Overview

In the 1890s, French poet and playwright Alfred Jarry founded pataphysics, the absurdist “science of imaginary solutions,” a concept that has been nominally recognized as the precursor to Dadaism, Surrealism, and the Theater of the Absurd, among other movements. Over a century after Jarry “made the gesture of dying,” Katie L. Price and Michael R. Taylor argue that it is time to take the comedic intervention of pataphysics seriously. ’Pataphysics Unrolled collects critical and creative essays to create an unauthorized account of pataphysical experimentation from its origins in the late nineteenth century through the contemporary moment. Reaching beyond the geographic and cultural boundaries normally associated with pataphysics, this volume presents rich readings of pataphysical syzygy, traces the influence of pataphysics across disciplines and outside of coteries such as the Collège de ’Pataphysique, and asks fundamental questions about the field of modern and contemporary studies that challenge distinctions between the modern and the postmodern, high and low culture, the serious and the comic. Touching on disciplines such as literature, art, architecture, education, music, and technology, this book reveals how pataphysics has been a platform and medium for persistent intellectual, poetic, conceptual, and artistic experimentation for over a century. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Charles Bernstein, Marc Décimo, Adam Dickinson, Johanna Drucker, Craig Dworkin, Catherine Hansen, James Hendler, John Heon, Ted Hiebert, Andrew Hugill, Steve McCaffery, Seth McDowell, Jerome McGann, Anne M. Mulhall, Marcus O’Dair, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Orchid Tierney, and Brandon Walsh.

Full Product Details

Author:   Katie L. Price (Swarthmore College) ,  Michael R. Taylor (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)
Publisher:   Pennsylvania State University Press
Imprint:   Pennsylvania State University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 17.80cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 24.10cm
Weight:   0.839kg
ISBN:  

9780271089584

ISBN 10:   027108958
Pages:   344
Publication Date:   12 April 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Editors’ Note Introduction: “Unrolled by the Saliva and Teeth of the Water” Katie L. Price Part 1: “And Behold, the Wallpaper of Faustroll’s Body”: Jarry’s Pataphysical Invitation 1. Twisted Witz: Experiments in Psychopathology and Humor by Dr. Faustroll and His Pataphysical Progeny John Heon 2. Pataphallics in Jarry’s Novels Jean-Michel Rabaté 3. Wartime Pataphysics: Postwar Surrealism, the Main à Plume Group, and Boris Rybak’s Intraphysics Catherine Hanson 4. Marcel Duchamp and the Collège de ‘Pataphysique Marc Décimo Translated by Anne M. Mulhall 5. The Potential Energy of Texts [ΔU = −PΔV] Craig Dworkin Part 2: “Like a Musical Score, All Art and All Science”: Pataphysics After Jarry and Beyond the Collège 6. Pataphysics in Philadelphia: The Strange Case of James E. Brewton Michael R. Taylor 7. Circumstantial Evidence: Pataphysical Inflexions in Edward Dorn’s Gunslinger and bpNichol’s Probable Systems Steve McCaffery 8. Beyond “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”: Pataphysics and Popular Music Marcus O’Dair 9. Art and the Pataphysics of Exception: Or, How a Sieve Becomes a Time Machine Ted Hiebert Part 3: “Written in the Curves of the Limbs”: Pataphysical Criticism 10. Reading, Writing, and Rhythmatic Jerome McGann 11. The Patacritical Demon, Two Decades Later Johanna Drucker 12. Reflections on Applied Research in Patacriticism: Prism and Reading’s Shape Brandon Walsh 13. The Pataquerical Imagination: Midrashic Antinomianism and the Promise of Bent Studies Charles Bernstein Part 4: “Progression to an Infinite Degree Was Prophesized Therein”: Pataphysics’ Possible Futures 14. Concerning an Unfindable Architecture Seth McDowell 15. Metabolic Poetics: Writing the Anthropocene Adam Dickinson 16. Pataphysics and Computing Andrew Hugill and James Hendler 17. Pataphysics and the Academy Orchid Tierney Selected Bibliography List of Contributors Index

Reviews

Continuing and elaborating Alfred Jarry's notion of 'pataphysics, this collection tracks 'pataphysics' continued appearances and developments in ensuing avant-garde movements, modern and contemporary art, the intersections of art, literature, and science- and the far-reaching effects of pushing against normative logics and thinking in exceptional ways. -Judith Roof, author of What Gender Is, What Gender Does 'Pataphysics Unrolled looks to be a pataphysically invaluable tome that is an illustration of . . . precisely such pataphysical endeavours as itself, pataphysically. -Brian Reffin Smith, Leonardo Reviews

Continuing and elaborating Alfred Jarry's notion of 'pataphysics, this collection tracks 'pataphysics' continued appearances and developments in ensuing avant-garde movements, modern and contemporary art, the intersections of art, literature, and science- and the far-reaching effects of pushing against normative logics and thinking in exceptional ways. -Judith Roof, author of What Gender Is, What Gender Does

Author Information

Katie L. Price is Senior Associate Director at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility at Swarthmore College, codirector of the Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium, and Interviews Editor at Jacket2. She is the author of the chapbook BRCA: Birth of a Patient. Michael R. Taylor is Artistic Director and Chief Curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He is the author of Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, and Thomas Chimes: Adventures in ’Pataphysics.

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