Archive for the ‘ Literary Theory ’ Category
One has to read to learn to read. This is the stumbling block that no one has yet overcome, the child who triumphantly misspells her name no more than the adult who doodles aimlessly while waiting for a voice on the phone. Moments in which we suddenly can’t read what we have already read are [ READ MORE ]
It is no accident that so many reality shows begin with 12 contestants. One genealogy of the reality show might indeed trace it back to the jury system, and the odd practice, so characteristic of the anxieties of liberal democracy, of sequestering. The reality show, indeed, brings to its breaking point a paradox endemic to modern [ READ MORE ]
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 [ READ MORE ]
Whoever next writes a dictionary of critical theory should remember to worry a little in print about distance, and how it is used. Marcel Gauchet writes convincingly about it. Religion is, for Gauchet, that which places its founding moment far away, so that no one will realize it was originally a decision and get the [ READ MORE ]
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 was said [ READ MORE ]
A theory of the contemporary theater might begin with the juxtaposition of Bertolt Brecht and the reality show. They share more in common than one would think. Indeed the reality show, which rejoices in the struggle for survival and forces the viewer to identify with the principle of selection in all its savagery, is nothing but the Brechtian drama trans- and disfigured [ READ MORE ]
