Meat Journal: Writing and Materiality

Only an Expert...

2008-04-11T10:01:00.001-07:00

Saw Laurie Anderson last night at Royce Hall (UCLA). Wow.

A thought to restart the blog

2008-04-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth. -- Raoul Vaniegem

CFP: &Now 2008--A Festival of Innovative Literature and Art

2007-11-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR PROPOSALS (<----click there!>)

&NOW gathers together two things in their constant motion: writers inventing form, and the forms that are already “the past” as soon as those writers move on to their next invention. To gather the moving requires the grace of contingency.

We are a conference that calls itself a festival because we festivate the confrereity of our common difference. &NOW comes together to give meaning to words or ask words to give meaning to us, both of which always fail!

In that failure, resides the richness of our ignorance.
Even its radiance.The product of radiant ignorance is art. This is not new. How we do it is &NOW.
The product of ignorant radiance is the unpronounceable word: human.

&NOW is the not then that never passes.

&NOW is the letters of the names of all its conferees scrambled into a zetabet.

&NOW is not an anti-conference because transgression defers recognition.

&NOW stands in the danger zone between popular culture & the elitism of native intuition.

&NOW has fun at no expense; for free, like words are, no charge.

&NOW is the ampersand that signs a sign for a sign signaturing the presence of the present in the past.

&NOW is a message to narrativity signifying that all is well

&NOW is a message from narrativity simplifying that nothing ends, well or ill.

&NOW: a sentence that contradicts itself/ /&/, so contradicting, sets a standard for comprehending love /&/ religion /&/ nature /&/ politics as portrayed by the fictionalists beginning this year two thousand seven anno domini.

&NOW is a literary movement without authors that comes into view for 3 days biennially -0041067% of time- so that those authors without whom this literary movement does exist gather to keep literature in motion.

&NOW is theater that has moved off the stage but continues in search of the seven props it needs to make the emotion of the action live to make live action mind

&NOW redefines the halls of academe that they be no longer safe from the fear of the ampersand and/or the chaos of a now.

&NOW arrives 200 years after Ivahoe, 100 years after Freud, 50 years after Picasso, Elvis & Faulkner, and fourteen years after www., it arrives kicking its limbs screaming its lungs in voice & gesture that articulate arrival.

&NOW includes all those art•lit•ists from New York to Los Angeles for whom the medium is the muscle but traveling eastward from New York eastward with a sweep spread from 0° North to 180° South to catch every language in its net woven of the pre-linguistic thought of the world’s current 250,000 child-soldiers as they sleep.

&NOW exists that the gag of terror not create silence.

&NOW recalls commerce as a form of interaction outside the monetary systems while it rings the bell.

&NOW rings the bell to open trading on each day’s aesthetic market then listens all day to the bellringing echo /&/ then goes home after the dayclosing bell reinaugurates the sound•syllable that begins the invocation at the outset of each fiction-act.

&NOW, recognizing that its murderer’s lurk in the shadows turn on the darkness to expose them to a fright.

&NOW is ’04(NotreDame)•’06(Lake Forest)’08 (Chapman) toward infinitum: a quantum equation designed to utter irresolution.

Rebecca Goodman
Martin Nakell
Vahid Norouzalibeik
Davis Schneiderman
Sophocles
Steve Tomasula

CFP: Queer People 4--The Whole History of Sexuality

2007-09-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Christ’s College,
Cambridge
July 9-12, 2008

Plenary speakers will include Valerie Traub; Paul Julian Smith; George Haggerty.

Please send abstracts on any aspect of the histories of sexualities (no cut-off dates) by 30th October 2007 to: Dr Caroline Gonda, St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge CB2 1RL and Dr. Chris Mounsey, University of Winchester, West Hill, Winchester SO22 4NR

CFP: Kairos: Rhetoric, Technology, Pedagogy

2007-09-20T13:33:00.001-07:00

This is a general call for webtexts for Kairos: Rhetoric, Technology, Pedagogy. Kairos welcomes contributions from scholars pursuing a wide variety of digital issues and approaches from theory to praxis in our Topoi, Praxis, Reviews, and Interviews sections.

Kairos publishes "webtexts," which means projects developed with specific attention to the World Wide Web as a publishing medium. We do not suggest an ideal standard; rather we invite each author or collaborative writing team to think carefully about what unique opportunities the Web offers. Some projects may best be presented in hypertextual form or in multimedia.

The journal's editorial process is one of the most unique aspects of publishing with Kairos. For the Topoi section, the review process includes three tiers: review by the editors, collaborative review by the editorial board, and one-on-one mentoring by the editors for third-stage texts in need of revision.

For all other journal sections, the editorial process includes review by editorial staff to determine the quality and appropriateness of the submission for publication in Kairos and then a thorough review by editorial board members assigned to the section

For more information, please see our guidelines.

come work with shehun....

2007-09-18T11:23:00.001-07:00

CSU San Bernardino
Department of English
http://english.csusb.edu

Assistant Professor of Rhetoric & Composition
Tenure-track position. We seek to hire a rhetoric and composition specialist with preparation and experience in assessment, WAC, and/or WID, effective Fall 2008. Ph.D. in English or Rhetoric and Composition Studies required at time of appointment. Secondary specialty is open, but demonstrable interest in critical pedagogies, critical race studies, writing center practice, and/or computers and writing is a plus. Successful candidates will demonstrate an ability to teach undergraduate writing courses, as well as specialized courses in their areas of interest at both the undergraduate and graduate level (in our M.A. in English Composition program). Normal teaching assignment is 3 courses per quarter, with possibility for release time. Candidates are expected to show evidence of promise in scholarship and evidence of commitment to and success in teaching. Salary is competitive. Benefits package includes coverage for domestic partners. Interview at MLA. Please send letter and c.v. only by November 1 to Rong Chen, Chair, English Department, California State University, San Bernardino, 5500 University Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA 92407-2397. California State University is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diversified workforce.

More pictures taken while on the road to Syracuse

2007-07-30T14:37:00.001-07:00

America: Churches, graffiti, cars, empty space and porn.

Automobile Texts

2007-07-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

Click on them for a better look. (Taken while on the road to Syracuse.)

2007-06-28T23:57:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what you can pick up at Starbuck's these days.

It's here!

2007-06-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

Volume 2.2 has launched.

Now on to 3.1.

Meat-y Things to Do

2007-06-25T17:02:00.002-07:00

FEELING AMERICAN STUDIES
Saturday November 10, 2007
9AM-5:30PM
Submission Deadline: Aug. 1, 2007
Sponsored by the New York Metro American Studies Association (NYMASA) and the Columbia Journal of American Studies (CJAS).

Feeling, emotion, affect, sensation, passion: the pervasiveness of these terms in current American Studies suggests that feeling is no longer taken as the opposite of thinking and that, indeed, emotions provoke, produce, and even embody knowledge. Although feelings are simultaneously part of our daily lives yet abstract, broadly understood and intensely personal, the knowledge that feeling provokes has often been limited within specific disciplines. Notwithstanding important explorations of sentiment and its connections to race and gender, American Studies has come late to the scholarly conversation on feeling, despite the fact that the inquiries that shape American Studies as a field—including identity, aesthetics, history, empire, narrative, media, and public culture—can and have been fruitfully pursued through the critical lens of emotion by scholars in other disciplines.

The purpose of this one-day conference is to invite dialogue on the place of feeling in American Studies. What might attention to feelings add to the field? What might it compromise? What kinds of feelings does American Studies—or, more broadly America—provoke? We particularly encourage submissions that discuss emotion before the 20th century, and presentations that cross historic and disciplinary borders.

Papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Columbia Journal of American Studies. Please send abstracts of 200-300 words to nymasa07@gmail.com by AUGUST 1ST. For information, contact Sarah E. Chinn, English Department, Hunter College, CUNY, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021

Same song, new group

2007-06-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

We are told the body does not matter. If we believe R. Lee Emery’s character from Full Metal Jacket, the body is merely a connection to a larger tradition, something that individually has no value beyond the achievement of a larger goal. If we believe posthumanists, the body is something that will be overcome; consciousness will be transferred into other physical forms that will not deteriorate, age, or die. If we believe Orthodox Christianity, the body is merely a vessel to serve out God’s plan; the body will automatically fail at the predestined time and the soul will leave to exist in paradise.

In this long tradition, the body is nothing. It is the mortal coil that allows us the fulfillment of a role or an evolutionary stage. And yet, if we look at this article entitled "MMO Addiction" from the July 2007 issue of PC Gamer, the gamers who vacate their bodies for digital avatars are ridiculed and medicalized for their participation in the denying of their meat selves.

The interesting (and simple) question is: why?

We are told to repress our sensuality, to believe the body is nothing more than a commodity. The foregrounding of the body is usually left to the queer community, and this (along with other, stupid reasons) is why queer people are often vilified. Yet when leaving the body is met with such organized vehemence, how can this tradition of vilifying the sensual not be seen as hypocritical? How does the act of vacating the physical body become something negative—is it not the directive of mainstream discourse? Does it point to the supremacy of phenomenology within our system of knowledge making? Is the body much more important than we are taught to believe?

2.2 is almost here!

2007-06-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, only about a day left. I've been working on graphics/formatting (and swearing at a slow load time for a flash movie). Check it out here.

Brian! I know you have a post! Don't let your leaving-for-the-east-coast hangover interfere!

An Adventure with Brian

2007-06-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

I figure I'll just recount Brian adventures until he takes off for parts east.

A question of writing and materiality: It's long been my contention (and not only mine) that we can't talk "honestly" about writing and self without taking into account the materiality of the self. If writing ties together language and identity, it isn't just scribbled words on a page that constructs us, but events like this....

Brian and I were getting 5-shot Americanos at the campus Starbucks, and as I came out of the shop, I heard "somebody should erase that faggot s***." The provocateur (let's call him Spunky) was addressing two young men who were reading a whiteboard advertising the Pride Center.

"You shouldn't say faggot," said one of the young men (let's call him Cap'n Crunch).

"F*** you, FAGGOT," said Spunky, going into the convenience store next to Starbucks. I went over to Cap'n Crunch and his pal just as Spunky came back out. He called Cap'n Crunch a "faggot" again, and left the building.

These experiences, too, must be part of queer theory. A related post, from Jonathan.

Sad Panda

2007-05-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, now that Brian's done with his thesis and heading off to Syracuse, and Jonathan's made up his mind to come to Irvine, and I....well, I'm not going anywhere but I did finish Fable and that's got to count for something.

Make sure to check out Jonathan's Urinal Project (there's a link from his profile). The whole bathroom ritual is an exercise in self-construction, isn't it? Questions for Boys: How close do you stand? Do you look? Do you talk? Questions for Girls: Which stall do you go to? Are you one of those foot-shufflers? Do you use the paper covers (or, as some graffiti noticed by Charles Kuralt once called them, "free cowboy hats!")??

I remember some philosophical saw about how who you really are, or maybe it's what your morals really are, is determined by what you do when nobody's watching. Dunno if I buy that, because as an inveterate navel-gazer, I'm always watching myself, and that's gotta count. But I do think that bathroom behavior is an interesting nexus of social forces, gender, sexuality, and Freudian longing....is it a particularly telling nexus?

They're called "favicons."

2007-04-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

You know, those little icons next to the URL in your address bar...Now Meat has one. It's a little thing, but that's as much progress as I can stand today. Want your own? Here's a free favicon-makin' tool.

We've got buzz!

2007-04-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

...thanks to pedagogical gregory and his magical blog.

Volume 2.2 chugs along. My favorite time for working on Meat seems to be when I'm supposed to be doing something else. Of course, that's just about always right now.

This issue, we have a piece by Villanueva, which is cool; next issue, there's an interview with Cindy Selfe. I'm trying to get moving on an ongoing series of short interviews about "the body at work." Cindy's the first one, and I'm lining up one with Richard the manic carpenter and Peter the LAPD detective. Brian! Find another salt janitor! I'll track down the chess master!

On salt janitors and chess masters: Brian and I, the shy 2/3 of our editorial trio, run into people who would be cool interviewees, but we always stop short of actually getting the interview.

Batman

2007-04-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

Just because it's this sort of day.
What's new? Issue 2.2 is about 50% done, but it's been stalled by too much other work clogging up the drain. Hey! Summer doesn't start until June, so the "spring" issue still has months to gestate!

2007-04-03T13:18:00.000-07:00