The pulp critical is a minor analytic mode in which genre tokens are interpreted as arguments or ontological operations in their own right. Hence, it’s important to refuse the conventional terms of any standardized hermeneutics. The emphasis on “pulp” echoes the use of the term in literary history, where it refers primarily to popular fiction… Continue Reading The pulp critical
Analytic notes on Roberto Esposito (Esposito 1)
There are three major substantive claims in Esposito, and they’re reciprocally intertwined. They concern his core terms – communitas, immunitas, and the munus. It may seem like I’m going backward here. However, although Esposito begins Communitas by discussing the munus, the trajectory I trace follows a necessary logic of emergence and justification. Claim 1 (communitas):… Continue Reading Analytic notes on Roberto Esposito (Esposito 1)
Consider the Retronomicon
Retronomicon [/ˌɹɛkɹəˈnɑmɪkən/]. Noun. 1. Any nonexistent media artifact that serves as the imagined or imputed retroactive source for a field of meaning or sense (e.g., a genre, a mode of aesthetic production, or a school of thought). 2. Hyperstition. A network site of increased hyperstitional activity or productivity that operates more effectively by not existing.… Continue Reading Consider the Retronomicon
Notes on digital personae (1)
We need to get over the fantasy that the complex, temporally distended symbolic performances we call “online identities” really have anything much to do with personal identity at all. A digital persona is structurally analogous to the commodity form insofar as both are fungible media of transaction. Engaging in communication or symbolic action online involves… Continue Reading Notes on digital personae (1)
The roots of creative darkness
(A shorter version of this post can be found at the DePaul University Institute for Nature and Culture‘s website, Environmental Critique. Thanks to Dr. Christine Skolnik for the invitation to contribute.) Introduction At first glance, the three figures under discussion – Algernon Blackwood, Marion Milner, and Friedrich Schelling – seem to form a rather unlikely… Continue Reading The roots of creative darkness
“Metaphysical Boredom in the Empire of Desire”: Prime Intellect and posthistoire
Roger Williams’s novella The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (1994) isn’t a narrative primarily concerned with technology, but, rather, with the end of history. This is generally true of singularitarian science-fiction (SSF). Consider, for example, the degree to which Iain M. Banks’s novels Player of Games (1988) and Use of Weapons (1990) address, respectively, the fundamental… Continue Reading “Metaphysical Boredom in the Empire of Desire”: Prime Intellect and posthistoire
RoboCop is Amelia Bedelia
RoboCop (1987) is the Good Soldier Švejk – or, better yet, as a colleague suggested to me, he’s Amelia Bedelia. Both Amelia and Švejk misunderstand the instructions they receive from authorities in such a way that they’ve understood too much – ostensibly without understanding anything at all. In other words, both Amelia and Švejk hear… Continue Reading RoboCop is Amelia Bedelia
On Mark Fisher (1968-2017)
“The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.” – Italo Calvino Mark Fisher remains one of my intellectual heroes. Originally, I had typed “academic heroes,” but I quickly realized that one of the reasons why his work speaks to me so strongly is its steadfast refusal to entomb itself in the… Continue Reading On Mark Fisher (1968-2017)