Commonplace with Benjamin Saltzman, Author of Turning Away: The Poetics of an Ancient Gesture

Katie Marshall: Hi Benjamin, thank you so much for joining me on Commonplace today, how are you?
Benjamin Saltzman: Good. Thanks for having me, Katie.
Katie Marshall: No, it's a pleasure. I'm really excited to talk about your work today. But if you could just start by introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about your current projects.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, sure. So I'm Ben Saltzman. I teach at the University of Chicago, I in the Department of English. And I've just published a book entitled Turning Away, The Poetics of an Ancient Gesture, and it's about the gesture of covering one's eyes or averting one's gaze or raising one's hands to one's face as it occurs in art and poetry and philosophy. From antiquity to the present, and thinking about how this gesture makes makes meaning in such a wide variety of ways. Yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those, I think, that sounds obscure at first, but then when you think about it and you look around you, you really see it everywhere, especially in our modern day. mean, making that ancient connection is so current now, isn't it?
Benjamin Saltzman: And I mean that was that was completely the experience of writing the book was the experience of first noticing this gesture in a in a medieval manuscript and then, and we can talk about that a little bit if you're interested, but and then beginning to see it everywhere, everywhere around us. And I think that's one of the things that happens when when you begin to notice this gesture is you can't stop seeing it. You walk into an art museum and you see it in works of art that you've looked at a million times but have never noticed that person in a corner who is covering their face. Yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, exactly. And as you say, we'll look into that a bit later, but it is just as much about the person adverting their gaze as much as how we perceive it and how we're judging them for it. So what sort of spurs part of your interest in sort of poetry and visual culture as a means of sort of accessing these bigger questions about humanity and culture?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean I I trained as a as an early medieval, a scholar of early medieval England, of old English poetry and literature and and law and spirituality and monastic life. And so my first book was about secrecy in early medieval England. And and then as I began and and again we can talk about kind of how this book started in a moment, but as I began to work on this project, it I was really led by the materials and the conversations I was having with friends and colleagues. So much of this book was was created through those conversations and that com kind of community around around me, community of scholars and friends who would point me in directions or tell me about examples that I didn't previously know about or hadn't thought about in in this way. And so as that grew, I I sort of had to learn new things, and that's one of the Privileges of being a scholar these days is that you can kind of pursue those interests, pursue one's curiosity and discover new things along the way. So really, I'm I'm always kind of guided by the project that I'm that I'm working on. And in this case, it was it was drawing me in the direction of visual culture heavily, because it's where I think we see this gesture most frequently, but also by the the kinds of courses that I teach, for instance. I teach regularly a an introduction, a kind of introduction to poetry course for first year undergraduate students. And in that course we read a a really wide range of of poetry from across the ages and across geographies and and regions. And that experience of of teaching that material has also influenced how I approach poetry, but also the kind of range of materials that I that I feel comfortable and and interested in engaging with. So it's a it's a move, I guess the story is a move from a a very particular focus on Old English poetry, which is where my my training is, and then kind of broadening outward because of because of the inspiration I've gotten from my students and friends and colleagues. So
Katie Marshall: What's great about your focus, think, is it doesn't fit neatly into a historical category. mean, you could say history of emotions, but I think because you're being led by gesture rather than an emotion, it allows you to feed into so many other things. You're not necessarily saying, this is what they are feeling. You're saying, this is what they're doing and what does that mean?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, that's I mean, that's kind of a the problem with the book, right? The challenge with the book, both in writing it, but also in fitting it into into a field, into a category, because it crosses so many different fields, both, you know, large fields like poetics or art history, but then and but also these kind of more particular narrow let's say like tightly focused fields like the history of emotions. and and so yeah, my hope is that it engages with those fields that it I've certainly learned a lot from those fields, but then it has been really exciting to bring them into conversation with one another and to cross the cross the boundaries. The problem is when you remove when you remove boundaries, the question is where do you stop? and that's that's the hard part. So
Katie Marshall: exactly. it's something very big and very small at the same time. i mean this gesture in and of itself but i mean you kind of touched on this. so what was it? was there a certain image that sparked your idea for this book and why did you think it was important to write it right now?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so I mean, what started the project was back in twenty fourteen or so, I was finishing my PhD at UC Berkeley and was asked to contribute to a a conference panel f in honor of my dissertation supervisor, Catherine O'Brien O'Keefe, who had written her so so, you know, with this prompt I decided to go back and look at her dissertation from from years ago and at the University of Pennsylvania and I looked it up and and it was about the book of Genesis in early medieval England. And I thought, okay, let me like take inspiration from this. And so I started looking through this famous, beautiful, incredible manuscript known as the Junius Manuscript, which is currently held at Oxford's Bodleian Library, manuscript Junius 11. And it contains these Poetic translations into Old English from the book of Genesis, the Book of Exodus, and and other biblical texts, and it translates them into Old English verse, but it also includes these remarkable drawings, these illustrations. It's heavily illustrated. almost a kind of This a rough estimate, like one-to-one, right? You turn the page, there's an illustration. You turn the next page, there's text, there's some more illustration. And so there's so much kind of an unusual quantity of of visual material in this manuscript. And as I was looking through these drawings, I noticed that there are these recurrent images of Adam and Eve corresponding with the moment in the book of Genesis describing the fall. Where Adam and Eve are covering their faces with their hands. And I thought, God, that's that's strange. They're not only covering their genitals, but they're also covering their faces. Why? What does this mean? Why is the artist giving them this gesture? And there are all kinds of interesting things about the way that this gesture is used in this particular moment, the way that it corresponds to details in the text. So the artist was actually reading the the the poetry and kind of extrapolating from from that in order to to come up with the the represent the kind of visual representation. And then it also echoes into other not like directly inspiring, but other f forms of this gesture in the representation of Adam and Eve. Over the longer history. So you might be thinking, for instance, of the famous Masaccio fresco in Florence, where Adam and Eve are being expelled from paradise, and Adam has his hand sinking into his or rather his head sinking into his hand. And and so then I began. From there, I kind of wrote a a kind of tightly focused essay on on these drawings, but then from there there was that experience of beginning to then notice the gesture everywhere and and trying to pick up the different meanings that could that are attributed to it, right? So in some cases it's a gesture that signifies grief. In other cases it's a seg gesture that signifies shame. In other cases it's disgust or remorse or regret or even respect. or right, and and we can go on and we can talk about some of these, but there's so many different potential meanings that can be carried by this gesture. And I saw many of them kind of at play in this moment where Adam and Eve are being represented as It's a moment where they're they've suddenly gained knowledge, right? They've eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Their eyes have been opened. And with that knowledge, with their eyes now opened, they need a way to cover them, right? They need a way to shield themselves from the immense amount of not only not just information, but pain, suffering, the anticipation of death, shame, the the recognition of their own sexualized bodies, they need a way to kind of manage that visual input. And so here they are covering their eyes. But of course in this image, they're kind of covering their eyes, but their hands are their fingers are kind of widely spread. And so it almost appears as though they can see through their fingers, as though they're trying not to look, but they're still looking. And so that those kinds of questions really permeate the book and permeate the questions that I ask of these gestures across history.
Katie Marshall: I mean the Avnum Eval sort of example is so good for this subject particularly because it's sort of pointing out that they've already seen the thing that they're turning away from and it's almost like Pandora's box isn't it? Like she's let out the evils but she wants to close the box again but she's already you know done it there's no going back so I guess it's that tension for you know for a biblical kind of Christian audience is that it's almost like a warning for other people isn't it? A sort of almost performative you know you're going to see evil but you know and you're going to try to gain the knowledge that you want to but you really should try and restrain yourself, it's like that tension there.
Benjamin Saltzman: yeah. But I think you've put your finger on exactly you know, one of the really fascinating complex problems around this gesture, which is, as you said, once you once and we can all think about this ourselves, like our listeners can think about our own experiences of turning away or covering our eyes or closing our eyes because we don't want to see something, because we're maybe afraid of how it might affect us, or we know it might affect us in a particular way. But Almost always, right, that gesture, the act of looking away, it comes too late. Right? We've already seen the thing that we're trying to turn away from, or we've at the very least, we've anticipated it. and in anticipating it or in seeing it, turning away doesn't it doesn't get rid of, or covering our eyes doesn't get rid of the thing that we're trying not to see. we still we it still has affected us, in fact, all the more so. And I would even say that in that move to cover one's eyes or close one's eyes in response to something that we we don't want to see, that that's a that's a very kind of human response, but it's a way that it it signals to us like, this is something that aff that affects us. It's something that I need to Paying attention does isn't the right word for it, but it's something that I need to attend to. It's something that I need to engage with, or I'm being forced to engage with. And this impulse or performance, as you said, right? It's hard to tell the difference. Is it, am I kind of reflexively turning away out of sort of without without willing it, right? or am I performing?
Katie Marshall: Reflect on. Yeah.
Benjamin Saltzman: turning away because I think that other people would exp around me might expect me to turn away or might think that that's what I should do. And so therefore I perform an act of covering my eyes or turning away or not looking at the the scene of a a car crash or something like that. and so there's a very fuzzy relationship between those two things. But in any case it's we've already seen the thing. And so That that question I think was has also been really a a very surprising kind of realization in writing in writing this book is like, wow, it doesn't it doesn't get rid of the thing that we've tried to avoid seeing. And so then what does it mean? What is the purpose of this gesture? Why do we do it? Why do artists put it in works of art with, you know, i illustrating figures turning their way, turning away or covering their eyes.
Katie Marshall: Well, obviously we're reinterpreting these reasons sort of, you know, going through the centuries, but how do people in the ancient world perceive it? Was it a negative or a positive thing for them compared to how we'd look back on these images?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, I mean I think so one thing I wanna do is h this is a book that goes from Plato, goes from antiquity to the present day. I hesitate to look back on the past and say that they, you know, they had it right. They had a kind of golden it was like a golden age of attention or or where they they kind of managed it correctly and we should somehow return to that. But I'm more interested in how, you know, what What we notice about ourselves when we look back on the past. What what does I'll tell you in a kind of moment from Plato's Republic that I spend some time on in the book, but what is paying attention to that moment in Plato's Republic tell us about our what is it what does it make us ask of ourselves? and so that moment in Plato's Republic that I that I keep alluding to is a is a moment in the text where Socrates is trying to explain the division of the soul into three parts. And the reason he has to divide the soul into three parts is because if the soul were a single entity, you couldn't explain those moments where we sort of do two things at once or feel two things at once or are driven in in opposite directions, right? And so how do we explain those moments where we're kind of torn within ourselves? And he gives the soul these three parts and in order to exp kind of exemplify this, he tells the story of Leontius who is walking along one day and encounters a pile of corpses next to an executioner. And he notices this pile of corpses, and then he turns away, and then he covers his face as he struggles with himself. He kind of undergoes an internal struggle. And then eventually he gives in and forces his eyes open and looks at these these bodies and he then yells at his own eyes. He condemns his own eyes and he says, Take your fill of this beautiful sight. and it's not clear that that Socrates is people argue argue about this and have different kind of views, but it's not clear that Socrates or Plato for that matter are are like trying to articulate that one mode of relating to these corpses is the correct way, right? That that Leontius should be looking at them or he should be not looking at them, right? Like it's not clear what the correct way of the kind of morally correct attitude to these corpses might be. But one thing is clear is that Leontius for Socrates in this moment is exemplifying a kind of torn soul where the harmony of the soul is is disrupted, right? Because he's going through this internal struggle. And I think the reason why it resonates so much, and this is a this is a scene that this is a moment in the Republic that really does resonate. It gets picked up, for instance, by there's a a famous book by Philip Gorovich about the Rwandan the he's a he was a New York New Yorker journalist, wrote a famous book about the Rwandan genocide. we wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed along with our families. And and at the opening of this book, he uses this passage as the epigraph. and he reflects on the experience of seeing so many murdered bodies, right? Yeah, dead dead bodies. And what is that experience like? And what is our own conflict in relation to those bodies? And I think it speaks to that that tension that we have in ourselves where we are driven to look, but we feel like we shouldn't look, but we don't want to look, but we're torn and therefore we're torn and therefore we need to turn inwards and reflect a little bit and and eventually we give in, maybe, maybe we don't, but That ancient moment, right, resonates with us today. And I think when we think about when we take the mo the opportunity to think about our own experiences in relation to this longer history, and these the the fact that sort of humans have been having this kind of experience for a very long time, that it helps us understand ourselves in the process.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, definitely. mean, you you think about the sort of Homeric writings, they had this sort of innate fascination with death and suffering and how different characters reacted to it and they weren't afraid of facing that and putting those questions to the reader.
Benjamin Saltzman: I mean, and I would say nit you know, in different ways, neither do we. I mean, we we take we take many of us I think take a lot of pleasure in watching films, for instance, that are gruesome or difficult to watch, or shows you know, television shows that take place in ERs, right? It's like and w and watching physicians work really hard and deal with the stresses and and the the gore and the blood and the death.
Katie Marshall: No. Hmm.
Benjamin Saltzman: Like we we we consume that as as entertainment. and part of that is an awareness of it the kind of fictionality, but we're also aware in for instance of you know, there's a range, right? But like aware of the the way that a show I don't know, do you in the UK, do you get yeah.
Katie Marshall: Hmm. I think it's wanting to experience big emotions, almost practice how you deal with them in the real world. It sort gives you an outlet, I think, for other people's emotions in different ways. It allows you to feel a lot, doesn't it, and process things in an odd way. Fiction.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, that's yeah, and it it yeah, that's interesting to think about it as a kind of training. training for your emotions.
Katie Marshall: so you take one particular example from the ancient world. I think you've used it as the cover, which is Timanthes' depiction of Agamemnon at the sacrifice of his daughter, Phigeniah. So why do you think that this in particular sort of speaks to ancient and modern audiences as a sort of summing up basically of the complexity of turning away? And what did they think about it in the ancient world?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's such a it's such a incredible image and it's a famous famous image, although the original doesn't survive, which I just love, right? That that you can have a painting that is repu that has th that's whose reputation exceeds itself. There there's a copy or something the work thought to be a kind of copy after this painting by Timanthes depicting the sacrifice of infigenia. it's actually a little bit different. The the image on the cover comes from th a print by Raimondi after Raphael depicting a scene from the Aeneid where there it's a plague scene and so the the cover of the book actually has one of the many figures in this scene who is just repulsed by the death and the the kind of plague around them. And so she's kind of covered, she's like turning away and turning her head and pushing away. and one of the the amazing things about that print that that I think actually I've never I haven't really thought about in these terms before, but your question, the the framing of your question has prompted it. But one of the things about that printed is is it is it represents a kind of variety of responses to the suffering around us. Some people are caring for others, some people are they're sort of in their, they're cloaked in their own world. meaning they've they've kind of covered their faces and they've they're bowing their heads into their own world. They can't deal with the world around around them, the suffering around them. And that reflects an aspect of this famous painting by Tamanthes in which Agamemnon is depicted alongside his daughter as she's being carried off. To be sacrificed. And there are other figures around who also kind of cannot look, but they're looking in different directions, their attitude is different. But what makes Agamemnon special in this painting, and what makes therefore this painting so famous, is that Agamemnon is depicted completely covering his face. And early Roman rhetoricians. talked about this painting and they referred to this painting and they they they sort of posed the question of well why why did the artist why did tamanthes Cover Agamemnon's face. And the answer in these early responses, the the answer that they came up with was simply that the paintbrush would have been inadequate to the task of representing such an extreme state of grief, the father's grief, such an extreme state of emotion, that there was no choice, that the artist had no choice but to cover his face, right? He couldn't depict it in an expressive form. And You know, this is not this this gets taken up in later later readers, later critics, viewers would would say, you know, he's just a bad artist, right? Like if he had any skill, he could have represented his face. He could have drawn Agamemnon's face. But nonetheless, right, right from the start, the reason I think this painting is so influential is because it it uses this gesture to get at A really wide range of meanings and to add that like it runs up against the limits of representation, right? It's how it's a kind of tool, a formal tool that an artist can use when they can't draw such an extreme state of, say, emotion. and so that like it from the start, it's kind of i I start the book with with this with this painting because it poses a problem for the book, right? Then how do you How do you read meaning into this gesture like we often like we often do when right from the start it resists meaning, it resists interpretation and it can mean so many different things.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, it's like automatically making it universal, his emotion, isn't it? Because you were allowed to project your how you would feel in that situation onto him.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And that's how that's how you know, Cicero and Quintilian, that's how they responded to this. They said it it puts the burden on the viewer of the work of art to imagine what that must feel like. and that's a very that's a very powerful and compelling argument, I think.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, it kind of means that you can't mentally turn away from the painting because you're forced to engage with it like that.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, yeah. And it and it call and it in many cases I think these gestures, whether we're aware of them or not, they provoke us to reflect on our own relation to the painting. you know, here I am looking at this painting while people while figures within the work of art cannot bear to look. So what does it mean for me to be standing before this painting in an air conditioned museum or in a you know, glorious room, right? What does that mean?
Katie Marshall: Exactly.
Benjamin Saltzman: And and and that reflection I think is yeah, it's it's crucial. and it and it also it does something. So one of the to kind of take it from the ancient to the to the more contemporary there's this photograph by Susan Masilas about from taken in I think nineteen seventy nine and it's she was doing re kind of photojournalism in Nicaragua during the revolution and it's this photograph Where the caption tells us that the scene is one of neighbors looking at their neighbors basically their corpses being burned in the street, protesters being burned, their bodies being burned. But you don't see those bodies. What you see is f five or so women responding, right? So they're they're each kind of holding their faces in different ways. Some are covering their eyes, some are covering their mouth, some are covering right, and and they each have a different kind of expressive response. And I think like like that Agamemnon the the sacrifice of Iphigenia by Timanthes, like the Raimondi print depicting the plague scene, it's really about the varieties of of response and in that photograph by Susan Mesilas depicting that that scene in Nicaragua, you you you get a sense of the weight of that scene without actually seeing the thing that they're responding to. You get it through their gestures, you get it through their expressions, and you feel it almost. You feel it with them and it and it's quite powerful.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, I mean obviously it's very internal emotions that it's depicting but can you say what sort of other reasons people were turning away for in the sources that you used apart from grief and sort of disbelief?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, yeah. There's all I mean, there's all kinds of reasons and I th and that's that's kind of the the interesting thing about this this gesture. I think it tends to correspond with negative affects. so again you mentioned grief, shame, remorse, disgust, fear, a anger a little bit, but probably less so. but then it also has these like This is a gesture that can also signify respect. it's a gesture that sometimes we make sort of in embarrassment, but in moments of laughter. it's a gesture that gets used in play, especially by children. covering their eyes is a, you know, it's a it's a way of playing. And then there's also a kind of secondary level where it's a gesture that can be used in a in a work of art, for instance, by an artist to formally signify something other than like the emotion of the person who is making this gesture. And what I mean by I'll give you an example and maybe this will make more sense, but it can be used to signify something like the experience of ambient darkness, right? So if an artist wants to represent darkness, one way to do this is to r depict a figure covering their face. because it, you know, you can see the kind of logical extension they're covering their face, therefore they're inhabiting a kind of internal experience of darkness, but then it expands outward. And where we see this most influentially is in the representative the medieval representations of the crucifixion, right? So at Christ's crucifixion, the gospel tells us that there was a kind of eclipse, darkness covered the the earth at that moment of his death. And how early artists represented this, later artists would would kind of depict Christ against a a dark blue, dark black background, kind of literally representing the darkness. But early medieval artists would represent it with two figures kind of ensconced in circles representing the sun and the moon, and those figures, personified figures, would be covering their faces with their hands or with their cloaks, and they are sitting above Christ. It's it indicating, right? It's a way for us to know, okay. There is darkness at this moment because those two figures are covering their f their faces with their their hands. And and we see this in a w in like a kind of really interesting way. So for instance, I mentioned the Junius manuscript at at Oxford's Bodleian Library. Well, the way that the artist represented That initial moment in the book of Genesis before light has been created, the moment when darkness is covering the face of the abyss. How did the artist represent this visually? Represented it with a kind of angel sitting above a kind of water-like globe, covering their face with their With their cloak, right? So completely covering themselves. That's a way to indicate formally that this is a moment of darkness. There are other other kind of similar modes. Like for instance, it gets used as a a way to represent spiritual blindness or the the impossibility or difficulty of human encounters with the divine or the the the inaccessibility of the divine. How do you represent that while also kind of visually depicting, say, Christ or God? how do you represent that that depiction of Christ is invisible to those people within the work of art, you c you have them covering their faces. So it indicates something about the relationship between humans and and God. so there's that's that should give you a kind of sense of there's more, but there that's kind of the range of meanings that that we might find in in this gesture. And it's often and it And it fluctuates. It's often difficult to tell and it's often multiple meanings at once. and that's what I that's what I love about it.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to think about it beyond the emotion really that it's depicting, you know, the darkness you may not be able to see, but it might be moral or spiritual and that's such an effective way of depicting that, isn't it? Yeah. So I'd like to touch on how this has changed sort of going into our modern day, if that's okay. So... I think that since the Second World War, definitely our perception of what we should think about and turn towards has changed a lot with the narrative of Never Again and this commitment to paying attention to things so that history doesn't repeat itself. I think we see this a lot in the publication of first-hand accounts of the Holocaust and people wanting to engage with these things first-hand and really understand and feel for people. But how do you think that turning away has changed in the second half of the 20th century?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, so I I think you're absolutely right that since since the end of World War II in particular the discourse around the importance of collective attention has become really entrenched in the way that we think about our respon our moral responsibility, our relation to atrocity, especially atrocity at at great distances, right? And so On the one hand, right, our attention, our collective attention is, and I want to be absolutely clear about this, right, is one of the few guardrails against atrocity and corruption and injustice. Right? We we kind of have to devote our attention to these things. Otherwise, right, we can only imagine what what the world would look like if we all became indifferent to them, what kinds of things bad actors could get away with. On the other hand, we can't, you know, we're we're there's a there's a way in which that that rhetoric has reached a a kind of point of collapse almost where there is so much for us to pay attention to, so much that we need to pay attention to, that we can't possibly pay attention to at all. And and so that kind of message has reached a point where, especially today in this moment, the kind of social media, media rich moment where we encounter various forms of suffering or atrocity or injustice, big and small, on our phones, in our pockets at, you know, every hour of the day, how do we how do we respond to those encounters? And I think that there's a very real risk that I, you know, what I when I talk to people, I what I hear is that more and more people feel overwhelmed by this, feel like they their attention doesn't do anything. and are kind of descending into a state of indifference, a sort of shrugging of the shoulders. Well, I can't I can't do anything. What is, you know, what is the purpose of me paying attention? I'm just going to scroll past it or I'm going to not pay attention. And I've and as I've thought about this, I've come to understand sort of indifference as the real problem, right? That like the the danger of becoming a society that is indifferent. that that seems to me as a very dangerous situation. But on the other hand, and so how do we like, how do we not descend into kind of moral paralysis? Right? How do we not descend into that kind of hopelessness? And what I've learned from studying this gesture across, you know, wide range of works of art and and through history is that artists in particular, I think, seem to have recognized that Turning away, covering one's eyes, sometimes it's performed in in indifference because we don't want to see or we don't care, but more often than not, it's because we are moved by something that we are seeing, because it's affecting us deeply, and it's used to represent deep engagement. With the thing that we are encountering. And so again, this comes back to to what we were talking about at the start of our conversation about how. Once you find yourself turning away, it's kind of too late. and so what I began to notice is that oftentimes when we turn away from something, if we recognize that moment, we we recognize our imp our sort of need to turn away or un the unbearability of the thing that we're seeing, that's that's like a I think a very human signal to ourselves that this is something worth attending to, that I should pay attention to this, that I should follow it, that I should think about you know my own I should reflect on my own relation to it and and maybe then be in a position to take some kind of action to ameliorate it or to to respond in in some way. But that only that response, that mode of that even that mode of empathy only becomes possible when you Take a moment to stop being a mere observer, a sort of careless observer. And instead, you kind of take a moment to turn away and actually reflect, feel, and then prepare some kind of response. And so I I think we're at at a mode where we're becoming more and more just kind of like observers without care, and there's a risk of of becoming indifferent as a result of that. And so I've become curious about well what is what does it mean when we take a moment to reflect, to think, to feel.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, there's some really good refractions there and it definitely is, you know, it's something that is immediately relevant, you know, your work to social media and the 24 hour news cycle because we are exposed to a whole lot more than we're able to reflect on but there's still that sort of individual pressure to consume it otherwise you're seen as not caring but as you say, if you're turning away from something you are turning towards something else which could be, you know, a really insightful reflection and you're obviously turning away because you feel... something immense about it like Agamemnon really. even if you don't have control over it, you could turn to something closer to home that you could have a real impact as well.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, there's I I love that, right? It's it is when you're tur yeah, when you're turning away from one thing, you're turning towards another. and it might be turning inward to reflect. It might be, you know, turning to a loved one to take care of someone who, you know, matters in your life. It might be turning towards your community. and it might be turning back to that that scene that affected you and and and letting it kind of activate you.
Katie Marshall: Mm. Yeah, definitely. So I think you sort of touched on our modern attitudes and your reflections on that. Do you think that people still have agency over this gesture today? Do you think that it's more in our imagination rather than something that's depicted as the ancient world did?
Benjamin Saltzman: Hmm. Yeah, the question of that's that's that's interesting. The question of agency, I think it's become more co it's become more complicated, right, as our way of encounter, right? We we in some ways we encounter like what we happen to encounter in the world around us is is sometimes in our control, sometimes it's not, right? Like do you turn a corner and you see something or you s someone inca you know, you encounter someone on the street and you you didn't have any control over that, but now you're you're facing this person or you're facing this scene. So in some ways that's always kind of been the case, I I think. But then there's this new dimension, not that new, I guess, like over the past twenty years or so dimension where more and more our lives and our encounters with media are governed by algorithms that are kind of out of our out of our control. and there are ways to maybe like moderate them or contr kind of perceive that you have some control over them. But like really like what crosses our feed, what crosses our news feed, what crosses our Instagram feed, whatever is is governed by forces that we don't have that much but don't have much control over at all. And And so that's really that's interesting too, right? Is that it's not just about us turning away from one thing or turning towards another, but in fact, we're often being turned towards one thing or being turned towards another. And that that effect on us being affected in that way, is kind of troubling. Yeah. So it's like how do you recuperate how do you recuperate your own agency and turn towards things that you want to engage with or or devote your attention to, how do you resist kind of being turned to this way or that by by media forces at large.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, I think we have to wait for that, answer to that question really, don't we? Yeah. So before...
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. But part of it I mean, part of it is like, you know, again yeah, maybe like, you know, re taking it back like taking it back, right? Taking back some of that control and choosing where where we turn, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, realising how effective it is as a choice sometimes. Yeah. So before we sort of tap into your commonplace book, there sort of part of who you've studied, whose commonplace book would you most like to have access to? Maybe you could find out why they were turning away in a particular image or something.
Benjamin Saltzman: yeah. Yeah, yeah. god. I you know, I was yeah, I was thinking about this. I I don't know if I I you know, I'm kind of interested in any anyone's. But I like I guess I imagine like maybe Plato or something like you know, someone like that is just so far removed from us, right? Like where it would be really interesting to see a kind of more personal, less rhetorically crafted book or document that gives us some indication into into thought and life. But then yeah, but then I was also thinking, you know, I don't know, someone wild like Salvador Delhi, right? Who I I write about at the end and got kind of went down some rabbit holes with with him and his life and and he has this autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Delhi, and it and it just reading that, it's it's you know hard to tell what's fact and fiction and whatever, you know, it's very it's very surreal at many moments. But yeah, someone with just a w a really wild life like that might be might be interesting. But maybe like I don't know, you know more about commonplace books than I do, but I can only imagine like but yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean if anyone can have one that's what's the thing. Yeah. yeah so i don't know if you have a commonplace book a few people i've spoken to actually have something that resembles one but if you don't what what would it look like sort of aesthetics wise?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. yeah. I so I don't I mean, and I I think it has to do with my handwriting is very messy. My also like the way that my mind works, I kind of I get very focused on on like a single problem or a single project at a time and I kind of dive into dive into that. And so yeah, so I've never, I mean, I think at moments maybe I've tried to keep notebooks and journals, but I haven't successfully kept something like a like a commonplace book. But I have been, I'm, I've been starting on a new project. and in the process of working on that project, one of the one of the ideas I've had, it's about It's about poetry and and waves and thinking about the relationship between the way that poetry works, the way that poetry moves us, and the way that waves physically work, and the way that ocean waves or waves in the sea move us, and kind of the intersection between these two phenomena. And as part of this project, I I got the idea To to try to like memorize a lot of the poems that I end up writing about. And it's a wide range of poetry, contemporary stuff and ancient stuff and mixed and thinking about the relationship between the two. And so I've started kind of trying to do that. It's very alien to me. I I didn't grow up memorizing poetry. And so it's it it's kind of a a skill that I don't think I have, but I'm trying to acquire. And in the process, I've started keeping a a notebook where I kind of write down as a as a memorization tactic, but also as a way to kind of record the poems that I'm working on. Write down the the poems. So that maybe is a kind of commonplace book, but I feel like it's more it's more contained, right? It's like more topically contained. It's more of a like notebook than a commonplace book. Right? What do you think?
Katie Marshall: Yeah. Yeah, mean, yeah, we'll probably get to the poems a bit later. yeah, I think it's sort of encapsulating a time in your life, which I think it counts. So, no, you've obviously sort of thought a lot about ancient philosophy and you mentioned Plato, maybe his commonplace book would be in the running for you. So is there sort of a quote or philosophy that's sort of had an impact for your life?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm. I don't know. have these I am looking over at my my computer monitor and I a while ago, I think it was during grad school, I I typed up using my typewriter, I typed up these note cards and one of them says, It's okay to do nothing. And By no means a famous philosopher. I don't know if anyone would agree with that. But I I like wrote it at a time where I was like feeling compelled to constantly generate, but then it was be I was being kind of counterproductive because I'd like spend time in front of my computer getting distracted rather than and so I was trying to like remind myself to like it's okay to just like sit back and do nothing. And I feel like every year that becomes more and more.
Katie Marshall: Hmm.
Benjamin Saltzman: like becomes better advice as like as we're again confronted with more and more things to do as life becomes more and more crazy, that there's some value in in pausing and and trying to do nothing. I am not very good at that. I'm like always fidgeting with something or or working on something. But yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think we all need to remind ourselves of that, but doing nothing is probably, you know, in the future, quite useful. It's creating ideas, allowing you to reflect on stuff, it's turning away from work. So what about a sort of photograph or a piece of art that you could put in your commonplace book? What would that be that you'd want to keep going back to and infinitely sort of think about?
Benjamin Saltzman: Mm. I don't know. Do you think like so here's a question for you. I'm gonna I'm gonna defer. Do you think like how are com how are how are commonplace books used? Like do you do you think that
Katie Marshall: No.
Benjamin Saltzman: most people turn back to them and return to them? Or do you think like they're they're there, they get kind of locked in, you've you've had the experience of producing the thing at that moment and then it like sits on a shelf and you never return to it. I don't know. What do you what do you think?
Katie Marshall: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, it depends on the century, I guess. mean, if you're thinking about the 16th, 17th century, I think people wrote down sort of books and their thoughts on whilst reading the book without, you know, noting in the margin sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, they're all so unique and I think everyone used them for a different reason. But I think it's just, collecting things. Like, so it's basically your phone notes app, but in physical form, I think.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that's true. Yeah, I Yeah, that's true. I mean I I I I worry for historians of the future who ha have so like a you know, infinite qu quantity of material, like all the all the spam in a Gmail account. What?
Katie Marshall: people in the past but I mean obviously for historians they're invaluable aren't they? Yeah. Hmm. How much of it will be left as well? How much of it will be left for them by that point as well?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, I mean, right, the sort of digital obsolescence. But if it is, right, like and they recover it, right? Like, you know, famous author's Gmail account, like what is, you know, what what do they have to wade through? but no, I yeah, like particular work of our I was it's funny, I you you had sent me some of these questions and when I got to my office I was I have like a stack of random kind of postcards and
Katie Marshall: Yeah. They'd probably have AI to help them by that point, wouldn't they? Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin Saltzman: And things like that. and I found I found two. And one of them is and I'll I'll save the postcard, but one of them is this this postcard depicting May's land not just it's a photograph from May's Landing, which is The home of of Genevieve May, who is a family friend of ours, and my mom became friends with her because she was A nurse, my mom was a nurse at UCLA and and Genevieve had opened her home. She was a affiliated with UCLA through the psychology department. And she had opened her home in in Malibu up to retreats. And so my mom began running these nursing retreats at Genevieve's home. And so then we kind of became family friends and we would often go there. And I write about this a little bit at the end of end of turning away at the end of the book, but I you Yeah, I just this morning came across this photograph and it's like it's it's it's a photograph that's also imprinted in my mind. I like no longer need the photograph to remember what this looks like. But basically for those who are listening, it's a a doorway that opens out into a kind of brick patio with some foliage, olive trees and such that and then overlooking the Pacific Ocean. and this was the kind of design of her home was you sort of walked in and
Katie Marshall: Yeah. Hmm... No.
Benjamin Saltzman: the entryway was like two feet wide and you immediately walk out. So you walk in and then walk out and you're now in the kind of in the the view of the Pacific. And I spent so much time just like arriving there and the first thing I would do is kind of walk through and then stand on the cliff and and look at the the waves below and the ocean below and just feel absorbed in it. So yeah, I mean this is that is what commonplace books are for, right? It's a kind of like locking memories in.
Katie Marshall: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin Saltzman: And maybe you return to them, maybe you don't. the physical book that is but you those memories are always maybe there. They're somewhere. Yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yes. Yeah, they're so personal you don't need to record them, but you know, they're there. But I think that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I love that idea. It all sounds like a portal into another world. Yeah. Lovely thing to have. I mean, you said maybe you have a postcard as well, or is that?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. You need some place to put them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well yeah. So then like next to it was this postcard that was sent to me by Nancy Tibot who is was a graduate student at at the University of Chicago when I first arrived. and now teaches art. She's an art historian and teaches art history at Oxford and And I just got to I spent some time in Oxford a month ago or so and and got to spend some time with her. But it was nice to kind of re encounter this postcard. And it's very it says it it has a photograph of a medieval ivory depicting the ascension of Christ. And there's so which is which is a yeah, it's a it's a kind of work that she had brought to my attention when I was first working on this project and then written
Katie Marshall: Yeah. Thanks for giving me a hand. Yeah. Okay.
Benjamin Saltzman: kind of in handwriting on on white blocks of paper overlapping the image, it says, Thanks for giving me a hand and and it's depicting the the ivory has Christ reaching out and God is like reaching down out of the clouds and pulling pulling him up. And there's just a a very sweet note on the on the back note of gratitude and and I just I love that this conversation prompted me to re encounter this this
Katie Marshall: No. Yeah.
Benjamin Saltzman: This postcard, which is very sweet and and means a lot. So
Katie Marshall: Yeah, lovely. Yeah, it's that lovely link between the personal and work as well, because I mean, probably for you, they're quite inseparable sometimes, the people who have helped you with this project. Yeah. So what about music? Do you listen to music while you're working, or is there a song that uplifts you, you always come back to?
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, yeah. It's a real privilege, yeah. Yeah. I'm terrible with music. I I like I I like listening to music, but I have a terrible time. And maybe this comes back to the like memorizing poetry is that like I kind of listen to it atmospherically, ambiently, but then I don't Yeah, I ca I like sort of can't engage with it intellectually or haven't developed a practice of engaging w with it intellectually. And so but I mean maybe w one can, one could, I could, but
Katie Marshall: No? yeah not sure what it was right
Benjamin Saltzman: But I think y that would be a boundary. I think I wouldn't I don't know if I'd include include music in my commonplace book. It would be that would be very hard.
Katie Marshall: Okay, so there's no particular genre or anything that you particularly like? Is it like you listen to classical or kind of pop or... Yeah, okay. Algorithm.
Benjamin Saltzman: there's so it's so random. It's like, you know, pink pink pony club on the one hand, and then like, you know, little Harry Styles, a little classical, little jazz, little Miles Davis. You know, it's like it's so random. There'd be no no logic to it. Yeah. you know. Yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah. Yeah. That's fine, no. I get that. Cool. Alright, so do you want to bring up a poem from what you've been working on? One that sort of stood out to you?
Benjamin Saltzman: sure, yeah. I mean the first the first poem that I've like started memorizing is this poem, beautiful poem by Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order at Key West. and that has just been yeah, it's been a real a real it's a kind of I've sort of created, I guess, my own kind of like internal commonplace book book in which Which that that poem has become deeply internalized. and it's and it's a really wonderful experience to have a poem in your mind and be able to to recount it in parts or recount it in whole, or to occupy time when you're you know, when you might ordinarily open up your phone. you can kind of sit on the bus or or go for a walk and you can you can kind of recite the poem in your mind.
Katie Marshall: Mm.
Benjamin Saltzman: or allowed if you want to trouble the people around you. But yeah, that's been that's been a poem. And I've just just kind of started memorizing a far far easier poem, I think, to memorize. I'm not sure if what maybe it's just more practice, but The Fish by Marianne Moore. Which is interesting 'cause it's such such a formally it's a formally kind of rigid poem.
Katie Marshall: Yeah.
Benjamin Saltzman: Each line is has a certain number of syllables repeated in each stanza and so many lines are kind of one syllable some lines are one syllable, and it's broken in in very strange ways that don't flow that there's there's a lot of enjamment, for instance, and and so memorizing it visually is quite quite difficult. but yeah.
Katie Marshall: Hmm. Hmm.
Benjamin Saltzman: So that's where the com that's where the handwritten commonplace book or handwritten notebook comes in.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, yeah, there's another thing that it sort of goes past the written word really because it occupies sort of an image in your mind of how it's formulated.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and in fact I was just listening to there's a recording of Marianne Moore reading it and so I was trying to like align myself with her voice and do things like that, which is pretty cool.
Katie Marshall: Hmm. Yeah, I do kind of do the same thing when I'm learning like a new song, I stick classical music, but I mean, you listen to different people's interpretations of the same written text and it's not the same song most of the time. It's got completely different emotions in it. Yeah. So what about a book that you'd like to sort of, I mean, this could be more for people looking back at your commonplace book is a book that, you know, you particularly enjoyed that you'd recommend to people could be like a classic text or it could be something that's influenced your work.
Benjamin Saltzman: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, true. True, true. there's so man there's so many, so many, so many. I don't know, I I have a I have a hard time with questions like this. but I think Hm. I mean the first the first thing that comes to I think the first book that comes to mind is like one that I recently recently read and and would have like hypothetically put into my commonplace book. It also feels like a very commonplace book type book. is this it's this great book by recent book by Robert McFarlane entitled Is a River Alive? and it you know, it sort of asks asks this question of of various rivers. so it's kind of part part philosophy, part narrative, and he travels to to four different rivers and and and thinks about the kinds of damage that's being Done to them and thinks about their aliveness and the relationship to the human and and to himself and the experience of traveling around or encountering these rivers and the the people who live nearby or who are trying to protect them. But anyways, it's a very moving book and and beautifully written. So I don't know that I again it's not something that's like deeply influential, but I think part of your question is. And part of the the kind of prompt around commonplace books is like, so you happen to read this book, you happen to encounter it, how do you digest it or how do you how do you take note of it? And that was yeah, just happens to be something I read recently that that I would that I probably would have written down.
Katie Marshall: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this actually sounds like a wonderful book. Yeah, sounds like something that can cross over quite a few sort of ways of thinking philosophies and also the kind of, you know, the eco side of it as well. So do you like to cook? Like, is there a family recipe or one that you've started making recently that you'd like to write down? Yeah. Okay.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I love cooking. I hate recipes. Yeah, no, I c I cook all the time, you know, nearly every meal for our family and then oftentimes large meals for larger groups and I yeah, I never never use a recipe and it's always you know, even if I'm cooking the same dish, it's always a little bit different each time and I just love that. But but it frustrates those who like my partner who, you know, well let's reproduce this thing. Let's like, you know, reproduce the recipe or I want to be able to reproduce it when you're not here or something like that. And it's just I, you know, can give the gist of it. But but I often, you know, you asked about pictures or drawings or
Katie Marshall: Yes.
Benjamin Saltzman: Or you know, photographs. But I often, you know, if I do use a recipe book and and like we have a great collection of of recipe books, but I often just use the picture as inspiration, right? I'll see the final thing and then I'll make it. and yeah. yeah. Some I mean it sometimes turns out different, but that's okay. Do you cook as well? You must. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you use recipes? What's a good
Katie Marshall: Hmm. Yeah. Well that's the sign of a great chef, isn't it? I mean, if you've got that much experience that you can do it from an image. Yeah. Well, yeah. Oh yeah, I love cooking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, oh, I'm kind of the same. I actually
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah.
Katie Marshall: kind of do it. use a lot of, you know, when you see people making stuff on Instagram or something, I do prefer that to a written recipe. Cause I don't like following like strict instructions. I find it a bit annoying. Like, cause you know what you want and you've got different preferences and you just kind of...
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I find it so stressful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Marshall: eyeball things, so yeah, I'm kind of the same like that. I get that.
Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Katie Marshall: So kind of the penultimate question before a wild card where you can choose anything you want is what's sort of looking forward and backwards? What's something you're grateful for right now and what's something that you want to achieve by this time next year?
Benjamin Saltzman: Ooh, these are like these are great great questions. I'm grateful. I'm so grateful for so much. I you know, the the privilege of being able to write and think, and you know, there's I mean there's just it family being you know, being able to be in the in the water when I can be in the water. It it's like all of these things combined, but just for the the immense amount of privilege to to be able to do the work that I do and teach the students that I do, I'd say is a a primary one. And then For the future, I don't know, more I don't know, more conversations like this and more conversations with friends and and colleagues. I find them so inspiring and you know, that's that's yeah. I just hope that that that continues. So, yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah. So what about the wild card? Anything. It can be like a press flower, another poem, sketch, or just like an anecdote from a conversation, one maybe that you've had with a friend.
Benjamin Saltzman: Hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Hmm. This is tricky. I mean maybe the I don't know, some way to like capture the have two young youngish. Now they're I mean they're not that young anymore, children. They're eight and eleven. Like some way to capture that. I don't know. If there was some like magical way to pa I guess photographs do that, but not you know, you know what I mean. I right like the essence of this moment, right? that would be pretty sweet. So yeah. Yeah.
Katie Marshall: Yeah, the essence. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much, Benjamin. I've absolutely loved this chat. And yeah, it's been very kind of enriching for me as well, you know, to hear about your work and how it links into your life. I think you're doing great things. So thank you. Yeah.
Benjamin Saltzman: thank you. Well it's it's a real pleasure to to be in conversation with you and I you know, I'll add to the the gratitude list how grateful I'm to to be you know, to be here and that you that you included me on your project.
Katie Marshall: Thank you, no it's a pleasure. mean, I look forward to seeing what you do next with this kind of thing because you it seems to have linked so neatly with everything that's going on in the world and gives us a lot to think about. So, thank you so much Benjamin.
Benjamin Saltzman: Thank you, Katie. Yeah. All right. Take care.