The first media to pick up on my finished thesis its defence was an art and culture program on NRK P2, the Norwegian equivalent to BBC Radio 4 or France Culture (or perhaps somewhere between the latter and France Info, since Norway can never come up with anything as high brow, philosophical and educational as France Culture…). I liked that it was this particular radio channel, and that it was the literary and arts aspect of the work that caught their eye, not the sociological or political. They wanted me to cycle down to their studio and talk about my project, experience, scientific treatment and its conclusions. My very first radio interview went quite well. They even made me spontaneously recite the poem I had performed a couple of times at slam sessions in Paris. I still find it quite touching to do that. The clip starts with an extract of Enfant de la ville by Grand Corps Malade (read interview about the album in French here), which is very typical of the most famous French slam artist, and perhaps also of French slam in general, as it treats the artist’s relationship to the city. At the end of the clip, Grand Corps Malade appears again in A la recherche where he is featured by two grand old men in French rap, Kery James and Oxmo Puccini. This is not very typical of the genre, but I think the journalists thought it worked well on the radio.

Here’s the clip: Kulturhuset, NRK P2, 27.09.12

The day afterwards, another of my favourite Norwegian media, Klassekampen, phoned for an interview. (It’s only accessible through logging in to something). The journalist is probably one of the most familiar with French literature and society here, and I appreciated her headline: “ Accuses the state from the stage”.

The project and the PhD are now completed. In order to also wrap up this research blog, I’ll see if I can find the time to conclude a couple of unfinished posts as well as finishing it all with a description of the defence, or viva, itself. As this blog has followed me all the way from Ménilmontant, 8 October 2005, it feels right to do it this way. At the same time, I feel a bit in a hurry to conclude all this now, as I’m so eager to get on with other things, many of them of course related to this large project.

I started writing this particular post a couple of days before I received the title of the trial lecture. It sums up the areas of weakness in the thesis as described in the committee’s conclusion as well as my replies. After I had held the trial lecture, and just before the defence was to begin, I found the time to quickly revise these 14 points, an exercise I found useful for the defence as many of the questions – if not posed exactly the same way – concerned the same themes and issues. It also gave me confidence that I understood quite well my opponents’ lines of thought.

– The comments I’ve added today, a couple of days after the actual defence, are written in italics. As I revise it, I realise that the post treats thematic issues of the slam phenomenon as well as how I actually prepared for the defence. –

According to their written assessment, the committee evaluated the dissertation in relation to

the originality of the subject matter; the description and theorization of the research problem; the central methodologies; the clarity of argumentation; and to the degree to which the data support the major conclusion about performance poetry in contemporary Paris.

I should say right away that the assessment was overall positive, despite the fact that the paragraph of “major contributions” counted half a page while the weaknesses spread over nearly three. As these proportions fits well with how my selective ear usually hears criticism of my own work, I’ll do as I usually do and investigate into the weaknesses rather than dwell on the contributions.

The committee’s first critical comment (except their dismissal of the ability of Deleuze and Guattari’s hydraulic models of reality (see e.g. here) to say something significant of the postcolonial condition in Europe today – on which I strongly disagree with them) concerned that I should further discuss “a number of issues related to performativity” since the poems in Parisian slam poetry are performed. As I understand it, the longest and most central and complicated chapter in the thesis concerns performativity. Perhaps we understand the notion of performativity differently, I wonder?
– The title of my trial lecture also asked me to discuss performativity, a subject I was very happy to talk about as I felt I knew it quite well. I’ll write about that experience another day.

Secondly, since I assert that the slam scene is fluid (in many senses) and that transformations – in both person and relationships between persons – take place, they ask me “what is this stage? Is it a local stage or a global stage? The thesis implies both…” I love that question, because it goes right to the core of my argument! A central dimension of the fluidity of the slam session, is the dissolution of identity categories fixing persons as French, or not French, foreigners from far away, ethic this or ethnic that. Instead, persons appear as singularities, simultaneously from just around the corner as well as harbouring histories from elsewhere. This stage thus blurs the boundaries of the local and the global. It blurs the (discursive) boundary of France, and expands our understanding of what the local means as well as what a European country like France is. This is well in line with Eric Wolf’s understanding of nation-states in Europe and the People without history, as well as – as I just discovered – Paul Gilroy’s visions in After Empire: Melancholia or convivial culture?” Perhaps I’ll have time to come back to this important issue in another post.
– This was one of the first questions my second opponent posed. I was happy to receive it, but I think I forgot to see it sufficiently in connection to Eric Wolf, which annoys me. I wanted to draw an explicit link between Wolf and Gilroy, but perhaps that will make more sense in an article than in front of that particular audience.

Thirdly, the committee draws attention to the fact that there exists an important branch of Parisian slam which is competitive and want me to expand on that. I based my research around non-competitive slam circles, and I argue that what I have found to be the central dynamics in these sessions is different from what happens in competitions, albeit of a very congenial kind. This question has an empirical rather than an analytical answer, and I will not spend much time on it: Why did someone strongly promote slam as competition in the already quite proliferate non-competitive performance poetry scene? The generosity of the French state subsidies into the cultural sector is important here, and some in the scene suggests that to create slam competitions was a profitable way to promote one’s own slam company.
– This subsidies question is least interesting part of the issue, and the first opponent posed a similar question on the defence, but added that she appreciated my comparison with US slam and asked me to elaborate on the differences, as I argue that competition versus non-competition has important consequences. However, the comparison with the US also imply a comparison between what I call two different philosophies of integration (one multiculturally inspired and one republican). I mentioned this on the viva, but were not asked to go into it in detail.

The fourth point of the committee can be explored both empirically as well as analytically: A significant proportion of the slammers are women. Since slam is performed, “what does this say about the changing gender ideologies and roles?” I’m not really sure if I understand what they aim at here, but I think I would answer the question empirically through local accounts of how they perceive gender roles in slam, as well as my own Northern Scandinavian, which was from a few exception, slightly different from the continental. The analysis will build on these varying perceptions: To what extent are the gender categories in slam as fluid – thus free and changing – as I argue that the “ethnic” ones are?
– I also had this question at the viva and answered it empirically, from the perspective of people I talked to as well as from my own perception of it. There are several different views here, which reflects the heterogeneity of the scene. Gender roles in French performance poetry is, I suppose, also a suitable subject for an article, if I only could find the time to write it…

The fifth question concerning the commercial success of Grand Corps Malade and the way that has affected the content and performance of the poetry, I think I have answered from various angles and on several occasions in the thesis. The increased competition and media attention have affected the “moral and aesthetic stance of the slam poets”, just as the committee asks. This question gives me an opportunity to expand on the particular dynamics – both on an individual as well as a communal level – of exposing yourself in front of a convivial, non-judging, audience. Many people touch upon this in the thesis. Many are grateful of the opening up of opportunities (and thus artistic exposure as well as a highly welcome income) that the popularity of slam has given them. Others think slam has changed forever and can never be as forceful as it once was – but that is, as they also say, just the normal life cycle of such “underground” cultural phenomena. Creative people will always come up with something new. On the other hand, all seems to be positive about the fact that now more people than ever are able to hear the gospel of slam (my phrasing!) and experience its wonderful effects, whether in a diluted form or not.
– Also this question the opponents posed, and they were well satisfied with the example of Grand Corps Malade who maintains his integrity through continuing to participate in the original scene. Also here, I appreciated to point out the heterogeneity of attitudes and experiences of the Parisian slammers. The diversity, more than anything else, almost, is the lifeblood of the phenomenon.

Sixth, to what extent did more political parties (than the “Sego slam” attempt of Ségolène Royal in the 2007 campaign, which was for the most part met with a cold shoulder and strong warnings) try to make use of slam, thus co-opting it, politically? In 2007 it was very little. I’m very curious to know how it was in the 2012 election campaign. (In order to size this project down into a format possible to handle, I’ve closed myself off from all extra information from the end of my fieldwork in July 2007).
– Another question they asked me at the viva, and I answered it differently, and better, there because I explained that political utilisation would kill the art of it. And the art is indispensable in order to communicate aesthetically, poietically, with the audience and create a true relation. Slam is not politics, it is art. That is the reason why it works.

The seventh question I find quite interesting, particularly the analytical aspect of it: What is the relationship between the French state and its bureaucracy and slam? “The French state,” the committee writes, “has had a longstanding interest in and history of involvement in the definition and promotion of both high and popular forms of culture.”
– Another question that returned in several similar shapes at the defence. I find it really intriguing, but I don’t think I’ve got the full answer to it. At the defence, I pointed out that the French in general, as well as the slammers, have a double relationship with the French state. They have huge expectations that it should be fair and provide vital welfare and cultural services for the whole people. That slammers don’t criticise the state school but quite on the contrary had good memories from their years in school, both the opponent and I find interesting. On the other hand, it is the state that is accused of double standards in terms of discrimination and not keeping up the promises of equal treatment. Another interesting point here is how the French state promotes slam in cultural centres and the like all over the Francophonie. On the one hand, they’re officially proud of their contemporary metissage, on the other they still can’t tackle the problems of discrimination and “the colonial gap”… This is really at the crux of the Republican paradox.

The eight concerns similarities and differences between slammers and rioters, as I argue that slam and rioting (and also other expressions at the other end of the political spectrum, but that’s another part of it) originate in “silencing, muting, disregard and disrespect”, as the committee formulates it. How do “slammers differentiate themselves from rioters as agents of change?” The question is simple in its empirical form, first of all because rioters are far younger than slammers who’re for the most part at least in their mid twenties, usually considerably older. I have thus not heard anyone explicitly compare themselves to rioters, or delinquents. However, several profiled slammers describe the harsh environment of their youth. The closest I come to an explicit answer, is a slammer with a very considerate and reflective perspective on the work he does among youth in “difficult” suburbs. He sees much of life in the suburbs, as well as the life of several generations of “immigrants”, as the life of “sheep” being directed to various “sheep folds”: For the first generation, to the battlefields and factories, for the second to prison. The “sheep” are treated as second-rate citizens in poor suburbs, with poorer transport and poorer schools. They’re also conned by drug-dealers flashing their fancy cars and promising them a future like Tony Montana in Scar Face, or by Islamists and religious sects. An important part of his work in writing workshops, he says, is to confront youth who stands in front of “the tunnel” (leading to a sheep fold) he himself has been through and choose another outlet for their rage. “The pen and the paper are massive weapons of description; with them, you can rage war!” he exclaims.
– Here, my revision before the viva ended. There’s so much to say about this question, which I received in a similar for at the defence, however, as I think about it now, I’m not really sure I remembered to answer it fully. [Note to myself: I should have written more extensive notes, as there were several things I didn’t remember to comment upon…]. I remember though that the opponents liked Dgiz’ dictum about “massive weapons of description”. The second opponent, I think, also mentioned my treatment of Direct Action by David Graeber in relation to this issue. It annoys me that I didn’t remember to answer it properly. The third opponent said to me, after having finished, that this is exactly what will happen: now, I’ll start thinking about things I said, and didn’t say. He’s absolutely right, but at the same time, I got the chance to cover a whole deal, and overall I’m amazingly satisfied with it all. But this is definitely also something to expand on in an article. It just itches in my fingers to get on with it…

– The rest, I’ll go through quickly, all from a post-defence perspective:

Point nine concerns the French colonial history and I’m happy they didn’t ask me that at the defence. It’s an immense subject, which is the main reason why I didn’t even attempt to approach it in a thesis that was already long enough. From my perspective, the colonial era is most interesting as it appears in the present, as treated in for instance La Fracture Coloniale and subsequent books. Except from the issue of the contemporary repercussions of the “colonial gap”, it’s not an issue I would like to go too much into, as it needs a specialisation in itself.

The final five points are related and concern the transformative potentials of slam, inwardly as therapy for the person as well as – and simultaneously – for societal relations. We talked about some of this at the defence as well, but I see there’s a lot more to go into. Anyway, this is certainly enough for now and I’ve got other pressing issues to attend to, like finishing a job application (where they ask for people with a PhD!).

The thesis starts with four introductory chapters. First, I explain what Parisian slam poetry is and why I’ve chosen the title The stage is all the world, and the players are mere men and women: Performance poetry in postcolonial Paris. Parisian slam is open, extremely varied and most performances bring along much of the real life of the performer. Second, I try to clarify which political, socio-geographical and existential questions Parisian slam answers. It was my supervisor who posed me these two fundamental questions. When I began trying to answer them, I realised the evident importance of spelling out this to the reader at an early stage. I claim, nothing less than that the slam session can be seen as a (cosmogonic) return to the pivotal Tennis Court Oath in the early days of the 1789 Revolution where each head – independent of status and rank – is allotted the time to speak and be heard under as equal circumstances as possible.

In addition to this eternal democratic challenge of equality, slam reiterates concerns over alienation and consumption in contemporary life that have been addressed in various artistic milieus since the Situationists. The slammers themselves do not relate to the French politico-artistic movement of the 1950s and 60s, however their sessions are undoubtedly more inclusive to all kinds of poetic subjects, more concerned with real life and more alive than any of the situations the Situationists were capable of creating (see e.g. this description by Guy Debord himself).

Finally, and which I think I find most beautiful about it, is the poetry – the poiesis, the bringing forth or revelation of a truth – of human existence the public and participative performances search for, and sometimes reach. Now, time for other commitments. More summing up later.

It’s time to start summing up not only the last months where I’ve been conspicuously absent from this blog (again) but also, finally, the whole research project! The only thing left now is to wait for the verdict of the opponents and the ensuing, hopefully, public defence of the thesis. My desk is almost cleared, notes and scribbled scraps of paper are thrown away, books and articles are stuffed back into the shelves, and I’ve made small steps in other academic and bureaucratic directions. I’m therefore no longer among the Parisians, either physically or mentally. (Very soon I’ll be among some suburbanites outside Oslo.)

People have of course told me that wrapping up take longer than one thinks. And I have of course thought that, oh no, not for me. But yes it has taken a little longer than I thought. The stretch of time I’ve spent neglecting almost every other engagement (not familial, however), has consequently become quite long. In fact so long that I’ve problems getting back into doing different things during a day again, not only the predictable thesis-thesis-thesis-visit father-pick up in kindergarten-make dinner-thesis related stuff, or perhaps the occasional newspaper-bed. Now, I need a calendar again, and I must read the emails I get concerning seminars and stuff, and I must remind myself that I’m not only available for sporadic socialising, but it’s also a nice and good thing to do.

I’ve not been very stressed during the final 18 or so months of writing up, but I’ve been extremely narrow-minded. There have only been a handful of activities that succeeded in diverting my attention. The most time-consuming was reading about the 22 July terrorist attack and the sombre universe it sprang from. I’ve hardly read a work of fiction, and hardly seen a film. Now, it’s time to climb out of the cave and see what’s going on. It’s definitely time to look a little wider. And it’s time to reply to inquiries and attend seminars, time to write, and – definitely – time to look for new work, and time to start a new research project and think entirely new thoughts.

This research diary has until now exclusively treated the various facets of my PhD research project in Paris. When the numbness began to lose its grip, I started to realise why I feel so terribly concerned. Of course, I think most Norwegians, many Europeans and even many, many fellow world citizens feel deep concern when an atrocity like this strikes, even when they or their closest aren’t struck personally. This concerns us as fellow humans (of both the victims and the perpetrator…), and it concerns us as political beings. But I also realised that this concerns me profoundly in terms of the career I’ve chosen: What good is it to devote my professional life to understanding nationalism, belonging, community cohesion, conceptions of difference and the like when I have done nothing to prevent the worst thinkable acts of violence to take place in my own country? Especially since I think – or I’m sure – that I’ve felt there was a need for worry (but of course, not to this unconceivable degree…). For several days now I’ve been thinking about how I can contribute. How can I contribute in the best way with my knowledge (of living with difference in Europe), my concern (for the future of us all) and my devotion (to work for a better world)? I know need to think much more about this in the coming days and weeks, and I know that I need to act.

When I very soon finish my present project, I will – hopefully – be able to do research in Oslo. And there are few places on earth than here I’d rather do this kind of research right now. I don’ think there’s a coincidence that the last huge act of terrorism in Europe was committed by a rightwing nationalist in the name of anti-Islamism. And I even don’t think it was that big a coincidence that it happened in Scandinavia.

Now, after eight days of numbness (and reading of philosophy of difference) it’s time to get back to the main task: finishing the Paris project and get on with life. (Or rather, get on with life and finish the Paris project.)

The point of this post was to state that I’m still here, thinking about this fieldwork and writing up blog has followed me through thick and thin of the last five, soon six, years. Now, it’s no more than a few months left, and I hope to be able to leave a trace of this final phase, as the last threads find their places in the tapestry.

Smaller and larger parts of the puzzle find their place at the moment. Phenomena that have only flickered past my attention in a superficial, disconnected manner suddenly add up to a larger picture.

The last of these epiphanies was triggered by a request to hold a seminar at National Institute of Consumer Research (SIFO). They asked me because they’ve a project running on migration and consumption, and certainly, migration is relevant in my research on Paris as postcolonial. On consumption on the other hand, I wasn’t so sure what I could come up with. When I discussed some bland idea I’d got with a fellow anthropologist, he said right away that it’s exactly the lack of consumption in one of the large consumer countries of the west that it interesting here. Of course! One of the definitions of French slam is that it should be for free.

About the same time, a Norwegian journal published an article on the French Décroissance (Degrowth) movement. Although I had noticed the thought-provoking term around, for instance in demonstrations, I wasn’t aware that it concerned a socio-political movement. I started wondering if parts of the slam milieu was inspired by this movement, as several texts make similar statements to their “live better consume less” ideas, as well as mocking contradiction in terms like a “fair trade” (J’aime ma planète, j’achète, “I love my planet, so I buy it” by Zéor, for instance).

“Productivisme - deadly dangerous: Let’s enter degrowth” From a demonstration in Paris in October 2005

I had also noticed the relatively low material standard of living (without going into detail) many slammers lived under. These observations had made an impression on me, but they didn’t start to make sense before I read Sociologie de Paris (Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot) and connected them to the brute reality of the cost of life in Paris proper compared to the poorer suburbs: Even in the cheapest arrondissments in the north and east of the city is the price per square metre double compared to in the suburban towns in Seine-Saint-Denis.

But the observations still weren’t more than signs of relative poverty in an affluent society, added perhaps some traits of degrowth-ideas present in some texts. Until I was told (by a man almost double my age, what a humiliation!) that I had to free my analysis because what I was observing seems much more radical than old ways of thinking about politics. He commented on another part of the thesis (republicanism and cosmopolitanism), but it’s pertinent in relation to the question of consumption as well. From this perspective, all these disparate observations click together in the puzzle to such a degree that it all seems utterly banal, and how come I haven’t seen it before? Maybe particularly since I’ve even proclaimed here before that I recognise in the slam scene something of Foucault’s dictum (1982) to refuse what we are and find new subjectivities liberated from the state and its individualisation.

A life with less material goods is certainly not only “relative poverty”, it is also part of larger ethical questions on local and global solidarity, ecology, how to lead the good life and so on. The Décroissance movement and the slam phenomenon are probably just different expressions of larger currents in French and western society. Suddenly, I see the slam scene as even deeper situated within a long and broad history of poetic and eventful rebellion. And the great thing for the progress of my thesis is that all these recent epiphanies don’t seem to broaden the scope of my work, spreading it out in unmanageable directions. Quite the contrary, they tie the loose ends into a nuanced and detailed tapestry and click seemingly unfitting pieces into the puzzle.

I then read a tip that helped me out of it right away. Now, regularly write at least a 1000 words on a regular workday. It’s just to write on, without any censorship – don’t erase anything, just switch paragraph – and preferably no checking of sources during the first draft. [Write everything you want like to check in square brackets]. One should start first thing in the day (or rather, in the work day, for us with children) and keep it going for two hours. Often it goes so well that it is just to continue. They way I wrote earlier made me so fed up with my own text that I never rewrote and hardly even read through it. - But even then I had to restructure the text, both within and between chapters. Now, this editing work is much easier on all levels. It’s far easier to delete since my sentences and paragraphs haven’t had the time to become particularly dear darlings, and it is far easier to rewrite and restructure.

This writing exercise also helped me with the more challenging task to change work habits. When it suddenly was necessary for me to get as much work done as possible, it almost seemed like I needed to change personality. Until then, for as long as I can remember my way of working can be likened to a heavy, heavy steam engine setting off from last chance saloon. I could (can) spend hours getting started. I’ve waited until the absolute deadline, than procrastinated a little longer before slowly pulling my forces together, in order to finally work for a loooong, looooong time with an increasing speed and enthusiasm. Then of course, after a period of intense effort and concentration, some kind of break is desperately needed, and it will once again take a long time – and usually a last call – to get the steam engine going again.

Then circumstances just came and changed the pattern. Circumstances demand that I get a minimum of 6-7 hours of sleep every night (if not things can get very nasty between Mrs Surpæt [untranslatable old dialect related to ‘grumpy’] and her offspring. Circumstances also demand that (at least the first part of) the office day must end around 15H. That leaves me with no more than 5-6 successive work hours, something which was unthinkable under my previous regime. I sometimes force myself to take a lunch break, and I still rarely write less than my 1000 pages. – If it is not one of these awful, annoying, aggravating days that keep me from getting on with the writing right from the beginning. Because, the thing is, if I get hung up in some petty task of searching for something or clearing some space on my desk or some administration of some kind, I’m almost certainly unable to recover that day’s work spirit.

But if I’ve prepared rightly and know where to start (either by thinking it through the day before or on the way to work), and I sit down without too much fuss, it’s almost as if the fewer work hours I have in front of me, the more I get done. Down to a certain limit of course, but working concentrated for around 5-6 hours (with or without a break, is really perfect). This scheme worked amazingly well for more than four months in the autumn, a very lengthy leg which it would have been impossible to beat under earlier circumstances.

Now the question is: My thesis needs about 33 000 more words. Can I get them written in 33 days (divided on 4 days a week, - also due to certain circumstances), thus a little less than two months?