表演他者、他種表演者，馬克·吐溫和伊麗莎白·科斯特洛

羅艾琳

（臺(tái)灣淡江大學(xué)）

表演他者、他種表演者，馬克·吐溫和伊麗莎白·科斯特洛

羅艾琳

（臺(tái)灣淡江大學(xué)）

格雷厄姆·哈根和海倫·蒂芬在其著作《后殖民生態(tài)批評(píng)：文學(xué)、動(dòng)物、環(huán)境》的后半部，引用了馬喬里·斯皮格爾的《可怕的對(duì)比：人類和動(dòng)物奴隸制》，該部分聚焦于后殖民生態(tài)批評(píng)文學(xué)中種族主義和物種歧視之間的意識(shí)形態(tài)關(guān)聯(lián)性。本文旨在分別通過種族主義、動(dòng)物研究的角度，研讀馬克·吐溫的《哈克貝利·費(fèi)恩歷險(xiǎn)記》和約翰·馬克斯維爾·庫(kù)切的《伊麗莎白·科斯特洛》，重新審視表演他者之身份與他種表演者之間的關(guān)聯(lián)。為此，本文還討論了早期動(dòng)物研究的奠基之作——喬治·阿甘本的《開放：人與動(dòng)物》以及卡夫卡的短篇小說《一份致某科學(xué)院的報(bào)告》。

動(dòng)物研究；種族研究；阿甘本；庫(kù)切；卡夫卡

Keywords：animal studies；race studies；Agamben；Coetzee；Kafka

Notes on Author：Iris Ralph is an Assistant Professor in the English Department of Tamkang University．Her areas of research include Australian literature，English literature，US-American literature，animal studies，posthumanism and ecocriticism．

Performing Others，Other Performers，Mark Twain，and Elizabeth Costello

The critical reputation of Samuel Langhorne Clemens（who wrote under the pseudonym of Mark Twain）（1835 1910）as one of the greatest humorists in American literature—a writer who made the hoax a“philosophical principle，”the homespun tale a hard fact，and the lie an“art form”Eric J．Sundquist，“Introduction，”．，eds．Eric J．Sundquist，Englewood Cliffs（Upper Saddle River，New Jersey：Prentice Hall，1994），4．—cracked about twenty years ago． Clemens adopted the pseudonym of Mark Twain in 1863．He borrowed it from a riverboat term for the river depth of“two fathoms deep”water，or“safe water，”Nina Baym，Gen，ed．“Mark Twain（Samuel L．Clemens），1835 1910，”7th edition（New York，London：W．W．Norton，2008），1270 1273．Twain scholars argued not only that Twain relied heavily on blackface minstrelsy performance in writing

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

，but also that this performance tradition was profoundly racist．The novel，Twain's most famous writing，was censored when it was first published in 1884 on the grounds that its language and content were not suitable reading material for young AmericansMyra Jehlen，“Banned in Concord：and Classic American Literature，”，ed．Forrest G．Robinson（Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，1995），93．，but it steadily rose in status and，in the period after World War II，Twain became one of America's greatest

belles lettres

figures．This changed in 1992，when acrimonious debate about the racist content of the novel flared up in schools and universities across the United States．One of the key figures in this debate was John H．Wallace，a public school administrator who campaigned to strike the book f rom school reading lists on the grounds that the character of the black slave Jim was a deeply racistconstruction． David Lionel Smith，“Black Critics and Mark Twain，”，ed．Forrest G．Robinson（Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，1995），121．In pointing to the appearance in the novel of the slur word and racial epithet“nigger，”Wallace argued，further，that

Huckleberry Finn

was“the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written”． John H．Wallace，“The Case Against．”？，eds．James S．Leonard，Thomas A．Tenney，and Thadious M．Davis．（Durham，North Carolina：Duke University Press，1992），16．Although the controversy did not topple Twain's literary reputation，the outcomes of it were immediate and lasting．Today，no Twain scholar can avoid or dismiss the issue of the question of Twain's racism．As Eric J．Sundquist states in the introduction to a collection of essays published in 1994，

Huckleberry Finn

will never again be given the“the unquestioned place”that it once had“in the schooling of young American readers”． Eric J．Sundquist，Introduction．．，eds．Eric J．Sundquist and Englewood Cliffs（New Jersey：Prentice Hall，1994），12．Book-length studies of Twain that relate to the question of whether or not Twain was guilty of endorsing racial stereotypes rather than ahead of his time in satirizing them include studies of the performance art of blackface minstrelsy．Robert C．Toll's early important study

Blacking Up:The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America

（1974） Robert C．Toll，（New York：Oxford University Press，1974）．is one of the first of these studies．In another study，

Was Huck Black?Mark Twain and African-American Voices

（1993） Shelley Fisher Fishkin，（New York：Oxford University Press，1993）．，Shelley Fisher Fishkin，makes the argument，as does Eric Lott in a slight later writing entitled

Love and Theft:Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class

（1995） Eric Lott，（New York：Oxford University Press，1995）．，that blackface minstrelsy was an“inherently racist enterprise”． Shelley Fisher Fishkin，（New York：Oxford University Press，1993），92．Fishkin states this as follows：“the fact that white minstrels may have gathered Af rican-American material for their shows did not prevent them from transforming that material into productions that demeaned blacks in the nineteenth century，and whose legacy continues to plague African Americans to this day”．As Fishkin also argues，Twain“shared”with many ofhis contemporaries including some who were“most outspoken on issues of racial injustice，”a“l(fā)argely uncritical response to this most American of institutions”． Shelley Fisher Fishkin，（New York：Oxford University Press，1993），92．Other scholars including W．T．Lhamon，Jr．，the author of a study entitled

Raising Cain:Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop

（1998），would add to the arguments of Fishkin and Lott with respect to the origins of blackface．The main point that Lhamon makes in his study is that the minstrelsy show that turned the wheels of racism in the United States was neither white nor black in cultural origin but a hybridization of both black and white culture．The twentieth-century modernist writer Ralph Ellison made a similar claim．In an interview of Ellison by Fishkin，he argued that minstrelsy cannot be traced back through one putatively pure black or white American culture．Minstrelsy shows demeaned blacks，but the blackface minstrel white“fellows”who parodied African-American speech and identity were also changed by their exposure to and experience of African-American speech and identity． Shelley Fisher Fishkin，（New York：Oxford University Press，1993），90．If their purpose“was to make［African-American］speech comic” Ralph Ellison，“Interview by Shelley Fisher Fishkin”．16 July，1991．New York City；Shelley Fisher Fishkin，（New York：Oxford University Press，1993），90．，this speech influenced the white dialect that they spoke as well as the white identity and white culture that they had inherited at birth．The consequence（as in the case of white plantation culture in contact with black slave culture in the antebellum south）is an American speech and identity that one cannot effortlessly separate along the lines of race．Blackface performance“burst”upon the scene of Twain's own hometown，Hannibal，Missouri，in the early 1840s Eric Lott， “Mr Clemens and Jim Crow：Twain，Race，and Blackface，”，ed．Forrest G．Robinson（Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，1995），129．，the decade during which the action of

Huckleberry Finn

takes place．（As scholars note，Twain sets the novel in either the 1830s or the 1840s．Nina，Gen Baym，ed．“Mark Twain（Samuel L．Clemens），1835 1910．”．Gen．ed．Nina Baym．Shorter 7th edition（New York，London：W．W．Norton，2008），1270 1273．）When Twain left Hannibal for New York in 1853，one of the most popular blackface minstrelsy troupes，Christy's Minstrel's，was enjoying an“extraordinary eight-year run”（1846 1854）in New York at the Mechanics'Hall． Eric Lott， “Mr Clemens and Jim Crow：Twain，Race，and Blackface，”，ed．Forrest G．Robinson（Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，1995），129．Twain scholars today concur that the character in the novel of Jim，a runaway slave，is modeled on blackface performances．In the nineteenth century，these performances were usually staged by a small band of white men“armed with banjo，fiddle，tambourine，and bone castanets and arrayed in blackface makeup and ludicrous dress”．The performers opened with“assorted songs，breakdowns，and gags，”followed with“an‘olio’portion of novelty acts such as malapropistic stump speeches or parodic‘lectures，’”and concluded with“a burlesque skit set in the South”．The southern-born Clemens was drawn to blackface minstrelsy all his life and he drew on it both consciously and habitually in his writings，including foremost in the writing of

Huckleberry Finn

，a narrative set in the antebellum south that centers on Jim，a black slave，and Huck Finn，a poor white boy from Hannibal，Missouri（a state that straddled the political boundaries of“the South”）．The two are thrown together by circumstances of class and race and travel down the Mississippi River on a raft．By mistake，they miss the riverboat junction at the town of Cairo，which would put them on the Ohio River and take them north to the free states．They are literally and metaphorically carried back south．Jim eventually learns that he has been legally freed by his owner；Huck decides to leave“the South”and head to Indian Territory，west of the Mississippi River．Regardless of which side scholars lean towards with respect to the question of Twain's racism，those who focus on the subject of influence of blackface concur that Twain heavily relied on this racist performance tradition in his construction of Jim．Whether they recoil at Twain's use of blackface and allege that it belittles the African-American slave or whether they see Twain's use of it as largely constructive or recuperative and argue that Twain was far ahead of his time in brilliantly satirizing nineteenth-century white racist stereotypes of black people，they concur that one cannot understand the character of Jim without some knowledge about blackface performance．In

Was Huck Black?Mark

Twain and African-American Voices

，F(xiàn)ishkin claims，further，that the central character of the novel，the eponymous hero who steals the show，Huck Finn，was not based only on a poor white southern identity．The speech of this character，as Fishkin argues，is based on a black dialect of English．Prior to Fishkin's study，scholars had taken for granted that the character of Huck was white．As Fishkin argues，Twain modeled this character，one of the most beloved of figures in American literature，on both a poor white boy，Tom Blankenship，and on the speech of a black boy called Jimmy who had waited on Twain at a hotel supper．Huck's character，as she also argues，additionally may have been inspired by“Jerry，”a black slave whom Twain met when he was fifteen years old Shelley Fisher Fishkin，（New York：Oxford University Press，1993），54．，as well as on the many black people whom Twain knew，admired，grew up with，and sought to imitate in his many years of living in the south where the black population outnumbered the white population in many areas．According to this now highly respected reading，the character of Huck is a“mulatto”who can“pass”as a white．Today，few scholars would defend

Huckleberry Finn

as a satire of white per formance of black identity without also acknowledging that the novel peters precariously on the edge of endorsing racist stereotypes and in many instances topples over that edge and does endorse them．If，as Lott has famously stated，Twain succeeded in doing what no other white author had done before him，producing a“simultaneous inhabitance and critique”of racist culture，he also succeeded in writing a fiction that is“scabrous，unassimilable，and perhaps unteachable”． Eric Lott，“Mr Clemens and Jim Crow：Twain，Race，and Blackface，”，ed．Forrest G．Robinson（Cambridge：Cambridge Unversity Press，1995），141．The modernist writer Ernest Hemingway said in an earlier and equally famous statement about Twain，“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called

Huckleberry Finn

”．Richard Bridgman，（New York：Oxford University Press，1966），5 6．Based on Lott's and others'scholarship，one can add to Hemingway's judgment that all modern American literature，including Twain's fictions，have been deeply contoured by，and contorted，African-American culture，experience，history，andidentity．A subject of a controversy in the 1980s over the purchasing by a western company of a brand of toothpaste that was and continues to be sold today in Hong Kong，Taiwan，and China，and in other Asian countries can be critically tied to the foregoing discussion of Twain and blackface performance．As recounted by investigative journalist Alecia Swasi in her book

Soap Opera

（1993），in 1985，the United States-based company Colgate purchased the toothpaste named“Darkie”from a company based in Hong Kong：Hawley and Hazel Chemical Company．The brand“sported a logo of a black-faced caricature—a wide-eyed，smiling，dark-skinned，black male，complete with top hat”．Colgate's rival company Proctor and Gamble capitalized on the potential problems Colgate faced．The product logo evoked one of the most famous blackface performers of the twentieth century，Al Jolson．In addition，the product name，“Darkie，”was a racist epithet for African Americans．Jolson is most famous for his performance in the early sound film（1927），the only film released between 1927 and 1953 in which blackface is central to the narrative development of the film（Willis 127）．Jolson plays the character of Jakie Rabinowitz，a Jewish-American who is estranged from his Jewish identity and culture and performs white American identity，assuming the white-washed name“Jack Robin”as well as becoming a blackface performer．As Corin Willis agues，Jolson's performance of Rabinowitz performing blackface acutely registers the“stereotyped blackness of minstrelsy and the white performance of this blackness，”or what Lott calls，in describing black minstrelsy performance， “the seeming counterfeit”（111）．As W．T．Lhamon argues，Rabinowitz's performance of blackface plays havoc with at least“one ready”reductive and simplistic interpretation of the film，which interpretation is that the film is about the“eager replacement of ethnicity or Jewishness with whiteness”（107）．Additionally，for Willis（but not Lhamon and Lott），the performance of blackface by Jolson playing Rabinowitz functions as a critique of both the racism of blackface performance culture as well as the anti-Semitism of white American culture，Corin Willis，“Meaning and Value in（Alan Crosland，1927），”，ed．John Gibbs and Douglas Pye（Manchester：Manchester University Press，2005），137．Proctor and Gamble“showed a box of the toothpaste to the public relations firm Manning，Selva&Lee”in order to determine“how it could use［the］Darkie［toothpaste product］to portray Colgate as racist”without running the risk of being found guilty of running a“smear campaign”against Colgate．Alecia Swasy，（New York：Touchstone，1993），162．Manning，Selva&Lee refused to give advice，but Proctor and Gamble“got the news out in a surreptitious manner”and major newspapers including

The Wall Street Journal

covered the story． Alecia Swasy，（New York：Touchstone，1993），162．The television show“Late Night with David Letterman”also brought notice to the American public when the actor and comedian Eddie Murphy made an appearance and spoke out against Colgate．Although it took four years for Colgate to change the name and image of its product，it finally did so．In 1989，it renamed the product“Darlie”and it altered the image to a male figure with indeterminate racial features．Nonetheless，it retained the Mandarin name for the product， 黑 人 （hei ren），which means“black person．”Not all native speakers of Mandarin who are fluent in English and not all native speakers of English who are fluent in Mandarin might find the current labeling offensive．However，it is repugnant for at least some of these speakers，especially those who belong to the second group．Kwame Dougan，an African-Canadian living in China argues that the western company Colgate“should know better”than to continue to retail a product bearing a name and image that barely conceals the older name and image．Isaac Stone Fish，“China's Disputed Paste”（．6 Dec 2010），13．He is supported by such consumer advocacy groups as the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility，one of the organizations that originally pressured Colgate“to fix”its toothpaste product and now is recommending that the Darlie product be removed entirely from supermarket and mini-market shelves．

The Darlie toothpaste controversy ties to the issue of the performing of another's identity，or the performing of the“other．”It also ties to the issue of per formers who are other than human performers．Both issues are addressed by scholars who work within the area of literary and cultural studies of animal studies．The two issues coalesce around one of the most formidable and controversial binaries，the human/animal binary．This binary dictates，and draws attention to what it dictates：distinctions between humans and animals that serve to deny，repudiate，or misrepresent other-than-human animal beings，identities，subjectivities，consciousness，affective traits（for example，sadness and joy），and so forth．Giorgio Agamben is among the first scholars to drawattention to this binary．His book The Open:Man and Animal（2000），was published when animal studies was only just beginning to emerge as a disciplinary area of inquiry in its own right and it is now recognized as a foundation text of animal studies．

In interrogating the human/animal binary in

The Open:Man and Animal

，Agamben contrasts the figure of（what I will call）the

theriocentric

（animalcentric）thinker with that of the anthropocentric thinker．Two of the first kind of thinkers for Agamben are Alexander Kojeve，a Russian-born French philosopher（1902 1968），and Carolus Linnaeus，the“founder of modern taxonomy”．Another thinker who might be identified as such is the eponymous heroine of

Elizabeth Costello

，by the South-African born writer J．M．Coetzee．In one of the most important scenes of the novel，Costello，a middle-aged distinguished scholar from Australia who is on a lecture tour in the United States，delivers a lecture to a small group of academics and members of the public at a distinguished university in the United States．In her talk，as part of her questioning of the factory farming of animals and her comparing the factory farming of animals to the genocide of Jewish people in Germany under the Third Reich，she comments on a captive ape who performs“apeness，”or an“ape identity，”for his human captors．This ape identity，as Costello makes clear，is not the ape's own identity．It is a speciesist construction forced（by coercion，manipulation，fraud，and torture）upon the ape by the animal's human captors and it is analogous to the enslaved human who performs an identity expected of him by his human captors in order to survive and，as in the case of the ape to whom Costello refers，in order to save other members of his own family or species．Costello is a figure who，along with such figures as Linnaeus，represents a thinking that lies outside of mainstream humanist thought．The man/animal binary，one of many“dialectical structures”Alex Murray，（London：Routledge，2010），35．that Agamben interrogates in his writings，is the central focus of

The Open:Man and Animal

．Agamben points to the instances of the collapse of this binary in the context of early Western sacred texts and later Western secular texts．In“Theriomorphous，”the opening chapter，Agamben comments on a set of illustrations from a thirteenth century Hebrew Bible．The illustrations represent“the messianic banquet．．．on the last day”． Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），1．The distinguished human figures who sit at this banquet—the archons and deacons—men“who for their entire lives［have］observed the prescriptions of the Torah”—bear“animal heads”：

Here，not onIy do we recognize the eschatoIogicaI animaIs in the three figures on the right—the eagIe's fierce beak，the red head of the ox，and the Iion's head—but the other two righteous ones in the image aIso dispIay the grotesque features of an ass and the profiIe of a Ieopard．And in turn the two musicians have animaI heads as weII—in particuIar the more visibIe one on the right，who pIays a kind of fiddIe and shows an inspired monkey's face．

Agamben asks why the representatives of“concluded”humanity are shown，theriomorphically，as human figures with animal heads．He gives this oblique answer：

It is not impossibIe．．．that in attributing an animaIhead to the remnant of IsraeI，the artist of the manuscript．．．intended to suggest that on the Iast day，the reIations between animaIs and men wiII take on a new form，and that man himseIf wiIIbe reconciIed with his animaInature．

The eschatological and teleological argument that appears in an early sacred text that“man．．．will be reconciled with his animal nature，”as Agamben continues，reappears or is re-enacted in later texts including in the secular writings of the Russian-born French philosopher Alexander Kojeve（ 1902 1968）．Agamben refers to Kojeve in the second chapter of

The Open

，“Acephalous．”The titular word，which means headless，carries a reference to a contemporary of Kojeve's，Georges Bataille，a figure that I will comment on later．Agamben implicitly argues that the theriomorphic figure of a human animal with the head of a nonhuman animal is a potentially positive or redemptive figure and is represented in the theriocentric thinking of Kojeve．According to this implicit argument，he contrasts Kojeve's thinking with the anthropocentric thinking of（what I will call），respectively，the

cephalic

and

acephalic

thinkers of Hegel and Bataille．Kojeve had lectured on Hegel in the 1930s in Paris and his lectures were published under the title

Introduction to the Reading of Hegel:Lectures on the

“

Phenomenology of Spirit

”．Alex Murray，（London：Routledge，2010），34．In“Acephalous，”Agamben implicitly critiques Hegel's notion of transcendence and form of argumentation of dialectical thinking by referring to Kojeve's lectures．（Agamben is heavily indebted to Hegel；nonetheless he rejects a transcendental thinking．He explores Hegelian“dialectical structures，”but does not“［favor］a dialectical method as it will bring about a new future，as Marx or Hegel had in their respective ideas of the‘End of History’”．He is interested in these structures because they are dominant in our culture．）Agamben is not particularly interested in nonhuman animals except for how they illuminate the question of the human；however，his account of Kojeve is very useful for animal studies scholars in that it anticipates or implicitly looks forward to a political reality in which not only humans'place in the world is recognized but also other-than-human animals'place in the world．His reading of Kojeve's reading of Hegel in effect questions the anthropocentrism cradled in Hegel's notion of history．It is reflected in his quoting of this passage from Kojeve's lectures：The disappearance of Man at the end of History is not a cosmic catastrophe：the natural World remains what it has been from all eternity．And it is not a biological catastrophe either：Man remains alive as animal in

harmony

with Nature or given Being．What disappears is Man properly so called—that is．．．the Subject

opposed

to the Object．In point of fact，the end of human Time or History—that is the definitive annihilation of Man properly so called or of the free and historical Individual—means quite simply the cessation of Action in the strong sense of the term．Practically，this means：the disappearance of wars and bloody revolutions．And the disappearance of

PhiIosophy

，for since Man no longer changes himself essentially，there is no longer any reason to change the（true）principles which

are at the basis of his knowledge of the World and of himself． Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），6；Kojeve，Alexander．，ed．Allan Bloom，trans．James H．Nichols，Jr．Ithaca（N．Y．：Cornell University Press，1980），158 159．

In excerpting this passage from Kojeve's lectures，Agamben draws attention to the theriocentric thought found in them．Kojeve's representation of posthistory，or“the end of human Time or History，”is the moment or moments when the human“remains alive as animal，”in“

harmony

with Nature or given Being，”in the“natural”world（emphasis added）．This sighting of“Man at the end of History”both owes to and diverges from Hegel's．Hegel's is cast in the language of transcendence or in the logic of overcoming the present conditions and entities of“Man”and“the Natural World”by a new third entity and as yet not arrived condition．This position or condition synthesizes the previous two and in so doing it negates，transcends，or

overcomes

them．（In the Hegelian dialectical method of argumentation，a thesis is put forward which is countered with an antithesis，the opposition of and meeting between which results in a“new”synthesis or“new agreed”position．Murray，（London：Routledge，2010），35．）In excerpting passages from Kojeve's lectures，Agamben points to a thinker who theriocentrically unsettles Hegel's anthropocentric cephalic sighting of the posthistorical moment．A different kind of posthistory，or“new present” （as Murray characterizes this posthistoryis being imagined．In this new present，the human is open to

sharing

history with the nonhuman animal．In“Acephalous，”as Agamben suggests further，Hegel's cephalic understanding of and hope for“Man at the end of History”anthropocentrically complements the acephalic thinking of Georges Bataille，a“disciple-rival”of Kojeve． Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），9．In Agamben's cutting references to Bataille，Agamben implies that Kojeve's vision of the end of history（of reconciliation between the human and the animal）was unthinkable to Bataille．Several years after he attended Kojeve's lectures in Paris，Bataille founded the journal

Acephale

．The cover of the first issue（1936）bore an illustration by the surrealist artist Andre Masson，a drawing of a“naked，headless human figure”． Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），5．As Agamben implies，Bataille's understanding of history was conservatively humanist and Bataille used Masson's illustration to rebuke the non-anthropocentric，theriocentric thinking of Kojeve．Bataille and those who were part of a small group of anarchists active in Paris at the time，could not“at any cost”accept the nonhuman animal as part of human history：“the acephalous being glimpsed for an instance in their privileged experiences might have been neither human nor divine，but in no case could it be animal”．In Agamben's reading of Bataille's recoil from Kojeve，Agamben's implicit argument is that“man”and“animal”might not continue to be regarded as entities that“at any cost”are to be seen as irreconcilable．The illustration in the thirteenth-century bible and the lectures of Kojeve，as Agamben interprets these，represent that possibility，the posthistoric moment，or the moment（s）in history when the human no longer rejects the nonhuman animal．The“natural World remains”and both the nonhuman and human animal have rightful positions in it．In yet another chapter in

The Open

， “Between，”Agamben implicitly identifies another theriocentric thinker，Walter Benjamin．He refers to Benjamin's term“dialectic at a standstill”from the essay“One-Way Street．”Agamben quotes from Benjamin's essay as follows：“The mastery of nature（so the imperialists teach）is the sense of all technology．．．［But］technology is the mastery not of nature but mastery of the relation between nature and humanity． Walter Benjamin，“One-Way Street，”Trans．Edmund Jephcott，，．，，eds．Marcus Bullock and Michael W．Jennings（Cambridge：Harvard University Press，Belknap Press，1996）．Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），83．Agamben then asks，“What does［Benjamin's］‘mastery of the relation between nature and humanity’mean？” Giorgio Agamben，，Trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），83．To his own question，he answers：“That neither must man master nature nor nature man”．Agamben continues，citing from Benjamin：“Nor must both［the terms‘nature’and‘humanity’］be surpassed in a third term that would represent their dialecticalsynthesis”． Walter Benjamin，“One-Way Street，”trans．Edmund Jephcott，，．，，eds．Marcus Bullock and Michael W．Jennings（Cambridge：Harvard University Press，Belknap Press，1996），Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），83．He explains this as follows：

．．．a(chǎn)ccording to the Benjaminian modeIof“diaIectic at a standstiII，”what is decisive here is onIy the“between，”the intervaIor，we might say，the pIay between the two terms，their immediate consteIIation in a non-coincidence．The anthropoIogicaI machine no Ionger articuIates nature and man in order to produce the human through the suspension and capture of the inhuman． Giorgio Agamben，，Trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），83．

For Agamben，Benjamin's understanding of any two terms in a binary structure，such as“nature”and“humanity，”or“man”and“animal，”or“human”and“inhuman，”is not one that requires the dismissal of the second one（and second identity）．It is one that precisely by virtue of recognizing the binary relationship halts the synthesis or negation of one or other of the two identities；thereby it preserves both．Such halting，Agamben will go on to argue，is found in writing of another theriocentric thinker，Carolus Linnaeus，the“founder of modern scientific taxonomy”．

In“Taxonomies，”Agamben writes that Linnaeus's“genius”was“the irony”with which he did not record“any specific identifying characteristic”of the human animal species rather than in“the resoluteness”with which he placed

Homo sapiens

among the primate animal species．This thinker was“not ready to concede easily”to the theological notion that animals were essentially different from man because they“l(fā)acked a soul（Agamben 23）．“［S］urely，”Linnaeus says，“Descartes never saw an ape”． Carolus Linnaeus，（Lugduni Batavorum：Haak，1735），Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），23．In another writing by Linnaeus，a letter to a hostile critic，Linnaeus writes：“I ask you and the entire world to show me a generic difference between ape and man which is consistent with the principles of natural history．I most certainly do not know of any”．In a thirdwriting，

Menniskans Cousiner

（“Man's Cousins”），Linnaeus states，“．．．a(chǎn)s a naturalist I hardly know a single distinguishing mark which separates man from the apes，save for the fact that the latter have an empty space between their canines and their other teeth”． Carolus Linnaeus，（Lugduni Batavorum：Haak，1735），Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），24．As Agamben notes，although Linnaeus's magnum opus

Systema naturae

accelerated the“anthropological machine of humanism”after the eighteenth century，its author was not at all certain about the distinctions between human animals and nonhuman animals．Giorgio Agamben，，trans．Kevin Attell（Stanford：Stanford University Press，2004），29．The central concern of

The Open:Man and Animal

is the uncertainty（cultural and scientific）about what essentially distinguishes humans from other-than-human animals．This concern is found in the work of another writer who has also become a central figure for animal studies scholars，J．M．Coetzee．In Coetzee's novel

Elizabeth Costello

，the main character，similar to Linnaeus，has a“weakness”for apes，the animal species that Linnaeus placed closest to the human species．Also，similar to both Linnaeus and Kojeve，Costello is a figure who represents theriocentric thought in her questioning of distinctions between human and nonhuman animals including distinctions that are constructed by humans and forced upon other-than-human animals．Further，as a character，Costello also raises questions about

other

performers，namely performing animals，although less in the sense of animals that humans force to perform as a form of entertainment（dancing bears，parrots trained to speak a human language，dolphins incarcerated at SeaWorld，and so forth）—which is a serious concern nonetheless—and more in the sense of animals experimented upon in order to determine how similar these animals are to humans．As Costello's character intimates，this approach to the animal betrays a profoundly anthropocentric bias towards the human．In a public lecture delivered before an audience in the United States，Costello refers to the German psychologist Wolfgang K?hler's study

The Mentality of Apes

，an actual and very important study of chimpanzees（who are members of the ape species）that was first published in Germany in 1917．She suggests that the study might have been familiar to the German-Jewish writer Franz Kafka and the inspiration for a short writing by Kafka entitled“Reportto an Academy”．This writing also is an actual writing and was also published in 1917 in Germany．As Costello argues，the experiments that K?hler and other humans performed on the ape whom they called Sultan，in order to determine what feats the animal was capable of performing，proved merely to show the least of the animal's cognitive and other animal capacities．The experiments betrayed not the lack of sophistication or limitation of the（other-than-human）animal but rather the shortcomings，including the lack of imagination，of the human（animal）．Sultan's human captors cajole，bully，and torture him to perform acts that are not of his own choosing and reflect certain human capacities．Moreover，they then conclude that those acts are the limits of his own species'capacities．At every turn SuItan is driven［by his human captors］to think the Iess interesting thought．．．he is reIentIessIy propeIIed towards Iower，practicaI，instrumentaI reason．．．a(chǎn)nd thus towards acceptance of himseIf as primariIy an organism with an appetite that needs to be satisfied．AIthough his entire history，from the time his mother was shot and he was captured，through his voyage in a cage to imprisonment on this isIand prison camp［Tenerife］and the sadistic games that are pIayed around food here，Ieads him to ask questions about the justice of the universe and the pIace of this penaI coIony in it，a carefuIIy pIotted psychoIogicaI regimen conducts him

away

from ethics and metaphysics towards the humbIer reaches of practicaI reason．

Costello then turns to Kafka's story about an ape named Red Peter who has become proficient in the speech，habits，and gestures of humans also in order to survive．She describes Red Peter as follows：

Measure the distance back from Kafka's ape，with his bow tie and dinner jacket and wads of Iecture notes，to that sad train of captives traiIing around the compound in Tenerife．How far Red Peter has traveIIed！Yet we are entitIed to ask：In return for the prodigious overdeveIopment of the inteIIect he has achieved，in return for his command of Iecture-haII etiquette and academic rhetoric，what has he had to give up？

As Costello's words imply，Red Peter has had to give up a great deal．Similar tothe historical Sultan kept in captivity for years，Red Peter performs“the human”in order to survive．He is the“other per former．”Elizabeth Costello，as a woman，and especially as a speaker who speaks publicly against eating meat，is a character that also functions as an“other”performer．This aspect of her identity is vividly realized by the（Polish）Nowy Theatre's adaptation of scenes fromin its brilliant production（）．The play also incorporates scenes from Euripides'，Aeschylus's，Hanna Krall's，Jonathan Littell's（Gallimard-Jeunesse，2006），Marek Edelman's，and Rabidranath Tagore's，Trans．Devabrata Mukherjee（New York：The Macmillan Company，1914）．

Twain scholars continue to be divided between the argument that in

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

，its white southern author participated in and endorsed the political and social inequities of his times and the argument that Twain used his novel to vituperatively critique racism．Some might continue to argue that the novel is an exemplary writing that exposes the hypocrisy of American ideals of justice and liberty．Others will agree that Twain was a“purveyor”of racial stereotypes．Still others will find that the real Twain-Clemens lies somewhere in between．As Eric Sundquist has argued，the question of Twain's racism might be best evaluated by neither excusing nor highlighting it．Rather，it might be seen as a product of“all of Twain's own self-lacerating complexities，his outrage against the crude racism of his day joined to his seeming inability to escape its effects completely”．Eric J．Sundquist，“Introduction，”，ed．Eric J．Sundquist（Englewood Cliffs，New Jersey：Prentice Hall，1994），12．Nonetheless，

Huckleberry Finn

is a novel in which the central black character of Jim is a deeply reductive portrait of Af rican-American identity．

Elizabeth Costello

is a novel that addresses the issue of false performances in the context of other performers，namely，animal performers，in particular animal performers displaying an identity forced upon them by humans，which humans then conclude to be the animals'own identity．Coetzee's novel，and the story by Kafka that is referred to in

Elizabeth Costello

，in the scene where Costello comments on the character of Red Peter，provokes very disturbing yet important ethical questions about performing others'identities and other performers'identities．

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（2010），authors Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin reference Marjorie Spiegel's book

The Dreaded Comparison:Human and Animal Slavery

（1988）．They do so in the second half of their book，which focuses on the ideological links between the prejudices of racism and speciesism in postcolonial ecocritical literary contexts．This thesis examines those links in the contexts of a race studies reading of Mark Twain's

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

（1885）and an animal studies reading of J．M．Coetzee's

Elizabeth Costello

（2003）．Ralph brings together these two very different novels by way of an issue that is central to the area of inquiry of animal studies as well as to the areas of inquiry of race studies and ethnic studies：performing others'identities and‘the other’performer．In doing so，this thesis comments on an early important foundation text for animal studies，Giorgio Agamben's

The Open:Man and Animal

（2004），and also discusses Franz Kafka's short story“Ein Bericht für eine Akademie”（“A Report to an Academy”）．

羅艾琳，臺(tái)灣淡江大學(xué)英文系助理教授，主要研究領(lǐng)域?yàn)榘拇罄麃單膶W(xué)、英國(guó)文學(xué)、美國(guó)文學(xué)、動(dòng)物研究、后人文主義與生態(tài)批評(píng)。