Performance, Politics, and Historiography in and out of Time: American Responses to the Paris Commune

American echoes of the Paris Commune have been muffled by the nation’s obsession with freedom at the expense of solidarity, but performative responses to social upheaval, including drama, parades, and protests, have tested the boundaries of public space and multiple temporalities from 1871 to 2021. This article notes traces of the Commune in the writings and performances of nineteenth century American anarchists but analyzes this legacy primarily in the 2012 performance of Brecht’s The Days of the Commune (1949) at New York sites claimed by the Occupy Movement in 2011. It also uses the argument of Brecht’s contemporary Ernst Bloch for cultural action grounded in an understanding of historical disappointment to anticipates setbacks while maintaining hope for future revolution. The paper delineates five theses on the politics of time: 1) the dramatic appeal of the clean break hides the tension between gradual evolution and a sudden event that ruptures the long span of history (Badiou); 2) historiography, the narrative that turns data into evidence, challenges the illusion of objectivity and thus a simple split between timely intervention and untimely interference with the established order (Nietzsche); 3) ana-chronology, the logic of untimeliness reads contemporaneity as companionship between events and agents across different times and places (Barthes); 4) recollecting history requires acts of forgetting, which shatter the constraints of the past to meet demands of the present (Renan, Nietzsche); 5) the politics of time entails the politics of place and thus requires the analysis of multiple temporalitieslayered on one site as well as political acts and performance in distinct places.

Qui pense? Qui parle? L’Imaginaire de la Commune ou Passagen-Werk

Comment parle-t-on de l’histoire de la Commune? Comment est-elle traitée? Les tumultes, la révolte, la Commune ont-ils un sujet? Je voudrais aborder les questions de la représentation (Darstellung/Vertretung), en me référant à deux exemples: le Passagen-Werk de Walter Benjamin et L’Imaginaire de la Commune ou Communal Luxury (The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune) de Kristin Ross. Les questions étant: Qui pense? Qui parle?

The Paris Commune of 1871 in Selected Texts of French Prose Fiction

<p>The thesis consists essentially of a consideration of the Paris Commune of 1871 as represented in the following texts: l'Apprentie by Gustave Geffroy; l'Ami de l'Ordre by Jerome and Jean Tharaud; Bas les Coeurs and l'Epaulette by Georges Darien; la Colonne and Philemon vieux de la vieille by Lucien Descaves; les Massacres de Paris by Jean Cassou. With two exceptions (Bas les Coeurs (1889) and les Massacres de Paris (1935)) these works appeared during the opening fifteen years of the twentieth century. In addition to its obvious function of introducing the principal authors discussed, the Introduction provides background information to (and attempts to set the tone for) material examined in the main body of the thesis. Chapters one and Two, devoted to Gustave Geffroy and the Tharaud brothers respectively, consider the commune primarily in terms of its effects upon, and consequences for, individuals and families at the time. Georges Darien's savage denunciation of the bourgeois order - an indictment in which the Paris Commune serves an essential purpose - is considered in chapter Three. The fourth chapter (centred upon la colonne by Lucien Descaves) entails discussion of the commune's repudiation - through the toppling of the vendome column - of warmongering and chauvinism. In Philemon vieux de la vieille, the Commune is seen essentially in terms of its continued significance for former communards looking back, during the early l900's, to the seventy-two days' and the years of exile. Jean Cassou's characterisation of leading participants in the Commune notably Louis Rossel, Louise Michel and Jaroslaw Dombrowski - provides the principal focus for discussion in chapter six. Sources used by both Descaves and Cassou are considered in the relevant chapters. To complement material in Chapters One to Six, appendices relating to three texts (Un Communard by Leon Deffoux; le Mur by Maurice Montegut; la commune by Paul and Victor Margueritte) are included. Throughout the thesis, references are frequently made to, and comparisons drawn with, other writers who have portrayed the commune: notably Emile Zola, Leon Cladel and Jules Valles.</p>

The Paris Commune of 1871 in Selected Texts of French Prose Fiction

<p>The thesis consists essentially of a consideration of the Paris Commune of 1871 as represented in the following texts: l'Apprentie by Gustave Geffroy; l'Ami de l'Ordre by Jerome and Jean Tharaud; Bas les Coeurs and l'Epaulette by Georges Darien; la Colonne and Philemon vieux de la vieille by Lucien Descaves; les Massacres de Paris by Jean Cassou. With two exceptions (Bas les Coeurs (1889) and les Massacres de Paris (1935)) these works appeared during the opening fifteen years of the twentieth century. In addition to its obvious function of introducing the principal authors discussed, the Introduction provides background information to (and attempts to set the tone for) material examined in the main body of the thesis. Chapters one and Two, devoted to Gustave Geffroy and the Tharaud brothers respectively, consider the commune primarily in terms of its effects upon, and consequences for, individuals and families at the time. Georges Darien's savage denunciation of the bourgeois order - an indictment in which the Paris Commune serves an essential purpose - is considered in chapter Three. The fourth chapter (centred upon la colonne by Lucien Descaves) entails discussion of the commune's repudiation - through the toppling of the vendome column - of warmongering and chauvinism. In Philemon vieux de la vieille, the Commune is seen essentially in terms of its continued significance for former communards looking back, during the early l900's, to the seventy-two days' and the years of exile. Jean Cassou's characterisation of leading participants in the Commune notably Louis Rossel, Louise Michel and Jaroslaw Dombrowski - provides the principal focus for discussion in chapter six. Sources used by both Descaves and Cassou are considered in the relevant chapters. To complement material in Chapters One to Six, appendices relating to three texts (Un Communard by Leon Deffoux; le Mur by Maurice Montegut; la commune by Paul and Victor Margueritte) are included. Throughout the thesis, references are frequently made to, and comparisons drawn with, other writers who have portrayed the commune: notably Emile Zola, Leon Cladel and Jules Valles.</p>