THE WAY OF THE SIGN

NEW BOOK: In my years of teaching literary theory, it has never ceased to amaze me that students find it difficult to understand that – even though a futile act – we still have the obligation to go against myths of self-deception, false principles in the name of whose war is waged, and crass stupidity that is always murderous in its intent. I’ve published The Way of the Sign as a way of keeping it simple. As a way of suggesting that we must situate ourselves as far away as possible from anything that presents itself as the keeper of traditional values, or as suspicious of new developments. Traditionalists have no imagination, that’s why they are called traditionalists. We must go against their idea that everything can be sold and bought; that everything is designed and packaged to cater to our basic needs for sex, security, and soul-searching. These needs do not manifest themselves as empty bubbles into which we can throw our clichés and idiotic ‘concrete’ solutions. Literary, visual, and cultural theories make us see what is wrong with ventriloquizing what we think others want to hear. They make us see what is wrong with speaking from a place that is devoid of inner strength and conviction.

While I haven’t proposed any new idea – in this context, I find the old ones better than any – I ask simple questions. In this sense, The Way of the Sign is a book about extraction, about reducing methods of inquiry to the bare bones. It guides students through 10 schools of theory and criticism. The focus is on ‘asking’ each theory to give its best in the simplest way, by making us see what is at stake and how we might respond to it. In simple Socratic dialogue, I invent scenarios: ‘What is happening?’ Deconstruction asks. And we answer with it: ‘We are buying a mythology.’ ‘How does it make us feel?’ ‘Dumb.’ ‘What is happening?’ Marxism asks. And we answer with it: ‘The rich cheat us.’ ‘How does it make us feel?’ ‘Angry’. ‘What is happening?’ Feminism asks. And we answer with it: ‘Nobody sees us.’ ‘How does it make us feel?’ ‘Invisible.’

By posing such simple questions, I try to bring out the complexity of the ideas formulated in different approaches to texts, and the joy at discovering that some theories are mighty simple, and therefore also beautiful. The book’s aim is thus to contribute to every student’s ‘aha’ experience. Make it richer, so that they might fall in love with theory, and consider that if decisions need to be made at all – about what to think or what is best – then they should be about never ceasing to ask questions. Or consider that it is not our actions that are important, but how we receive the gift of joy. As with Mary Oliver:

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

Enjoy!

THE WAY OF THE SIGN: CULTURAL TEXT THEORY IN TWO STEPS

EYECORNER PRESS
ISBN: ISBN: 978-8792633101

PRESS MATERIAL

CONTENTS

Introduction | KEEPING IT SIMPLE | 9
Chapter 1 | STRUCTURALISM AND DECONSTRUCTION | 19

Chapter 2 | MARXISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS | 41

Chapter 3 | FEMINISM AND QUEER | 75
Chapter 4 | POSTCOLONIALISM AND DIASPORA | 109
Chapter 5 | PRESENCE AND COMPLEXITY | 137
About the author | 174

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AURORA RESURGENS

I’m tempted to advertise for Anthony Johnson’s new book, AURORA RESURGENS, with these words: when in doubt, think hermetic – and thus remain in doubt. I’ve done this to an extent in my introduction to this book, and yet, I came out of it with a sense that when you deal with texts that fly, the certainty principle is the last thing you want to preoccupy yourself with. You go with the light. Especially the light that enlightens in obscure ways.

Read this book, which is a wonderful collection of three sets of texts, about Enochian Angels in the legend of The Shining Ones, an opera about Giordano Bruno’s The Clavis Magna – and some domestic drama in which characters say to each other things like this: “love is leaving it be” – and poems, poems, poems, formed in diamond shapes, and resounding musical notes of the highest.

Read my intro here, for a preview.

Enjoy!

EYECORNER PRESS

ISBN: 978-8792633057

THE LOGICIAN

On my 42nd anniversary, I celebrate my mother. I always thought it appropriate, to celebrate your mother on your birthday. I thus give myself a book of fragments which celebrates my mother’s formal genius. I took some advice and collected here some of my texts that have been circulating in virtual space. The Logician begins with what my mother liked and it ends with what I like, materially speaking. What lies beyond that, who’s to say?

My mother is dead, and has been dead for a while, but one of her repeated questions, posed in her mysterious metaphysical moments, still haunts me: “formally speaking, how can we determine what everything is? How can we determine what nothing is?” Kafka writes in his notebooks: “Nothing came of it… just residues of light traversing the words.” But light in itself, surely, it is everything already, isn’t it?” My mother didn’t want to write. She thought that knowledge should be shared not sold. She was a good Marxist and a good logician. I hear her saying, as I did some 20 times a day while she was still around, “logically speaking, when writing is no good,” or as in my case right now, it has run its course, “then surely music is a good interval?” Indeed it is. So, on my 42nd birthday I return to what I wanted to do for some time now, making music. Check my new project here, the Quintus Perfectum ensemble.

Some people think I’m good at some things. Perhaps. Who’s to decide? Meanwhile, today, I’ll create some sounds in special places at request. Perhaps making music can beat the light, or nothingness. Though not in the sense of winning over it. For what would be the point of that? What would be the point of that? 

Enjoy!

 

COARCTATE

For the intelligent and sensual lovers, now available from amazon US and UK, Mark Daniel Cohen’s Coarctate: Antigone’s Return and Selected Poems.

For a preview, read the Introduction here.

ENJOY!

EyeCorner Press – ISBN: 978-8792633002

THE BOOK OF DELUSIONS

Cioran in Hyperion

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Hot off the press, the Hyperion Journal of Philosophy and Art announces its new issue, and we all swoon over the quality of thought and design. Of interest here is my translation of Emil Cioran’s Cartea Amagirilor (The Book of Delusions), the entire chapter 5. Enjoy!

PULVERIZING PORTRAITS

PULVERIZING PORTRAITS: LYNN EMANUEL’S POETRY OF BECOMING

Table of Contents

Prologuing Portraits 9
Counter-frames 29
Becoming 45
Genius 59
Divas 75
Untitled 91
Portrait 107
Hegemony 123
Greeting 149
Counter-Mythologies 173
References 181

EYECORNER PRESS
ISBN: 978-8799245680

BETWEEN GAZES

Here is my latest academic contribution to the project of enlightenment in the form of outpouring of textbooks.

BETWEEN GAZES: FEMINIST, QUEER AND OTHER FILMS is a text book in which I introduce key terms in feminist, queer, and postcolonial/diaspora film. My point of departure is in the question “what do you want from me?” Although I don’t engage Lacan’s psychoanalysis in any major depth – he never really addressed anything else in his writings – he snicks in through the back door. Which is good. However, the book analyzes 14 films from different film theory angles in 10 chapters, going tangentially also from the Lacanian theory of the gaze to engaging with emotion and the arts à la Stanley Cavell and Noëll Carroll. The analyses reframe questions of subjectivity and representation in what I hope is an entertaining entanglement of visual with textual poetics in film.

For those in need of details, I can disclose that the word ‘fuck’ occurs 7 times in the introduction alone. So, there’s hope for academic writing.

The critics said: “ Intriguing, well written in voluptuous/penetrating style!!!” Robert Gibbons

CONTENTS

BETWEEN GAZES
Introduction / 9

HOT OR NOT
Some Like it Hot & Down With Love / 21

CUSTOM COLOR
The Color Purple / 49

FRYING FRANCHISE
Fried Green Tomatoes / 69

CARPE DIEM IN BLACK AND WHITE
Broken Flowers / 89

SAVING SOLANAS
I Shot Andy Warhol / 103

ORLANDO’S STAKE
Orlando / 117

MELLOW MÉLANGE
A Streetcar Named Desire & A Streetcar Named Marge / 135

SHAKE IT SHAKESPEARE
Titus Andronicus & The Merchant of Venice / 149

LAUGHING STOCK
Death in Venice & Boys Don’t Cry / 183

GORGEOUS GEOGRAPHY
East is East / 203

BEYOND GAZES
Epilogue / 219

CALYPTIC

The Nietzsche Circle people have done it again. The supremely aesthetically, beautifully, and intelligently conceived Hyperion, a journal on art, philosophy, and literature presents us with its new contents. The December issue has just went public and as I have two contributions in it, I, can’t help but make the announcement. Even if you don’t want to read anything, just check the design for the whole issue. It’s a true feast for the eye. Mark Daniel Cohen has outdone himself, again – as every time, both in content and in form. Congrats, my friend.

However, if you do want to read something, you may want to glance at my review essay on prophets seducing philosophers: Ex-silentio Eloquence: Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle of It.

Or else read my poem dedicated to Zarathustra, and marvel at Cohen’s cover design.

Indeed, art does make us feel better about our lot. It pulls our minds out of entropy and throws it into synergy. Experiencing such metaphysical unlikelihood is as good as solving impossible tasks.

As with Nietzsche, we can all speak by way of retro-diction, de-calyption, and proleptic benediction.

Salve.