Klem James
E-mail : Klemens.James@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
PhD title: 'Sublimation' and 'Desublimation' from Surrealism to Post-structuralism
Supervisors: Professor Dee Reynolds, Dr. David Lomas
I am currently working on a doctoral thesis on surrealism at the University of Manchester, specifically on the notions of 'sublimation' and 'desublimation' in relation to surrealist art and literature. Recent publications have considered 'sublimation' only in terms of a more general examination of surrealism and alchemy or psychoanalysis but my thesis has begun to situate these references in the historical context of the psychoanalytical and alchemical publications which inspired them and then consider the problems of definition which arise from the manifold historical appropriations of the term. Above all I show that in their campaign to liberate desire, to recognise the utility of desire in producing works of art, the surrealists' developed differing, and at times antithetical, attitudes towards sublimation, betraying many of the movements' inherent contradictions. I show that through surrealism sublimation reveals itself as a concept which is Janus-faced, poised between the raw singularity of the drive and the polite decorum of the art gallery as well as between Eros and the aggressive instincts. I relate these contradictions to tensions and fissures within the movement, most notably the polemic between group leader André Breton (pro-sublimation) and dissident surrealist Bataille (exponent of desublimatory base materialism). My thesis will then also show how this polemic was received by the contributors of Tel Quel, for whom Bataille was to be extolled as a postmodernist avant la lettre, and how the reverberations from this polemic were to be found in the writings of post-modern thinkers.
Professional Biography:
I studied French and German at the University of Manchester up to master's level- this included a year at the Université de Bourgogne, Dijon. I was then awarded a DAAD scholarship to spend a year at the University of Freiburg in South Germany, before completing a teaching qualification (PGCE) at the University of Wales, Bangor.