Word DISRUPTIONS Disruptions is a series that interrogates and analyses disruptions within and across such fields and disciplines as culture and society, media and technol- ogy, literature and philosophy, aesthetics and politics. Series Editor Paul Bowman, Reader, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, UK Editorial Review Board Benjamin Arditi, Professor of Politics, National University of Mexico, Mexico Rey Chow, Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature, Duke University, USA Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy, The New School, New York, USA Catherine Driscoll, Associate Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies, The University of Sydney, Australia Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, UK Richard Stamp, Senior Lecturer of English and Cultural Studies, Bath Spa University, UK Jeremy Valentine, Reader in Media, Culture and Politics, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK Titles in Series Bearing Society in Mind: Theories and Politics of the Social Formation, Samuel A. Chambers Open Education: A Study in Disruption, Pauline van Mourik Broekman, Gary Hall, Ted Byfield, Shaun Hides and Simon Worthington What Lies Between: Void Aesthetics and Postwar Politics, Matt Tierney Martial Arts Studies, Paul Bowman Living Screens: Reading Melodrama in Contemporary Film and Television, Monique Rooney Word: Beyond Language, Beyond Image, Mariam Motamedi Fraser Against Value in the Arts and Education, edited by Sam Ladkin, Robert McKay and Emile Bojesen (forthcoming) Word Beyond Language, Beyond Image Mariam Motamedi Fraser London • New York Published by Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB www.rowmaninternational.com Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. is an affiliate of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada), and Plymouth (UK) www.rowman.com Copyright © 2015 by Mariam Motamedi Fraser All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: HB 978-1-7834-8142-2 PB 978-1-7834-8143-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Motamedi Fraser, Mariam, 1968– Word : beyond language, beyond image / Mariam Motamedi Fraser. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78348-142-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-78348-143-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-78348-144-6 (electronic) 1. Vocabulary. I. Title. PE1449.F65 2015 428.1—dc23 2015012866 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction ix Chapter 1: Words and Language 1 Chapter 2: Words in Print and in Printed Stories 33 Chapter 3: Words Divine 67 Chapter 4: Words Textural 97 Chapter 5: Words Gestural 129 Conclusion 159 Works Cited 169 Index 181 v Acknowledgements From the very first word of Word, to the very last, I have been in the happy position of being supported by two brilliant editors, Martina O’Sullivan, senior commissioning editor at Rowman and Littlefield In- ternational, and Paul Bowman, academic editor of the Disruptions series. I thank them for their unstinting enthusiasm and confidence in me and in this book, and for the time and energy they have put into it. I am also in- debted to the careful and constructive readers of various chapters of Word, all of whom are inspirations to me as writers and word-makers. They are: Michael Dutton, Yasmin Gunaratnam, Michael Parker, Nirmal Puwar, Sanjay Seth and Mehrunisha Suleman. Many thanks also to J. R. T. Fraser for taking the photograph in chapter 3 for me; to Farniyaz Zaker for permis- sion to use images of her work in chapter 4, and for our ongoing multimedia interlocution; and to Shirin Neshat and the Gladstone Gallery for allowing me to reproduce stills from the film Turbulent in chapter 5. All the mistakes in this book, errors, misunderstandings and so on, are my own. Although Word was written relatively quickly, it is shaped by many ear- lier years of writing adventures which have been sustained and nourished in all kinds of ways by cherished friends—some of whom, I am privileged to say, are also colleagues. With grateful thanks for giving me courage, and for your awesome stamina: Masserat Amir-Ebrahimi, Les Back, Rebecca Coleman, Justin Crossley, Natalie Fenton, Elena Gonzalez-Polledo, Tim Harris, Gholam Khiabany, Patricia Kingori, Stephanie Lawler, Celia vii viii Acknowledgements Lury, Noortje Marres, Angela McRobbie, Nick Millet, Tom Osborne, David Oswell, Brett St Louis, Sanjay Sharma, Colette Smith and Alberto Toscano. And also my family: Robin and Farideh Fraser, Anna Fraser and Nick Christian, Ghassem Izadi and Haedeh Mortazavi, Nader and Suzzie Mortazavi and Mehran Ossia. Special thanks to Kayvaan and Rosanna Mortazavi, whose warm hospitality is unparalleled. Finally, I want to thank Yasmin Gunaratnam and Nirmal Puwar for keep- ing me true throughout, both personally and intellectually. Your incredible open-heartedness, your sharp sense and humour have made my world big- ger and better. And Michael Parker, for everything, yes everything, and to whom this book is dedicated. For خانه اى آرام و وﻭ مﻡاﺍرﺭآﺁ ىﻯاﺍ ﮫﻪﻧﺎﺧ اشتیاق پر صداقت تو تا نخستین خواننده هوﻭرﺗ ستﺕرﻗاﺍودﺩدﺻ ت ارﺭزﭘه قﻕبﺎاﯾﻳشﺗﺷیاﺍ احمد شاملو« سرود آن کس که از کوچه به خانه باز می گردد» ﯽﺷﺎﺑ هﻩزﺯﺎﺗ دﺩوﻭرﺭﺳ رﺭھﮪﮬﻫ هﻩدﺩﻧﻧاﺍوﻭﺧ نﻥﯾﻳﺗﺳﺧﻧ ﺎﺗ «دﺩدﺩرﺭﮔ ﯽﻣ زﺯﺎﺑ ﮫﻪﻧﺎﺧ ﮫﻪﺑ ﮫﻪﭼوﻭﮐ زﺯاﺍ ﮫﻪﮐ سﺱﮐ نﻥآﺁ دﺩوﻭرﺭﺳ »وﻭﻠﻣﺎﺷ دﺩﻣﺣاﺍ ‘a quiet home and your frank fervor as the first reader of each new song’ Ahmad Shamlou, ‘Rhapsody of One Returning Home from the Alley.’ 1 Introduction Words are the first material of scholarship, the most common material that scholars work with, yet it is difficult to see them as participants in this project, with a force and productivity of their own. In their daily and pragmatic guise as ‘denotative signs,’ a diverse range of relations with words, often bodily and affective, are ignored, overlooked or neglected. Indeed for all that the air is thick with words (Katamba 2005, 3), we mostly do not think of words at all. Rather than conceive of words as primarily instrumental, this book asks instead after the sound, feel, touch, taste, place, position, speed and direc- tion of words and how this matters in their uses. Usually, it is literary writ- ers, who are attentive to the work and play of words, and artists, who are attentive to materials, who best capture the sensuous and somatic aspects of words. The writer Eudora Welty’s ‘love for the alphabet’ precedes her being able to read the letters (Welty 1984, 9). And: ‘[i]n my sensory educa- tion I include my physical awareness of the word. . . . The word “moon” came into my mouth as though fed to me out of a silver spoon. Held in my mouth the moon became a word’ (Welty 1984, 10). But as this book illus- trates, literary writers and artists do not have a monopoly on evocative and provocative word encounters. Word begins from the premise that while words are ubiquitous, rela- tions with words are mostly rather narrowly defined. Commonly, and not unjustifiably, words are understood in relation to language where their ix