Pretty Polyglot: Parrotisation as the Difference in Repetition

Abstract

Pretty polyglot: parrotization as the difference in repetition. In the hall of mirrors that is mimesis, Paul Carter suggests that parrots reflect our human propensity for mimicry. In Mimesis and Alterity, Michael Taussig writes of the colourful bodies of dead parrots being used in rituals where the mastery of a foreign language is desired. Mimesis longs to become other, and Carter notes that in the foundation stories of many cultures, parrots introduce and protect those key markers of difference: language and colour. While Jack Halberstam invokes Monty Python’s dead parrot as emblematic of our zombified relations with animals, artist Sergio Vega proposes “Parrot Theory” which sees “the ..