard, big band backing and all. Her supposed sexual maturity
necessitatesat least in the eyes of her manageran apparent maturation in her musical
tastes and range.
25. See the third chapter of Andreas Huyssens After The Great Divide for more on
the feminization of mass culture and the masses generally.
26. See Freud, Sigmund, Femininity, in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, ed. James Stratchey (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.) 1990, 139-168.
27. Adorno, Theodor W., Commodity Music Analysed, in Quasi una Fantasia:
Essays on Modern Music, trans. Rodney Livingstone (London: Verso, 1998), 45. Hereafter referred to as CMA.
28. This tendency to compare pop fans to insects is not idiosyncratic to Adorno, or
to the jitterbug era. Indeed, Ilana Nash cites the following excerpt from the newspaper
article If Only I knew Shaun Cassidys Favorite Color, My Life Would Be Complete:
The foolish little hearts of Sharon, 13, and Linda, 12, were beating at a furious
pace. It was Shaun Cassidy time at the Capital CentreThe Centre was being
over-run by a little army of girls in their early teens carrying I love Shaun
signs and quite prepared to keel over dead at the sight of The Promised One. I
could only think of acne and orthodontic braces. There were blank stares in
their vacant eyes, and their lungs were full of incredible power and range, like
10 million crazed locusts settled in a patch (149, emphasis mine).
Perhaps it is because insects are usually irritating and all possess very, very miniscule
brains that we as a society tend to dehumanize girls by associating them with insects.
29. See Monson, Ingrid, The Problem with White Hipness: Race, Gender, and Cultural Conceptions in Jazz Historical Discourse, in The Journal of the American Musi-

Notes

167

cological Society, Vol. 48, No. 3, 1995. Histories (Autumn, 1995), pp. 396-422. Here
Monson explains that For a time, then, swing and bebop musicians were united in their
disdain for the traditionalists. As bebop became more controversial, however, battle
lines were drawn between swing and bebop musicians as wellYoung modern musicians sought not only to change the sound of jazz, but to reject the legacy of the minstrel
mask by emphasizing art instead of entertainment. Louis Armstrongs plantation
image, as Dizzie Gillespie called it, with a handkerchief over his head, grinning in the
face of white racism, was a performance presentation rejected by a new generation of
musicians (Monson, 407). For the inventors of bebop, swing represented selling out to
whites, and assuming a passivefeminineposition in relation to the music marketplace. Bebop was thus a way to reclaim both masculinity and racial identity.
30. Nealon, Jeffrey, Maxima Immoralia?: Speed and Slowness in Adorno, in Rethinking the Frankfurt School: Alternative Legacies of Cultural Critique, ed. Jeffery Nealon (Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 2002), 136.
31. For more on the relationship between feminization and white skeptical melancholy in mid-twentieth century American popular music, see Gooding-Williams 2005.
For more on twentieth-century anxieties over white femininity and mass culture, see
James, Robin, 2008. Robo-Diva R&B in The Journal of Popular Music Studies, v. 20,
no. 4, pp. 402-423.
32. One may object to the claim that Adorno adopts a white, heterosexual, masculine
listening position with the counter-claim that it is in fact capitalism itself which adopts
this subject position as its norm. Clearly, this is true of capitalism (indeed, this is Irigarays main thesis in her reading of Marx); however, Adornos obviously misogynistic
remarks about the female body evince a viewpoint which is actively sexist, not just passively reflecting the norms of the system which it is analyzing.
33. What is missing from Irigarays reading of Marx is, among other things, class
even though she does make a point to note the class differences among women elsewhere
in This Sex. It seems that this oversight could be due to the analogical form exhibited by
her critique of Marx: as Marxs monothematic and reductive account subsumes all forms
of oppression under class, Irigarays substitution of woman for commodity necessarily follows the same monological trajectory as Marxs, only now privileging gender/sex.
That is to say, the fault isnt so much Irigarays as it is that of the argument she is miming
(we might, however, fault her for not inserting a cautionary footnote admitting the flaw
arising from this analogical technique). One could also argue that an adequate understanding of both patriarchy and capitalism cannot be achieved without analyzing the ways
in which they have come to reinforce one another. For example, traditionally masculine
valuesindividuality, competition, reason, and rational self-interestare also those values and assumptions which undergird capitalism.
34. Wald, Gayle and Gottleib, Joanne, Smells like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrls, revolution, and women in independent rock in Critical Matrix, Vol. 7, No. 2 (December 31,
1993), 9.
35. Susan McClary makes a similar point about the status of music itself. The
charge that musicians or devotees of music are effeminate goes back as far as recorded
documentation about music, and musics association with the body (in dance or for sensuous pleasure) and with subjectivity has led to its being relegated in many historical
periods to what was understood as a feminine realm. Male musicians have retaliated in
a number of ways: by defining music as the most ideal (that is, the least physical) of arts;
by insisting emphatically on its rational dimension; by laying claim to such presumably

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Notes

masculine virtues as objectivity, universality, and transcendence; by prohibiting actual

female participation altogether (FE, 17).
36. Adorno, Theodor W, The Idea of Natural History (1932), in Telos, No. 60,
(Summer 1984), 111-124; 124. Hereafter referred to as INH.
37. Even though Marx might be interpreted as acceding the possibility that this state
of real social relations comes to be constructed as real via various social processes, this
by no means decreases the normative force this potentially second nature serves in his
text.
38. Copjec, Joan, The Orthopsychic Subject: Film Theory and the Reception of Lacan, in Feminism and Film, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
287-305; 300.
39. Freud, Sigmund, Fetishism, in Collected Papers v.5, ed. James Stratchey,
(New York: Basic Book Publishers, Inc.), 1959.
40. Emily Apter, in her book Feminizing the Fetish: Psychoanalysis and Narrative
Obsession in Turn-of-the-Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), emphasizes the visual character of both Freudian and Marxist accounts of fetishism. Arguing
that one might want to soften this rigid distinction [which Mulvey makes] between fetishist and voyeur by saying that the fetishist does indeed refuse to look, but in refusing to
look, he stares, Apter brings together the psychoanalytic and dialectical materialist versions of fetishism by reading them in terms of Freudian negation, which is much like
Marxs determinate negation (xii). In other words, the refusal to look is actually an intense gazinga stare.
41. Kaplan, E. Anne, Is the Gaze Male?, in Feminism and Film, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 119-135; 127.
42. Copjec, 288
43. Nonknowledge or invisibility isregistered as the wavering and negotiations
between two certaintiesthe panoptic argument is ultimately resistant to resistance, unable to conceive of a discourse that would reuse rather than refuel power (Copjec, 290).
44. bell hooks makes a similar point in Black Female Spectators, her response to
Mulvey and feminist film theory in general. Arguing that black women, due to their exclusion from and consequent inability to seamlessly identify with Hollywood films, already recognize and practice a form of active (i.e., non-passive, non fetishized) spectatorship. Consequently, hooks remarks, feminist film theorys claim that film objectifies
and fetishizes women fails to recognize that not all women relate to the screen in the
same way, or in a necessarily passive and objectified way.
45. Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 75. Hereafter referred to as LC.
46. hooks, bell, The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, in Postcolonial
Feminist Theory, ed. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills, (New York: Routledge, 2003), 207221; 208. Hereafter referred to as OG.
47. As spectators, black men could repudiate the reproduction of racism in cinema
and television, the negation of black presence, even as they could feel as though they
were rebelling against white supremacy by daring to look, by engaging phallocentric
politics of spectatorshipIn their role as spectators, black men could enter an imaginative space of phallocentric power that mediated racial negation (hooks, 209).
48. West, Kanye, Diamonds (Are From Sierra Leone) on Late Registration (New
York: Roc-A-Fella Records), 2005.
49. In his 2009 song Magnificent, Rick Ross raps a claim similar to Jay-Zs: Im
a CEO which means that I profit offa me. This empowering self-commodification is thus
not isolated to one black male rapper, and there is, I think, good reason to see this as a

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169

not-uncommon view in contemporary mainstream hip-hop. Indeed, this view of selfcommodification may be understood as a compliment to Afrofuturist robot mythologies.
Equating robots and black chattel slaves, Afrofuturism privileges robot identity as a site
of resistance and empowerment. For Rosss Magnificent, see http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=wPSRqb0p2nk. For more on Afrofuturism, see James, 2008.
50. Sheand this gendering is absolutely importantis somehow slave to the object, rendered passive in the face of the economic and political power represented by the
diamond. Let us not forget that this she is also a white she: not only does diamond production continue to bear the legacy of colonialism (as Wests title points out), but the
song itself is from a James Bond film (rich British man, conquering evildoers and women
in exotic, barely postcolonial locations) and Marilyn Monroe (diamonds are a girls best
friend). Of course, Shirley Bassey (the vocalist) is black: however, it is possible to read
this situation as an erasure of race. hooks argues that mainstream cinema posits the white
female as the object of sexual desire, as is indeed the case in this Bond film. Wests video
reinforces the presumed whiteness of the covetous female by showing a very WASPy
woman who, on the occasion of having her fiance put her diamond ring on her finger
(interestingly, in being the object of action), is immediately covered in the blood of the
blood diamonds: indeed, her white hand begins to turn black. Just as WASPettes pleasure in her diamond engagement masks the arduous labor of black Africans, the film and
the original song seem to rely upon the forgetting of Basseys concrete labor as a black
woman, for she appears to us as a disembodied voice. Basseys disappearance only
reconfirms hookss point that black women are absent from conventional film narratives,
and that the feminine object of desire is always presumed to be white.
51. I am reminded of Fanons discussion of third-person consciousness in Black
Skins, White Masks. Here, he claims that his existence as a man, a subject, is alwaysalready fragmented by his awareness of the ways in which stereotypes fix him as a thing,
an object. His interaction with the world and with others requires a self-objectification,
namely, this third-person consciousness wherein he takes himself as the object of his own
observations, viewing himself in the third person through the terms/stereotypes constructed by dominant (white French) culture. While this forced self-objectification is
certainly negative in some aspects, Fanons passionate writing and fervent calls for action
and revolution indicate that it is hardly an absolute negation of agency.
52. This is of course a very, very important issue, and the role of black femininity in
relation to black masculinity in Jay-Zs work deserves extended consideration. While, on
the one hand, Jay is contesting essentialist versions of black masculinity, his work maintains a problematic relation to femininity and women. Not only does the Big Pimpin
yacht overflow with objectified, bikini-clad black women, but it is possible, in light of
hookss essay, to read his subversive repetition of capitalism to not quite subvert its tendency to commodify and objectify femininity. hooks argues that black male filmgoers
can adopt the (white) patriarchal gaze which situates white femininity as the object of
sexual desire (for, indeed, this is precisely the move which the lynching narrative assumes, namely, that everyone desires white women). So, even though Jays videos clearly
situate black women (with their apple bottoms and curves clearly not celebrated in
stereotypes of white female beauty) as objects of desire, it is possible that his repetition of
the norms of capitalism isnt subversive enough in its failure to address the structural
marginalization of various femininities.
53. Even a cursory glance at Schoenbergs published letters will reveal that
Adornos prized example of authentic artistic production did, to a certain extent, practice

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Notes

art as a business. Many of the early letters are basically pleas to publishers for more work
and/or expressions of his dire financial situation.
54. Anna Carastathis notes that Marx, in Capitals discussion of commodity fetishism, assumes and cannot account for normative whiteness. Though this is subterraneous
in Marxs text, what overdetermines the slaves enslavement is race. As he writes elsewhere, [a] Negro is a Negro. Only under certain conditions does he become a slave. A
cotton-spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under certain conditions
does it become capital (WLC). But, the fact that a Negro is a slave, under certain conditions, is surely not incidental. The question, why a Negro? Does not occur to Marx
(Carastathis, 126). Carastathiss analysis suggests that Marxian fetishism cannot account
for the fact that white privilege has established a situation wherein only black bodies can
be exchanged as chattel. Carastathis, Anna, A Phenomenology of Fetishism: Alienated
Production and the Appearance of Race in International Studies in Philosophy,
XXXIX/2 (2007), 17-36.
55. Interestingly, Zotan Kodalys theories of kinaesthetics (teaching musical concepts through movement) have been widely taken up by music educators, especially those
at the elementary level; however, his emphasis on embodied response to music has, not
unexpectedly, been deemed appropriate only for elementary-schoolersi.e., children
with immature capacities of aesthetic evaluationwhile undergraduates are taught to
appreciate music in terms of various theories of harmony, counterpoint, and pitch-class
set (i.e., in terms of theory and intellect). A feminist music theory and music education
should emphasize the importance of embodied responses to music for all ages, and precisely because no one is capable of authentic, disinterested aesthetic judgments.
56. Arthur Dantos theory of the artworld would seem to confirm this claim that
arts value is primarily social. A version of what analytic aestheticians would call the
institutional theory of art, the artworld refers to all the stakeholders in the production,
sale, and reception of art, as well as the education of artists and art audiences. Focusing
mainly on relations among stakeholders, this theory foregrounds the role of the social in
art/aesthetics.
57. Perhaps because of theorys general tendency to privilege the visual over the
auditory, feminist art criticism has long been aware of classical/popular or art/craft hierarchies and the various ways in which the latter members of each pair are feminized.
However, it has been my experience that both academics and society at large are more
willing to recognize the artistry of womens work than to admit of the musical value of
pop as anything other than a guilty pleasure.
58. Nash, Ilana, Hysterical Scream or Rebel Yell?: The Politics of Teen-Idol Fandom, in Disco Divas: Women and Popular Culture in the 1970s, ed. Sherrie A. Inness
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 133-154; 148.

Chapter Five
1. Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New
York: Vintage Books) 1974, section 268. Hereafter referred to as GS.
2. One has to suffer the fate of music as of an open wound Nietzsche, Friedrich,
On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New
York: Vintage Books) 1989, 317. Hereafter referred to as EH.
3. GS, 268

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171

4. Nietzsche, Friedrich, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, in The Portable Nietzsche,

translated and edited by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Books) 1954, 664, emphasis mine. Hereafter referred to as NCW.
5. NCW, 664.
6. This also appears in NCW 665.
7. Infinite melody seeks deliberately to break all evenness of time and force and
even scorns it occasionallysuch music leans more and more heavily on a wholly naturalistic [i.e., realist] style of acting in gestures, which is no longer dominated by any law
of plasticity and wants effect, nothing more. Espressivo at any price, and music in the
service, the slavery, of posesthat is the end (NCW, 666-667).
8. In a sense, Nietzsche is arguing for the primacy of rhythm over harmony. While a
very radical claim for the late-nineteenth-century Western art music scene, this tension
between rhythm and harmony as organizational principles fueled many of the early debates about the status of hip hop as music. See chapter 3 of Rose, Tricia, Black Noise:
Rap music and black culture in contemporary America (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan
University Press) 1994.
9. Indeed, this is a prime example of the force of will required to give style (GS,
290).
10. See Battersby, Christine, Stages on Kants Way: Aesthetics, Morality and the
Gendered Sublime. in Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality: The Big Questions, edited by
Naomi Zack, Laurie Shrage, and Crispin Sartwell (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell) 1998, 227243.
11. The historical accuracy of Nietzsches account is of no real importance, if anything because little evidence of ancient Greek musical practices has been preserved for
contemporary musicological examination.
12. Since [w]hat is and remains popular is the mask, Nietzsche concludes that it is
the vulgar element in everything that gives pleasure in Southern Europewhether it be
Italian opera (for example, Rossini and Bellini) or the Spanish novel of adventure (GS,
section 77; emphasis mine). Nietzsches privileging of southern European musical cultures over northern European ones could be interpreted as another instance of white romanticization of somewhat exoticized, somewhat less wholly white cultural traditions. In
the same way that Clapton romanticized Robert Johnson, Nietzsche thinks that these
southern European musics are more emotionally and affectively effective. While Robert
Gooding-Williamss Look! A Negro does address Nietzsches gendering of receptivity, it
does not discuss the ways in which whiteness (and, in this instance, white attempts at
culturally appropriating non-white vernacular musics) also operates in Nietzsches aesthetics.
13. Nietzsche is not always consistent in his use of femininity as a metaphor for
good music. In the theateri.e., in Wagners musicone is common people, audience,
herd, female, pharisee, voting cattle, democrat, neighbor, fellow man (GS, section 368).
Here, femininity is equated with bad music. However, this is, by and large, an exception to the more common association of femininity with active or good music.
14. See Battersby, Christine, Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press) 1989. Hereafter referred to as GG. In GG,
Christine Battersby argues that Nietzsches privileging of the feminine works specifically
to marginalize females in the same fashion as other Romantic notions of the virility
school of creativity. In Romantic conceptions of genius, Battersby rightly argues, stereotypically feminine characteristics are, when found in particularly gifted men (i.e.,
strong enough to maintain their masculinity in spite of various feminine characteris-

172

Notes

tics), accorded the cultural value of genius. While femininity is thus praised as the
font of creativity and ingenuity, it is only so when found in males; when females exhibit
these traits, they are only fulfilling their nature, and are thus in no way exceptional. Citing various passages in which Nietzsche excludes women from the sphere of cultural
production, Battersby argues: since it was not the feminine that was consistently
downgraded in the nineteenth century, but rather the female, there is nothing unprecedented about Nietzsches simultaneous revaluation of the feminine and his attempt to
exclude females from power (GG, 123). It is incontestable that some of Nietzsches
comments on women are misogynist (or, as Derrida would say, some of Nietzsches
women are castrating or castrated). However, even though Nietzsche does suggest
that women are only dilettantes (she dabbles in writing, she dabbles in art [GG, 122])
in the arena of culture, Battersby misses Nietzsches critique of serious culture/Kultur.
As I have demonstrated above, Nietzsches critique of metaphysics implies a rejection of
the serious/popular culture hierarchy, for the existence of serious culture relies on the
false presumption of a truth that is most accurately presented by authentic works.
Understanding Nietzsches overall regard for art and culture, statements such as the
following seem less a claim against the frivolity of women and more a claim about the
superfluity of high culture and its worship of the Werke: Admitting exceptionsthey
prove the rulewoman attains perfection in everything that is not a work: in letters, in
memoirs, even in the most delicate handiwork, in short in everything that is not a mtier
(GG, 121, citing Will to Power section 817). As a proponent of cold baths, Nietzsche
describes himself as a dabbler; indeed, many of his works are aphoristic and lack the
systematicity generally ascribed to profound philosophical thought. Now, one could
still argue that Nietzsche allows superficiality in males, but, like the Romantics, objects
to the appearance of these feminine qualities in the work of actual womenthat, as
Battersby argues, he aims to write like a woman. But he does not write as a woman. Nor
will he even allow women to write as women (GG, 125). I partially agree with Battersby
that this may, indeed, be the case. I disagree insofar as I read with Derrida several
Nietzsches, some of which contradict each other. Thus, it is entirely possible that
Nietzsche deconstructs the notion of high culture, except in cases where he uses it to
exclude females from consideration as important producers of culture. If we follow his
critique of serious culture, we are not thereby beholden to his conclusions about womens
place (or lack of place) in artin fact, our agreement with him on this former point necessitates our departure from him on the latter.
15. Nietzsche is very close to Frere-Jones assessment of indie rock that is discussed
in the preface: the former indicts Western art music for lacking in femininity, while the
latter mourns the lack of blackness in white indie rock.
16. Derrida, Jacques, Spurs: Nietzsches Styles, translated by Barbra Harlow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1979.
17. Most black women, argues hooks, are adamant that they never went to movies
expecting to see compelling representations of black femaleness because mainstream
American cinema is a context that constructs our presence as absence, that denies the
body of the black female so as to perpetuate white supremacy and with it a phallocentric spectatorship where the woman to be looked at and desired is white (hooks, 210).
See hooks, bell, The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators in Postcolonial
Feminist Theory, edited by Reina Lewis and Sara Mills (New York: Routledge, 2003),
207-221.
18. Elementary general music teachers spend years teaching first and second graders
how to find a downbeatthis is not something that is innate or instinctual. Similarly, one
must already know that the minor mode is culturally associated with negative emotions

Notes

173

and be familiar with the structure of military marches (use of cut time, first strain, second
strain, trio, etc.) in order to comprehend the bellicose mendacity conveyed in John Williams Imperial March (Darth Vaders theme music from The Empire Strikes Back).
19. See Battersby, GG and Stages on Kants Way, McClary Feminine Endings and
Conventional Wisdom, Nash Hysterical Scream, Cook R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
20. Alcoff, Linda, Visible Identities (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2006, 184.
21. Jay-Z, DOA (Death of Autotune) on Blueprint III (New York: Island/Def
Jam), 2009.
22. Due to copyright issues, I have not been permitted to print the actual lyrics from
DOA and Swagga Like Us. To see this passage complete with the specific citations
from the relevant songs, please see my blog, www.its-her-factory.blogspot.com. Search
for tag Conjectural Body to easily find the post. TI, Swagga Like Us on Paper Trail
(Atlanta, Georgia: Grand Hustle), 2008.

Epilogue
1. Plato, Symposium in Plato III, Trans. W.R.M. Lamb (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996).
2. Wilson, Robin, Black Women Seek a Role in Philosophy in The Chronicle of
Higher Education, September 28, 2007, http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i05/05b00401.htm
(19 June 2009).
3. Asma, Steven,Looking Up From the Gutter: Philosophy and Popular Culture in
The Chronicle for Higher Education, September 12, 2007,http://chronicle.com/weekly/
v54/i07/07b01401.htm (19 June 2009).
4. Spears, Britney, Gimme More on Blackout. New York: Jive Records, 2007.
5. See Gooding-Williams, Robert. Look! A Negro. (New York: Routledge, 2006).
Im not arguing that this neo-colonial structure still operates in the contemporary U. S.
cultural landscape. I am, however, suggesting that it no longer operates around an exclusively or primarily black/white binary; the contemporary structure could be more of a
white/non-white binary, or a non-binary yet still hierarchical structure including whites,
blacks, Hispanics, Asians, poor whites, and various other non-dominant groups.
6. Irwin, William, Philosophy and the Interpretation of Pop Culture (New York:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 54.
7. Irwin, Philosophy, 54.
8. I next propose that the flute-girl who came in just now be dismissed: let her pipe
to herself or, if she likes, to the women-folk within, but let us seek our entertainment
today in conversation (Plato, Symposium, 176e).
9. Irwin, Philosophy, 49.
10. Nye, Andrea, Its Not Philosophy, in Decentering the Center, ed. Uma Narayan and Sandra Harding (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 101-109.
11. Cook, Susan, R-E-S-P-E-C-T (find out what it means to me): feminist musicology and the abject popular in Women and Music (2001); Huyssen, Andreas. After the
Great Divide, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).
12. Parker, Rozsika and Pollock, Griselda, Crafty Women and the Hierarchy of the
Arts in Aesthetics: The Big Questions, ed. Carolyn Korsmeyer (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 1998), 44.

174

Notes

13. Haslanger, Sally. Changing the Ideology and Culture of Philosophy: Not by
Reason (Alone) unpublished paper circulated widely on the internet: http://www.mit
.edu/~shaslang/papers/HaslangerCICP.pdf (19 June 2009).
14. Irwin, Philosophy, 42
15. Totally Blatant Sexism in Philosophy, on Feminist Philosophers Blog,
http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/totally-blatant-sexism-in-philosophy (19 June 2009).
16. Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans.
Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), p. 82.
17. For data about women in the profession, see https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence
/display/philequity/Current+Data.

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the Sphinx: Commodification, Aesthetics, and the Impasses of Social Construction.
differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 16:2, 2005.

Index
4:33, 6, 57, 59. See also Cage, John

Autotune, 141

abject, ix, xvi, 48, 64, 66-67, 87, 92-94,

99, 101-106, 109-13, 116-17, 11929, 140, 146, 152n7, 164n7,
165n19
Adorno, Theodor W., xvi, 73-75, 79,
82, 92-93, 102, 105-16, 121, 129,
141, 165n21, 166n28, 167n32,
169n53
aesthetics, xviii-ix, xv-xviii, 15-16, 25,
29, 60-62, 65, 74, 83-87, 92-94,
104-6, 115, 117, 119, 128, 131-32,
135-37, 139, 140-42, 145-47,
151n2, 153n9, 160n18, 160n21,
161n26, 170n55, 170n56, 171n12
African-American, xvii, 9-12, 16, 25,
103, 108, 120
Alcoff, Linda, 140
alienation, 36, 85, 93, 97-98, 100, 103,
109-111, 120, 123; alienated labor, 97-99, 107, 154n3, 160n18
Antigone, 105
Antiphony, 6, 8
art, iii, xvi-xviii, 33, 72, 77, 100, 128,
133-136, 138, 151n2, 153n9,
154n19, 167n35, 169n53, 170n56,
170n57, 172n14; fine art, 10, 16,
24-26, 37-38, 47, 58, 61, 65, 7375, 84-87, 103-4, 108, 145-48,
152n7, 152n7, 167n29; visual art,
xvii, 20-21, 54, 63, 70-71, 143,
146-48, 161n21
Attali, Jacques, 17-18, 162n35
authenticity, iii, xvi, 5, 7-8, 11-12, 25,
62, 65, 84-85, 92, 94, 96, 100-1,
105, 108-9, 113, 116, 119-22, 125,
130, 169n53, 170n55, 172n14

Battersby, Christine, ix, 139, 17172n14

Beyonc, 91, 94
Bhabha, Homi, 115-17
black, vii-ix, 3, 5-12, 14-17, 25, 36,
102-103, 105, 107-8, 117-20, 139,
143, 145, 154n3, 155n7, 155n9,
168n47, 168n49, 169n50, 170n54,
172n15, 173n5; black Atlantic, 3,
6-8; black feminism, xvii, 15-16,
25, 117-18, 145, 168n44, 160n52,
172n17. See also AfricanAmerican
Blaue Reiter, 70-73. See also Schoenberg, Arnold
blues, vii, xiv, 8-12, 14-17, 25, 108,
155n9
body, viii, xiii-xvi, 3, 8, 17-18, 21-22,
24, 26, 30-31, 33-34, 51-52, 58, 6062, 64, 70, 82, 86-87, 94-95, 103,
109, 111, 115, 117, 131-33, 137-42,
154n13, 164n6, 164n7, 167n32,
170n54, 172n17, 153n11, 155n14;
conjectural body, xiv-xvi, 26, 30,
51, 60-62, 64-65, 67, 80-84, 87, 9192, 140-42, 152n6; resonating
body, 3-4, 17, 41, 51-52, 64, 131133, 142, 167n35; vs. mind, vii-ix,
xiii-xiv, 8-9, 64-66, 68-70, 77-78,
80-84, 86, 95, 104, 109-10, 113,
124, 133, 137-38, 154n2, 156n21,
163n3

Cage, John, 57, 59. See also 4:33

Carter, Sean.See Jay-Z

183

184
coincidence, xiv, xvii, xix, 3-4, 12-26,
30, 43, 53-54, 63, 65-67, 69, 72, 77,
80-87, 91-94, 101-3, 112, 122, 12728, 132, 139-42, 155n14, 157n28,
163n3
color theory, xiv, 19-21, 156n23,
156n24, 156n25
conjecture, xiv-xvi, 4, 13-15, 19, 26,
29-33, 43-47, 50-57, 60-62, 64-65,
68, 74, 78, 80, 84, 87, 91, 98, 12125, 131, 140-42, 152n6, 158n5,
162n30, 163n14. See also body
Cook, Susan, ix, 101-104, 112, 146-47,
165n21
Copjec, Joan, 113, 115-18, 120-22,
126, 130. See also orthopsychic
subject
corporeal. See body
Crenshaw, Kimberl William, 14,
157n28
dance: music, viii, ix, 38, 102, 107-8,
167n35; in Nietzsche, 131, 133-34,
137-38
Davis, Angela, xiv, xix, 14-19, 25, 145
Derrida, Jacques, 26, 30, 32, 35, 43-44,
49-61, 137-39, 151n3, 159n13,
162n30, 162n31, 162n33, 172n14.
See also titles of specific works
Destinys Child, See Beyonc
diaspora, 3, 6-10
diffrance, 52-56, 59. See also Derrida,
Jacques
Don Giovanni, 64, 74-77
Du Bois, W.E.B., 3
criture, 50-61, 162n34
essentialism, xv, 5-10, 26, 59, 69, 8687, 120, 154n3, 155n10, 169n32
Essential Logic, 58-59
Europe, 9-10, 17, 37-38, 103, 105-106,
136-39, 155n3, 171n12; Eurocentrism, 5, 25, 30, 37, 42-43, 47-48,
51, 62, 83-84, 86, 97, 162n27
expression, 5-14, 26, 39-41
fake, 25, 62, 64, 87, 100-101, 127-128,
159n12. See also authenticity
femininity, xvii, 58, 67-69, 76, 86-87,
92-93, 96, 99-100, 102-4, 106-11,
114-17, 121, 123-25, 129-30, 131,
135-42, 144, 146-47, 153n9, 164n3,

Index

164n7, 165n17, 167n29, 167n35,
169n50, 171n14
feminism, xiv, xvi-xix, 3, 9-10, 14-18,
20, 86-87, 92-93, 97, 101, 115, 12930, 132, 138-43, 145-46, 148,
153n12, 154n13, 154n14, 155n10,
156n26, 157n28, 165n17, 168n44,
170n55, 170n57
feminized popular. See popular, feminized
fetishism: commodity fetishism, viii,
xvi, 79, 106-13, 119-21, 164n5,
168n40, 168n44, 170n44; in Freud,
xv, 113-17, 164n5, 168n40; vs. abjection, xvi, 87, 122-30
Foucault, Michel, 33, 69, 81, 118, 149
freedom, 33-34; in Kristeva, 76-83, 8586, 163n15
Frere-Jones, Sasha, xviii-ix, 172n15
Freud, Sigmund, 68-70, 96-97, 99-100,
104, 107, 113-16, 123, 164n3,
164n5, 168n40
gender, xiv-xviii, 3-4, 8-26, 30-31, 65,
68-69, 75-76, 86-87, 97, 101, 11314, 117-18, 127, 139-42, 151n2,
153n12, 155n10; and bodies, xvi, 8,
12-24, 51, 62, 122, 132, 152n6,
155n14, 157n26, 159n14; and contemporary philosophy, xvii, 143148; and music, vii, xiii, xvi-xix, 812, 24-26, 58, 92-94, 101-11, 11920, 141-42, 153n9, 160n18,
169n50, 171n12; and race, vii, xiii,
xiv-xv, 8-26, 91, 127, 156n23,
157n28, 167n33, 169n50, 171n12
Gilroy, Paul, 3-9, 12, 154n2, 155n7.
See also black Atlantic
Of Grammatology, 26, 49-60, 159n13.
See also Derrida, Jacques
Hall, Stuart, 5
Hames-Garca, Michael, 19-21, 152n6,
156n23
Harmony: in Attali, 17-19, 156n21; in
Rousseau, 30, 37-50; tonality/tonal
harmony, 9-10, 17, 30, 38-43, 47,
60, 71, 75-77, 133-35, 158n9,
161n25
high/low distinction, xvii-xviii, 4-5, 912, 15-16, 24-26, 58, 61, 64-65, 73,
79, 86, 91, 101-10, 121, 125, 129-

Index
30, 141, 145-47, 152n7, 153n9,
154n3, 165n21, 172n14. See also
feminized popular, popular music
Hight, Christopher, 16-18
hip hop, 94, 105, 112, 119-20, 128,
141, 171n8. See also names of specific artists
Holiday, Billie, xiv, xix, 14-15
hooks, bell, 115, 117-118, 139, 145,
168n44, 169n50, 169n52, 172n17
Huyssen, Andreas, 146-147

material vs. social, xiii-xv, xvii, xix, 78, 10-12, 16, 24-26, 30-32, 37-38,
43-49, 51-53, 56-62, 68-68, 72-73,
83-85, 95, 97, 99-100, 112, 127,
142, 152n6, 158n6, 158n8, 161n26.
See also body, conjecture
McClary, Susan, 5, 8-12, 155n9,
167n35
melody, 30, 37-40, 44-51, 54, 58, 133135, 141, 171n7
metaphysics, xiii, 26, 30-51, 53-55, 57,
59, 64-65, 78, 83, 86-87, 97, 131,
133, 145, 151n3, 161n26, 172n14
Mills, Charles, xv, 31, 56, 62, 145,
158n5
mirror stage, 66-67, 103, 112, 115-27,
163n9
Moses und Aron, 62-65, 69, 72-75, 7778, 85-86
Mozart, Wolfgang, 63, 74-77, 119, 134.
See also titles of specific works
Mulvey, Laura, 118, 120-21, 139,
168n40, 168n44
music, vii-ix, xiii-xiv, xiv-xix, 3-19,
21-26, 29-34, 36-65, 68-78, 79, 85,
131-42, 144-45, 154n3, 155n7,
155n9, 156n21, 158n9, 161n25,
162n28, 162n34, 163n14, 170n55,
172n18; absolute music, 30, 43-51,
54, 63-64, 70-75, 77-78, 109, 129,
160n19, 160n21, 161n26, 170n2,
171n7, 171n8, 171n11; art music,
4-5, 9-10, 15-16, 37-38, 47, 58, 61,
101-2, 108-11, 120, 122, 128, 138,
144, 146, 152n7, 153n9, 171n8,
172n15, 165n21; and language, 6-8,
31-32, 36-55, 69-73, 77-78,
159n11, 159n12, 161n26, 162n30;
popular music, vii-ix, xiv, xvi-xviii,
xix, 3-5, 11-12, 15-16, 24-26, 58,
65, 79, 91-94, 100-13, 117-22, 127130, 131, 133-43, 146-47, 154n13,
154n14, 165n17, 165n19, 166n24,
166n28, 167n29, 167n35, 155n57,
171n12, 171n13, 172n15; process
music, 22-24, 157n29

intersectionality, xiv, 3-4, 7, 11-24, 26,

51, 62, 68-70, 75-76, 80, 87, 11820, 142-43, 145-46, 148, 152n6,
156n7; traffic metaphor, 13-15; vs.
coincidence, 12-13, 19-24, 26,
156n23. See also coincidence
Irigaray, Luce, xvi, 92-95, 97-101, 1034, 111, 114, 117, 121, 127, 129,
146, 165n17, 165n18, 167n32,
167n33
irony, 62, 64, 77-85, 87
Jay-Z, 118-120, 130, 141, 168n49,
169n52
Knowles, Beyonc. See Beyonc
Kofman, Sara, 130-132, 137, 164n3
Kristeva, Julia, xiv, 61-73, 75-87, 92,
102-103, 105, 112, 120, 122-28,
130; and feminism, 65, 68-69, 76,
86-87, 103, 122-23, 125, 152n7,
163n15; and music, xv, 63-64, 6973, 75-78, 162n1, 164n16; and semiotic, xiv-xv, 35, 48, 64-65, 6770, 75, 78, 80, 86. See also abject,
specular, society of the spectacle
Lacan, Jacques, 67, 112-13, 115-19,
121-22, 127-29. See also mirror
stage
Marx, Karl, 92-101, 111, 113, 116,
124, 129, 164n3, 165n12, 167n32,
167n33, 167n37, 168n40, 170n54
masculinity, vii, ix, xvi, 5, 8-12, 58, 6769, 76, 78, 86, 93-96, 100-102, 106107, 109, 111-17, 119-21, 127-28,
130, 138-39, 141, 146-49, 152n7,
153n9, 167n29, 167n32, 167n33,
168n35, 169n52, 171n14

185

Naryan, Uma, 9-10, 155n11

nature: in Rousseau, 26, 29-47, 49-51,
53-54, 60-61, 158n6, 158n8,
159n14, 161n23, 161n26; state of,
xiv-xvi, 22, 31, 34-35, 44-45, 47,

186
51, 60, 84, 122, 124, 152n6 ,
163n14; vs. culture, xiii, xv-xvi,
xix, 6-8, 11, 16, 24, 26, 53, 58-62,
64-65, 73, 82, 84, 91, 97-99, 103,
112, 122-27, 138, 151n2, 152n6,
154n3, 165n12, 168n37
Nietzsche, Friedrich, xvi-xvii, 74, 13042, 171n11; and the feminine, xvixvii, 131, 135, 137-40, 171n14; and
music, xvi-xvii, 131-42, 171n8,
171n12, 172n15; and Wagner, 132135, 171n13. See also dance
noise, 17-19, 29, 32, 37-38, 40, 43, 50,
57-60
non-ideal theory, xv-xvi, 26, 30-31, 60,
62. See also Mills, Charles
Oedipus complex, xv, 67-69, 75-76, 81,
123, 126-27, 158n10
opera, xvi, 30, 32, 47-48, 161n23; in
Kristeva, 63-64, 69-72, 75-78,
162n1; in Nietzsche, 131-37,
171n12. See also titles of specific
operas
orthopsychic subject, 115-22
Parker, Rozsika and Pollock, Griselda,
146-47
passivity, xviii, 78-80, 84-85, 93-94,
96, 98, 103, 105-9, 111-14, 118-19,
121, 128, 130, 135, 141, 154n14,
167n29, 167n32, 168n44, 169n50
patriarchy, xvi-xix, 14, 30-31, 58, 86,
92-93, 97, 100, 102-105, 113, 115,
122, 125, 127-29, 157n28, 165n17,
166n24, 167n33, 169n52
philosophy as a discipline, xvii, 129-30,
143-49
physical, ix, xiii, xv-xvi, 3, 13, 21, 26,
30-43, 45-47, 49, 51-52, 54, 56, 6061, 63-65, 68, 82-83, 86-87, 95,
103-4, 129, 131-35, 138-42, 146,
158n8, 159n13, 160n21, 161n22,
162n27, 163n3, 167n35
Plato, 61, 65, 72, 76, 84-85, 104, 137,
143-45, 152n2, 156n21, 161n26
pleasure, ix, 6, 25, 36, 40, 42, 47-49,
67, 76, 85, 100-1, 104-7, 109-11,
118, 129, 131, 135-36, 139-40,
152n7, 159n12, 160n18, 167n35,
169n50, 170n57, 171n12

Index

popular: culture, xv, 5, 80, 104, 108,
130, 143-149; feminized, xvi-xviii,
5, 11-12, 25, 58, 76, 92, 101-11,
113-19, 128-31, 137-49, 143-49,
154n13, 154n14, 165n19, 170n57,
166n28, 171n12; music, vii-viii,
xvi-xix, 3-5, 7, 11-12, 15-16, 2426, 61, 68, 91-94, 100-11, 119-22,
128-32, 134-35, 137-42, 143, 14647, 154n14, 165n19, 166n28,
171n12; vs. serious, xiv, xvi, xviii,
3-5, 15-16, 24-26, 58, 61, 64-65,
78, 80, 84, 86-87, 91-92, 94, 10113, 127-30, 134-37, 143-49, 152n7,
164n16, 166n21, 171n14. See also
high/low distinction
postcolonial theory, xiv, 3-12, 17-19,
24, 60, 165n18
psychoanalysis, xv, xix, 63, 65-70, 7587, 97, 99-100, 104-5, 112-29,
158n12, 168n40. See also names of
specific concepts and theorists
race, vii-ix, xiii-xiv, xix, 3-26, 30-31,
65, 103, 107-108, 111, 121-22, 12729, 139-48, 151n2, 152n7, 154n3,
170n54; and gender, 3-5, 11-17, 1826, 69, 76, 91-94, 117-20, 152n6,
155n14, 157n28, 159n14, 169n50.
See also names of specific concepts
and theorists
Rainey, Ma, xiv, 14-15
Rameau, Jean-Philipe, 29-30, 32, 38,
40-44, 46, 49, 51, 60, 62, 161n26
Real, impossible, 63-65, 67, 74, 77 87,
113, 121-127, 129; Lacanian, 73,
129, 138; vs. fake, vii, 5, 7, 11, 25,
30, 36, 40, 62, 65, 94, 96-101, 1045, 110-13, 116-17, 120-21, 127-28,
136, 141, 144, 147-48, 154n3. See
also authenticity.
Reich, Steve, 22-24
rhythm, viii-ix, 23-24, 58, 66, 70, 107,
110, 131, 133, 162n28, 162n29,
171n8
rock music, vii-ix, 128, 165n19; and
British invasion, 11-12; and gender,
vii-ix, 8, 11-12, 91, 94, 102, 105,
111; indie rock, vii-ix, 172n15; and
race, vii-ix, 5, 8, 11-12, 91, 102,
105, rockism, 146; See also names
of specific artists

Index
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, xiv-xv, xvii,
22, 26, 29-51, 54, 56-57, 60-62, 64,
67-68, 77, 84, 91, 122-26, 131,
158n6, 158n9, 158n10, 159n14,
160n17, 160n19, 160n21, 160n23,
161n27, 162n30, 163n14

society of the spectacle, 63, 65, 78-80,

83-86, 130
surface, superficiality, xvi, 7-8, 25, 72,
85, 100, 106-7, 109-10, 131, 134137, 139, 172n14
symbolic: in Kristeva, 35, 63, 66-70,
72, 75-78; Lacanian, 95, 99, 102,
104, 115, 122, 126

Schoenberg, Arnold, 62, 63-64, 71-75,

77, 82, 102, 109, 140, 158n9,
164n16, 169n53. See also names of
specific works
semiotic. See Kristeva, Julia
sex, 14, 68-69, 96, 144, 146, 156n26,
167n33, 169n50, 169n52; sexism,
xv, 14, 31, 34, 60, 118, 161n27
sexuality, xiii-xiv, 11-12, 68-69, 91-93,
96, 103-104, 107, 109, 111, 113,
116, 119-21, 127-28, 139-40, 144,
164n3, 166n24, 167n32
Smith, Bessie, xiv, 8-9, 14-15, 104
social construction, xiii-xiv, xvi, 6-12,
29-37, 39-46, 48-53, 56, 59-69, 7273, 78, 81-84, 91, 94-95, 97-101,
111-13, 122, 127, 129, 158n6,
158n10, 159n14, 161n26, 170n26.
See also nature
social identity, ix, xiv, 4, 13, 15, 19-24,
91-92, 122, 128, 132, 140, 142,
152n6, 155n14, 156n23, 157n26,
157n28. See also gender, race
sound, xiii, 17-18, 20, 22, 26, 29, 32,
36-43, 46-48, 50-52, 54-62, 66, 77,
102, 137, 142, 159n12, 160n17,
160n21, 161n23
spacing, 56-60, 64, 91, 123, 162n33
Spears, Britney, 143, 166n24
specular, 62-69, 75-80, 82-84, 87,
163n3

187

taste, 16, 78, 82-84, 106, 128, 141, 147,

166n24
trace: in Derrida, 54-56; in Kristeva,
69-71, 79
use and exchange value, 94-100, 103,
108-9, 112, 114, 124, 129, 165n12
Wagner, Richard, xvi, 131-135, 171n13
West, Kanye, 119-120, 130
whiteness, vii-ix, xvi, 5, 9, 11, 15-18,
20, 31, 66, 93, 96, 102-103, 105-8,
111-12, 116-118, 120, 122, 128-30,
143, 147, 151n2, 152n7, 154n3,
160n18, 167n29, 167n31, 167n32,
168n47, 169n50, 169n51, 169n52,
170n54, 171n12, 172n15, 173n5
woman, xiv, xvi, xviii, xix, 10, 14-15,
20, 25, 65, 68, 75, 83, 86-87, 92102, 104-5, 109, 111, 114-15, 11718, 121, 127, 129, 131, 135, 13739, 141, 143-44, 146-49, 153n9,
153n12, 153n13, 154n14, 157n28,
164n5, 165n17, 165n19, 167n33,
169n50, 169n52, 170n57, 172n14
writing, arche-writing. See criture

About the Author

Robin James is an assistant professor in the philosophy department at UNC
Charlotte. After studying music theory, music history, and philosophy at Miami
University, she received her Ph.D. in philosophy from DePaul University, where
she studied continental philosophy with an emphasis on feminist theory, critical
race/postcolonial theory, and aesthetics/philosophy of music. Broadly, her research examines various intersections of aesthetics and politics; more narrowly,
much of her work focuses on the race-gender politics of contemporary American
popular music. She has written about the role of race and gender in discourses of
aesthetic taste, aesthetic receptivity, and the more contemporary but related notions of white hipness, postmillennial black hipness, and Afrofuturist black
feminism. Her work has appeared in journals such as Hypatia, Contemporary
Aesthetics, Philosophy Today, and The Journal of Popular Music Studies. She
is currently working on a project that reads Jacques Rancires work on politics
and aesthetics in light of critical-race feminist theories, and another project on
Afrofuturism and queer theory. James teaches graduate and undergraduate
courses in feminist theory, critical race and postcolonial theory, continental philosophy, and popular music studies. Informal scholarly(ish) writings on popular
music, philosophy, and social identity can be found on her blog, Its Her
Factory: www.its-her-factory.blogspot.com.

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