Anne Royston
12 December 2016
Research Travel Award Report
With the support of The Literary Encyclopedia’s Research Travel Award, I undertook archival work at the BibliothèqueNationale in Paris, FR, from 30 September-9 October 2016. At the BN, I spent a substantial amount of time in the Rare Books room of the François Mitterand branch studying rare original texts, some with very few existent copies worldwide, that pertain to my dissertation research. This dissertation chapter focuses onGeorges Bataille, Marcel Duchamp, and the other authors of a Dadaist or post-Surrealist avant-garde artists’ magazine titled, variously, the Da Costa Encyclopedia and the MémentoUniverselDa Costa, which waspublished anonymously from 1947-1949. At the BN, I successfully petitioned to view the two fascicules of the Mémento, which are not available for general viewing or handling. I also viewed other original works that help shed light on the Da Costa’s origins and its production and dissemination, most notably accessing the two Surrealist broadsides published in 1924 and 1930 known as Un Cadavre. Being able to inspect the original copies of these works was critical to my research, which focuses on reading content or argument alongside form or materiality. Attending to small details of printing and design enabled me to substantiate larger arguments about the Da Costa, and suggested new avenues of inquiry, such as the influence of the newspaper form on the Da Costa’s design and interpretation.
Partly due to its anonymity (Bataille's involvement, for example, was not known until the 1990s), the scholarly literature around the Da Costa is minimal. Additionally, those who have engaged with the work have failed to account for its importance of its material history. Besides assisting in completing the final chapter of my dissertation, this research will inform an article that I am currently revising for the peer-reviewed journal Word & Image. This article identifies the similarities between the Da Costa and Jacques Derrida's later text Glas, arguing for the irreducibility or nonparaphrasibility of their arguments as demonstrated by their material forms. As well, the encyclopedia or dictionary form offers the chance for formal and typographical play, which both the Da Costa and Glas employ to critique the ideas of order and hierarchy implicit in the concept of a reference work. Language, these two theorists argue in these works, is not linear, mimetic, stable, or complete.
As well, the Award enabled me to reach out to a French colleague, who was then able to assist in organizing an invited talk at the Sorbonne while I was in Paris—an invaluable experience for me. I am extremely grateful for TheLiterary Encyclopedia’s support, and will be most pleased to acknowledge this in my dissertation and the publications or presentations arising from this Award.