Abstract
Pragmatist philosophy holds that autobiographical experience plays an important role in philosophical inquiry. After discussing the role autobiography plays in the work of William James, John Dewey, and Richard Shusterman, Mullis details two personal experiences that stimulated his performance research on ecstatic embodiment in Appalachian Pentecostalism. He then introduces an account of pluralist inquiry in which cultural history, dance history, ethnographic research, studio practice, and philosophical analysis inform choreographic and dramaturgical thinking which in turn assists in developing theatrical performance about the unique form of embodied experience sought by Pentecostals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Many Charlotteans are unaware of the violence that occurred during some of the strikes. For example, Ella Mae Wiggins was a local union organizer and balladeer who worked with blacks and whites to marshal a strike against the Loray Mill. She was shot and killed while fleeing an angry mob that aimed to disrupt the strike (Huber 2009).
- 2.
There are many videos of Sixteen Horsepower performing live on YouTube. For a performance of “American Wheeze” see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THlgU-8dMYg [accessed 8/18/2018]. For information about Sixteen Horsepower’s collaboration with Ultima Vez—Blush (2002)—see https://www.ultimavez.com/nl/productions/blush [accessed 3/5/2019].
- 3.
Another option would be to ignore the lyrics and focus on the energetic intensity of the music. This seems to occur in some videos of live performances where audience members applaud loudly, signaling their approval.
- 4.
Sarah Vos, The Preacher (2000). His reply seems to imply that traditional forms of religious music may lack authenticity because they do not address dark emotional states and moral dispositions.
- 5.
Appalachia is a cultural region of the Eastern United States that stretches from southern New York State to Mississippi. Southern Appalachian states include Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Geographically and culturally defining Appalachia is a contentious enterprise. For more on this topic see Batteau (1979) and Becker (1998).
- 6.
See https://vimeo.com/32725842 [accessed 8/18/2018].
- 7.
In more recent performances with his current band, Wovenhand, Edwards can be seen rolling his eyes upward in trance-like fashion and can be heard speaking in tongues. For more information about the band see https://www.wovenhandband.com [accessed 9/3/2018].
- 8.
https://vimeo.com/112653482 [accessed 8/20/2018].
- 9.
https://vimeo.com/240502961 [accessed 8/20/2018].
- 10.
Interestingly, Chambers was preaching in the countryside around Black Mountain College—the leftist artist enclave where artists such as Josef and Annie Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly worked and taught—during the last decades of its existence (Duberman 2009).
- 11.
- 12.
See http://www.pawcreek.org [accessed 8/18/2018].
- 13.
The solo has been performed at The Midwest Alternative Performance Festival (Kalamazoo, Michigan), the Richmond Dance Festival (Richmond, Virginia), and the University of Malta during the 2018 annual meeting of the Dance Studies Association. It can be viewed at this book’s companion website: http://www.ericmullis8.com/book [accessed 3/5/2019].
- 14.
An online video from Paw Creek Ministries features gestural choreography and a dramatic physical reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus as described in the New Testament of the Christian Bible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hwv9kSJ7VA [accessed 9/3/2018].
- 15.
The piece has been performed at Goodyear Arts (Charlotte, North Carolina), The American Dance Festival Musician’s Concert (Durham, North Carolina), and at the {Re}Viewing conference sponsored by the Black Mountain College Museum (University of North Carolina, Asheville). It can be viewed on the book’s companion website.
References
Batteau, Allen. 1979. Appalachia and the Concept of Culture: A Theory of Shared Misunderstandings. Appalachian Journal 7 (1/2): 9–31.
Becker, Jane. 1998. Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930–1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Blanton, Anderson. 2015. Hittin’ the Prayer Bones: Materiality of Spirit in the Pentecostal South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press Books.
Burrows, Jonathan. 2010. Choreographer’s Handbook. New York: Routledge.
Cook, Harold. 1973. Shaker Music: A Manifestation of American Folk Culture. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.
Covington, Dennis. 2009. Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia. Lebanon: Da Capo Press.
Crawley, Ashon. 2017. Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Daniel, Yvonne. 2005. Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Dewey, John. 1934. Art as Experience. New York: Perigree.
———. 1958. Experience and Nature. New York: Dover.
———. 2007. The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Duberman, Martin. 2009. Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Dunham, Katherine. 1994. Island Possessed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Friedlander, Shems. 1975. The Whirling Dervishes: Being an Account of the Sufi Order Known as the Mevlevis and Its Founder the Poet and Mystic Mevlana Jalalu’ddin Rumi. New York: State University of New York Press.
Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, James L. Leloudis, Robert R. Korstad, and Mary Murphy. 2012. Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Hanchett, Thomas. 1998. Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Hay, Deborah. 2000. My Body, the Buddhist. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Huber, Patrick. 2008. Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
———. 2009. Mill Mother’s Lament: Ella May Wiggins and the Gastonia Textile Strike of 1929. Southern Cultures 15 (3): 81–110.
Kimbrough, David. 2002. Taking Up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky. Louisville: Mercer University Press.
Marina, Peter. 2013. Getting the Holy Ghost: Urban Ethnography in a Brooklyn Pentecostal Tongue-Speaking Church. New York: Lexington Books.
Menand, Louis. 2002. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Muir, Lynette. 2003. The Biblical Drama of Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mullis, Eric. 2015. Ought I Make Political Dance? Dance Research Journal 47 (3): 71–83.
———. 2016. Dancing for Human Rights: Engaging Labor Rights and Social Remembrance in Poor Mouth. Dance Research 34 (2): 220–242.
Rorty, Richard. 2000. Philosophy and Social Hope. New York: Penguin.
Shusterman, Richard. 1997. Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life. New York: Routledge.
———. 1999. Somaesthetics: A Disciplinary Proposal. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art criticism 57 (3): 299–313.
Stephenson, Lisa. 2011. Prophesying Women and Ruling Men: Women’s Religious Authority in North American Pentecostalism. Religions 2 (3): 410–426.
Wright, Lawrence. 2011. Saints and Sinners: Walker Railey, Jimmy Swaggart, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Anton LaVey, Will Campbell, Matthew Fox. New York: Vintage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mullis, E. (2019). Sources: Beyond the Pale. In: Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance. Performance Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29314-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29314-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29313-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29314-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)