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 College 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 Decimo, 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 Rabate, Orchid Tierney, and Brandon Walsh.
Katie L. Price is Associate Director at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, a 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 the Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He is the author of Marcel Duchamp: Etant donnes, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, and Thomas Chimes: Adventures in 'Pataphysics.
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": Jerry'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 Rabate 3. Wartime Pataphysics: Postwar Surrealism, the Main a Plume Group, and Boris Rybak's Intraphysics Catherine Hanson 4. Marcel Duchamp and the College de 'Pataphysique Marc Decimo Translated by Anne M. Mulhall 5. The Potential Energy of Texts [ U = P V] Craig Dworkin Part 2: "Like a Musical Score, All Art and All Science": Pataphysics After Jarry and Beyond the College 6. Pataphysics in Philadelphia: The Strange Case of James E Brewon 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
