Techniques of Masterlessness.

Maravall understood the fascination with industria in early modern Spanish cultural production as an index of a growing "technification of conduct," which he used to theorize subject formation, state propaganda, and the relationship between the two. This essay briefly reconstructs Maravall's thinking about this idea in his work on the picaresque and Baroque culture, and posits its utility for early modern social theory concerned with questions that Maravall himself never entertained around racial domination and slavery, violence and colonialism, along with those he did, like servitude, freedom, and the social power of theatricality. Then, through a reading of a Portuguese inquisition case through the prism of Maravall's social theory, I show that the critical vocabulary he developed to think about picaresque forms of life and Baroque theatricality can be productively reformulated to account for a "masses" that was constituted not only by endogenous peninsular social dynamics, but by colonialism and the slave trade. Maravall understood the fascination with industria in early modern Iberian cultural production as an index of a growing "technification of conduct," an idea he used to theorize subject formation, state propaganda, and the relationship between the two. This essay briefly reconstructs the arc of Maravall's thinking on the subject in his work on the picaresque and Baroque culture and posits its utility for early modern social theory concerned with questions that Maravall himself never entertained around racial domination and slavery, violence and colonialism, along with those he did, like servitude, freedom, and the social power of theatricality. Then, by reading the dramatic repertoire, experimental practice, and life trajectory of a Cape Verdean illusionist and swindler through the prism (and as a critique) of Maravall's thought, I show that as social theory, his ideas can be productively reformulated to go beyond the failures of his historical imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]