Parasitism

A graduate symposium convened by the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute, organized by Nat Sorscher, MA Class of 2024

Despite its contemporary biological connotations, the term originates in Greco-Roman life and stagecraft, where classical parasites were human subjects who performed obeisance, flattered, and otherwise affirmed the power of dinner hosts, in order to be para (next to) the sitos (grain). The term shifted focus to the sciences through the proliferation of taxonomy in the of the Enlightenment era, as the classical metaphor gained came to describe newfound botanical relationships between vines and trees. However, by the nineteenth century, it became reapplied to culture via the elision of science and society, in part through the rise of fields like epidemiology. In its modern metaphorical usage, “parasite” is equally applied to capitalist tycoons and labor unions, despots and the dispossessed, but no matter the target, the term implies a unique conception of relations, wherein the parasite ambivalently acknowledges the power and status of its host. This convening seeks to probe these idiosyncratic structural relationships, building upon recent scholarship in political theory, media studies, and contemporary art criticism to consider the implications of the literal, representational, or symbolic pests within disciplinary systems. Additionally, these interventions seek to go beyond the metaphorical usage of the term, taking aim at the political and aesthetic work of something belonging where it should not be, or, alternatively, supplying a hidden payload of disease. Through these broad conceptions of the parasite, this symposium hopes to identify points of articulation within art history, considering what theoretical, practical, and tactical interpretations of the “parasite” may bring to visual analysis, circulation of artworks, and transmission of meaning.

The one-day symposium took place on Friday, April 5, capped by a public keynote lecture delivered by Anna Watkins Fisher (University of Michigan) titled, “The Compromised Art of Parasitical Resistance.”