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Chronopolitics and Race, Rag-Time and Symphonic Time in "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man"Author(s): Bruce BarnhartSource: African American Review, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 551-569Published by: St. Louis UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40027389.

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ChronopoliticsandRace,Rag-timeand SymphonicTimein TheAutobiographyof an Ex-ColoredMan

the centerof JamesWeldonJohnson's1912novel lies therelationshipbetween the namelessnarratorand the equal-ly nameless"patron"who pays the narrator o serve as a livingphonograph.1Thepatronhires the narrator o accompanyhimthroughoutEurope,where the narrator'sonly duty is to be avail-able to performragtimefor the patronwheneverhe demands.2Indeed,duringtheirtime in Europe, he patronfallsinto the habitof wakingthenarratorup in the middle of the night to performforhim.Unsurprisingly, he narrator inds this habit morethanalittleburdensome; n recallinghis strugglewith fatigueduringthesesessions,the narratordescribesthe patronas "agrim,mute,but relentlesstyrant,possessing over me a supernaturalpowerwhich he used to drive me on mercilesslyto exhaustion" 121).Johnson's anguageheresuggests a sharp similaritybetween thepositionof the patronand the positionof 18th-and 19th-centuryslave masters.Certainly he patron's ackof hesitation n wakingthe narratorn the middle of the night to performforhim showsan attitude toward the narrator's ime thatis reminiscentof slaveowners'attitudes towards slaves' time. As one slave ownerphrased t:"Ihave ever maintainedthe doctrinethatmy Negroeshave no timewhatever; hatthey arealways liable to my callwithoutquestioningfora momentthe proprietyof it;and Iadhere to this on the groundsof expediencyand right"(Mullin255).What stands out in Johnson'sscene of nocturnalragtime per-formance s the importanceof the categoryof time. Thepatrontyrannizes he narrator's ime;moreover,his use of the narrator'sragtimereveals the extent to which the patronhimselffeels tyran-nized by time.Accordingto thenarrator, he patronviews rag-time as "ameansof disposing of the thingwhich seemed to sumup all in life thathe dreaded- time." "Toescape,to bridgeover,to blot out"time: thus the patron attemptsto use the narrator'smusic (143).(Eventually, he patrondoes succeedin blottingouttime,but only by ending his own life.)The narrator's ime is atthe service of the patron,the patron attemptsto use it to escapethe forceof time,and sounding in the narrator'sragtime s a formof timecunninglyawareof the patron'spower and predicament,and slyly resistant o both. Musicis the most eminentlytemporalof forms,and it is my contentionthatJohnsonuses music in TheAutobiographyo critique he role of timein the racialformationsand expectationsof the earlytwentiethcentury.Music is centralto Johnson'snovel and to its narratoras he attemptsto negotiatethe racialized andscapeof his era. A key partof the narrator'smovementfrom his childhoodwith his black mother to his exis-tence as a "white"real estatespeculator s his passagefrom

Bruce Barnhart is VistingAssistant Professor of 20th-century American literatureand culture at the Universityof North Carolina,Greensboro. His current bookproject examines theexchanges between jazz andthe modernist novel and therole that these exchangesplay in the reconfiguration ofearly 20th-century Americanculture.

AfricanAmerican Review, Volume 40, Number 3 2006 Bruce Barnhart 551

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improvising ragtimeperformer o clas-sicalcomposer,a markerof his shift inallegiancefrom one conceptionof timeto another.Specifically,Johnsonuses thecounterpointbetween two differentmusical traditions(ragtimeand classi-calmusic)to meditate on the politicalvalence of two differentforms of time.If artis, as AlbertMurrayasserts,"theultimateextension, elaboration,andrefinementof the rituals that re-enactthe primarysurvivaltechnology... ofa given people in a given time,place,and circumstance"111)and if, asEmile Durkheimwrites,"the founda-tion of the categoryof time is therhythmof sociallife"(20),then eachform of music should give shapetoquitedifferenttemporalconceptions.Ragtimeand classicalmusic eachembody distinctmodes of time-con-sciousnessand of temporalbeing-in-the-world.In TheAutobiographyof an Ex-ColouredMan,classicalmusic standsfor a conceptionof time thatrevolvesaroundnecessity, calculability,and theexpected.Thisprogressive,sublimat-ing timeimagines temporalmovementas movementaway fromembodiment,a correlativeof a movementthroughsocialspace organizedin such a way asto presentno impedimentto the will ofsubjects iguredas white or to the pre-rogativesof capital.Opposedto this conception s thetime thatemanates from the narrator's

pianistic mprovisations,a repetitive,polyphonictime of entanglementandimbrication.3Thisconceptionof timeemergesfrom a strongsense of theinterrrelatedness f spaceand time andalways awareof every time'sprove-nancein a specificsocialspace.Unlikethe logicized,formaltimelessness ofthe patron'stime,this time is dynamicin the full etymologicalsense of theterm.To be dynamicis to be built outof a clashof forces,and the rag-timethatthe narratorplays is intimatelyfamiliarwith the linkbetween forceand time.

Inthe hands of Johnson, he obser-vationthat different orms of music arerelated to differentrhythmsof socialexistenceis no mere academic nsight,but speaksof the very politicsof racialexistencein a sociallandscapewherethe lynchingthat the narratorwitness-es is a hauntinglyconstantpossibility.WhatJohnson ays barein his novel arethe brutalchronopoliticsof race andculture,and the way in which anAfricanAmericanperformative radi-tion respondswith a chronopoliticsofits own.I take the term"chronopolitics"fromJohannesFabian'sTimeandtheOther,which arguesthat "Timebelongs to the politicaleconomyofrelationsbetweenindividuals,classesand nations"and that"there s a'Politics of Time'" (x).ForFabian, imeis always politicalbecauseit governsthe envisioningof otherness; he waythat it has traditionallydone so inWesternsocietyis by imposing anapparently nsurmountable onceptualbarrierbetween subjectand object,exercisingwhat Fabianrefersto as an"epistemologicaldictatorship"hatlicensesoppressionby creatingandlegitimatingfixed hierarchical ate-gories,the most pressingof which are,forus, those of race. Fabian abelsthisconceptualoperation"allochronism,"denial of the dialecticalrelationshipbetween subjectand object hat diveststhe objectof knowledge (whetherper-son,body, artform, culture,or race)ofthe abilityto actin and occupythesametemporalspaceas the observingsubjectof knowledge.Fabian'sconclu-sion is that "a clearconceptionofallochronism s the prerequisiteandframe for a critiqueof racism" 182).

Johnson'snovel precedesFabian nits critiqueof allochronismand of theattendantpracticesof racism.Johnsonshares Fabian'sbelief that where therearetemporalpractices, here arepowerrelationsand constructionsof other-ness. He highlightsthe extentto whichthe narrator'sallianceof himself firstwith ragtime,thenwith a particularform of classicalmusic is partof hisnegotiationof the racialand temporal552 AFRICAN MERICAN EVIEW



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politicsthatshapehis movements.InJohnson'shands,thesemusicsappearnot as detached aestheticpracticesbutas technologiesof temporaland subjec-tive shapingthat areheavily investedin the struggleover the proper shapeofAmericanculture and not without theirown relationship o politicaland insti-tutionalpower.

Although Johnsonsets these twomusics and these two concep-tionsof time againsteachother,theyare not polaropposites.Thedivision atwork here is not like the distinctionthat MirceEliade and othersmakebetweenlinear and cyclicaltime.4Thetwo times operative n Johnson'snovelareperhapsbest thoughtof as officialand vernacular ime.They depend oneach otherfor theirconstitution;officialtimea reificationof vernacular ime,and vernacular ime shapingitself inthe intersticesof officialtime. Bothtimesemergeout of a specificposition-alitywithin a complexof socialandeconomicconditionsand practices,notout of any fixed culturalorbiologicalessence.Thus,while classicalmusic is atraditionhaving its provenance nEurope,and ragtime s a musicunimaginablewithout the forcedhis-toricalyoking of AfricansubjectsandAmericangeography,neitherform cor-respondsabsolutelyto the racial or-mationsdividing the Americanpolity.Ragtime s a music with a complexprovenance,emergingas it did out ofboth an AfricanAmericanperformancetraditionrife with Africanisms,and outof a culturalsituation characterized yan insistentgive and take betweenEuro-American nd AfricanAmericanformsand cultural raditions.5Exemplaryhere is the way that thegreatstridepianistJamesP.Johnsonplunderedthe Europeanclassicaltradi-tion fortechniquesthat he used toheightenhis pianisticanimationsofRenaissance-eraHarlemrentparties;according o EileenSouthern,"Johnsonspentmanyhourslisteningto record-ings of Europeanpiano compositions,

so that he could use 'concerteffects'inhis playing of jazzpiano"(390).Thus,the time-conceptionregnantin the music of figureslikeJamesP.JohnsonandJamesWeldonJohnson'snarrator s indebted to the form ofAfricantimekept alive in the ring-shout tradition,but is in no wayreducibleto it. In BluesPeople, is semi-nal work on the sociological signifi-cance of jazz and otherforms ofAfricanAmericanmusic,LeroiJones-later AmiriBaraka- contends that"theAfrican,becauseof the violent differ-ences between what was native andwhat he [or she] was forced to in slav-ery, developed some of the most com-plex ideas aboutthe world imaginable"(7).Time is one of these ideas, and thecomplexityof the time-conceptionatworkin ragtimemeans thatthe opposi-tionJohnsonsets up between classicalmusic and ragtimecannot be a simpleone. Ragtime mprovises throughthedistinctionbetween EuropeanandAfricanculture with a brillianceper-haps best capturedby JamesSnead'sessay "Repetitionas a Figureof BlackCulture."Snead defines blackcultureas a culturebuilton acknowledgmentof repetitionand of time's social basis.Inhis formulation,however,Europeanculture does not (and cannot)eschewrepetition; t merelytries to suppressits implications.He concludes thatthere are "elementsof black culturealreadythere[inEuropeanculture] nlatent form"and "that he separationbetween the cultureswas perhapsallalongnot one of nature,but of force"(75).Sneadcaptures he complexinter-play at workin black music'srhythmicshapingof repetitionwithout ever los-ing sight of the factthat this music isthe productof black culture and that itaims,in JamesBaldwin'swords, "tocheckmate he Europeannotion of theworld"(87).Critiquingallochronism sa key partof checkmating heEuropeanconceptionof the world, andin critiquingwhat I am calling"officialtime,"Johnsonallies himself with theimperativesof the music that his narra-torultimatelyabandons.

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marksmy essay's depar-ture frompreviouscriticism sits focus on this alliance and on theimportanceof the categoryof time inJohnson'snovel. While several criticshave commented on the centralityofmusic to the novel, to my knowledgenone have highlightedthe wayJohnson's useof music islinked tostrategies andconceptions oftemporality.6 Iexamine theconception oftime implicit inand motivatingthe narrator'sclassical pro-ject, and thenturn to theway ragtimeattemptsto evade this temporality oproposean alternativeorganizationoftime and of social interaction. readthe argumentbetween the narratorandthe patronconcerning he narrator'sdesire to composea work on "Negrothemes,"and then move to the narra-tor's behaviorin the South beforereturning o consider the late night rag-time sessions thatprecedeboth scenes.Inthe latenight confrontationbetweenthe narrator'sperformanceofragtimeand the patron'ssimultaneouscommandof, and willed deafnessto,the music,Johnsongives us a scene ofchronopolitical truggle.Inexertinghispower over the narrator's ime and inrefusingto heed the kineticimpera-tives of his music,the patronmakesuse of the prerogativesof an officialtime divorced fromparticipation.Yetultimatelymorepowerfulis thepatron'sabilityto articulatepersua-sively his conceptionof time to the nar-rator.Thepatron'sattemptto use rag-time to "blotout"time is doomed tofailure,but his attemptto conscript henarrator nto allegianceto his view oftime is much more successful. With thesuccess of this argument,Johnsonemphasizesthatdominantconceptions

andperformancesof timeare main-tained morethroughideologicalratherthanphysicalforce.Thenarrator's onscription nto thepatron'sconceptionof timeoccurs nan argumentbetweenthe two, an argu-ment that follows on the heels of thelatenight ragtimesessionsand that

The repetitive, polyphonic timeof entanglement and imbricationconceptualized inThe Autobiography emerges froma strong sense of theinterrelatedness of space and time;it exhibits an awareness of

every time's provenance ina specific social space.

exposes theunderpinningsof the patron'sconceptionoftime and thelarger mplica-tions of hisdesire to "blotout"time.Tellingly,theargumentcon-cerns the narra-tor'sdesire totransformhim-self froma rag-timepianistinto a classicalcomposer.He wants to leave the patron'semployand return o the UnitedStatesto com-

pose a symphony "onNegro themes."7Havingheardthe theme of one of hisragtimecompositions transposed nto"classical orm"by a Germanguest ofhis patron's, he narratorbecomespos-sessed by the idea of "makingragtimeclassical."Butwhen he tells the patronof his plans,of his desire"to voice allthejoys and sorrows,thehopes andambitions,of the AmericanNegro, inclassic musical form"(148),he is metby a "cynical" mile. Thepatronhasnothingbut scorn for the narrator'splannedreturn o America,and refersto it as "this dea of makinga Negroout of yourself"(145).This scornis amanifestationof the patron'sconcep-tion of time and his indifference o thepast; ike a good modernisthe envi-sions the past as a dead forcevoid ofconsequenceforthe presentand thefuture.8He sees the narrator's rtisticplans as an endorsementof the racialdivisions of US society,divisionsthathe disdainsas much as the narratordoes. To the patron,race is somethingthatone assumesrather han some-thing one is borninto;he finds it ludi-

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crous that the narrator'sexperiencemight inspirehis desire to work with"Negrothemes/' and the patroncansee this desire as nothingmore than afree and irrational hoice,based as it ison a seemingly unnecessaryexposureof the narrator o prejudiceand vio-lence. UnlikeJohnson, he patroncan-not see that divisionsbased on racialidentityare both irrationallyarbitraryandproductiveof a culturalheritagethat has a differentvalue or weight forindividuals of differentracial denti-ties.He cannotunderstandthattherace of the narrator s not justa func-tion of decisions andcategories n thepresent,but is produced by the weightof the past on the present,both the pastof thenarratorand the pastof the peo-ple who have producedthe "Negrothemes"that the narrators so eagertoget his hands on. Concomitantwith thepatron'sblindness to the past is his the-oryof art,a theory perhapsbest under-stood as a 'freemarket'theoryof art.Inhis continuing attemptsto dissuade thenarrator rom his intended course ofaction,the patronarguesthat"Music sa universalart;anybody'smusicbelongsto everybody;you can't limit itto race or country" 144).When thepatronspeaks,he speaksthe languageof capital;artis attachedonly to thosewho canappreciateand pay for itsvalue.Thepossibilityof artfunctioningas an expressionof national orracialideals is as meaninglessto him as thenarrator'splanto "makea Negro"outof himself. Theuniversalityof art thatthe patronespouses envisions an artunattached o and untaintedby theconditionsof its making,free to circu-latebeyond thebounds of race andnation.Inthis construction,artbearsnone of the responsibility o communi-ty thatis so important o bothJohnsonandhis narrator.We should recognizehere the conditionsof the circulationofjazzthatcharacterizedts propagationin the periodbook ended by the tworeleasedates of Johnson'snovel, aswell as the conditions of the narrator'spresence n Europe.The narrator'sdetachment rom the placewhere he

learned the music thatendearshim tothe patronmakeshim liable to thefinancialarrangement hatbinds himto the patronand allows him to circu-latethroughoutEurope.His very situa-tion is an exemplificationof hispatron'stheoryof art,an exemplifica-tion that the unbindingfromresponsi-bility to raceor nationis a bindingtothe dictates of capital.Inhis passagethroughthe capitalsof Europeancul-ture,the narratormust indulge everywhim of the patronand is prohibitedfromplayingwithout the patron'smandate. Whatthe patron maginesasthe "universality" f art is the replace-ment of one set of constraints oranother, he severingof the ties to thepast thatthe demandsof racialandnationalidentityconstitutereplacedbya "free"contractualagreementpredi-cated on the patron'sabilityto contin-ue to pay for the narrator'scompleteallegiance.Althoughthe patron s ultimatelyunable to convince the narrator o drophis plan to returnto America, henature of the narrator's ebuttalsshowthathe has partiallyadoptedthepatron's ogic of detached self-interest.Thestrengthof the patron'sargumentforces the narrator o extend his delib-erationsfora couple of weeks, andwhen he finallymakes his decision,heasserts thathe "settledthe questiononpurelyselfishgrounds,in accordancewith my millionaire'sphilosophy"(147).He puts his concluding argu-ment to himselfin the following form:"Iarguedthatmusic offeredme a bet-ter future thananythingelse I had anyknowledge of, and, in oppositionto myfriend'sopinion,thatI should havegreaterchances of attractingattentionas a coloredcomposerthan as a whiteone"(147).Thenarratorwins his argu-mentwith the patronand with himself,but only by provingthe merit of hisplan in the patron'sterms. Thenarra-tor'sinabilityto confound the patron'slogic leaves the patron'svoice ringingin his head and indicates the extent towhich his admiration or his million-aire "friend" ontinues to influence his

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thinkingeven afterhe has left him. Thepatron'seffect on him is presentin thevery shapeof the narrator'smusicalproject. nhis intentionto translateAfricanAmericancontent into "classicmusicalform," he narratorperpetu-ates the patron'sphilosophyand hier-archyof values as much as he will inhis later life as "anordinarilysuccess-ful white man"(211).In otherwords,despitehis physicalbreakwith thepatron,his returnto the USengageshim in a project hat treats the musicthat he sees as material or his sympho-ny in a mannerremarkably imilar tothe way that his patronhad treatedhim and his music.9The narratorwrites: "Igloatedoverthe immense amount of materialI hadto workwith, not only modernrag-time,but also the old slave-songs-materialwhich no one had yettouched"(142-43). nlookingforwardto his tripto the US South to gathermaterial or his project, he narratorsees the music that he will encounterasa form of raw materialremarkable smuch for its being untouchedby otherhands as for any intrinsicmusical char-acter.10At anotherpoint, the narratordescribesthe musical richness of a "bigmeeting"(akind of stationaryreligiouscamp-meeting)as "a mine of material"(173).Theuse of a miningmetaphorheretellinglyindicates the narrator'sadoptionof what Ihave described asthe patron's"freemarkettheoryofart."The narratormagineshis triptothe South as a mining expeditioninwhich he aims his headlampat theobscurebackwatersof small southerncommunities n search of the mostvaluableveins of musicalore to chiselout of theirsurroundings.These musi-cal "nuggets"clearlywill be taken farfrom theiroriginal settingsand con-texts,for the narratorrepeatedlyexpresseshis urgentdesireto "gettosome placewhere [he]might settledown and work"(182).He views thesocialsettingof the music that hemakes his materialas no fit placeforthe kind of artisticconstruction hat hehas in mind. Instead,he imaginesa

solitaryworkshopwhere he canrunhis newly acquiredmaterial hrough"thealembic"of his genius,distillingandpurifyingit into a formfit forexpressionin classicalmusic form.11The narrator haracterizesheartisticprocessas follows:"nothinggreatorenduring, especiallyin music,has ever sprungfull-fledgedandunprecedented rom the brainof anymaster; he best that he gives to theworld he gathersfromthe heart of thepeople, and runsit throughthe alembicof his genius"(100).Themetaphorused here is a revealingone. An alem-bic is a heat-resistantaboratoryvesselin which solid material s refined ortransformednto gas;it is a key instru-ment in the chemicalprocessknown assublimation.The narrator eferencesthe alembicto describethe creativeprocessas a purification n whichimpurefolkmaterialsarerefined into amoreethereal,and less material, in-ished product.12Notably,this metaphorcomparesto the rhetoric hat the patronemploysin attempting o dissuade the narratorfromleavinghim and returning o theUS:"Perhaps ome day, throughstudyand observation,you will cometo seethatevil is a force, and,like the physi-caland chemicalforces,we cannotannihilate t;we may only changeitsform"(145-46).Here the patronsug-gests that,if the narrator hinks "ratio-nally"about the world- thatis, if heapprehends t through "studyandobservation,"notpracticeand experi-ence-the passageof timewill, almostof its own accord,bringthe narrator osee the world as the patrondoes. Forthe patron,timeis a forcethatmaypurgethe narrator's rrorsof opinion,but it cannot deliverhim anywherebutto the intellectual ocation thatthepatron already nhabits.Thenarratorcanonly catchup with the patron,andwhen he does he will realize the essen-tially unchangingnature of the world.At workin both the narrator's es-thetictheoryand the patron'sassump-tion that time will inevitablydraw thenarrator loser to his positionis the

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logic of culturalsublimation.Subli-mation,the impossiblebut culturallyvalorizedprocessthat a hegemonicAmericanidentitygives to individualsand cultures as a way of shapingafuture forthemselves,is what soundsin the patron'sspeechand in the con-figurationsof sound dictatedby classi-calform.It is the targetof the critiquemountedby Johnson'snovel andbythe ragtimethat resonatesthroughoutit. The motion and the futurethatemergefrom sublimationdepend uponthe privilegingof three interrelatedconceptualoperations:a model of truthbased on a strictseparationof thoughtand experience,an assumptionthatthis truth s timeless and valid for allfutureexperience,and a suppressionofmaterialityand thebody thatlegit-imizes the distinctionbetween thoughtandexperienceas well as being theprecondition orthinkingof any truthas outside of time.All three areimplicitin the patron'sargumentwith the nar-rator,and all three areoperative n theway thatthe narratornteracts,or failsto interact,with the practiceshe findson his tripthroughthe South.Takentogether, hese threeideologemesactas a normativefilter that masksthevibrantcall-and-responsemovementsof the AfricanAmericanmusicalprac-ticespresentin the text.In his lectures on Kant'sCritiquefPureReason,Adorno sketchesout theimbricationof the first two of these ide-ologemes,referring o them collective-ly as the "residualtheoryof truth,"areductivemethodin which "every-thingthat can be regardedas ephemer-al, transitory,deceptive,and illusoryisleft to one side, so that what remains ssupposed to be indispensable,absolutelysecure,somethingI can holdpermanently n my hands"(25).PermeatingAdorno' description s thelogic of sublimation:one arrivesat"residual ruth"throughan intellectualdistillation hat transmutesexperienceinto thought by boiling away theinessentialand the impure.The truththat results fromthisprocessis then

conceivedof as having a timelessquali-ty thatgives it an ease of applicability"toall futureeventualities."An implic-it assumptionis that all possibleformsof experiencehave at their core thesameimmutableand unchangingtruths and thus, thatwhile the processof arrivingat truth takesplace in time,the truththatarises out of it is notaffected or shaped bytime.Time servesto separate ruth fromexperience,andonce this processis accomplished, imebecomes the motionby which newobjectsand experiencesare fittedintoalreadyexistingcategoriesof thought.Inotherwords, time, in its avoidanceof the genuinelynew orunexpected,becomes timeless. Adherence to thisconceptionof time fuels both thepatron'sdesire to "blotout"time andthe narrator'saspiration o fix theimprovisatoryand collectivemusicalpracticeshe encounters n the Southwithin the frameworkof a narrowlyconceived classical form.Theconceptionof time and con-comitantdisparagementof experiencethatmotivatethe actions of the narra-torand his patronare centralorganiz-ing principlesof the form of early20th-centurymodernityand exchangesoci-ety. Adorno writes that "thisstrangeidea of the truth as something lastingand enduringsomehow alwaysappearswhere urbanexchangeideashave developed"(26).13Forhim, theresidualand timeless theoryof truththat is distilled out of experience s, "ineconomicterms,""theprofitthatremainsafterdeductingall the costs ofproduction" 25).The timeless truth ofKant and of exchangesocietyis mod-eled on the commoditiesthatcapital-ism produces,and the aversionto thenew is a function of the inabilityofexchange-thinking o imaginetheemergenceof anythingthat has notbeen paid forby the "proper"orm ofintellectualor economic labor.14

Exchangesocietymobilizes all theresourcesat its disposalto insure thatthe futureis profitableand thatthisprofitis distributed n away that doesnot threaten he intellectual,material,RAG-TIMEAND SYMPHONICTIME IN THEAUTOBIOGRAPHYOF AN EX-COLORED MAN 557



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or social conditions of its existence.Inthe interest of minimizingriskand thepossibilityof profitless activity,manuallabor s separated rom intellectuallabor,a conceptualoperationbased onthe analogythatcomparessocialprocessesto the chemicalprocessofsublimation.Theprofitderivingfrommanual labor flows away from thebodies responsiblefor this labor to the"higher" ealm of those who practiceintellectual abor.This division of laborshadows the narrator'sassumptionthat he will win fame forhis arrange-mentof the themes he gleansfrom hissouthernsojourn.Thesublimatingflowof time that he allows to shapehisactionsleads to a hierarchy n whichhis individualwork on the themes heextractsare"worth"more than theworkinvolved in generatingthesethemes.15

Followingthe analogyof sublima-tion,this flow is figuredas natural,andthe realmof intellectual abor s figuredas both self-sustainingand freefromany manuallabor.Whatsustains thisanalogyis the negationof materiality,both in the disavowal of the linkbetween intellectual abor and theextractionof profitfrom the manuallabor thatmakesit possible,and in thedisavowal of the fact that intellectuallabor s also manual labor.The culturallogic of sublimation s at base a logicthatoperatesby transforming heimpossibilityof an escapefrom materi-alityinto the desirabilityand possibili-ty of masteringmateriality n order tomove beyond it. Thislogic enforcesamove away fromthebody, the verythingthatragtimeplays so provoca-tively upon, and away fromthe inter-actionbetweenbodies, one of the mainsources of the genius of the AfricanAmericanmusicthat the narratorcomes to see as raw material.

Having adoptedboth the patron'sselfishness and the assumptionsabouttime and sublimation hat lie behindit,the narratorgoes aboutgatheringmaterial or his symphonyin a waythatconsistentlystrives to transformcollectiveexpressioninto individual

expression.Thata skilledragtimepianistwould ever attemptthis trans-formationdemonstrates he culturalforceof the logic of sublimation, orthemusic that the narrator laimsinspireshim is so intimately inked to the situa-tion in which it is performed hatit ishard to imagineexactlywhat the narra-tortakesaway fromit in thenotebooksthat he uses to jotdown "themesandmelodies."The two figureswho mostimpressthenarratorare the preacherJohnBrown and the hymn-leader"SingingJohnson";what is mostremarkable boutbothfiguresare theirimprovisational killsand theirabilityto judge the perfectmoment forspecif-ic musical or rhetorical ffects.SingingJohnson's mpressiveness ies in hisunfailing knowledge of "justwhathymn to sing and when to sing it"(178)as well as of the appropriatekeyfor eachcongregation,while JohnBrown'sbrillianceresults from"animaginationso free and daring" hat,when combinedwith his "intuitionof aborn theatricalmanager" 175),allowshim to employhis knowledge of orato-ry to tailorhis sermon to fit the needsof eachcongregation.Brown'spowersconvince the narrator hat"eloquenceconsistsmorein the mannerof sayingthanwhat is said"(176).All in all, the narrator'sdescriptionof the performances hat he witnessesin the Southemphasizestheirimprovi-sationalflexibilityand responsive sup-pleness, elementsthat seem unlikelytobe captured n the narrator'snotebookof "themesand melodies"(173).Thenarrator'sapproachappears ikelytofounderon a fundamentalmistake:mishearing he essence of music in sub-stantive rather han relational erms.As Johnsonwrites of ragtime n theBookofAmericanNegro Poetry,"its chiefcharm s not in melody,but inrhythms" 12).Whatthe narratorputsinto his notebooksarejustthoseaspectsof music ("themesandmelodies")that fit into the notationand conceptualschemeof western clas-sicalmusic,while left out are all theelementsthatcontribute o the power




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andbeautyof performances uch asSingingJohnson's,all that makesupwhat thenarrator efersto as "thatelu-sive undertone,the note in musicwhich is not heard with the ears"(181).16Inshort,the narratorhas commit-ted himselfto a course thatdirectlycontravenes he distinctivegenius ofthe music described n his narrative,boththroughhis insistence on trans-formingcollective musicalpracticesinto a work attributable o an individ-ual creator that s, with a signature-unlikethe novel itself)and in the resul-tantfixingof improvisationalcontext-dependent practices n a structurenotatedin a mannermeant to guaran-tee its unvarying repeatability n what-ever context t might ultimatelyfinditself. Thechoiceof formand devotionto the logic of sublimationhave decid-ed this coursein advance; he narra-tor'stimewith the patronhas lefthimwith anunthinkingcommitment owhat he calls"classicmusicalform,"asymphonicformgiven its canonicalshapein the early 19th-century eriodof heroicbourgeoisindividualism andstill saddledwith the rhythmsandlogic of this conceptionof subjectivi-ty.17Despitethenarrator'sdisagree-mentwith his patronover his plan toreturn o America, he musicalprojectthat ensues from the narrator's ojournin Germanyensuresthat the aestheticand social values of the patronaccom-pany the narratorn his journeythroughthe South.Central o these val-ues and the musical formthat the nar-rator s committedto using is theintensedesire to "blotout"time.Thewitnessingof a lynching puts aviolent end to the narrator'ssymphon-ic project,but there is a violenceimplicitin the symphonic projectbefore the lynchingaborts t, a violentimpulselinked to the symphony'sabil-ity to "blotout time."This"blottingout"is, of course,what the patronwants the narrator'sragtimeto do, butit is also,according o TheodorAdorno,one of the main functions thesymphonyperforms.In an articleenti-

tled "TheRadioSymphony,"Adornowrites thatthe symphony "suspendstime-consciousness,contracts ime,andin doing so annihilates he contingen-cies of the listener'sprivate experi-ence." Adornois infamous for hisinabilityto come to terms with jazz'sdistinctperformativeenactments,andit is just this auraldefect,this deafness,that makes him the perfectreferencehere. Like the patron,Adornoapproaches azzwith aestheticexpecta-tions shaped by European orms;despite theirdiverging opinionsof jazzand ragtime,both the patronandAdorno come to the music expectingitto deliver the same kindsof experienceas does music fromEuropeanclassicaltraditions.Thepatron istensin rag-timefora suspensionor compressionof time capableof sustaininga sense ofselfhoodby deliveringit fromthethreatof repetitionand consecratinganonreflexiveunidirectionalexperienceof time. Thisexperience s what thesymphonyattemptsto deliver; tstrives to do so by virtueof its "partic-ularintensityand concentration,"function of the fact that "atruly sym-phonicmovementcontainsnothingfortuitous;"n it "everyelement is ulti-matelytraceable o very small basicelements"(115).WhatAdornopoints to is the linkbetween a totalizing integrationachievedby banningeverythingnotfully subordinated o a work's overallform,and the suspensionor abolitionof time. Time is abolishedbecauseinthis construction here is no frictionbetween differentpartsof the work orbetween any of the partsof the workand the formthatcontains these parts.Whatlistenershearin the succession ofthese frictionlesspartsis a paradeofnecessarymoments to which they areasked to merelynod in assent.A listen-er'sprivateexperience s set aside inwhat is essentiallya ritualizedcelebra-tion of universalitypurgedof all con-tingency,particularity, r conflict.Theabolition of time and particu-larityenactedin the symphonydepends, ultimately,on a manipulation

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of volume that canonly be describedasthe presentationof a forcethatis bothoverwhelmingand undifferentiatedlyideal at the same time.Adornodescribesthis forcein the followingterms:"Thepower of a symphonyto'absorb7ts partsinto the organizedwhole, depends, in part,upon thesound volume"(118).AccordingtoAdorno,to achieve the proper sym-phonicexperience,and concomitantsuppressionof time,the rangeof vol-ume presentedto the listener mustvarynot only fromsoft to loud, butfrom"Nothingto All"(123).Expressingas it does a vastnessbeyond thatwhich individualscanimaginethemselvesproducing,themassed sound of the symphony deliv-ers the listenerinto a sublime transcen-dent space overwhelmingenough toseparate hose who enter it from theirprivate experience.18WhatAdorno describeshereis theaestheticanalogto MichaelHanchard'centralinsightin "Afro-Modernity:Temporality,Politics and the AfricanDiaspora":hattime is determinedbypower andby power differentials.FollowingFabian,Hanchardexplicitlylinkstime to the relationsof power andthe mechanismsthatdistributepowerunequallywithin any particular oci-ety, alertingus to "the distincttempo-ralmodalities thatrelationsof domi-nance and subordinationproduce"(253).Hanchard s speakingspecifical-ly of racialtime,as am I,but the impli-cationof his critique s that all time is afunctionof force and power, an impli-cationthat,when combined with ZoraNeale Hurston's dictum"Discord smore naturalthanaccord" 305), eadsus to expectthattime will necessarilybe repletewith surges,ebbs, rushes,lapses,and eddies. To expectotherwiseis to fallprey to the idealistic illusionthattime is transcendentaland, thus,motionlessin its totaldetachment romany tangibleobject hatmightmove"through,""with,"or "in" ime,allmetaphorsobscuringthe fact thattimeis an abstractiondeterminedby, as wellas determining,movement.Primarilya

techniqueof socialcoordination, ime,when detached fromsocialexperience,reduces itself to the same sterileprinci-ple of self-consistency hat threatens oengulf a rationalityconceived of as themere satisfaction"of certainaxiomsofformal coherence" Aglietta14).Aclock is valued not becauseit tells usanythingaboutthe outside world (asdoes a clockthat beats moreslowlywhen it is dampoutsidemight),butbecause it is consistentwith itself,methodicallybeatingout the sameinterval that it beat out yesterdayandwill beat out tomorrow.Faulkner'sassertionthat "time s dead as long asit is being checkedoffby little wheels"is partof a nostalgicromanticization fthe past,but it is still correctabout theinadequacyof a mechanical ime imag-ined as independentof the societythatproducesit (185).

Thinking of time as detached andregular s a kind of illusion,but itis an illusion whose pervasiveness,oreven necessity, accuratelyexpressesthe overwhelmingforces thatgo intoproducingit. A time thatsurgesandebbs is the function of a give and takebetween differentconfigurationsofforce,but a time thatis bothtranscen-dentaland absolutely regularcan beengendered only by a concentration fforce so overwhelmingthatany indi-vidual forcethatconfronts t is ren-deredvirtually nconsequential.Thisinconsequentialitys why the abolitionof time that thesymphonystrives todeliveris dependenton the abilitytogeneratea rangeof volume far exceed-ing thatwhich an individual canpossi-bly produce.Thesound volume of thesymphonysurroundsand engulfs lis-teners,removingthemfroma positionin which any responseotherthan awedsubmissionis possibleand drawingtheminto an imaginaryand bodiless"symphonicspace"free from contin-gency and the frictionof contestingforces.Thesymphonyasserts theoppositeof Hurston's dictumthat




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"Discord s more natural hanaccord/'by presentinga puissant auditoryvision of forcenaturalizedas necessityandby invitingeach listener to setasideheror his individualexperiencein order to joinin the timeless but for-ward marchof symphonic progression.It is this conceptionof time thatJohnson'snovel critiques; he novelinsists on the linkbetween force andabstract imelessnessby presentingtheflip side of the sublime aesthetictime-lessnessat work in the symphony.Thetwo most overtdisplaysof violence inthe novel are the lynchingthat ends thenarrator'strip throughthe South andthe shootingof a white woman in theclubwhere the narrator earnsto playragtime.Inboth of these instances,thenarratorexperiencesa suspensionoftime-consciousness,but one much lesspleasantand much morecrudelyengenderedthan thatexperiencedby alistener n a concerthall.Describing helynchingthat he witnesses,thenarratorasserts,"Itwas over beforeI realizedthat timehad elapsed"(187).Inhisaccountof thejealousy-inspired hoot-ing of "the widow' at "theClub," hesameremovalfromany consciousnessof the passageof time is apparent: henarrator'sflightis a nondescriptblurthatleadshim to state,"Howlong andfarI walked I cannot tell"(124).Inbothcases the spectacleof violence removesthe narrator rom his usual sense oftime,and transformshim into a mind-less and mute victimizedobject,ametaphoricaleaf blown by the wind ofviolent force itself.Inthese scenesshowing experi-ences of timelessnessbroughton byunexpectedand unsanctionederup-tions of violent force,Johnsondispelsthemyth of timelessness as the medi-um of free,self-determiningndividu-als. The narrator s never more boundby the fetters ofphysicalcausalitythanwhen he mindlesslyflees from the clubor when his stupefiedhorrorpreventshim fromturning away fromthe lynch-ing. These scenes take the gridof thenarrator'splanned symphonyand useit to plot the narrator's eal-lifeexperi-

ence;in this transposition romthe aes-theticregisterto the everyday,thepleasurethatsymphonicform shouldyield becomesa very unpleasantterror.Johnson iteralizesthe aestheticsofsymphonicsublimation o show thatthe pleasurethatthe symphonypromisesto deliver centers on the pre-sentationof an alluringbut impossibletrajectory.19 lluring,because it is thetrajectory f ascensioninto the sphereof absolute andunlimitedpower;impossiblebecause the protagonistofthis ascension s never an individual.Thesublimatingmovement narratedby the symphonyis the movementofpower enshrining tself,a movementthat does not bringindividuals with it.Inthese scenes,Johnsonmakes vis-ible the contradictions nherent n thenarrator'smusicalproject.Thenarratorwants to "givevoice" to his people,butthe only way that he canconceive ofdoing so is by removingfromspecificmembers of his racethose elements oftheir musical and rhetoricalpracticesthatarticulate he most heightenedver-sion of their own voices. The narrator'suncriticaladherence o the dictates ofclassicalformmotivateshim to lift cer-tain"themesand melodies" from theparticipatoryime of the camp meetingand transposethem into a form thatmutes the rhythmicexchangesthatgive them theirsignificance.He wantsto make these themes timelessby mak-ing themelementsin a symphonicmonument to his race.Theproblemwith this transformation s thatthemonument he has in mindbears littleresemblance o the culturalpracticesofthose he wants to monumentalize; heformhe has chosen to expresstheir"hopesand ambitions"unfolds itself ina rhythmuntrue to the way theirhopesand ambitionsattemptto accessthefuture.Furthermore, is plan to fitAfricanAmericancontent nto classical(western)formrepeatsthe racialhier-archythatlinks dark-skinnedAmericans o formlessmaterialityandlighterskinnedAmericansto higherprinciplesof form and order.The nar-

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ratoroperates n accordancewith theconceptionof time adoptedfromhispatron,and the result is an approach omusicalproductionthatinureshim tothe time operative n the formsthat hewants to make into his material.Despitehis desireto alignhimselfwithhis race,he is so entrancedwith themovement of sublimationand sym-phonicdevelopmentthat this becomesimpossible.Itrequiresa radicalrethinkingof form,(something ikewhat Houston Bakerrefersto as"deformationof mastery") n ordertoderivechangefroma formcommittedto timelessness,and thus antithetical ochange.Johnson'snovel undertakessuch rethinking,but the narratordoesnot.

impossibilityof the narrator'ssituationis closelyalignedwiththe patron's mpossiblesituation as hesits stoically listeningto ragtime,straining o hear in it an escapefromtime.Theidiosyncrasyof the patron'sratherirregularexpectationsof whenand for how long the narrator houldplay forhim is matchedby his idiosyn-craticresponseto the music. Forthisresponseis fundamentallya non-response.Theresponseof the guests atthe firstoccasion on which the patrondirects the narrator o play is character-istic of the way thatvirtuallyeveryonein the novel respondsto the narrator'sperformanceof the music "thatdemandedphysical response"; hey areastonished and surprised,and end up"involuntarilyandunconsciously"doing "animpromptuCakewalk." hepatron,on the otherhand, takes themusic as a kind of soporific "drug," it-ting grimlyand mutely,and "makingscarcelya motionexceptto light a freshcigarette" 121).Thepatron s deaf tothe demands thatthe music makes andrefuses to yield to its bodily impera-tives, choosinginsteadto hear in it aconfirmationof his power to commandand a possibleescapefrom the timethatwill eventually destroythis power.

Thepatronwields a power overthe narrator hatdepends on a concep-tion of time antithetical o that con-tainedin the music.The narratordescribesthe patron'spower as essen-tiallyinhuman,a kind of "supernaturalpower"that fillshim with "unearthlyterror" 121).We should recognizethisimpersonal, nhuman forceas thepower of capital,and the temporalityof capitaldictatesa conceptionof thepast and the futurechallengedby rag-time'simprovisationalrhythms.Thedetemporalizationof time thatthe patronclingsto in his stubbornrefusal to heed the music's incitementof motion is an avoidance of a particu-larform of the future as well as a barri-er separating he presentfromthe past.Beholden to the values of calculabilityandpredictability, he future that thepatrondesperately istens forshouldsound like the smallestpossiblevaria-tion of the past,a furtherstep on adevelopmental ine drawn from thepast throughthe presentinto thefuture.Tohear this kind of futureinragtime requiresan immenselypower-ful imaginativeapparatus,one capableof distortingoreffacingthe suppleunsecuredfuturethatpeaksfrombetweenthe music'saliquantripplesand cascades of sound. Approachingragtimewithout the epistemologicalfocus of the patronand with the weightof his culturalbaggage quitedifferent-ly distributed, he narratordescribes tas a music of "surprise" nd "theunex-pected":he remarkson both "the ntri-caterhythms n which the accentsfellin the mostunexpected places"and the"sortof pleasantsurpriseat the accom-plishmentof [its]feats"(99)thatresultsfromits rhythmicaudacity.20

The narrator'sresponsivenesstoragtimeallowshim to hear in it the dis-location and interruptionof the veryline of time thatthe patronstrainstohearin it. Antitheticalas this music isto the patron'smode of imaginingsub-jectivityand temporality,he isnonethelessdrawnto it. His attractionis a symptomof the extent to whichtime is a problemforhim, a problempressing enough to give him the desire562 AFRICAN MERICAN EVIEW



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to escapefromit and to lead him even-tuallyto escapeit "byleapinginto eter-nity"(143), hatis, by takinghis ownlife. Time is problematic orthe patronbecause the repetition hathe is at suchgreat painsto avoid or disavow is atthe same time an indispensablecompo-nent of his existence.Thefactthatthenarrator'smost frequentappellationfor his patron s "millionaire riend"indicatesthatwealth is the attributethatmost defines him. His wealth wasextracted rom the labor-timeof thoseworkingforhim in the past and thus is,in JacquesAttali'sterms,a "stockpilingof time."Accordingto Attali,repetitionenablessuch stockpiling:"Wehaveseen that the firstrepetitionof allwasthat of the instrumentof exchangeinthe formof money.A precondition orrepresentation,money containsexchange-time, ummarizes,andabstractst;it transforms he concrete,lived timeof negotiationand compro-mise into a supposedly stablesign ofequivalence n order to establishandmakepeople believe in the stabilityofthe link between thingsand in theindisputableharmonyof relations"(101).Money stampsthe sign of thesame on differentsituations,definingall varieties of interpersonal xchangesas only quantitativelydifferentandthus makingeachexchange yield dif-ferentquantitiesof the same abstrac-tion,money itself.Dependingon theexchange ogic of money, as the narra-tordoes, puts one in the positionofreceiving every situation as a repetitionof the processin which exchange-timeis extracted rom use-time.Thislogicattenuates he force of anythingnew("surprise" r the "unexpected") ymeasuring t in terms of the relationsofexchangeexistingin the past and fos-teringa non-dialecticalrelationship oanynew object, n which this object sowned or masteredby a non-respon-sive andunchangingsubject.This isthe situationof the patronand of hisrelationship o ragtime;he attemptstoescapefromthe ennui of the repeatedevent,but his subservience o the logicof exchangeensnareshim;he cannotfully experienceanythingnew or

unique.Dead to the "surprise" nd"unexpected" ontained n ragtime,thepatron s a figurefor a particularver-sion of hopelessness.In his attempttodissuadethe narrator romreturning oAmerica,he arguesthat"evil is a force,and, like the physicaland chemicalforces,we cannot annihilate t;we mayonly changeits form"and that"toattemptto rightthe wrongs and easethe sufferingsof the world in generalisa waste of effort" 146).Collectiveaction,political struggle,and anyattemptto changeor ameliorate njus-tice he considers futile becausesuchacts are based on a deluded belief in afuturequalitativelydifferent rom thepresent.Forhim, the only properresponseto the world is an individualcultivationof a detachedaestheticappreciationof novelty and the exo-tic 21Theonly future that the patroncan see is a blase,materialisticUtopiaconstructedaccording o the dictates ofexchange logic.22Thisvision of the future is rein-forcedby the patron'sallegianceto themotion of sublimation.Forhim, subli-mationis a processwhose forwardmotionlies in the past.He experiencesit as the processthat has led him to hispresent positionof power and privi-lege, a position imaginedas the endpoint of this process, beyond whichstretchesan endless and timelessexpanseof drearysameness. The lackof enjoyment hatthe narratorderivesfromragtime,the result of its prove-nancein a place imaginedas behindand below the patron'spoint of subli-mationachieved,shows the patron'sinabilityto conceiveanythingmoredesirablethan his currentposition,aswell as his fearthat time mightundohis privilege, passinghim by andputtinghim in a situationthatforceshim to admitresponsibilityor subordi-nation to somethingoutside of orbeyond himself. Thepatronavoidsbodily responseto the ragtimehe lis-tens to bothbecause such a responselooks like a returnto anunsublimatedpast in which his body respondstoimpulsesoutside of his own control,

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andbecauselettinghis body move tothe vibrationsemanatingfromthepianowould put him in the sametimeas the narrator, hreatening o abolishthe gulf separatingpatronfromartist(employerfromemployee),to reversethe relationshipbetween the two, andto bringdown the patron'smasteryand disavowal of his dependenceonhis servant.The unsublimatedpastthreatens he patronbecauseit proffersthe possibilitythat such a past mightpropelhim into an encounterwith notonly his own corporealitybut with thepreviouslysubordinatedcorporealityof others(disavowed "servants'7) nwhom his mastery n the presentdepends.His masteryhas beenboughtand paid for,but to open the presenttotheunruly power of the past is to callinto questionthe validityof the coinwith which thispurchasewas made. Ifthe patronwere to dance to the narra-tor'sragtime,whether"involuntarilyandunconsciously"ornot, theassumptionof the kind of timeless tem-poralitythatallows the patronto imag-ine himself as a free,powerful,andself-determining ubjectwould exposeitselfto the risk of disarticulationanddissolution.23

Thepatron'spositionexemplifiesthe combinationof dread and fascina-tionwith which US societyhas alwaysgreeted jazz and other AfricanAmericanmusicalformsand theimpossibilityof this society'srelation-ship to a repetitive dynamismthat itboth consumes and denies. Inotherwords, we see in the midnightencoun-ters between the adamantinepatronand the put-uponbut obedient narra-tor not only an isolatedmaster/slavestrugglebut a confrontationof thepower of capitalthat drives the indus-tryresponsiblefor much of the market-ing and disseminationof jazz and rag-timewith the very music thatis bothan objectof this industry's operationsand an objectembodyinga logicincommensurablewith these opera-tions.Itis not thatragtime ettisonsthestrictlyregulartime of capitalaccumu-lation and abstractdisembodiment;

rather,ragtimeexposes its mobilizationof surpriseand the unexpected; tshakes this regulartime so that itsaffinitieswith, and dependenceon, itsostensiblyabsoluteotherare madeapparent.The result is a revisionandredefinitionof the possibleways ofthinkingand rethinking he relation-shipbetweentemporalrhythmsandsocialparticipation.Thepatron'savoidanceof the tem-poralityof ragtime s a version of whatDu Boiscalls"Listeningwithout ears"(BlackReconstruction124-25). To reallyhearthe music,to give it the responsethatit demands,would be to hearthefictive nature of sublimationand mas-tery,and to move in a time where thebody and the past canonly be mas-teredtemporarily,f at all. Theunhoused rhythmsof ragtimetakeadvantageof the need to constantlyre-stage and re-perform he coordinationof mind andbody, performinga pen-dularhinging of call and responseinwhich thebody's responseto the dic-tates of the mind areconstantlyreversed into the mind'sresponsetothe call of thebody. Ragtime ormsitself in the gap between the time dom-inant in America'shegemonicconcep-tion of itself and the time of an African/AfricanAmericanperformance radi-tion.Itschronopoliticsare both subver-sive and confrontational, repetitiveplay on social conditionsthat calls foraconstantreturnto the music and tothe conditionsof its hearingand mis-hearing.24Johnson'suse of music sounds asharp critiqueof the central emporalassumptionof a culturewhose accep-tance of jazz and ragtime,and ofJohnson'snovel, are neverfully dis-tinct froma racialschemathatradicallymutes and misrecognizesthe play ontime and truth at work in them.W.C.Handy describesthis mutingand mis-recognitionwhen he writes,"Thewhite man has always liked this music,but he has liked it as a thing apart"(232).A music that "demandsresponse,"ragtimecan never be "athing apart." tstropingof time expos-




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es the falsityof any time detached fromthe rhythmof sociallife,much as thetropingof time and sublimationper-formedby Johnson'snovel laysbarethe structuresof dominanceatworkinthe sublimatingacceptanceof thismusic.Inthe dialecticbetweenthe rag-time of the narratorand the "grim,relentlesstyrant"who commands tsperformance, ohnsonshows us thecomplexmixture of embraceand dis-avowal that the dynamicsof AfricanAmerican iteratureand music mustalwaysconfront f they areto be heardfor what they are,and not as "athingapart."Thisliteratureand this musicare both formsthat "demandresponse,"and the response theydemandis a participationn their tem-poralmovement,a responsethatsetsasideassumptionsaboutthe move-ment of time and the relationshipbetweenperformer,performance,andaudience.To assumethat these workscan be fit into existenttemporal

schemas without requiringany revi-sion of these schemas is to miss what ismost essentialaboutthem,and to jointhe patron n his attemptto "blotout"or escapefromtime.

CODA

of the power of Johnson'snovel derivesfrom its affilia-tionwith the improvisationalrhythmsof ragtime.To do full justiceto theimperativesof the novel any analysis,includingthis one, would have tomove from the realm of the strictly it-erary nto the realm of musicbyattempting o come to termswith themanipulationsof time and formatwork in the performancesof figureslikeJamesP.Johnson,EubieBlake,andWillie "TheLion"Smith.

1 Suggestive of the narrator's status as an object is the patron's practice of occasionally "loan[ing]" Noteshim out "tosome of his friends"(120).2. The best referent for what Johnson calls ragtime in the novel is probably the improvisatorystridestyle of James P. Johnson, rather than the more formal notated music of Scott Joplin. See Brown andFell and Vinding. Note that the wordjazz did not come into widespread use until 1913, a year afterThe Autobiography was first published. Before 1913, the term "ragtime"was used to refer to almostall improvised African American music. Many musicians (particularlySidney Bechet) never adoptedthe term jazz and referred to everything we now thinkof as jazz as "ragtime."3. Mycharacterization of this time as one of entanglement and imbrication owes much to Baraka stheorization of jazz rhythmin the essays cited below. Italso is informed by Mbembe's reflections ontime in On the Postcolony, where he describes the "timeof entanglement" as "an interlocking of pre-sents, pasts, and futures that retain their depths of other presents, pasts, and futures, each age bear-ing, altering and maintaining the previous ones" (16).Although Mbembe is most explicitly concerned with African rather than African American modes ofsociality, his theories of the conceptual formations growing out of the interactions of African andEuropean culture are not without relevance to jazz and ragtime. Also, insofar as he is indebted to thework of Leopold Senghor, who was never reticent about his debt to and intellectual affinitywith jazz,Mbembe can be seen as standing partially in the tradition of ragtime temporality. Mbembe spokeabout the influence of Senghor's work on his own in the third of his Wellek LibraryLectures, given atUC Irvinein February of 2004.4. This disclaimer is important because the cyclical/linear distinction, like the distinction betweenoralityand literacy, partakes of the romance of the primitive.As Snead points out, there is no modernculture whose conception of time does not incorporate both the cylical and the linear. A purely cycli-cal time can exist only in a static, agrarianculture, the kind of culture usually figured as pre-modern.When Johnson was writing,no musics in the world were more modern than jazz and ragtime.5. On the presence of Africanisms in ragtime, jazz, and African American music in general, seeMaultsby; Floyd chapters 1-2; Stuckey chapter 1; Schuller chapter 1; and Jones chapters 1-3. For avaluable reminder of the dangers of overemphasis on Africanisms in African American traditions, seeHartman 223n102 and 223n1 12. On Euro-American and African American forms and cultural tradi-

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tions, cf. Wilson's observation that "cultural interaction more than culture isolation has characterizedthe American experience" (83).6. Foremost of these critics is Washington, whose essay I have read with profit. However,Washington reads the classical aspirations of Johnson's narrator as the expression of a "mulatto-cen-tered, American nationalism"; my reading differs significantly. See also Ruotolo.7. Although the narrator never explicitly names his planned work a "symphony," both the epicscope he envisions for this work and his self-aggrandizing tendencies make it clear that it can benothing less. His aim is to "voice all the dreams, all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, ofthe American Negro, in classic musical form" (147-48); nothing less than the broad structural andinstrumental resources of the symphony will suffice. The symphony is the most prestigious form ofthe classical tradition with which the narrator becomes enamored, and, as Washington notes,"Johnson's protagonist was not interested in recording an expert musician's neo-spiritual . . . but wasreaching for the top of the musical hierarchy as both Locke and Johnson understood it"(253). Clearlyrelevant here is Dvorak's New World Symphony, a work that Johnson knew well. Although Edwardssuggests this symphony as a possible influence on Johnson's poem "The Creation" (587), Johnson'saesthetics suggest his interest in a much greater role for African American music than that played bya truncated version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in Dvorak's symphony. See Burgett for an analysisof the limited role this spiritual plays in New World Symphony (30-33).8. Like the claimants of modernity that Habermas describes, the patron refuses to take his "orienta-tion from the models supplied by another epoch" (Habermas 7). While the patron stands for a particu-lar version of modernity, this does not mean that either the narrator or his music stands for any pre-or anti-modernity. What Johnson alludes to in his employment of ragtime is another form of moderni-ty: one not based on racial exclusions and suppressions of the past.9. The works of William Grant Still, James P. Johnson, Nathaniel Dett, Scott Joplin, and othersillustrate that an entirely other relationship between classical form and African American music ispossible. What stops the narrator from practicing what Baker calls "the deformation of mastery" is hisassumption that classical form is neutral (Baker 50). Without his susceptibility to the ideological forceof his patron's ideals, the narrator could have approached classical form in the same way thatJohnson approached novelistic form, with a wariness in service of de-forming and re-forming it so asto make it do an entirely unprecedented and untraditional type of cultural work. Gates observes thesimilarity between Johnson's use of the novel and his narrator's use of the symphony in a 1989 intro-duction to The Autobiography (x-xi).10. Johnson implies that the musical "materials" of the South appear to the narrator as commodi-ties, that is, as exhaustible objects that use degrades. Subjected to a commodifying gaze that seesthem through the lenses of sublimating time, these practices are divorced from a participatory time inwhich repetition enhances their vitality, and refigured in accordance with time as a force that can onlycorrode this vitality. The narrator's excitement over the "freshness" of the music he encounters in theSouth is roughly analogous to the patron's attempt to preserve the freshness of the narrator's rag-time: the patron prohibits the narrator from playing his music for anyone besides him and his guests(120). Once the narrator adopts the patron's belief in time as sublimation, everything he encountersappears to him only as objects subject to decay.1 1 . The metaphor that Johnson employs shows that the sublimation under consideration is morePaterian than it is Freudian. P. Anderson gives a thorough description of the presence of the rhetoricof sublimation in the writings of Harlem Renaissance intellectuals and of the debt this rhetoric owes tothe writings of Walter Pater (47-54, 147-50).12. The narrator's view of the creative process as purification is one shared by Alain Locke. In a1928 article suggestively entitled "Beauty Instead of Ashes," Locke describes the "full promise" ofAfrican American music as lying in the future production of "sublimated and precious things" afterwhich what he calls "the folk temperament" will scarcely be recognizable. The similarity between thenarrator's position and Locke's indicates how widespread is the position that Johnson critiques in hisnovel, even among African American intellectuals. Like the patron, Locke is unable to meet jazz orragtime on its own terms; in Sterling Brown's words, "For Locke, if Stravinsky liked it, it had to begood. And that's bad" (qtd. in Anderson 195). Cf. Du Bois's assertion that the "artcoming from blackfolk is going to be just as beautiful, and beautiful largely in the same ways, as the art that comes fromwhite folk" ("Criteria" 496). Even Johnson himself was not immune to this position: when he envi-sioned turning God's Trombones into a kind of oratorio, he turned to the British composer ConstantLambert, despite the fact that he was well aware of the wealth of musical talent in his own city.Johnson actually knew James P. Johnson, William Grant Still, and others more than capable of turn-ing his work into a magnificent oratorio, and yet he turned to a classical composer whom he hadnever met. Lambert declined Johnson's offer, and God's Trombones has never been set to music(Johnson to Lambert).13. Here we are in the realm of the sharpest incompatibility between the sublimating time of the




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patron and the rhythms of ragtime. Ragtime temporality is not reducible to Africantime, but the oppo-sition between what Adorno describes and Mbiti'sdescription of African time-conceptions is illustra-tive of the divergence between the impetus of the narrator'sragtime and the ideas about time that thenarratoradopts from his patron. Mbitiasserts, "When Africans reckon time, it is for a concrete andspecific purpose, in connection with events but not just for the sake of mathematics" (17). The Africanheritage in the narrator'sstyle of improvisatory ragtime resides in its construction of time out of a spe-cific purpose and in negotiation with the events and the participants it interacts with. This time is notdistilled from experience but is a coefficient of experience that revises itself in accordance with itsconditions of performance. Benston identifies this "insistently revisionary impulse" injazz perfor-mance (115-16). See also Schuller's comments on the more precise time-sense required in what hecalls "socially-functioning music,"a term he applies to both jazz and traditionalAfrican music (7n8,15-27).14. This aversion to the new is supported by the pronounced tendency of Western philosophy tofocus on time's corrosive force: Locke calls time "aperpetual perishing," Schopenhauer defines it as"thatby the power of which everything at every instant turns to nothing in our hands," and Aristotlestates that it "is in itself above all cause of corruption" Zuckerkandl223, Negri 164). Cf. Mbiti'sdescription of a time that "has to be created or produced." Kept alive in the tradition that informs thenarrator'sragtime is a construction of time in which "Man s not a slave of time; instead, he 'makes' asmuch time as he wants" (Mbiti 19).15. Washington argues convincingly that Johnson's naming of Singing Johnson and John Brown,actual practitionersof Johnson's day, is an attempt to rectifythe kind of unacknowledged borrowingthat the narratorseems to have in mind and that is even criticized in The Autobiography. "Several ofthese improvisations were taken down by white men, the words slightly altered, and published underthe names of the arrangers. They sprang into immediate popularityand earned small fortunes, ofwhich the Negro originators got only a few dollars"(qtd. in Washington 251). Johnson names SingingJohnson in his preface to The Book of American Negro Spirituals(22-23).16. Inthe preface to the Book of American Negro Spirituals, Johnson is very direct about the inabil-ityof musical notation to capture the "peculiarities"of African American performance: "Idoubt that it ispossible with our present system of notation to make a fixed transcription of these peculiarities thatwould be absolutely true; for in their very nature they are not susceptible to fixation"(30).17. In recent years, the validityof Adorno's criticalwritings on music has been seriously chal-lenged. Critics like Rosen have taken Adorno to task for, among other things, his lack of attention topreclassical music and for his sometimes savage, and, in Rosen's view, baseless, denunciation ofmusic from outside the central European classical tradition Cf. Baumeister and Powell's response toRosen. However, to my knowledge, no critics have taken issue with Adorno's characterization of theway that the sonata form of the classical symphony treats development and shapes time.Myuse of Adorno in this essay is a limited one. Ido not embrace the entirety, or even the majority,of his criticaloeuvre; Imerely utilize his description of the time-consciousness of the symphony tohighlight the complicity between the treatment of time in classical development and the temporalityassumed by certain forms of racial subordination.18. Although the symphony in its canonical form militates for a progressive and unidirectionaltime,it is not without its own polyvalence. For a treatment of some of the other ways in which the sympho-ny works on listeners, see Said chapter 2, "Onthe Transgressive Elements in Music."19. InMackey's words, Every concept, no matter how figural or sublime, had its literal,dead letteraspect" (Bedouin Hornbook 201-02).20. Floyd contrasts this emphasis on surprise with a "European musical orientation,"pointing outthat in improvised African American musical forms like ragtime, "the howoi a performance is moreimportantthan the what."Eschewing "nostalgia"and a "preference"for the familiar, the "musicalexperience of ragtime orients itself around the expectation that an unprecedented "something willhappen in the playing of the music" (96-97).21. The patron s appreciation of the music as something novel and exotic shows his participation inthe primitivism hat characterizes many responses to jazz and ragtime. For accounts of this primi-tivism and its distorted vision of the music, see Paul Allen Anderson (especially chapter 2), Ogren,and Maureen Anderson.22. This pessimism is shared by many of the major Anglo-American modernists. Eliot refers to "theimmense panorama of futilityand anarchy which is contemporary history" 177) while Pound writesthat "atawdry cheapness shall outlast our days" (186).23. The patron's refusal to dance is, of course, only a figure for his nonparticipation in the time ofthe narrator'smusic. There are ways of dancing that uphold this nonparticipation and sublimatedmastery as well as the patron's blunt immobility.Baraka suggests as much in the distinction he makes between dance as performed in the "black

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aesthetic" and in "ArthurMurray ootsteps" ("The'Blues Aesthetic'" 107). Hughes makes a similar dis-tinction between hearing and listening at the end of "TheNegro Artist and the Racial Mountain."Atstake in both cases is not any specific physical action, but whether or not the listener or dancer openshimself to the time and rhythmperformed in jazz or ragtime.24. Mackey: "Musicwants us to know that truths are variable"("Statement" 717).

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Aglietta, Michel. A Theory of Capitalist Regulation. London: New Left Books, 1997.Anderson Maureen. "TheWhite Reception of Jazz in America." African American Rewew38 (Spring2004): 135-45.Anderson, Paul Allen. Deep River: Music and Memory in Harlem Renaissance Thought. Durham:Duke UP 2001.Attali, Jacques. Noise. Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota P, 1985.Baker, Jr., Houston A. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.Baraka, Amiri."The 'Blues Aesthetic' and the 'Black Aesthetic': Aesthetics as the Continuing PoliticalHistory of a Culture."Black Music Research Journanj\ .2 (1991): 101-09.- . Rhythm and Rime."Newark, NJ: Kimako's Blues People, n.d.- . "Sun Ra." AfricanAmerican Rewew29 (Summer 1995): 253-55.Baldwin, James. "Of he Sorrow Songs: The Cross of Redemption." New Edinburgh ReviewAnthology. Ed. James Campbell. Edinburgh: Polygon Books, 1982. 85-92.Baumeister, Thomas, and Larson Powell. "AdoringAdorno." New YorkReview of Books 50.2(13 Feb. 2003): 82-84.Benston, Kimberly. Performing Blackness: Enactments of African-AmericanModernism. New York:Routledge, 2000.Brown, Scott. James P. Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Scarecrow 1986.Burgett, Paul. "Vindicationas a Thematic Principle in the Writingsof Alain Locke on the Music ofBlack Americans." Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance. Ed. Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. Westport, CT:Greenwood P, 1990. 29-39.Du Bois, W. E. B. Black Reconstruction inAmerica. New York:Atheneum, 1977.- . "Criteria f Negro Art."The New Negro Renaissance: An Anthology. Eds. ArthurP. Davis andMichael W. Peplow. New York:Holt, Rinehart &Winston, 1975: 190-97.Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. 1912. Trans. Carol Cosman. New York:Oxford UP, 2001.Edwards, Brent Hayes. "TheSeemingly Eclipsed Window of Form:James Weldon Johnson'sPrefaces." O'Meally 580-601.Eliot,T. S. "'Ulysses', Order and Myth."1923. Selected Prose of T S. Eliot. Ed. Frank Kermode. NewYork:Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975. 177-78.Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other. New York:Columbia, 1983.Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. 1929. New York:Random House, 1984.Fell, John L., and TerkildVinding. Stride: Fats, Jimmy, Lion, Lamb and The Other Ticklers. NewBrunswick, NJ: Scarecrow, 1999.Floyd, Jr., Samuel A.. The Power of Black Music. Oxford:Oxford UP, 1995.Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Introduction. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. By James WeldonJohnson. 1912. New York:Vintage, 1989.Habermas, Jurgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures. Trans. FrederickLawrence. Cambridge: MITP, 1987.Hanchard, Michael. "Afro-Modernity: emporality, Politics, and the African Diaspora." Public Culture11.1 (1999): 245-68.Handy, W. C. Father of the Blues. New York: Macmillan, 1944.Hartman, Saidiya. Scenes of Subjection: Terror,Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica. New York:Oxford UP, 1997.Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain."1926. Voices From the HarlemRenaissance. Ed. Nathan Huggins. New York:Oxford UP, 1976. 305-09.Hurston, Zora Neale. "Characteristics of Negro Expression." 1934. O'Meally 298-310.Johnson, James Weldon. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. 1912. New York:Hilland Wang,1960.- , ed. Book of American Negro Poetry. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1931 .- , and J. Rosamund Johnson. Book of American Negro Spirituals. 1925. New York:Da Capo, 1991.




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Johnson to Lambert,February 1931: James Weldon Johnson Papers. Beinecke Lib.,New Haven,CT.Jones, Leroi. Blues People. New York:MorrowQuill Paperbacks, 1963.Locke, Alain. The New Negro. 1925. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.Mackey, Nathaniel. Bedouin Hornbook. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon P, 1997.- . "Sound and Sentiment, Sound and Symbol." O'Meally 580-601.- . "Statement for Breaking Ice." Callaloo 23.2 (2000): 717.Maultsby, Portia. "WestAfrican Influences and Retentions in U.S. Black Music: A SocioculturalStudy." More Than Dancing: Essays on Afro-American Music and Musicians. Ed. Irene V. Jackson.Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1985. 25-55.Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony. Trans. A. M. Berrett,et al. Berkeley: U of California P, 2001 .Mbiti,John S. African Religions and Philosophy. London: Henemann International,1969.Mullin,Michael J. Africa inAmerica: Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South andthe British Caribbean 1736-1831. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1992.Murray,Albert. "Improvisationand the Creative Process." O'Meally 111-16.Negri, Antonio. Time For Revolution. Trans. Matteo Mandarini. New York: Continuum, 2003.Ogren, Kathy. The Jazz Revolution. Oxford UP, 1989.O'Meally, Robert G., ed. The Jazz Cadence of American Culture. New York: Columbia UP, 1998.Pound, Ezra. "HughSelwyn Mauberly."1920. Personae. Eds. Lea Baechler and A. Walton Lintz.NewYork: New Directions, 1990. 183-95.Rosen, Charles. "Should We Adore Adorno?" New YorkReview of Books 49.6 (24 Oct. 2002): 59-65.Ruotolo, CristinaL. "James Weldon Johnson and the Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Musician."American Literature72.2 (2000): 249-74.Said, Edward. Musical Elaborations. Columbia UP, 1991.Schuller, Gunther. EarlyJazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. New York: Oxford UP, 1968.Snead, James. "Repetitionas a Figure of Black Culture."O'Meally62-81.Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans. New York: Norton, 1983.Stuckey, Sterling. Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America. NewYork: Oxford UP, 1987.Washington, Salim. "Of Black Bards, Known and Unknown."Callaloo 25.2 (2002): 233-56.Wilson, Oily. "Black Music as an Art Form."O'Meally 82-101.Zuckerkandl, Victor. Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World.Vol. 1 Trans. WillardTrask.New York: Pantheon, 1956.

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