glossolalia
Music: Orange Sector: bassprodukt
My boi David Beard and Bill Keith are putting together an essay forum on the history of "the field," or rather, that discipline formerly known as Speech Communication. I've been invited to contribute, and I suspect as a provacateur. Since I've already tackled shitting and masturbation as allegorical fodder, I've decided to go for babble. Here's a teaser:
[A]ttanâ zabiné pi ten té iche tarvini mabûré nubé téri zée atèv Astané ezi dabé fouminé ni ié ti takâ tubré ne bibé ti ze umêzè!
--Ramié the Martian, as channeled by Hélène Smith[1]
For many years the psychiatrist Theodore Flournoy endured the mystical babble of Hélène Smith, a controversial Swiss medium who achieved fame in the nineteenth century by claiming she took astral trips to Mars.[2] During numerous séances Flournoy documented a number of Smith's "dramas," which frequently featured glossolalia or speaking in tongues after the psychic had fallen into a self-induced trance. Despite Smith's insistence that she was channeling the Martian speech of three übergalactic beings--Astané, Esenale, and Ramié--Flournoy concluded the Martian language was "only an infantile travesty of French."[3] Following William James' speculations about "automatisms" of prophecy,[4] Flournoy argued Smith's gifts of the tongue represented repressed, infantile desires and wishes that reside on the "subliminal strata," which "autohypnotization . . . puts in ebullition and causes to mount to the surface."[5] For the Swiss psychiatrist, glossolalia is voice beyond word, and its primary meaning is located in infantile emotions and memories. In short, for Flournoy speaking in tongues is the speech of the unconscious.
After five years studying the Martian-channeling medium, Flournoy reported that "all things become wearisome at last, and the planet Mars is no exception to the rule. The subliminal imagination of Mlle. Smith, however, will probably never tire of its lofty flights in the society of Astané, Esenale, and their associates."[6] Analogously, one may be tempted to dismiss yet another forum discussion on disciplinary identity as so much wearisome, printed prattle and "radical reflection" on the not-so-lofty status of rhetorical and communication studies in the academic imaginary.[7] One would be tempted, I say, were it not for the insightful research of Gerry Philipsen on the use of "speech" as a "substance term" that made the diverse practices in our so-called field coherent for over fifty years.[8] Why did speech last as long as it did, and why does it continue to hang around?[9] Philipsen's research suggests that "speech" was a concept that served as the primary and central object of study, but has subsequently been removed from most departmental nameplates in the United States. His history indicates that speech was chosen as the titular object for largely pragmatic reasons (e.g., explaining one's department to the dean), however, I wish to supplement this explanation by arguing that human speech as such harbors an uncanny quality that inspires "primitive" or infantile memories of fear and love. Reckoning with this element, which I term the "voice abject," not only better helps to explain the appeal of "speech" to our disciplinary forbears, but also the reason why speech continues to haunt us despite its presumed death. Like the Martian speech of Hélène Smith, we cannot resist speaking about speech because there is something beyond the word that eludes and haunts us in daily life.
[1] The Martian language is translated thus: "Hidden world, very near to ours, coarse language, curious like the beings.-Astané, my powerful master and all powerful, alone is capable of doing it." Theodore Flournoy, From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Sonambulism with Glossolalia (New Hyde Park, NJ: University Books, 1963), 235.
[2] Hélène Smith is a pseudonym. Catherine Elise Muller was the medium's real name. See Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 1991), s.v. "Hélène Smith."
[3] Flournoy, From India, 241.
[4] See William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Mentor/Penguin, 1958), esp. 204-206; and 394-400.
[5] Flournoy, From India, 259-260.
[6] Flournoy, From India, 261.
[7] Robert Hariman, "Status, Marginality, and Rhetorical Theory." Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (1986): 38; also see Michael Burgoon. "A Kinder, Gentler Discipline: Feeling Good About Being Mediocre." Communication Yearbook 18 (1995): 464-479.
[8] Gerry Philipsen. "Notes and Queries on the Career of 'Speech' in Disciplinary Discourse: 1914-1928 and 1946-1954." Paper presented at the second preconference on the History of the Field at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association in Boston, Mass., November 2005.
[9] Obviously, the title of this journal is evidence enough, but so are the departments of Speech and Speech Communication as the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Georgia in Athens, and numerous, smaller colleges around the country.