50 pages on the Paris Commune...

For the CHS students who will be debating next month on the Paris Commune, here's a much longer version of the chapter in the upcoming Vol. IV:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2162923/The%20Paris%20Commune--Long%20Version.doc

On Alexis Soyer, Romanticist Chef

A fascinating essay on a Romanticist Celebrity Chef...

http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/gastronomy/garval/garval_essay.html

Soyer was known for his exuberance, and eccentric style. A wit, prankster, raconteur, fine singer—and not just of revolutionary ballads—his first ambition was to be a comic actor, and for much of his life he frequented theaters and theatrical performers. A dapper Frenchman among drabber Victorians, he dressed as a Romantic dandy, in a style no longer the height of fashion at the height of his career in the 1840s and 50s—and did so even in the kitchen, eschewing the conventional chef's uniform. Beyond their rich embroidery, lavish silks, and extravagant colors, Soyer's clothes were characterized by their insistent cut on a bias, "à la zoug-zoug" in his own coinage, an idiosyncratic rendering of "zig-zag," the English phrase itself taking on the gallic flair of its inventor. Indeed, this predilection for diagonal lines was not limited to clothing designed and worn "studiously awry" (Sala 1894, II, 241), but rather part of a broader pattern. As biographer Helen Morris notes,

Soyer's desire to be noticed, to be admired, above all to be extraordinary, grew ever more dominant. He tried not only to cook differently from everyone else, but to dress and talk and walk differently too. . . . [H]e would not wear a single garment with either horizontal or perpendicular lines. His hats were specially built so that when clapped on at any angle they slanted in a coquettish way—in his own phrase, à la zoug-zoug. His coats had to be cut on the cross . . . . His visiting card . . . was not a rectangle but a parallelogram; so was his cigar-case, and even the handle of his cane slanted obliquely.

Liberté: Volume III

The printer’s proof for Vol. III of Liberté is in the mail.

Clink the link in the box to the right to download a free PDF of the book.

A slightly nicer version with full-colour images will go up soon!

Liberté Events in Roanoke, Dec. 2012

Don't know if anybody is still checking this blog, but if so, here's what's shaping up in the local part of the project:

The exhibition Romanticism and the Avant-Garde, curated by Olchar E. Lindsann, explores the roots of today’s avant-garde networks in the extremist subcultures that flourished on the fringes of French Romanticism between 1825, when experimental writers and artists first began using the term ‘avant-garde’1840, and traces the continuous development of the tradition into the early 20^th Century. This historical trajectory has almost entirely disappeared from today’s Art-Historical narratives, and the current show represents the fruits of recent discoveries by a network of independent researchers collaborating and sharing their work since 2006. The show, and its associated events, address questions of historiography, archiving, and financial markets: who makes our creative histories, for what motives and with what materials? How can subcultures without regular access to the major institutions of academic power participate in this process? And how can historical research be integrated into the continuing life and growth of today’s creative communities?

Sunday, Dec. 2, 3 PM. An Underground History of 19^th Century France: The Story of the Early Avant-Gardes

For most of us, the French Romanticist Movement is remembered, if at all, through just a few ‘big name’ representatives: Delacroix, Hugo, Chopin, etc. But almost unknown to the English-speaking world are the hundreds of cultural workers who were more extreme, more experimental, and less famous, who forged an underground community that came to be known (among other names) as the avant-garde. Join Olchar E. Lindsann, archivist and curator of the exhibition, for a lively, informal introduction to the teeming counter-cultures that have been written out of mainstream art, literature, and cultural histories: a dizzying amalgam of utopianism, occultism, mysticism, radical politics, formal experimentation, identity-bending, popular culture, altered states of consciousness, and the fringe extremes of philosophy and metaphysics. In this presentation, the Historian will not appear as an academic or an objective observer, but as a participant and storyteller bringing back to life the shared past of the avant-garde community whose present incarnation was represented in the previous Liminal Gallery exhibition, the Decentralized Networkers’ Congress. He will be joined by other members of Roanoke’s avant-garde community who will add the fruits of their own research and reflection on the history of underground literature, art, and alternative lifestyles.

Friday, Dec. 7, 5:30-9:00 PM. REMATCH: Classicism vs. Romanticism!

Art by Night Event: Gallery opens @ 5:30 with competing spreads of food & drink, competing music, and propaganda. Readings, performances, and disputes from 6:30 to 9!

To mark the exhibition 'Romanticism and the Avant-Garde' at the Liminal Gallery, long-dead aesthetic hatreds will be exhumed, to rage against each other for the first time since the 1830s, for your edification and amusement! Two opposing teams--the refined paragons of a Classicist coterie, and the wild barbarians of a Romanticist Cénacle--shall wage battle through their poems, plays, prefaces, music, fashion, and food. Come hiss and boo your enemies, cheer and bolster your chosen side! Come in your Classicist or Romanticist costume, and banter in your out-dated slang! (never fear, we shall tell you what that might mean.) Dance triumphantly round the busts of your enemies, or spear them with verbal witticisms! Drink nectar from fresh pomegranates, or punch from skulls! HISTORY FIGHTS BACK! Because if you can't fight for a 200-year-old idea, what CAN you fight for?!

Sunday, Dec. 9, 3PM. History, Community, and the Micro-Archive: A Lecture/Discussion and Guided Tour

The past is strewn with tiny subcultures, traditions, and communities that have been forgotten, written out, or re-written by mainstream history; and the tangible relics of these lost worlds are in constant danger of being forever lost, along with the unwritten histories for which they are the touchstones. This loss is all the more sad in that, very often, these relics can be gathered together at very little financial cost and without undue effort, revealing our own forgotten collective histories to broaden and deepen our understandings of current subcultures and collective efforts. In an informal lecture and guided discussion, Olchar Lindsann will address the concept and the practical techniques of ‘micro-archiving’: assembling very small, very focused archives of art, books, music, and ephemera that body forth very specific subcultures or themes. He will describe how he has assembled the entire archive exhibited in the Liminal Gallery on a poverty-line budget, followed by an informal tour of the collection in which multiple histories will be opened up—not only the histories of the writers and artists represented, but also of the people who have owned and preserved these objects for over a century, ranging from destitute alcoholics to art historians to inhabitants of the White House.

Olchar E. Lindsann is a historian and archivist of the avant-garde, community organiser, publisher, writer, performer, and co-founder of the Post-NeoAbsurdist avant-garde network. His books on the history of the avant-garde include The Ecstatic Nerve, Cheating Art History, Anachronism as Dissent, and Avant the Avant-Garde: Childhood and Family in the Culture of the Avant-Garde. He has lectured in Europe and the United States on topics including the history of the 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st Century avant-gardes, mysticism and nihilism in 19^th Century experimental literature, and reading practices and the body in the 19^th Century. He is currently compiling the first ever English-language anthology of texts and images from the seminal avant-garde collective Les Jeunes-France (1830-35).

Live Liberté Event: Classicism vs. Romanticism REMATCH

Here's the official announcement of the upcoming event at the Romanticism and the Avant-Garde exhibition at Community High School.

Star City Shadow School and Community High School invite you to take part in the CULTURAL BATTLE OF (a different) CENTURY!

To mark the exhibition 'Romanticism and the Avant-Garde' at the Liminal Gallery, long-dead aesthetic hatreds will be exhumed, to rage against each other for the first time since the 1830s, for your edification and amusement!

Two opposing teams--the refined paragons of a Classicist coterie, and the wild barbarians of a Romanticist Cénacle--shall wage battle through their poems, plays, prefaces, music, fashion, and food. 

Come hiss and boo your enemies, cheer and bolster your chosen side! Come in your Classicist or Romanticist costume, and banter in your out-dated slang! (never fear, we shall tell you what that is.) Dance triumphantly round the busts of your enemies, or spear them with witticisms! Drink nectar from fresh pomegranates, or wine from skulls! 

HISTORY FIGHTS BACK!

Because if you can't fight for a 200-year-old idea, what CAN you fight for?!

We'll be working with students from the CHS class and people from the local Roanoke cultural community. I'm thinking of ways that people might be involved from afar...

Reading #7: Boileau, Gautier, and Hugo

We’re 85% finished installing the exhibition on Romanticism and the Avant-Garde, so it seems like an appropriate time to move on and begin the first reading from Vol. II of the anthology, “Classicism and Romanticism,” pp. 15-37. We’ll move on to Reading #8 whenever it seems right. 

(I’ve put a link to the free PDF in the right-hand sidebar)  =>

or just download it HERE

The passage from Boileau probably ought to have been in Vol. I; as I was putting this volume together I realised that I should have had more classicist stuff in there (my Romantic partisanship runs deep, apparently). Our discussions in the CHS class have corrected this somewhat; but I’ve actually read very little—Racine’s Phaedra and a couple scenes of Moliére. Boileau seems to have utterly dominated the whole conception of what literature is for well over a century, and the utter obscurity into which he and most of the writers who followed his precepts have since fallen is an indication of just how successful Romanticism was. When it comes down to it, we’re still Romantics in our basic outlook; but Romanticism grew so pervasive and complex that we can’t see its edges any more, so we just call it ‘culture’.. 

Hugo’s Preface to Cromwell is sprawling, and these passages scarcely skim the surface. This was the foundational text for the militant form of Romanticism that had been bubbling up for the last few years; Gautier relates that in the apartment shared by the Jeunes-France, 

“On a modest set of shelves of wild-cherry wood, hung by cords, shone, among a few choice volumes, a copy of Cromwell, with a friendly dedication, signed V. H. The veneration of Protestants for the Bible, or that of Mohammedans for the Koran did not surpass mine for that volume, which was indeed to me the book of books, the work that contained the true doctrine.” 

He anticipates and paraphrases all the Classicist objections he expects to get, which is nice for reconstructing the orthodoxy that he and the otherRomantics were trying to overturn.

The passages from Gautier get at what is almost always left out of non-specialist overviews and discussions of French Romanticism (and most specialist ones too): The large, underground Romanticist subculture that was the flesh and bone of the movement. Five or ten ‘big name’ intellectuals publishing a few manifestos, some novels and poems, making some paintings and symphonies does not make a cultural revolution. What makes it is a seething underground of hundreds of young men and women questioning every aspect of received culture. We’ll get into this further in later readings, but Gautier introduces us here to that subculture. I particularly enjoy Daniel Jovard going back to his room and destroying all his classicist books, throwing away his Classicist clothes, etc. It reminds me of a 20^th Century teenager going home and breaking all his disco records after he hears Slayer for the first time. Some things never change…The best historical memoirs of the avant-garde convey not only the excitement and passion of the movements they deal with, but the reality of them: the fact that they were not grandiose, abstract explosions of genius, but rather groups of close friends doing what they love, and doing it with such passion that they collectively urge each other into deeper and more extreme challenges. Hans Richter’s Dada: Art & Anti-Art was such a book, which utterly transformed my own life; Gautier is the only person I know who does so with equal exhuberence, humour, and generosity.

A few prompts, for what it’s worth:

• Dig up some more Classicist texts (especially since we'll need some poems and maybe a few scenes from a play for the Classicism vs. Romanticism Rematch event here next month). 
• Take a look at the rest of Hugo's Preface to Cromwell--or at the play itself. What else is in there? What in the play corresponds to the point Hugo's making in the Preface?
• Some other important Romantic texts that I couldn't fit in are Stendhal's Racine and Shakespeare, Mme. de Staël's On Germany, Lamartine's Meditations, and Chateaubriand's Genius of Christianity. 
• We could go more into painting at this time--there will be a reading on Romanticist painting and another on avant-garde Romantic prints later on, but 1820-30 is a weird no-man's land where Géricault's dead with no real successors, Classicism is still everywhere, but some artists are slowly taking on Romantic tendencies. The only hard-core, self-declared Romantics I know of during most of the 1820s are the Devéria brothers, Delacroix, and Louis Boulanger.
• Music, too: We're right before Berlioz, Liszt, Chopin, Paganini, Musard, Monpou, etc. launch their 'assault' on music; Beethoven can be played, but it's controversial and often needs to have sections re-written and toned-down for French audiences. What are the links between the generation of Mozart and Vivaldi, and that of the full-on Romantics? I know they liked Weber a lot... (Gautier's articles on Berlioz would be a good starting point, and no doubt Berlioz' own writing)...
• Gautier's stories and poems are always written for researchers, with cultural references right and left. This is very intentional--knowing that they'd be forgotten within a generation or two, all of the avant-garde Romantics deployed tons of narrative details, epigraphs, descriptions, quotations, character names, dedications etc. so that future generations could fully reconstruct the subculture by following them all up. So there are about 50 possible research routes in his passages.

Liberté Additional Reading Ideas

Here's a list I compiled for the CHS class last month, of a ton of 19th Century French books for possible further reading. Students chose one book to read and write a critical analysis on (they're doing that now). I post it here just in case anybody's looking for further reading (as if there's not enough material in the Reader already, right? There are all available in English in some form, but some are harder to get hold of than others.

LITERATURE

Early Romanticism (1800-1830)

René de Chateaubriand:

    Atala (novel)

    The Genius of Christianity (social theory)

Alphonse Lamartine, Poetic Meditations (poetry)

Mme. De Staël, On Germany (criticism)

Stendhal, Racine and Shakespeare (criticism)

Popular Romanticism (1825-1880)

Jean-Pierre Béranger, 100 Poems of Béranger (political poetry)

Auguste Barbier, Two Gifts (poems?)

Hector Berlioz, Evenings with the Orchestra (essays and stories on music)

Alexandre Dumas & Auguste Maquet:

    The Three Musketeers (adventure novel)

    The Man in the Iron Mask (historical fiction)

    The Count of Monte Cristo (historical adventure)

Victor Hugo:

    Selected Poems of Victor Hugo

    Notre-Dame of Paris (Hunchback of Notre-Dame)

    Les Miserables

    Things Seen (essays from newspapers)

    Napoleon the Little (political poetry)

Alfred de Musset, Selected Works (poetry, comedic plays)

Charles Sainte-Beuve, Literary Criticism

George Sand:

    Indiana (novel)

    Leone Leoni (novel)

    Mauprat (adventure novel)

    Black City (socialist feminist novel)

    Laura: A Journey Into the Crystal (fantasy novel)

    The Naiad (ghost story)

Eugene Sue:

    The Wandering Jew (Gothic-Conspiracy Melodrama)

    The Mysteries of Paris (Crime Thriller/Mystery)

Romanticist Theater (1827-1850)

Alexandre Dumas:

    The Three Musketeers (play version)

    The Princess of Baghdad

Arséne Houssaye, Man About Paris (Memoirs of theatre director)

Victor Hugo:

    Cromwell

    Hernani

    The King’s Diversion

    Ruy Blas

Alfred de Vigny, Chatterton

Orientalist Romanticism (1820-1870)

Gustave Flaubert:

    The Temptation of Saint Anthony (novel)

    Salambo (novel)

Théophile Gautier, Romance of a Mummy (historical fiction)

Literary Travel Diaries by Gautier and Nerval

Gothic Horror / Frenetic Romanticism

Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Les Diaboliques (aristocratic horror)

Victor Hugo: 

    Han of Iceland (novel)

    Bug-Jargal (novel)

Théophile Gautier:

    Albertus: or, the Soul in Sin (gothic poem)

    The Comedy of Death (gothic poem)

Lautréamont / Isadore Ducasse:

    Maldoror (avant-garde horror-prose poem-novel)

    Poesies (poem/treatise of plaigerized quotations)

Jules Janin, The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman

Charles Nodier:

    Smarra & Trilby (gothic novels)

    The Vampyre (play adaptation of English gothic novel)

Avant-Garde Romanticism, Jeunes-France / Bouzingo (1830-1840)

Théophile Gautier:

    Three Chapters from The Jeunes-France (short stories on the avant-garde)

Gérard de Nerval:

    Selected Writings (poems, prose poems, novels)

    Sylvie (pastoral novel)

    Emilie (military historical novel)

    Aurelia (mystical novel on madness)

Realism (1830-1900)

Honoré de Balzac, The Human Comedy (cycle of novels)

Gustave Flaubert:

    Madame Bovary (novel)

    A Sentimental Education (novel)

Stendhal:

    The Red and the Black (novel)

    The Charterhouse of Parma (novel)

    Memoirs of Egoism (published diary)

Parnassians and “The Damned Poets” (1840-1880)

Charles Baudelaire:

    Flowers of Evil (dark lyric poetry)

    Paris Spleen (prose-poetry)

    Artificial Paradises (essays on art, literature & altered states)

    Selected Writings on Art and Literature (criticism & theory)

    Selected Letters

    Intimate Journals

Théophile Gautier:

    Mlle. De Maupin (novel on gender)

    Spirite (love story about a ghost)

    Enamels and Cameos (poetry)

    French Poetry Since 1830 (criticism)

Arthur Rimbaud:

    Illuminations (prose poems)

    A Season in Hell (poetry)

Paul Verlaine, Selected Poems

Genre Fiction (1850- )

Alexandre Dumas, Celebrated Crimes (true crime)

Maurice Leblanc, Arsene Lupin (mystery series)

Jules Verne:

    20,000 Leagues under the Sea (Science Fiction)

    Around the World in 80 Days (Adventure)

    Journey to the Center of the Earth (Science Fiction)

    Paris in the 20^th Century (Dystopian Science Fiction)

Naturalism (1860-1900)

Colette (Many books in translation, on women in various social roles)

Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories (mostly military fiction)

Emile Zola, Germinal & other novels

Decadence and Symbolism (1880-1910)

Alphonse Allais, World of Alphonse Allais (avant-garde comic poetry)

Charles Cros, The Supreme Progress (science fiction stories)

Eduard Dujardin, We’ll To the Woods No More (first stream-of-consciousness novel)

Felix Fénéon, Novels in Three Lines (poems arranged from newspaper clippings)

Adoré Floupette, Deliquescences (poems satirizing Decadent movement)

Remy de Gourmont:

    Selected Writings (philosophy, theory, and criticism)

    ed., The Book of Masks (anthology of stories & poems by many Decadent writers)

Joris-Karl Huysmans:

    Against Nature/Against the Grain (novel & criticism)

    La-Bas (novel on avant-garde satanism)

Alfred Jarry:

    Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician (comic-philosophical novel)

    Ubu Roi (absurdist play)

    Days and Nights (novel)

    Black Minutes of Memorial Sand (poetry)

Marcel Schwob, The Children’s Crusade (prose-poem cycle)

Maurice Maeterlink (Belgian playwright)

Stéphane Mallarmé:

    Collected Poems

    Divigations (literary theory and philosophy)

    Collected Letters

Octave Mirbeau, The Torture Garden (horror stories)

Rachilde, Monsieur Venus (novel on gender-play)

Georges Rodenbach, Bruges la Morte (novel)

Saint-Pol-Roux, Pauses in the Procession (prose poems)

Paul Valéry:

    The Art of Poetry (literary theory and philosophy)

    Monsieur Teste (novel)

Villiers de l’Isle-Adam:

    The Future Eve (avant-garde science fiction)

    Cruel Tales (satirical prose poems)

NONFICTION

Philosophy, Social and Political Theory (1800-1900)

Henri Bergson (very dense philosophy):

    Matter and Memory

    Time and Simultaneity

    Time and Free Will

Pierre Brisset, The True Philosophy (avant-garde anthropology)

Charles Fourier, Theory of the Four movements (utopian theory, sometimes absurd)

Claire Moses and Leslie Rabine, ed., Feminism, Socialism, and French Romanticism (translations and history)

Madame de Staël, Politics, Literature, and National Character (social and literary theory)

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Flora Tristan:

    The Worker’s Union

    Peregrinations of a Pariah (autobiography of feminist labor organiser)

History and Historiography (1820-1880)

Jules Claretie, Camille Desmoulins, Lucille Desmoulins (biography of Dantonist journalists)

Théophile Gautier, A History of Romanticism (Eyewitness account of Romanticist avant-garde)

François Guizot, History and Origin of Representative Government in Europe

Paul Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob), France in the Middle Ages (Romanticist history of Medieval life)

Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, History of the Revolution of 1871 (history of the Commune by a participant)

Claude-François Meneval, Working with Napoleon (memoirs of Napoleon’s secretary)

Henri Murger, Bohemians of the Latin Quarter (short stories on Bohemian subculture)

Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon on Napoleon (autobiography)

Some poets and short story writers have never had an entire book published in English, but some work can be found in various anthologies and online. If you’re interested in one or more of these people, let us know and we might be able to help you find enough of their work to write about.

Saint-Simonism (Part 2)

….continuing from my previous post about Saint-Simon:

a very rough sketch of Saint-Simonism

Some speculation:
- first, I'm clearly omitting (a lot of) information concerning the social backdrop of Saint-Simon's life.  Most obviously, the French Revolution and the reign of terror, which were right around the time of Simon's imprisonment, and preceded his first pamphlet.  I think a lot of the ideas in the first pamphlet could use such historical contextualization.
- second, it's interesting to consider Saint-Simon's interest in the middle ages here.  Whether or not his family actually had ancestral ties to Charlamagne, Simon seemed to have believed this was the truth.  And yet he lived through a time period when the centuries-old french monarchy was destroyed in an incredibly short amount of time.  I can't help but think that Simon's ideas seem to contain a divided opinion of the monarchy.  His idealization of the middle ages, on the one hand, suggests an acknowledgement that the monarchy of the 18th century was a failure. His social model, on the other hand, seems to reveal a belief in an elitist class structure not unlike a monarchy.  Simon seems to have believed that the problem with the monarchy was structural, that reprogramming it could restore a balance.
- third, the role of religion outlined in the second pamphlet is interesting, as it seems to be vague.  Again, it is structural and practical.  But, from my reading of Booth, Simon doesn't clearly identify his own religious views and seems more interested in the structural dimensions of his models.  This leaves room to future followers of Simon to 'fill in the blank' so to speak.  Will saint-simonism become a social order that utilizes religion, or a religion whose byproduct is an organized society? 
- fourth, echoes of utopianism or even hints of the avant-garde can be heard in one of Simon's statements: 'the golden age of humanity is ahead of us.' 
- finally - disclaimer, this isn't real research as i am merely paraphrasing Booth's book on him, so some of my points and questions here could be way off, please chime if so. 

Saint-Simonism:

c1820s: Saint-Simon is poor, his resources exhausted from an unsettled lifestyle, but he has some followers and devotees who believe in his ideas.  At the time of his death, Saint-Simon wishes to create a newspaper (to be called Producteur) which will circulate his ideas (precisely which ideas, I am not sure.  it should be noted that his ideas sometimes contradict themselves).  At the time of his death, one of his followers, named Rodrigue, decides to see this project through, and takes it upon himself.

1825- First publication of Producteur launched by Rodrigue, honoring the death of Saint-Simon.  The newspaper starts out as a weekly publication, with about 20 subscribers.  As Rodrigue is developing the newspaper, he is seeking talent and skill: people who are interested in Saint-Simon's ideas, and who have the ability to write about them.  Two key people come into their own as early Saint-Simonists working for the Productuer: Enfantin (b. 1796) and Bazaard (b ?), who become key organizers.

Enfantin: meets Rodrigue as a student, encounters Saint-Simon's work in 1823.  Enfantin's pre-Saint-Simonist interests included politics, economy, schemes to liquidate the public debt, and speculation on the gender of god.  Booth describes Enfantin as a highly influential personality, exerting a cult-like power over his students and followers.  In anyone believed that Saint-Simonism would become the religion of the future, it was probably Enfantin. 

Bazaard: Joins Saint-Simonism at age 36, after many years of political organizing.  Bazaard was one of the seven founders of the Carbonari movement in France and showed a strong disposition towards politics and conspiracy.  Saint-SImonism apparently inspired in him the idea that violence was not necessary to solve the many social problems of 19th century France.  While Enfantin's idealism gave the Saint-Simonist group grand concepts, Bazaard's knack for practical organization turned those theories into praxis that made the group stable. 

1826/27- Producteur is shut down, as the demands of the paper have exhausted its sponsors and writers.  However, a strong bond between Rodrigue, Enfantin, and Bazaard has come into play and their accomplishments with the paper have made them noteworthy people around Paris.  The three men keep in touch but drift away from one another slowly, even as Saint-Simonism continues to grow in membership.  Bazaard initiates a weekly lecture explaining the ideas of Saint-Simonism, brining in even more support throughout the city.

1828- Sacred College of Apostles is formed, as a way to manage the growing group.  Enfantin, Rodrigue, and Bazaard are included with several other key orators and professors.  This leads to the publication of a new paper, "Le Organisateur," which becomes the new representative publication of the group.

Key ideas emerge as the group grows.  These include total gender equality amongst members, because the group held the belief that god was androgynous, and therefore the patriarchal orders of christianity went against god's nature.  This led to a loosening of the bonds of marriage and greater liberty for women participating in the group.  In addition, the group believed, following Saint-Simon's example, that there was no fall from grace, no original sin, and that humanity is constantly getting better with each generation.  Therefore, violent revolution is not necessary or even desirable.  The group advocated for slow, gradual changes in social structure, believing that one day, these changes would result in a utopian idealist world.  Also noteworthy, the group believed in free-trade for the sake of international peace, and in a completely nationalized educational system for all citizens.  Stablizing the social world in this way allowed gradual positive change to happen, and would prevent violent uprisings from setting humanity back. 

The group became incredibly organized, and was very popular with the working classes in Paris, quickly growing to include at least 1500 members.  Membership was roughly 50% female, 50% male.  The organization included a missionary in every arrondissement in Paris (12 missionaries total).  Each missionary had one female and one male representative who organized Saint-Simonist happenings in that neighborhood.  Each missionary also had a doctor on staff, who provided free health care to all registered members.  Weekly lectures continued throughout this time, bolstering support and membership. 

….there is a lot more in the Booth book on the growing conflict within the inner hierarchies of Saint-Simonism, and its eventual eclipse by other socialist groups, for anyone who wants to dive in.  The breadth of ideas and social issues that the group reflects is pretty astounding, when you think about the differences between its beginnings and its results in the 1830s. 

Liberté / Romanticist Exhibition @ Liminal Gallery, Roanoke, VA

Here's part of  the most recent update on the website for the Jeunes-France / Bouzingo Researh Project (also administrated by me, and overlapping much with the Liberté project) can work also as an update on this project--in particular the Liberté/Romanticist avant-garde exhibition which will go up this weekend at the Liminal Gallery in Roanoke, VA.

If you're not familiar with that site, it's full of a ton of fascinating information on several obscure subcultures, unfortunately in a fairly disorganized tangle.

Here's that update, please excuse the redundancies:

Although the last update was over a year ago, progress in this project has not been stopped; on the contrary, there has been so much activity that there has been no time for an update. Most of you who have been following or contributing to the project have been privy to his activity, so I shan’t spend much time going over it again. So onward with several current updates:

• Finally—and also related to the Liberté project—I am currently hanging an exhibition of drawings, prints, and books from my micro-Archive of 19th Century Counterculture at the Liminal Gallery, CHS’s art space in Roanoke, VA. This will include original drawings and prints by Achille Devéria, Célestin Nanteuil, Napoleon Tom, Paul Gavarni, and Gustave Doré, and over 30 books by the 19th Century avant-garde, some available for perusal (when their condition allows). There will also be a mini-library of more than 100 recent books and translations of counter-cultural work from 19th Century France, for use by students and gallery visitors. I am currently producing wall-placards with contextual material about the work exhibited and about the role of archiving and historiography within underground traditions, and an extensive exhibition catalog. (For an idea of what will be included, see the ‘Physical Archive’ tab above; the page is roughly 90% up-to-date, though not everything listed there will be included in the show.) 

• The exhibition will run from Nov. 14-Dec. 21, with a costume opening Dec. 7 to which attendees are invited to become Classicists or Romanticists, and heckle each others’ poetic and dramatic readings. It is rumoured that a bust of Racine might be danced around. Other lectures and discussions will be held in the gallery during its run, including a storytelling-lecture on avant-garde Romanticism, lecture/discussion on Fourier and underground organising, and share-and-tell of both the visual work and the books displayed.

via Wilheim Katastroff: Counterpunch on Utopian Socialism

Wilheim Katastroff pointed me toward this recent article in the Leftist journal Counterpunch on Fourier (and Owen, who we haven't discussed because he was English), the Avant-Garde, and the electoral system (scroll down past the appeal for funding). It touches on a couple of themes of the micro-essay I posted a few days ago...