Words Scumble the View: On Lindsay Turner’s “The Upstate”
Where is upstate? A proximity, a region positioned degrees away from somewhere not upstate, forever elsewhere.
On the Earth, or in a Language: A Conversation with Dong Li
As long as you have things to say, you don’t have to package or repackage things in a very intellectual way. If the thought is forceful enough, it will find a way to convey itself, even if it’s in a broken language, even in broken English.
It’s Not Too Late: On Hélène Cixous’ “Well-Kept Ruins”
The past is dead, but Cixous is alive, and she resurrects only what she thinks of, what incites her, what comes to her mind. Through this persistent act of journeying, the grand gesticulations of the twentieth century come to be concentrated in the beloved, diaphanous figure of a woman: her mother.
The Original Entwine: On Edgar Garcia’s “Emergency”
This is where our definition of emergency falls flat. It is not immediate attention which is required, but vigilant heedfulness to the criss-crossing, overlapping, and tenuous events of history, actions of people, and the whims of Gods; “frequencies, mirrors, resurgences.”