Deviant Matter: Ferment, Intoxicants, Jelly, Rot

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Kyla Wazana Tompkins examines four aesthetic and material categories— gelatinousness, fermentation, putrefaction, and intoxication—to theorize how the modern state seeks to manage deviant populations across multiple scales.

Image courtesy of interviewee. September 5, 2024

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This video is a detailed exploration of the author's academic work, particularly focusing on food, biopower, and state power within the context of queer of color critique. The author delves into how the state's engagement with biological life—through managing food, drugs, and other substances—reflects broader questions of power and deviance. They draw on historical archives, examining the science of fermentation and its implications for health and state policy, particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The author posits that various substances (like food, alcohol, and narcotics) embody unruly and unmanageable forms of matter that challenge state control and discipline. They categorize this exploration into three figures: fermentation, intoxication, and rot, which they view as interrelated concepts that signify deviance and resistance to state norms.

Additionally, the author discusses how concepts of hygiene and deviance interact, with hygiene representing a state-imposed order and control, while deviance symbolizes resistance and the power of alternative lived experiences. The work emphasizes a need for interdisciplinary approaches that honor the complexity and "wildness" of life and materiality, advocating for a method that listens to the voices and lives of objects, substances, and individuals rather than conforming strictly to disciplinary categories or state ideologies.

Ultimately, the text encourages readers to embrace methods of inquiry that respect the nature of their subjects, revealing the intertwined histories of science and state power and the resistance found within deviant forms of existence.

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Here are five key points from the video:

1. **Queer of Color Critique and Biopower**: The author engages with queer of color critique and explores the concept of biopower, examining how the state influences and manages the biological lives of its population through various means, including food and other substances.

2. **Historical Analysis of Food and State**: The video discusses the historical relationship between the state and food, drugs, and other materials, highlighting how these items are viewed as unruly and deviant. The author aims to trace these themes through literature and art from the 19th century to the present, questioning what these deviant forms reveal about state behavior and governance.

3. **Fermentation, Intoxication, and Rot**: The author introduces the triptych of fermentation, intoxication, and rot as central themes in their work. They discuss how these concepts represent forms of deviance and how they challenge conventional understandings of hygiene and state control.

4. **State Management and Deviance**: The video posits that the state seeks to manage both human and "inhuman" populations, using strategies like pasteurization to exert control at the most minute biological levels. This interplay between management and deviance is seen as a constant struggle, with state efforts often falling short.

5. **Methodological Approach**: The author advocates for a "promiscuous method" of analysis that respects and listens to the complexity of lived experiences, rather than adhering strictly to traditional disciplinary boundaries. This approach emphasizes the chaotic and unpredictable ways in which life, objects, and knowledge intermingle through history.

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Here are some key quotes from the video you :

1. **On food and biopower:**
- "I write about food and I work within, uh, queer of color critique. ... and very particularly questions of power."

2. **On the intersection of food, state, and biology:**
- "I became interested in thinking with the history of the matter that we call food and the history of the state, and trying to think about how it is that the state became more and more actively involved in the biological life of the nation."

3. **On unruly matter:**
- "So for me, food, but not just food, also drugs, alcohol, medicine, and narcotics. ... forms of matter that seem unruly, unmanageable."

4. **On deviant materiality in culture:**
- "Part of the work of the book then is then taking these unruly forms of materiality...and tracing them in literature and art."

5. **On fermentation and history:**
- "I traced kind of, you know, the rise of, um, pastor and science, which comes to be called microbiology and bacteriology."

6. **On the role of the state in managing matter:**
- "I’m very interested in the relationship...between the state and its desires to manage the energy of its population."

7. **On the concept of deviance:**
- "The deviance in the title deviant matter ... is about a method for...listening to deviance and respecting it as a philosophy for living against...hygiene."

8. **On hygiene vs. deviance:**
- "The kind of two poles that are working against each other are hygiene and deviance."

9. **On interdisciplinary approaches:**
- "Deviance becomes a way of thinking...of interdisciplinarity and of the strange and wild and wooly and promiscuous paths that objects and humans and non-humans take through history."

10. **On the nature of knowledge and power:**
- "We need to have a fidelity to how life is lived, not how different forms and structures of power want life to be lived."

These quotes reflect the central themes of the video, which include the interplay of food and power, the concept of deviance in relation to state control, and the importance of interdisciplinary methods in understanding material culture.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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I write about food and I work within,

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queer of color critique.

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And, think about questions of disciplinarity,

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and very particularly questions of power.

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Um, specifically, working with KO's idea of biopower

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and thinking about how to historicize it.

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And, I became interested in thinking

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with the history of the matter that we call food

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and the history of the state,

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and trying to think about how it is that the state became,

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more and more actively involved in the biological life

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of the nation, not simply through the human,

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but also in managing, inhuman matter.

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So for me, food, but not just food, also drugs, alcohol,

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medicine, and narcotics.

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So deviant matter are forms of matter,

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that seem unruly, unmanageable,

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that create, human behavior

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that is unruly and in man or

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and unmanageable, in the eyes

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of the state in the early 20th century.

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And part of the work of the book then is then taking these

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unruly forms of materiality, fermentation intoxication,

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gelatinous and wr and tracing them in literature

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and art from the mid 19th century through

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to the early 21st century.

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And thinking about what this kind of deviance tells us about

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who is unruly in the eyes of the state

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and what that has to do with trying to live better.

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I'm primarily someone who works in archives.

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Um, I, looked at the archive of,

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the science of fermentation, for instance.

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I read pastor's books,

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and then I tracked, the history of how pastor's ideas

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around, fermentation

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and germ theory land in the United States.

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Um, he starts publishing on fermentation in 1859,

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but, the US then embarks in the Civil War

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and then the post-Civil War.

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So really, his ideas don't begin.

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What, what we would understand is modern germ theory

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doesn't really arrive in the United States until the 1870s

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and 1880s, like the US is on the back foot,

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in medical science, you know, for well still,

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but for that, for that period.

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So, so I traced kind of, you know, the rise of,

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pastor and science, which comes

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to be called microbiology and bacteriology.

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And I, and I follow also, a kind of large archive

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of the, department of Agriculture in the United States,

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which is really the place where, fermentation,

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intoxication, bacteriology, microbiology,

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really get taken up by the state as a state project.

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Largely I'd work in a historical archive.

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Um, but you know, the four chapters,

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that comprise the second much larger part

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of the book are about following these various deviant matter

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figures through art, through film, through literature,

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through pornography, through, through,

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yeah, popular imagery, fermentation, intoxication

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and rot in some way are something of a, a trilogy

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of figures, fermentation

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and pro produces intoxication, through,

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you know, wine and other forms of, other forms of,

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matter and phase change.

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Um, intoxication of course, can also be other things.

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It can be narcotics, it can be, distilled liquors.

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Um, and then, rot is really fermentation

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that we don't wanna like, right?

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So, I had a, my first year in graduate school,

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I had a Taiwanese roommate who, worked very hard

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to convince me that stinky dofu,

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which is a really popular food in Taiwan,

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was absolutely delicious.

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It's a fermented tofu.

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I actually really liked it,

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but I could not convince her, that,

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really good French cheese was

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something worth eating for her.

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Its smelled like a dead body.

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And so, you know, that line between fermentation

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and rot is a culturally mobile one.

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It moves, and changes.

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Um, so fermentation, intoxication,

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rot are kind of a triptych.

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Um, and,

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and then gelatin ness, is not unrelated to them,

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but is just really something I've been fascinated with

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for a long time, is the aesthetics of jelly,

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the aesthetics of gelatin ness.

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Um, and all four of those figures for me come

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to represent, deviance,

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which is to say, unsafe, or unsecured

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or, strange

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or, they're objects that seem very,

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like they have will, like they make choices like,

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like they're uncanny.

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Um, you know, I'll have jello on the counter

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and turn on some music, and the jello will start to move

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and, or, I'll leave something out on the counter

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and when I come back it's different

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and it's kind of bubbling and seeding

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and there's weird things growing on it.

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Or I put my sourdough starter on the counter and feed it

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and it has, doubled, or,

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or bubbled the next day.

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And so these are all forms of, you know, matter that

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act as though they have lives of their own.

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And so part of, part of what I try

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to do is think about the relationship between objects

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and inanimate matter and

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Animate matter and how anate matter, is, something

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that, we either seek to, to control

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or, or troubles the relationship between humans

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and between the material world.

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But then, you know, the next part of it is,

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I'm very interested in the relationship,

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between the state and its, its,

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its desires to manage the energy of its population.

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Um, its human population and its in human population.

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Um, so that we could think of like the turn

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to pasteurization as a state policy, is actually a need

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to manage the population, right down

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to the level of bacteria.

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Um, but in turn these unmanageable.

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Um, and of course it always fails

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'cause that's the nature of disciplinarity.

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It's always chasing the thing it claims to hate,

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but, it never catches it.

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Um, but in turn, all of these deviant material forms

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and figures become representative of

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securitized energy and

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therefore a kind of, what escapes

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state management and control.

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It becomes deviant putting me in conversation

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or placing me in deep debt to the political scientist,

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Kathy Cohen, whose work deviance as resistance.

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Um, you know, seeks to theorize people who

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might not perhaps be thought of as engaging in politics,

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but who consistently in their life choices

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refuse to conform.

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They have too many children, they have too many

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husbands or wives.

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They have too many lovers. They don't spend properly.

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They engage in deviant sex acts.

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They are, you know, so like all these sort

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of deviant human forms, that,

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that the state is constantly seeking to recuperate

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and fold back into usefulness.

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So the book is really about thinking about

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how these figures figure math resistance

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to state disciplining deviant matter is

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in some ways a speculative experiment for me.

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I wanted to see if I could take my engagement

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with, queer of color critique my engagement

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with concepts of biopower, and my engagement with matter

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and materiality, specifically food

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and make claims that might stretch across the scale from,

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a single cell bacteria up to the work of the state.

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Like, is it possible really to theorize at

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that scale, but also simultaneously at those two scales?

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Um, and I mean, I'll, I'll leave it

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to readers, to decide.

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Um, it, if it works, I, I mean, I think so

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because, as it turns out, there is no history

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of science without the history of the state.

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Um, the science is a state project,

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and the state is a scientific project.

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Um, and the state is in fact very interested in,

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in the, microbiological and bacteriological

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and molecular now,

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although they didn't have that language at the turn

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of the 20th century, life at the molecular level,

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in fact, the state is like already in there.

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Um, so I'm interested in thinking across those scales

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or really trying to understand the deeply intimate

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and minute level at which state power seeks to operate,

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but also the minute,

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and massive scales at which, life

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human and non-human escapes,

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state imperatives.

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The deviance in the title deviant matter, is about

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a method for,

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and it's not, you know, I'm in conversation with many,

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queer color thinkers, on this issue.

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And I'm indebted to the work

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of black feminist thinkers in particular

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for their theorization of, of deviance.

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But deviance is, not,

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not simply a social category,

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but if we take the category, the social category

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of deviance, seriously,

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and listen, like so much of this book is about listening

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to matter as much as one can.

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Um, and listening to deviance

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and respecting it as a philosophy for living against

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what I come to call in the book,

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and which I'm borrowing from, science writers

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and, other social theorists as a hygiene.

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So really, the kind of two poles

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that are working against each other are

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hygiene and deviance.

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And for me, hygiene is a kind of disciplinary imperative.

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And by disciplinary I mean that in the ian sense

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of not simply seeking to control,

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but also seeking to organize knowledge.

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And deviance becomes a way of thinking,

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not simply against hygiene,

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but actually of interdisciplinarity and of the strange

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and wild and wooly

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and promiscuous paths that objects and humans

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and non-humans take through history if you let go of,

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certain forms of disciplinary thought

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and simply let things be what they were in history as much

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as you can possibly touch them.

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And the fact is, is that we live so wildly and so

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Perversely and so strangely, that,

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and, and objects move so bizarrely through time

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and through the archive that deviance has to be the method

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or what I sometimes call promiscuous method

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by which we actually just get to listen as closely

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as possible and respect things in their lives instead

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of the ways that disciplines want us to see them.

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I hope readers take permission from this to,

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to find the methods for working with their objects of study

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that are truer to the methods than they are to either

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disciplinary forms of knowledge or the university itself.

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Like we need to have a fidelity to how

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life is lived, not how

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different forms

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and structures of power want life to be lived.

"Deviant Matter: Exploring Food, State Power, and Unruly Histories in Queer of Color Critique"

00:00:00 - I write about food and I work within, queer of color critique. And, think about questions of disciplinarity, and very particularly questions of power. specifically, working with KO's idea of biopower and thinking about how to historicize it. And, I became interested in thinking with the history of the matter that we call food and the history of the state, and trying to think about how it is that the state became, more and more actively involved in the biological life of the nation, not simply through the human,
00:00:45 - So for me, food, but not just food, also drugs, alcohol, medicine, and narcotics. So deviant matter are forms of matter, that seem unruly, unmanageable, that create, human behavior that is unruly and in man or and unmanageable, in the eyes of the state in the early 20th century. And part of the work of the book then is then taking these unruly forms of materiality, fermentation intoxication,
00:01:28 - and art from the mid 19th century through to the early 21st century. And thinking about what this kind of deviance tells us about who is unruly in the eyes of the state and what that has to do with trying to live better. I'm primarily someone who works in archives. I, looked at the archive of, the science of fermentation, for instance. I read pastor's books, and then I tracked, the history of how pastor's ideas around, fermentation and germ theory land in the United States.
00:02:09 - but, the US then embarks in the Civil War and then the post-Civil War. So really, his ideas don't begin. What, what we would understand is modern germ theory doesn't really arrive in the United States until the 1870s and 1880s, like the US is on the back foot, in medical science, you know, for well still, but for that, for that period. So, so I traced kind of, you know, the rise of, pastor and science, which comes to be called microbiology and bacteriology. And I, and I follow also, a kind of large archive
00:02:50 - which is really the place where, fermentation, intoxication, bacteriology, microbiology, really get taken up by the state as a state project. Largely I'd work in a historical archive. but you know, the four chapters, that comprise the second much larger part of the book are about following these various deviant matter figures through art, through film, through literature, through pornography, through, through, yeah, popular imagery, fermentation, intoxication and rot in some way are something of a, a trilogy
00:03:32 - and pro produces intoxication, through, you know, wine and other forms of, other forms of, matter and phase change. intoxication of course, can also be other things. It can be narcotics, it can be, distilled liquors. and then, rot is really fermentation that we don't wanna like, right? So, I had a, my first year in graduate school, I had a Taiwanese roommate who, worked very hard to convince me that stinky dofu, which is a really popular food in Taiwan, was absolutely delicious.

"Exploring the Unruly: The Intersection of Fermentation, Deviance, and State Control"

00:04:12 - I actually really liked it, but I could not convince her, that, really good French cheese was something worth eating for her. Its smelled like a dead body. And so, you know, that line between fermentation and rot is a culturally mobile one. It moves, and changes. so fermentation, intoxication, rot are kind of a triptych. and, and then gelatin ness, is not unrelated to them, but is just really something I've been fascinated with for a long time, is the aesthetics of jelly, the aesthetics of gelatin ness. and all four of those figures for me come
00:04:57 - which is to say, unsafe, or unsecured or, strange or, they're objects that seem very, like they have will, like they make choices like, like they're uncanny. you know, I'll have jello on the counter and turn on some music, and the jello will start to move and, or, I'll leave something out on the counter and when I come back it's different and it's kind of bubbling and seeding and there's weird things growing on it. Or I put my sourdough starter on the counter and feed it
00:05:38 - or bubbled the next day. And so these are all forms of, you know, matter that act as though they have lives of their own. And so part of, part of what I try to do is think about the relationship between objects and inanimate matter and Animate matter and how anate matter, is, something that, we either seek to, to control or, or troubles the relationship between humans and between the material world. But then, you know, the next part of it is,
00:06:20 - between the state and its, its, its desires to manage the energy of its population. its human population and its in human population. so that we could think of like the turn to pasteurization as a state policy, is actually a need to manage the population, right down to the level of bacteria. but in turn these unmanageable. and of course it always fails 'cause that's the nature of disciplinarity. It's always chasing the thing it claims to hate,
00:07:02 - but in turn, all of these deviant material forms and figures become representative of securitized energy and therefore a kind of, what escapes state management and control. It becomes deviant putting me in conversation or placing me in deep debt to the political scientist, Kathy Cohen, whose work deviance as resistance. you know, seeks to theorize people who might not perhaps be thought of as engaging in politics, but who consistently in their life choices
00:07:44 - They have too many children, they have too many husbands or wives. They have too many lovers. They don't spend properly. They engage in deviant sex acts. They are, you know, so like all these sort of deviant human forms, that, that the state is constantly seeking to recuperate and fold back into usefulness. So the book is really about thinking about how these figures figure math resistance to state disciplining deviant matter is in some ways a speculative experiment for me.

"Deviance and Biopower: Rethinking Food, State, and Materiality Through a Queer of Color Lens"

00:08:28 - with, queer of color critique my engagement with concepts of biopower, and my engagement with matter and materiality, specifically food and make claims that might stretch across the scale from, a single cell bacteria up to the work of the state. Like, is it possible really to theorize at that scale, but also simultaneously at those two scales? and I mean, I'll, I'll leave it to readers, to decide. it, if it works, I, I mean, I think so
00:09:10 - of science without the history of the state. the science is a state project, and the state is a scientific project. and the state is in fact very interested in, in the, microbiological and bacteriological and molecular now, although they didn't have that language at the turn of the 20th century, life at the molecular level, in fact, the state is like already in there. so I'm interested in thinking across those scales or really trying to understand the deeply intimate
00:09:50 - but also the minute, and massive scales at which, life human and non-human escapes, state imperatives. The deviance in the title deviant matter, is about a method for, and it's not, you know, I'm in conversation with many, queer color thinkers, on this issue. And I'm indebted to the work of black feminist thinkers in particular for their theorization of, of deviance.
00:10:32 - not simply a social category, but if we take the category, the social category of deviance, seriously, and listen, like so much of this book is about listening to matter as much as one can. and listening to deviance and respecting it as a philosophy for living against what I come to call in the book, and which I'm borrowing from, science writers and, other social theorists as a hygiene. So really, the kind of two poles that are working against each other are hygiene and deviance.
00:11:13 - And by disciplinary I mean that in the ian sense of not simply seeking to control, but also seeking to organize knowledge. And deviance becomes a way of thinking, not simply against hygiene, but actually of interdisciplinarity and of the strange and wild and wooly and promiscuous paths that objects and humans and non-humans take through history if you let go of, certain forms of disciplinary thought and simply let things be what they were in history as much as you can possibly touch them.
00:11:52 - Perversely and so strangely, that, and, and objects move so bizarrely through time and through the archive that deviance has to be the method or what I sometimes call promiscuous method by which we actually just get to listen as closely as possible and respect things in their lives instead of the ways that disciplines want us to see them. I hope readers take permission from this to, to find the methods for working with their objects of study

"Resisting Disciplines: Fidelity to Lived Experience Over Institutional Power"

00:12:54 - disciplinary forms of knowledge or the university itself. Like we need to have a fidelity to how life is lived, not how different forms and structures of power want life to be lived.

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Deviant Matter: Ferment, Intoxicants, Jelly, Rot

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