Hi All,
This week and part of next we’ll complicate our discussions about what we take “identity” to mean (we’ve been concentrating here on gender and sexuality so far). We’ll continue to explore the social body in and of language, going back to Puar & Rai’s “Monster, Terrorist, Fag” and Halpern & Brady’s “Snow Sensitive Skin.” We’ll do so by now juxtaposing that discussion–and so please make sure to bring to class this week your “experimental” essays you developed from the in-class “excursion” writing–with CA Conrad’s work and a text arts that is concerned very much with bodies and “the body” as aesthetic sites for investigation. So without further ado:
READINGS:
1) Poets/Essayists Eleni Stecopoulos and Rob Halpern interviewed (individually) by Thom Donovan on “somatics” HERE and HERE (READ BOTH!).
2) THIS READING IS FOR LECTURE/DISCUSSION NEXT WEEK, BUT GET A START ON IT NOW (there will be other arts & texts to read for next week, so do start now): Judith Butler, from Undoing Gender, “Acting in Concert” HERE
Above, thus, are the readings for this week and one to start on for next week. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page: the first readings in the list (No. 1 above, two blog essays, very short) are for this week’s discussion (see my mini-rant above). Think about how Halpern and Stecopoulos relate to Conrad’s exercises and statement, if they do, and really try to come up with your own questions about how “Somatics” (as a term used to define multiple practices, not one!) relate back to Halpern and Brady’s “Snow Sensitive Skin,” and to Puar and Rai’s notions about the “othered” body–the non-heteronormative “terrorist.” How might the poetic, the aesthetic investigation of social bodies in text arts via the “somatic,” investigate and/or offer a unique kind of critique or critical knowledge? What relations or non-relations can you actively make between these texts? And in relation to whatever it is you might be thinking of doing for your own sustained writing? Next week and in-class we’ll look at some text arts–including live art & performance/performing arts and multiple media–in relation to these essays. Hopefully these art pieces will offer you some inspirational sparks as we head into our groups to concentrate on our own creative labors!
Enjoy. //david