"Je Est un Autre": Ethnopoetics and the Poet as Other

Author(s): Jerome Rothenberg

Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 96, No. 3 (Sep., 1994), pp. 523-524
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Forum
"Je
Est un
Autre":
Ethnopoetics
and the Poet as Other
JEROME ROTHENBERG
University of California,
San
Diego
Today
I want to
proclaim my
own otherness &
proclaim
it for what it is.
[Pointing
to head
&6
heart.]
There are
many
"others" in me.
[Pause.]
Before there was
ethnopoetics
there was the world.
I mean to
say
that we
emerged
from the second worldwar & knew that it was
bigger
than that. The
world, I mean.
The world as
Europe
was not the world the mind now knew.
And something
had
happened
that let the mind know
many
worlds-each one of
which was "other" to the mind.
Europe
was also "other."
America
was
"other."
What was exotic & what
was
near to hand were "other."
You & I were "other" to
ourselves, our minds.
The mind the mind knew was a final otherness: a habitat of minds & worlds.
(This emerged.
The world
emerged it.)
What
you
know is what
you
are. What the mind can hold is what the mind is.
Enough,
the mind
says.
There is a
politics
in this &
yet
there is no
politics.
There is a
knowledge
here that mixes real & unreal, that
opens.
There is also the
trembling
headiness of a world in
which, Rimbaud told us, "I" is an
"other."
What did he mean
by
that?
What do I
mean?
"I" is
"other," is "an other," is "the other."
(There
is also
"you.")
If the mind
shapes, configures
the world it knows or
holds, is there an
imperial/colo-
nizing
mind at work
here, or is this mind as
shaper
&
collager
still
pursuing
its old work:
to make an
image
of the
world from what
appears
to it?
And what
appears
to it?
The
world.
American
Anthropologist
96(3):523-552. Copyright ? 1994, American
Anthropological
Association.
523
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
[96, 1994] [96, 1994] 524 524 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
2
The
ethnopoetics
that I knew was, first & last, the work of
poets.
Of a certain kind of
poet.
As such its mission was subversive, questioning
the
imperium
even while
growing
out
of it.
Transforming.
It was the work of individuals who found in
multiplicity
the cure for that
conformity
of
thought,
of
spirit,
that
generality
that robs us of our moments. That denies them to
the world at
large.
A
play
between that otherness inside me & the identities
imposed
from outside.
It is not
ethnopoetics
as a course of
study--however
much we wanted it-but as a
course of action.
"I" is an "other," then; becomes a world of others.
It is a
process
of
becoming.
A
collaging
self. Is infinite &
contradictory.
It is "I" and
"not-I."
"Do I contradict
myself? Very well, I contradict
myself.
I is infinite. I contains
multitudes."
Said Rimbaud/Whitman at the
very
start.
It is from where we are, the basis still of
any ethnopoetics
worth the
struggle.
For those for whom it
happens,
the world is
open,
& the mind
(forever empty)
is
forever full.
There is no
turning back,
I meant to
say.
Here the millennium demands it.
JEROME
ROTHENBERC is
Professor, Departments of
Visual Art and Literature,
University
of California,
San
Diego,
LaJoUa,
CA 92093.
Whose Cultural Studies?
RENATO ROSALDO
Stanford University
What
follows
is the text
of
a talk
given
to
literary
scholars at a December 1992 Modern
Language
Association
forum
called "Cultural Studies and the
Disciplines:
Are There
Any
Boundaries
Left?"
It
reflects
on the
possibilities
and anxieties aroused
by
cultural studies
for anthropologists
and ethnic
studies
faculty.
It also tries to
explain
the
potential of anthropology
and ethnic studies to members
of English departments who, at times, see themselves as the owners
of
cultural studies.
RECENTLY
A SPEAKER CAME TO MY HOME INSTITUTION and
promised
to tell us about
cultural studies. The turnout was tremendous. Graduate students came
wondering
whether or not to invest their careers in cultural studies and curious
faculty
members
came
hoping
to find out what it was. Courses on cultural studies, not to mention the
Illinois
megaconference,
have been
similarly mobbed, most
probably
for similar rea-
sons. In certain
quarters
cultural studies raises
apprehensions
about the
dimly
known
and the
vaguely threatening;
in other
quarters
it
promises
to solve all
problems
and
satisfy
all customers.
Faculty
members who "do" cultural studies often feel
marginalized
and
beleaguered
because
they have come under attack from departmentally confined
2
The
ethnopoetics
that I knew was, first & last, the work of
poets.
Of a certain kind of
poet.
As such its mission was subversive, questioning
the
imperium
even while
growing
out
of it.
Transforming.
It was the work of individuals who found in
multiplicity
the cure for that
conformity
of
thought,
of
spirit,
that
generality
that robs us of our moments. That denies them to
the world at
large.
A
play
between that otherness inside me & the identities
imposed
from outside.
It is not
ethnopoetics
as a course of
study--however
much we wanted it-but as a
course of action.
"I" is an "other," then; becomes a world of others.
It is a
process
of
becoming.
A
collaging
self. Is infinite &
contradictory.
It is "I" and
"not-I."
"Do I contradict
myself? Very well, I contradict
myself.
I is infinite. I contains
multitudes."
Said Rimbaud/Whitman at the
very
start.
It is from where we are, the basis still of
any ethnopoetics
worth the
struggle.
For those for whom it
happens,
the world is
open,
& the mind
(forever empty)
is
forever full.
There is no
turning back,
I meant to
say.
Here the millennium demands it.
JEROME
ROTHENBERC is
Professor, Departments of
Visual Art and Literature,
University
of California,
San
Diego,
LaJoUa,
CA 92093.
Whose Cultural Studies?
RENATO ROSALDO
Stanford University
What
follows
is the text
of
a talk
given
to
literary
scholars at a December 1992 Modern
Language
Association
forum
called "Cultural Studies and the
Disciplines:
Are There
Any
Boundaries
Left?"
It
reflects
on the
possibilities
and anxieties aroused
by
cultural studies
for anthropologists
and ethnic
studies
faculty.
It also tries to
explain
the
potential of anthropology
and ethnic studies to members
of English departments who, at times, see themselves as the owners
of
cultural studies.
RECENTLY
A SPEAKER CAME TO MY HOME INSTITUTION and
promised
to tell us about
cultural studies. The turnout was tremendous. Graduate students came
wondering
whether or not to invest their careers in cultural studies and curious
faculty
members
came
hoping
to find out what it was. Courses on cultural studies, not to mention the
Illinois
megaconference,
have been
similarly mobbed, most
probably
for similar rea-
sons. In certain
quarters
cultural studies raises
apprehensions
about the
dimly
known
and the
vaguely threatening;
in other
quarters
it
promises
to solve all
problems
and
satisfy
all customers.
Faculty
members who "do" cultural studies often feel
marginalized
and
beleaguered
because
they have come under attack from departmentally confined
This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Thu, 17 Apr 2014 22:03:31 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions