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My remarks grow out of a sense of frustration which came over me recurrently in the course of our last session at the Whitney Museum. I found everything said by all participants to be of great relevance and interest, but I did not quite see how I could apply the prevailing categories of the disciplines familiar to me-sociology, history, anthropology, psychoanalysis, more generally, the social sciences and humanities-in such a way as to throw new light on the questions under discussion. I therefore decided that it was urgent that I proceed at once to sort out the thoughts I have been having since we last met. The key results of my efforts during the interim lead me now, frankly, to avow my conviction that such discussions as we had last time-and will doubtless have again today-evidently call for a fresh look at certain familiar paradigms in the professional study of human culture and action.
I begin with the exceedingly suggestives clues, also noted in passing by Professor Hopper, which Mr. Robert Sowers offered in his presentation to the last session of our conference. Showing over 150 slides of every sort and description, Mr. Sowers revealed the grotesque to range across the entire universe of art and, for that matter, over almost every epoch. The great depth of illustrations were a perfect foil for the multifariousness of his categories-and both together served to goad me into strenuous efforts to ascend to new ground.