Janet Sarbanes | California Institute of the Arts (original) (raw)
Papers by Janet Sarbanes
punctum books, 2022
In the face of rising authoritarianism and on the heels of urgent struggle, autonomy calls to us.... more In the face of rising authoritarianism and on the heels of urgent struggle, autonomy calls to us. How might we excavate the theory and history of autonomous politics to arrive at new possibilities for radical democracy and the radical imaginary? How can we rethink the ways in which artistic autonomy is theorized and practiced beyond the shrunken horizon of liberal individualism? How might we understand political and artistic autonomies as linked, rather than diametrically opposed? And what role does radical pedagogy have to play in all of this?
Framed by the thought of Cornelius Castoriadis, and engaging with Marxist, Black Radical, and Feminist approaches to liberation, as well as movements such as Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Letters on the Autonomy Project understands autonomy to be the capacity of a society, a community or an individual to modify its form. As Castoriadis argues, the struggle for self-determination requires unlimited questioning of the way things are, but also that we do or make something new in light of this interrogation. Autonomy is thus equally a project for thought, for education, for politics, and for art.
Stylistically, these open letters, addressed inclusively to artists, activists, and academics, are modeled on the philosophical letters of Friedrich Schiller on the one hand and the revolutionary communiqués of the Zapatistas on the other. Performing a kind of writing-as-praxis, they seek to grasp the potential of our moment with reference to historical and contemporary instances of political autonomy, notions of artistic autonomy, and art practices that connect the two. They also look at the possibilities of educating for autonomy, which cannot itself be taught. If we are indeed living in a time of creative struggle to remake the whole of society, then an understanding of the autonomy project – and how theory, pedagogy, activism, and art might contribute to it – is of burning relevance.
From In the Canyon, Revise the Canon, ed. Geraldine Gourbe (Shelter Press: 2015).
This essay draws upon concepts of musicking and communitas to argue that, within subculture, an a... more This essay draws upon concepts of musicking and communitas to argue that, within subculture, an anti-structural mode of sociality takes form in and through aesthetic practices. The argument is perhaps most relevant to ''musicking'' subcultures such as rebetika, for reasons explored here, but it also speaks to the larger question of how the relation between individual and collective is elaborated in a subcultural context.
Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, 2012
The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the... more The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times. By Ilyon Woo. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010. Xii + 404 pp. 25.00cloth/25.00 cloth/25.00cloth/17.95 paper. Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, and the Narratives of Mary and Joseph Dyer. Edited and with an introduction by Elizabeth A. De Wolfe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. xxiv + 161 pp. 80.00cloth/80.00 cloth/80.00cloth/19.95 paper. The lives of Eunice Hawley Chapman and Mary Marshall Dyer, as detailed in two recent books by Ilyon Woo and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, have a great deal to tell us about early-nineteenth-century gender relations, the institution of marriage as it was legally codified at that time, and the burgeoning power of the printed word. They also give great insight into the conflict between utopian societies and the "fallen" world they inhabit (Woo 118)--the difficulty and human cost of substituting one means of social organization for an...
Legacy a Journal of American Women Writers, Jun 1, 2012
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2015
An essay from the Made In LA 2016 Hammer Biennial catalogue.
Catalogue essay on the painter Rebecca Morris
Catalogue essay for Jim Shaw: The End is Here
Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, 2006
punctum books, 2022
In the face of rising authoritarianism and on the heels of urgent struggle, autonomy calls to us.... more In the face of rising authoritarianism and on the heels of urgent struggle, autonomy calls to us. How might we excavate the theory and history of autonomous politics to arrive at new possibilities for radical democracy and the radical imaginary? How can we rethink the ways in which artistic autonomy is theorized and practiced beyond the shrunken horizon of liberal individualism? How might we understand political and artistic autonomies as linked, rather than diametrically opposed? And what role does radical pedagogy have to play in all of this?
Framed by the thought of Cornelius Castoriadis, and engaging with Marxist, Black Radical, and Feminist approaches to liberation, as well as movements such as Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Letters on the Autonomy Project understands autonomy to be the capacity of a society, a community or an individual to modify its form. As Castoriadis argues, the struggle for self-determination requires unlimited questioning of the way things are, but also that we do or make something new in light of this interrogation. Autonomy is thus equally a project for thought, for education, for politics, and for art.
Stylistically, these open letters, addressed inclusively to artists, activists, and academics, are modeled on the philosophical letters of Friedrich Schiller on the one hand and the revolutionary communiqués of the Zapatistas on the other. Performing a kind of writing-as-praxis, they seek to grasp the potential of our moment with reference to historical and contemporary instances of political autonomy, notions of artistic autonomy, and art practices that connect the two. They also look at the possibilities of educating for autonomy, which cannot itself be taught. If we are indeed living in a time of creative struggle to remake the whole of society, then an understanding of the autonomy project – and how theory, pedagogy, activism, and art might contribute to it – is of burning relevance.
From In the Canyon, Revise the Canon, ed. Geraldine Gourbe (Shelter Press: 2015).
This essay draws upon concepts of musicking and communitas to argue that, within subculture, an a... more This essay draws upon concepts of musicking and communitas to argue that, within subculture, an anti-structural mode of sociality takes form in and through aesthetic practices. The argument is perhaps most relevant to ''musicking'' subcultures such as rebetika, for reasons explored here, but it also speaks to the larger question of how the relation between individual and collective is elaborated in a subcultural context.
Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, 2012
The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the... more The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times. By Ilyon Woo. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010. Xii + 404 pp. 25.00cloth/25.00 cloth/25.00cloth/17.95 paper. Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, and the Narratives of Mary and Joseph Dyer. Edited and with an introduction by Elizabeth A. De Wolfe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. xxiv + 161 pp. 80.00cloth/80.00 cloth/80.00cloth/19.95 paper. The lives of Eunice Hawley Chapman and Mary Marshall Dyer, as detailed in two recent books by Ilyon Woo and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, have a great deal to tell us about early-nineteenth-century gender relations, the institution of marriage as it was legally codified at that time, and the burgeoning power of the printed word. They also give great insight into the conflict between utopian societies and the "fallen" world they inhabit (Woo 118)--the difficulty and human cost of substituting one means of social organization for an...
Legacy a Journal of American Women Writers, Jun 1, 2012
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2015
An essay from the Made In LA 2016 Hammer Biennial catalogue.
Catalogue essay on the painter Rebecca Morris
Catalogue essay for Jim Shaw: The End is Here
Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, 2006