Archive for the 'Literary Criticism' Category

Watching an American detective show with Korean subtitles, set in the Korea town of Las Vegas, I became witness to a most remarkable sleight of hand: the name 박 (Pak), anglicized into “Park,” became “바크” (pak’ŭ).  A slight difference shatters the propriety of the proper name: a most remarkable property theft.   Having passed through [...]


The oddest effect of the internet has been to restore a conjuring power to the name. Thus the name “Martin Hägglund” has brought many comers, and perhaps a few revenants as well, to Wozu. Why is this? Certainly, more would have been interested in Paris Hilton, Tyra Banks, Sarah Palin (if not what [...]


What happens when the famous become critics, or worse — the critics become famous? One should ask a more pointed question first: what does a critic have to do to become famous, and why would she want to do it? The pros are easy to calculate. The deepest dreams of a critic are to become [...]


Perhaps there is a modesty that consists in doing what others are doing.  But the moment one believes one is doing anything at all by doing in this way, modesty becomes arrogance. 
A truer modesty consists in becoming and doing nothing by doing nothing that has been done; nothing that could yet be recognized as anything.
The modesty of thinking always [...]


Fragments

15Jun08

A thinker must be a partisan not only of certain thoughts, but of thought.
Heidegger warned us against forgetting the original meaning of words.  But let us not forget that the truest sense of a word often belongs not to the past but the future.
The poet invokes the muses; the philosopher, reason. Who then does the [...]