To Read & To Write

For a philosophical text translated from French to English, reading Lyotard's Libidinal Economy (1970) wasn't too difficult, albeit requiring, of course, ample time and concentration. And for the book having been published a little over fifty years ago, the text remains significant today as a commentary on those forces that drive us, either towards death or into life, passionately, lovingly, flailingly, pathetically, skillfully, terribly, hatefully, so on and so forth... enmeshing us within Lyotard 's concept of the libidinal band - that kind of mobius strip exemplifying the only kind of economy we'd want to be a part of - one that knows no difference between the revealing physical exteriors and the inner, innate, structures that define what lies within. Much of the fascinating aspects of this text ride on the socio-cultural manifestations concerning how the libidinal economy flourishes (as opposed to an economy purely political or purely religious). Sexuality, Marxis...

I don't know how well Shard Cinema (2017) will age compared to Williams' previous two books ( Roman Letters and Combined and Uneven Apocalypse ). However, I do think the theory he provides his readers concerning the contemporary cinematic experience is vital to new interpretations of a world that has become increasingly difficult to conceive of visually. In essence, he writes of a purely visual representation of a kind of momentary halting of time that allows for the movement of abstractions rather than the movement of actual objects; a coming into view of that which has been broken, fractured, severed, and ultimately, shattered. Most of the films he cites are blockbusters that had/have the monetary heft to show their audiences a kind of shattered imaging (it takes a whole lot of money to digitally produce the effect). Interestingly, it seems Williams understands these moments of gradual breakdown - the shift of perspective from "landscape" (or cityscape, etc.) to ...

  While reading Berger's Ways of Seeing for the second time in many years, I reacted less by noting how obvious Berger's arguments were and more by realizing that the text has become somewhat dated. The technology that exists today, especially since the advent of the internet and social media, has become insidiously nuanced and Ways of Seeing had no way to predict that kind of capital evolution in terms of the creation of new ways to exploit the poor through reproduced images, i.e. how advertising now sways the public by manipulating and playing with its fears - if not so much anymore its envy. However, Berger's classic remains a seminal text within Cultural Studies and Critical Theory. Berger explains how society has been affected by the transformation of artistic technology, from oil painting, to the camera, to publicity advertising in the modern world, and how that transformation feeds on itself as a way to stabilize and defend the values and ideologies of the wealth...

To put it lightly: every time I've picked up "Roman Letters" since its publication I've been reminded that I'm fully alive, not quite dead yet, and that I hate it. And yet, it is precisely the letters in this book that have urged me continue on, despite all my illnesses, mental and physical, and all the disgusting politics that go with that. With steady words, the stories Williams tells throughout this masterpiece of a text convince me that maybe it's not so bad, maybe it's completely OK to go on living with this hatred of my existence; moreover, that it is necessary for me to unpack what's there, to go in deep into that emptiness, and, for the sake it, become that gorgeous thing like Williams' Napoli... that Italian city that he traverses (Rome and Bologna among others)... a city that is gorgeous, "gut-clenching gorgeous, because it has stopped caring whether or not it exists, but still it does." (81) "Roman Letters" is the ...

Who is Susan Sontag? You may have heard her name before. The first time I heard her name was as an undergraduate at Columbia College Chicago while pursuing my Bachelor's Degree in Cultural Studies, probably around 2007. The class was assigned to read Notes on Camp  . I'm not sure I understood then, as I'm not so sure I understand it now, but this is what fascinated me: that an intellectual, an intellectual woman, was writing about culture, specifically commercial  culture in a completely unique way, opening up the realm of criticism to daily observance, witticism, and playful wisdom. At that time, the big buzz around her may have died down, though I doubt it. This was the first time I truly engaged in academia beyond the high school classroom, and the only high school classrooms I cared about were Music, Biology and English. So I had no access to this world up until this point. What I'm getting at: Susan Sontag was never a celebrity to me, I did not have preconceiv...

This is not a review, but more of a synopsis of Susan Sontag’s 2003 book titled “Regarding the Pain of Others”. Highlighted within it are points that I believe to be the most important particularly for figuring out how to think about news in recent years, something that has become more of a problem for me as I’ve matured. A topic that I couldn’t fit into this is regarding advertising images (“Advertising photographs are often just as ambitious, artful, slyly casual, transgressive, ironic, and solemn as art photography”).  In “Regarding the Pain of Others”, Susan Sontag (1933 – 2004) writes about the phenomenon of photography in relation to documenting war. While painting and other forms of art are understood as the creator’s interpretation of the violence of war (for example, Goya did not paint from life, but conjured up the image of war from his experience and view of it: terrible, violent, earth-shattering), the photograph is typically seen as evidence, regarded as matter-of...

Many parts I know I love, many parts I know I don't yet understand. A lot has to do with the undoing of jargon (first to understand the jargon, then to throw it away), so as to make room for things *as is*, finally allowing for a plurality of meaning. This was translated from French and you can tell. It's part of its charm. A book to be read again and again and again. Other than that, I'm speechless.

There is an immediate sense of Lia Purpura's poetic intellectualism presented right within the first page of "All the Fierce Tethers". She begins with an analysis of screaming: what it is and what it is not, what it consists of, its meaning or lack of it. Then Purpura goes right into Edvard Munch's "The Scream". There is much more to this first essay, but already within these two topics she uses Deconstruction as a philosophical tool and then begins to present examples of what Walter Benjamin wrote about in his brilliant, seminal essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (i.e. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" reproduced on magnets, on coffee mugs, on blankets. Where does its meaning - as a work of art - go? There is an important *lack* to be understood.) Whether Purpura knew whether or not she was doing what I say she is doing doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter because "All the Fierce Tether...

Benjamin Hoff's "The Tao of Pooh" (1982) is a sweet book dedicated to explaining the concepts of Taoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy, to people who don't really get it. By using A.A. Milne's character Winnie-the-Pooh, Hoff elucidates the Tao (translated into English as "the Way") as a concept that encourages the act of non-doing, or doing nothing. Rather than this resulting in failure, Hoff explains - by way of Winnie-the-Pooh anecdotes - how this will result in wisdom, if one has courage enough to really listen to their own personal intuition. Pooh, by keeping his mind empty and on simple things, seems to accidentally come up with solutions to big problems, problems that his friends, such as Wise Owl and Sad Eeyore, can't seem to come up with. Rather than collecting endless amounts of knowledge, or rather than focusing on all the ways one can be clever, Taoism guides us to see and hear and feel what's right here with us, what's right ...

My first review can be located here:  https://feliciareviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2018/07/submergence-by-jm-ledgard-published-2011.html Here's my second. An undergraduate professor of mine instructed me once on the act of reading. If you like the book, she said, and have only read it once, you have not *read* the book. If you liked it the first time, she continued, then read it a second. Then, read it again for a third and perhaps final time. Only after that can you truly decide if you liked it.  I've read Submergence for the second time and have confirmed that I do like it. Very much so. While I understand this technique isn't possible for all books, it already says something if you decide to read a book for a second time, knowing there is still more to see, to understand. (Also, my prof. was speaking as a philosopher, and you know how they are :) My point - which was/is my professors - will demonstrate itself if you glance through my first review and then read this o...