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
Annihilation failed
Imagine the following plot. There’s a married straight couple, and the woman cheats on her husband with a colleague. She feels guilty, but refuses to acknowledge it. He knows or suspects, but refuses to confront her. Instead, he decides to start volunteering for some dangerous work in the city. Their relationship is breaking down due… Continue Reading Annihilation failed
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)
From extinction: nine strategies for a left-hand exit
This piece has been partially reproduced at the DePaul University Institute for Nature and Culture‘s website, Environmental Critique. Thanks to Dr. Christine Skolnik for the invitation to contribute.
Cold new world: Borgman as a politics of exit
“[…] exit becomes possible only if we divest ourselves of the libidinal constraints and demands we inherit from the civilization into which we are thrown.” “Marina searches the grounds, presumably for Camiel. In the summer house, she encounters a pale hound. Overwhelmed by a sense of the uncanny, she whispers, ‘Camiel?’” “It’s certainly true that… Continue Reading Cold new world: Borgman as a politics of exit
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
Ligotti epherema: “The Blonde” from Theoretical Detective (1982)
Here’s an interesting piece of Ligotti ephemera, for which I’ve been searching for many years. It’s a sonnet Ligotti published in a very obscure 1982 speculative detective fiction fanzine called Theoretical Detective (edited by Tine Said). My interest in the material relates to a long-term fascination with Ligotti, on the one hand, and with philosophical… Continue Reading Ligotti epherema: “The Blonde” from Theoretical Detective (1982)
Astronoetic pessimism and the posthuman: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as philosophy
Introduction Refer to part one (“Introducing astronoetic cinema”) for the necessary context in which I discuss these two films. In preface, I will note that the critical and popular reception of both films isn’t particularly positive. In part, this is because both suffer from some issues of casting and pacing. However, both films also speak… Continue Reading Astronoetic pessimism and the posthuman: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as philosophy
Introducing astronoetic cinema
Astronautics and astronoetics Philosopher Hans Blumenberg’s posthumously published Die Vollzähligkeit der Sterne (1997, The Fullness of the Stars) introduces a novel distinction. On the one hand, there is “astronautics,” referring both to the pursuit of knowledge of the human by extending its purview to the extraterrestrial and to technical applications of that knowledge in the… Continue Reading Introducing astronoetic cinema
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)