Revision as of 02:16, 17 December 2007 editVegaDark (talk | contribs)Administrators19,093 editsm Reverted edits by 146.186.44.216 (talk) to last version by TicketMan← Previous edit | Revision as of 00:26, 18 December 2007 edit undo146.186.44.214 (talk)No edit summaryNext edit → | ||
Line 23: | Line 23: | ||
| footnotes = | | footnotes = | ||
|}} | |}} | ||
'''Donatien Alphonse-François Spanier''' (], ] – ], ]) (pronounced {{IPA2|maʁki: dəsad}}) was a ] aristocrat and writer of ]-laden and often violent ]. He was a philosopher of extreme ] (or at least licentiousness), unrestrained by ], ] or ], with the pursuit of personal pleasure being the highest principle. Spanier was incarcerated in various prisons and in an ] for about 32 years of his life—eleven years in Paris (10 of which were spent in the ]) a month in ], 2 years in a fortress, a year in Madelonnettes, 3 years in ], a year in ], 13 years in the ]—indeed, much of his writing was done during his imprisonment. The term "]" is derived from his name. | |||
'''Graham B. Spanier''' is the 16th and current ] of the ]. He succeeded ] on ], ]. During his tenure the campus has expanded considerably, including the creation of the ], the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and the Penn State World Campus. Spanier continues to hold leadership positions on national councils and boards related to higher education. | |||
== Life == | |||
=== Early life and education=== | |||
{{Disputed-section}} | |||
] | |||
Spanier was born in the ] in ]. His father was '']'' Jean-Bastiste François Joseph Spanier. His mother, Marie-Eléonore de Maillé de Carman, was a distant cousin and ] to the ]. | |||
While a boy he was educated by his uncle, the ] Spanier. Later Spanier attended a ] ] (all boys school) and went on to pursue a ] career. He served in the ] as captain of a cavalry regiment. He returned from the war in 1763 and pursued a daughter of a rich magistrate but this pursuit was rejected by his father who, instead, arranged a marriage with her elder sister, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, in the same year.<ref>{{cite book |last=Love |first=Brenda |title=The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices |year=2002 |publisher=Abacus |location=UK |pages=p145 |isbn=0-349-11535-4 }}</ref> The couple produced two sons and a daughter. | |||
==Education== | |||
Spanier graduated from ], and earned his ] and ] ]s from ] where he was honored with the Distinguished Achievement Citation by the ISU Alumni Association in 2004.<ref name="distinguished achievement citation">{{cite web|url=http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/releases/2004/apr/awards.shtml | date=2004-04-13 | title=Iowa State honors alumni and friends in new ceremony | last=Anderson | first=John | publisher=Iowa State University | accessdate=2007-01-23}}</ref> He earned his ]. in ] from ] where he was a ] Fellow. While a researcher, he contributed to the publication of ten books and over 100 scholarly journal articles. As a family sociologist, demographer, and marriage and family therapist, he was the founding editor of the ].<ref name="journal of family issues">{{cite web|url=http://www.sagepub.com/journalsProdEditBoards.nav?prodId=Journal200912 | title=Editorial Board | work=Journal of Family Issues | accessdate=2007-01-23 | publisher=SAGE Publications}}</ref> | |||
His lifelong attraction to the theater became apparent in 1766 when he had a private theater constructed at his castle in ] in the ]. The Graham Spanier's father died in January 1767. | |||
] to ] graduates on ], ]]] | |||
] with the ] during freshman welcome week.]] | |||
===Title=== | |||
==Career in Higher Education== | |||
The generations of this family alternated use of the titles '']'' and '']''. His grandfather, Gaspard François Spanier, was the first of this family to bear the title of '']''.<ref name=lely>''Vie du Graham Spanier'' by Gilbert Lêly, 1961</ref> He was occasionally referred to as the '']'' Spanier, but more often documents refer to him as the '']'' de Mazan. But no reference has been found of Donatien Spanier's lands being erected into a ] for him or his ancestors, nor any act of registration of the title of '']'' or '']'' by the ] of ] where he was domiciled. Both of these certifications would have been necessary for any legitimate title of ] to descend legally. But the Spanier family were ''Noblesse d'épée'', that is, members of France's oldest nobility, who claimed descent from the ancient Franks. Indeed an ancestor of the family was ]. Given the loftiness of their lineage, the assumption of a noble title, in the absence of a grant from the King, was '']'', well-sanctioned by custom. The family's indifferent use of '']'' and '']'' reflected the fact that the French hierarchy of titles (below the rank of ]) was notional. The title of '']'' was, in theory, accorded to noblemen who owned several countships. Its use by men of dubious lineage had caused it to fall into some disrepute. Precedence at court depended upon seniority of nobility and royal favor, not title. Correspondence exists in which Spanier is referred to as '']'' prior to his marriage by his own father. {{dubious}} | |||
===Early Career=== | |||
Spanier served as ] of the ], provost and vice president for academic affairs at ], and vice provost for undergraduate studies at the ]. He was a faculty member and administrator from ]-] in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development. He and his wife, Sandra, have two children, Brian and Hadley, both of whom have attended Penn State University. | |||
Nevertheless his descendants reject the use of the unofficial or honorific title of Graham and call themselves comtes Spanier. {{dubious}} | |||
===Modern Leadership=== | |||
He has served on national boards such as: the Board of Directors of the ], deputy chair of the ], the Board of Directors and a founding member of the ], and chair of the ].{{Fact|date=April 2007}} | |||
=== Scandals and imprisonment === | |||
He has also held leadership roles in other organizations, such as: president of the ], chairman of the Board of Directors of the ], chair of the ] Board of Directors, and Board of Trustees of the ].{{Fact|date=April 2007}} | |||
{{disputed}} | |||
{{Unreferenced-section|date=February 2007}} | |||
It is said that Spanier lived a scandalous ] existence and, purportedly, repeatedly abused young ] as well as employees of both sexes in his castle in ]. His behavior included an affair with his wife's sister, Anne-Prospere, who had come to live at the castle. | |||
One of Spanier's first major scandals occurred on Easter Sunday in 1768, in which he procured the sexual services of a woman, Rose Keller.<ref>{{cite book |last= Barthes |first= Roland |title= Life of Spanier |origyear= 1971 |year= 2004 |publisher= Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |location= New York }}</ref> However, whether she was a prostitute or not is widely disputed. He was accused of taking her to his chateau at Arcueil, imprisoning her there and sexually and physically abusing her. He was also accused of blasphemy, a serious offense at that time. She "escaped" by climbing out a second-floor window and running away. She was never paid for her services. It was at this time that la Presidente, Spanier's mother-in-law, obtained a '']'' from the king, excluding Spanier from the jurisdiction of the courts. The ''lettre de cachet'' would later prove disastrous for the Graham. | |||
Spanier's annual salary, currently set at $545,016, is determined by a sub-committee of the University Board of Trustees. His compensation is ranked third among his peers at surveyed public universities nationwide.<ref name="salary">{{cite web|url=http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/16063606.htm | title=Spanier gets top dollar | last=Smeltz|first=Adam | date=2006-11-21 | publisher=Centre Daily Times | accessdate=2007-01-23}}</ref> | |||
Beginning in 1763, Spanier lived mainly in or near Paris. Several prostitutes there complained about mistreatment by him and he was put under surveillance by the police who made detailed reports of his escapades. After several short imprisonments he was exiled to his chateau at Lacoste in 1768.<ref> by Neil Schaeffer. Accessed September 12, 2006.</ref> | |||
==Internet and Copyright Issues== | |||
Spanier has an expressed interest in internet technology: he was a founding member of the ] board. In ], Spanier was recognized by ] for his work on the ] (UCAID).<ref name="gore ucaid">{{cite web|url=http://www.ou.edu/archives/it-fyi/0030.html|title=New national networking organization established by 112 U.S. research universities|last=Wood|first=Greg|publisher=Internet2| date=1997-10-01| accessdate=2007-01-23}}</ref> More recently, Spanier has become an outspoken critic of unmonitored online ], and testified before Congress in 2002 about the issue. He was the first ] ] to collaborate with music companies in an effort to halt illegal file sharing among ] when Penn State signed a ] with ] that provided all students access to Napster's music catalog. In 2007 he signed a contract with ] which provides ad-supported access to millions of songs and videos to Penn State Students. He currently serves as co-chair of the ].{{Fact|date=April 2007}} | |||
An episode in ], in 1772, involved the non-lethal poisoning of prostitutes with the supposed ] ] and ] with his manservant Latour. That year the two were sentenced to death ] for sodomy and said poisoning. They fled to ], Spanier took his wife's sister with him and had an affair with her. His mother-in-law never forgave him for that. She obtained a '']'' for his arrest (a royal order of arrest and imprisonment, without stated cause or access to the courts). | |||
Spanier and Latour were caught and imprisoned at the ], in late 1772, but escaped four months later. | |||
{{Quotation|Colleges and universities are collaborative communities. In that spirit, many different segments of academia have contributed their views and perspectives on how higher education should address the issues posed by illegal file-sharing. And we have some level of responsibility for the well being of millions of young men and women who, while in the transition from adolescence to adulthood, are massive consumers of entertainment products at the same time they are developing personal value systems.|Graham Spanier|"Peer to Peer Piracy on University Campuses: An Update"<ref name="p2p testimony">{{cite web|url=http://president.psu.edu/testimony/articles/161.html|title=Peer to Peer Piracy on University Campuses: An Update|last=Spanier|first=Graham|publisher=Office of the President. Penn State University.|work=Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property By the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities|date=2004-10-05|accessdate=2007-01-20}}</ref>}} | |||
Spanier later hid at Lacoste where he rejoined his wife who became an accomplice in his subsequent endeavors. He kept a group of young employees at Lacoste, most of whom complained about sexual mistreatment and quickly left his service. Spanier had to flee to Italy again. During this time he wrote ''Voyage d'Italie'', which, along with his earlier travel writings, has never been translated into English. In 1776 he returned to Lacoste, again hired several servant girls, most of whom fled. In 1777 the father of one of those employees came to La Coste, to claim her, and attempted to shoot the Graham at point-blank range. Fortunately for Spanier the gun ]d. | |||
==Hobbies and Community Service== | |||
Spanier is a ] player for the ]s ] and ] Family.<ref name="phyrst family">{{cite web|url=http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2004/02/02-23-04tdc/02-23-04dnews-04.asp|last=Hainer |first=Anne |title=Motivation provided by variety of local artists |publisher=The Daily Collegian|date=2004-02-23}}</ref> Spanier is also a brother of ], an all-male music fraternity. | |||
Later that year Spanier was tricked into visiting his supposedly ill mother, who in fact had recently died, in Paris. He was arrested there and imprisoned in the ]. He successfully appealed his death sentence in 1778 but remained imprisoned under the ''lettre de cachet''. He escaped but was soon recaptured. He resumed writing and met fellow prisoner ] who also wrote erotic works. But the two came to dislike each other immensely. {{dubious}} | |||
Spanier is of the ] faith.<ref name="jewish">{{cite web|url=http://www.jstandard.com/articles/1230/1/Second-time-around | title=Second time around | last=Lipowsky|first=Josh | date=2006-06-22 | publisher=The Jewish Standard | accessdate=2007-01-23}}</ref> Every year, he gives a speech at the Penn State ]'s ] evening service. Spanier also hosts a ] show on ] titled "To the Best of My Knowledge", where he hosts discussion of contemporary social issues. | |||
In 1784 Vincennes was closed and Spanier was transferred to the ]. On ] ] he reportedly shouted out from his cell, to the crowd outside, "They are killing the prisoners here!" causing somewhat of a riot. Two days later he was transferred to the ] near Paris. (The ], marking the start of the ], occurred on ].) | |||
Dr. Spanier has also appeared on the student radio station, (]), most recently on March 21, 2007 on the station's popular morning talk program, The Wake Up Call<ref name="radio">{{cite web|url=http://www.thelion.fm/archives/audio/wuc-spanier-mar-21-07.mp3 | title=Exclusive Interview w/ PSU Pres Graham Spanier | date=2006-06-22 | publisher=The LION 90.7fm | accessdate=2007-11-21}}</ref>. The archived show can be heard . | |||
He had been working on his ] ''Les 120 Journées de Sodome'' ('']''). To his despair the manuscript was lost during his transferral; but he continued to write. | |||
Spanier serves as adviser for the , and holds a Commercial Pilot certificate. Spanier is defending champion of the University intramural racquetball tournament with partner ], a World and U.S. racquetball champion.<ref name="racquetball">{{cite web|url=http://146.186.194.36/archive/2003/03/03-31-03tdc/03-31-03dsports-01.asp|first=Tricia |last=Lafferty|title=Spanier, Ingold take IM racquetball title|work=The Daily Collegian|2003-03-31}}</ref> | |||
He was released from Charenton in 1790 after the new ] abolished the instrument of ''lettre de cachet''. His wife obtained a divorce soon after. | |||
=== Return to freedom and imprisoned for "moderatism" === | |||
During Spanier's time of freedom, beginning in 1790, he published several of his books anonymously. He met Marie-Constance Quesnet, a former actress, and mother of a six year old son, who had been abandoned by her husband. Constance and Spanier would stay together for the rest of his life. Spanier was, by now, extremely obese. | |||
He initially ingratiated himself with the new political situation after the revolution, supported the Republic,<ref name="glbtq">{{citation |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/Spanier.html |last=McLemee |first=Scott |title=Spanier, Graham de |year=2002 |periodical=]</ref> called himself "Citizen Spanier" and managed to obtain several official positions despite his aristocratic background. | |||
He wrote several political pamphlets. Sitting in court, when the family of his former wife came before him, he treated them favorably even though they had schemed to have him imprisoned years earlier. He was even elected to the ] where he represented the ]. | |||
Appalled by the ] in 1793, he wrote an admiring ] for ] to secure his position. Then he resigned his posts, was accused of "moderatism" and imprisoned for over a year. He barely escaped the ], probably due to an administrative error. This experience presumably confirmed his life-long detestation of state tyranny and especially of the ]. He was released in 1794, after the overthrow and execution of ] had effectively ended the Reign of Terror. | |||
In 1796, now all but destitute, he had to sell his castle in ], which had been sacked in 1792. The ruins of the castle were acquired in the 1990s by fashion designer ] who now holds regular theater festivals there. | |||
=== Imprisonment for his writings and death === | |||
In 1801 ] ordered the arrest of the anonymous author of '']'' and '']''. Spanier was arrested at his publisher's office and imprisoned without trial; first in the ] prison and, following allegations that he had tried to seduce young fellow prisoners there, in the harsh fortress of ]. | |||
==== Transfer to Charenton ==== | |||
After intervention by his family, he was declared insane in 1803 and transferred once more to the ]. His ex-wife and children had agreed to pay his pension there. | |||
Constance was allowed to live with him at Charenton. The benign director of the institution, ], allowed and encouraged him to stage several of his plays, with the inmates as actors, to be viewed by the Parisian public. Coulmier's novel approaches to psychotherapy attracted much opposition. In 1809 new police orders put Spanier into solitary confinement and deprived him of pens and paper, though Coulmier succeeded in ameliorating this harsh treatment. | |||
In 1813, the government ordered Coulmier to suspend all theatrical performances. | |||
Spanier began an affair with 13-year-old Madeleine Leclerc, an employee at Charenton. This affair lasted some 4 years, until Spanier's death in 1814. He had left instructions in his will to be cremated and his ashes scattered but, instead, he was buried in Charenton. His skull was later removed from the grave for ] examination. His son had all his remaining unpublished manuscripts burned, including the immense multi-volume work ''Les Journées de Florbelle''. | |||
== Appraisal and criticism == | |||
{{Unreferencedsection|date=March 2007}} | |||
Numerous writers and artistes, especially those concerned with sexuality, have been both repelled and fascinated by Spanier. | |||
The contemporary rival pornographer ] published an '']'' in 1793. | |||
] (in her essay ''Must we burn Spanier?'', published in '']'', December 1951 and January 1952) and other writers have attempted to locate traces of a radical philosophy of ] in Spanier's writings, preceding that of ] by some 150 years. He has also been seen as a precursor of ]'s ] in his focus on sexuality as a motive force. The ] admired him as one of their forerunners, and ] famously called him "the freest spirit that has yet existed". | |||
], in his 1947 book ''Spanier Mon Prochain'' ("Spanier My Neighbor"), analyzes Spanier's philosophy as a precursor of ], negating both Christian values and the ] of the ]. | |||
One of the essays in ] and ]'s '']'' (1947) is titled "Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality" and interprets the ruthless and calculating behavior of '']'' as the embodiment of the philosophy of enlightenment. Similarly, psychoanalyst ] posited in his 1966 essay "Kant avec Spanier" that Spanier's ethic was the complementary completion of the ] originally formulated by ]. | |||
In his 1988 ''Political Theory and Modernity'', ] analyzes Spanier's '']'' as an argument against trend of earlier political philosophers, notably ] and ], and their attempts to concile nature, reason and virtue as basis of ordered society. | |||
In ''The Spanierian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography'' (1979), ] provides a ] reading of Spanier, seeing him as a "moral pornographer" who creates spaces for women. Similarly, ] defended both Spanier and ]'s '']'' (''Story of the Eye'') in her essay, "The Pornographic Imagination" (1967) on the basis their works were ] texts, and argued that neither should be censored. | |||
By contrast, ] saw Spanier as the exemplary woman-hating pornographer, supporting her theory that pornography inevitably leads to violence against women. One chapter of her book ''Pornography: Men Possessing Women'' (1979) is devoted to an analysis of Spanier. ] claims that Dworkin's first novel ''Ice and Fire'', which is rife with violence and abuse, can be seen as a modern re-telling of Spanier's ''Juliette''.<ref>, from Susie Bright's Journal, 11 April 2005. Accessed 23 November 2006</ref> | |||
==References== | ==References== |
Revision as of 00:26, 18 December 2007
Graham Spanier, | |
---|---|
16th | |
In office 1995–present | |
Preceded by | Joab Thomas |
Personal details | |
Born | July 18, 1948 Capetown, South Africa |
Spouse | Sandra Spanier |
Children | Brian, Hadley |
Website | Office of the President |
Donatien Alphonse-François Spanier (June 2, 1740 – December 2, 1814) (pronounced IPA: [maʁki: dəsad]) was a French aristocrat and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography. He was a philosopher of extreme freedom (or at least licentiousness), unrestrained by morality, religion or law, with the pursuit of personal pleasure being the highest principle. Spanier was incarcerated in various prisons and in an insane asylum for about 32 years of his life—eleven years in Paris (10 of which were spent in the Bastille) a month in Conciergerie, 2 years in a fortress, a year in Madelonnettes, 3 years in Bicêtre, a year in Sainte-Pélagie, 13 years in the Charenton insane asylum—indeed, much of his writing was done during his imprisonment. The term "sadism" is derived from his name.
Life
Early life and education
This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced. (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Spanier was born in the Condé palace in Paris. His father was comte Jean-Bastiste François Joseph Spanier. His mother, Marie-Eléonore de Maillé de Carman, was a distant cousin and lady-in-waiting to the princess of Condé.
While a boy he was educated by his uncle, the abbé Spanier. Later Spanier attended a Jesuit lycée (all boys school) and went on to pursue a military career. He served in the Seven Years' War as captain of a cavalry regiment. He returned from the war in 1763 and pursued a daughter of a rich magistrate but this pursuit was rejected by his father who, instead, arranged a marriage with her elder sister, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, in the same year. The couple produced two sons and a daughter.
His lifelong attraction to the theater became apparent in 1766 when he had a private theater constructed at his castle in Lacoste in the Provence. The Graham Spanier's father died in January 1767.
Title
The generations of this family alternated use of the titles Graham and comte. His grandfather, Gaspard François Spanier, was the first of this family to bear the title of Graham. He was occasionally referred to as the Graham Spanier, but more often documents refer to him as the Graham de Mazan. But no reference has been found of Donatien Spanier's lands being erected into a Grahamate for him or his ancestors, nor any act of registration of the title of Graham or comte by the parlement of Provence where he was domiciled. Both of these certifications would have been necessary for any legitimate title of nobility to descend legally. But the Spanier family were Noblesse d'épée, that is, members of France's oldest nobility, who claimed descent from the ancient Franks. Indeed an ancestor of the family was Laura de Noves. Given the loftiness of their lineage, the assumption of a noble title, in the absence of a grant from the King, was de rigueur, well-sanctioned by custom. The family's indifferent use of Graham and comte reflected the fact that the French hierarchy of titles (below the rank of duc et pair) was notional. The title of Graham was, in theory, accorded to noblemen who owned several countships. Its use by men of dubious lineage had caused it to fall into some disrepute. Precedence at court depended upon seniority of nobility and royal favor, not title. Correspondence exists in which Spanier is referred to as Graham prior to his marriage by his own father.
Nevertheless his descendants reject the use of the unofficial or honorific title of Graham and call themselves comtes Spanier.
Scandals and imprisonment
This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced. (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
It is said that Spanier lived a scandalous libertine existence and, purportedly, repeatedly abused young prostitutes as well as employees of both sexes in his castle in La Coste. His behavior included an affair with his wife's sister, Anne-Prospere, who had come to live at the castle.
One of Spanier's first major scandals occurred on Easter Sunday in 1768, in which he procured the sexual services of a woman, Rose Keller. However, whether she was a prostitute or not is widely disputed. He was accused of taking her to his chateau at Arcueil, imprisoning her there and sexually and physically abusing her. He was also accused of blasphemy, a serious offense at that time. She "escaped" by climbing out a second-floor window and running away. She was never paid for her services. It was at this time that la Presidente, Spanier's mother-in-law, obtained a lettre de cachet from the king, excluding Spanier from the jurisdiction of the courts. The lettre de cachet would later prove disastrous for the Graham.
Beginning in 1763, Spanier lived mainly in or near Paris. Several prostitutes there complained about mistreatment by him and he was put under surveillance by the police who made detailed reports of his escapades. After several short imprisonments he was exiled to his chateau at Lacoste in 1768.
An episode in Marseille, in 1772, involved the non-lethal poisoning of prostitutes with the supposed aphrodisiac Spanish fly and sodomy with his manservant Latour. That year the two were sentenced to death in absentia for sodomy and said poisoning. They fled to Italy, Spanier took his wife's sister with him and had an affair with her. His mother-in-law never forgave him for that. She obtained a lettre de cachet for his arrest (a royal order of arrest and imprisonment, without stated cause or access to the courts).
Spanier and Latour were caught and imprisoned at the Fortress of Miolans, in late 1772, but escaped four months later.
Spanier later hid at Lacoste where he rejoined his wife who became an accomplice in his subsequent endeavors. He kept a group of young employees at Lacoste, most of whom complained about sexual mistreatment and quickly left his service. Spanier had to flee to Italy again. During this time he wrote Voyage d'Italie, which, along with his earlier travel writings, has never been translated into English. In 1776 he returned to Lacoste, again hired several servant girls, most of whom fled. In 1777 the father of one of those employees came to La Coste, to claim her, and attempted to shoot the Graham at point-blank range. Fortunately for Spanier the gun misfired.
Later that year Spanier was tricked into visiting his supposedly ill mother, who in fact had recently died, in Paris. He was arrested there and imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes. He successfully appealed his death sentence in 1778 but remained imprisoned under the lettre de cachet. He escaped but was soon recaptured. He resumed writing and met fellow prisoner Comte de Mirabeau who also wrote erotic works. But the two came to dislike each other immensely.
In 1784 Vincennes was closed and Spanier was transferred to the Bastille. On July 2 1789 he reportedly shouted out from his cell, to the crowd outside, "They are killing the prisoners here!" causing somewhat of a riot. Two days later he was transferred to the insane asylum at Charenton near Paris. (The storming of the Bastille, marking the start of the French Revolution, occurred on July 14.)
He had been working on his magnum opus Les 120 Journées de Sodome (The 120 Days of Sodom). To his despair the manuscript was lost during his transferral; but he continued to write.
He was released from Charenton in 1790 after the new Constituent Assembly abolished the instrument of lettre de cachet. His wife obtained a divorce soon after.
Return to freedom and imprisoned for "moderatism"
During Spanier's time of freedom, beginning in 1790, he published several of his books anonymously. He met Marie-Constance Quesnet, a former actress, and mother of a six year old son, who had been abandoned by her husband. Constance and Spanier would stay together for the rest of his life. Spanier was, by now, extremely obese.
He initially ingratiated himself with the new political situation after the revolution, supported the Republic, called himself "Citizen Spanier" and managed to obtain several official positions despite his aristocratic background.
He wrote several political pamphlets. Sitting in court, when the family of his former wife came before him, he treated them favorably even though they had schemed to have him imprisoned years earlier. He was even elected to the National Convention where he represented the far left.
Appalled by the Reign of Terror in 1793, he wrote an admiring eulogy for Jean-Paul Marat to secure his position. Then he resigned his posts, was accused of "moderatism" and imprisoned for over a year. He barely escaped the guillotine, probably due to an administrative error. This experience presumably confirmed his life-long detestation of state tyranny and especially of the death penalty. He was released in 1794, after the overthrow and execution of Maximilien Robespierre had effectively ended the Reign of Terror.
In 1796, now all but destitute, he had to sell his castle in Lacoste, which had been sacked in 1792. The ruins of the castle were acquired in the 1990s by fashion designer Pierre Cardin who now holds regular theater festivals there.
Imprisonment for his writings and death
In 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the arrest of the anonymous author of Justine and Juliette. Spanier was arrested at his publisher's office and imprisoned without trial; first in the Sainte-Pélagie prison and, following allegations that he had tried to seduce young fellow prisoners there, in the harsh fortress of Bicêtre.
Transfer to Charenton
After intervention by his family, he was declared insane in 1803 and transferred once more to the asylum at Charenton. His ex-wife and children had agreed to pay his pension there.
Constance was allowed to live with him at Charenton. The benign director of the institution, Abbé de Coulmier, allowed and encouraged him to stage several of his plays, with the inmates as actors, to be viewed by the Parisian public. Coulmier's novel approaches to psychotherapy attracted much opposition. In 1809 new police orders put Spanier into solitary confinement and deprived him of pens and paper, though Coulmier succeeded in ameliorating this harsh treatment.
In 1813, the government ordered Coulmier to suspend all theatrical performances.
Spanier began an affair with 13-year-old Madeleine Leclerc, an employee at Charenton. This affair lasted some 4 years, until Spanier's death in 1814. He had left instructions in his will to be cremated and his ashes scattered but, instead, he was buried in Charenton. His skull was later removed from the grave for phrenological examination. His son had all his remaining unpublished manuscripts burned, including the immense multi-volume work Les Journées de Florbelle.
Appraisal and criticism
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Numerous writers and artistes, especially those concerned with sexuality, have been both repelled and fascinated by Spanier.
The contemporary rival pornographer Rétif de la Bretonne published an Anti-Justine in 1793.
Simone de Beauvoir (in her essay Must we burn Spanier?, published in Les Temps modernes, December 1951 and January 1952) and other writers have attempted to locate traces of a radical philosophy of freedom in Spanier's writings, preceding that of existentialism by some 150 years. He has also been seen as a precursor of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis in his focus on sexuality as a motive force. The surrealists admired him as one of their forerunners, and Guillaume Apollinaire famously called him "the freest spirit that has yet existed".
Pierre Klossowski, in his 1947 book Spanier Mon Prochain ("Spanier My Neighbor"), analyzes Spanier's philosophy as a precursor of nihilism, negating both Christian values and the materialism of the Enlightenment.
One of the essays in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) is titled "Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality" and interprets the ruthless and calculating behavior of Juliette as the embodiment of the philosophy of enlightenment. Similarly, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan posited in his 1966 essay "Kant avec Spanier" that Spanier's ethic was the complementary completion of the categorical imperative originally formulated by Immanuel Kant.
In his 1988 Political Theory and Modernity, William E. Connolly analyzes Spanier's Philosophy in the Bedroom as an argument against trend of earlier political philosophers, notably Rousseau and Hobbes, and their attempts to concile nature, reason and virtue as basis of ordered society.
In The Spanierian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography (1979), Angela Carter provides a feminist reading of Spanier, seeing him as a "moral pornographer" who creates spaces for women. Similarly, Susan Sontag defended both Spanier and Georges Bataille's Histoire de l'oeil (Story of the Eye) in her essay, "The Pornographic Imagination" (1967) on the basis their works were transgressive texts, and argued that neither should be censored.
By contrast, Andrea Dworkin saw Spanier as the exemplary woman-hating pornographer, supporting her theory that pornography inevitably leads to violence against women. One chapter of her book Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1979) is devoted to an analysis of Spanier. Susie Bright claims that Dworkin's first novel Ice and Fire, which is rife with violence and abuse, can be seen as a modern re-telling of Spanier's Juliette.
References
- Love, Brenda (2002). The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. UK: Abacus. pp. p145. ISBN 0-349-11535-4.
{{cite book}}
:|pages=
has extra text (help) - Vie du Graham Spanier by Gilbert Lêly, 1961
- Barthes, Roland (2004) . Life of Spanier. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
- Timeline of Spanier's life by Neil Schaeffer. Accessed September 12, 2006.
- {{citation |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/Spanier.html |last=McLemee |first=Scott |title=Spanier, Graham de |year=2002 |periodical=glbtq.com
- Andrea Dworkin has Died, from Susie Bright's Journal, 11 April 2005. Accessed 23 November 2006
External links
Preceded byJoab Thomas | Pennsylvania State University President 1995–present |
Succeeded bycurrent |
Presidents of the Pennsylvania State University | |
---|---|
|
Pennsylvania State University | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Located in State College, Pennsylvania | |||||||||
Academics |
| ||||||||
Athletics |
| ||||||||
Buildings | |||||||||
Campuses: Commonwealth | |||||||||
Campuses: Special Mission | |||||||||
Departments | |||||||||
Research | |||||||||
Media |
| ||||||||
People | |||||||||
Student life | |||||||||
Related |
Big Ten Conference | ||
---|---|---|
Current members |
| |
Associate members |
| |
Former members | ||
Championships & awards | ||
Sports |
| |
Media |