East/West
Points to the nation
North/South
Cut the connection
Apropos of nothing in particular (actually, straight from the depths of shuffle-mode): Icehouse’s Cross the Border (mp3), from 1986.
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This shingles thing is the worst — after a nice respite in which I was able to rally for lunch with S, CC and C (and getting funny “Laclau/Mouffe = Ben/Glory” goss), it’s really laid me out for longer than I expected. Neuralgic pain is the Phantom Menace. Now I’m really behind with stuff. Dunno how this BlogTalk thing is going to work out for me.
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Must… not… blog… about… kitten.
But who else is going to perch on my shoulder, purr and read Lacanian social theory with me? (God knows I haven’t been able to do much else, and I need the company — my theoretical universe has always been instinctively Deleuzian by default, but I’ve recently wondered whether all this “positive proliferation” schtick might be a tad one-dimensional. But it’ll probably just remind me that Lacan Pisses Me Off.)
But why apologise for cat-blogging, anyway? As I sort of hinted to Jean a year ago, Grant Morrison’s The Filth is all about how “‘I Love My Cat’ narratives are sometimes the best narratives there are”. As a counterpoint to what I understand of Jean and Mel’s recent work on “deheroicising” mundanity in cultural studies, I’d say that “everyday” resistance is eminently political, and that this is a problem only if one retains an implicitly vanguardist and molar model of “politics” — something I think both “consumption as empowerment” and “anti-heroics of the mundane” narratives implicitly do.
I think everyday resistance can serve as a pointer for a molecular reformulation of “politics” per se. It’s not heroic, but like The Filth’s Greg Feely, an ordinary, “sentimental” cat-lover and occasional transdimensional agent trying to negotiate his traumatic imbrication in the system, neither does its domestic everydayness need to know its place via a domesticating reinscription of private/public, which (correct me if I’m wrong) is what a “deheroicising” cultural studies might implicitly do. This is why the occasional inter-species transgressions of touchy-“feely” cat-blogging are important. And that’s kind of what my Master’s thesis is about. Emphasis on “kind of”.
[ songs, health, work, cat, cultural-studies, resistance, politics, public-sphere ]
Um, I think you agree with me/us…that is, I agree with you. As I did before when it was more about the homemade birthday cards ;)
I’m all about the kitten narratives, the why can’t i get a boyfriend/girlfriend sagas, the I love cooking and this is how I made my mum a birthday cake sagas, as against the takingphotosofmyshadowwithadistressedpolaroid style of ‘everydayness’. I just don’t need it to be about ‘resistance’ as much as it’s about agency and participation (harrumph, go on, tell me agency is neoliberal nonsense that lives where resistance used to;)
P.S. “lives where resistance used to?” please shoot me.
P.P.S. this connects back to our shared eyebrow-cocking/furrowing in regard to adbusters et al, no?
In terms of Adbusters’ moralist disavowals, yet yes, I’d definitely agree.
I’ve always thought that one should approach “resistance” in a deterritorialised way, on the Deleuzian level of “physics”. It’s not a perfect analogy, but whenever I say the word “resistance” in political terms, I always try to think of electrical resistance. I would distinguish this from “agency” (the capacity to act) because resistance has more connotations of being molecularly engaged with the flow of power through space. And resistance is necessarily transformative: electrical resistance usually produces heat, which is kinda neat…
When you leave “participation” hanging without qualification, I automatically get visions of a cheesy, all-encompassing, “Life: Be In It”-style public sphere of totalising biopolitical incorporation, but perhaps I’m reading too much into it :)… In any case, though, I’d say that “participation in what?” is a crucial question — what kind of public are we talking about, and what kind of publics can we generate?
I think leaving participation hanging is as big a problem as leaving resistance hanging - resistance against/within what?? In fact, there is a place in my thesis notes where I have precisely the “participation in what?” question in honking great letters. So far, what I’ve done about that is to engage in the cultural citizenship/cultural public sphere literature. Which is proving quite productive - I really think though that you get to the answers empirically, specifically and extrapolate from there - which would be no different in the case of ‘resistance’ - it’s just that each key term takes you into different territory. And I’m suspicious of the need for cultural studies practitioners to sound relentlessly ‘critical’ in the sense of never, ever being celebratory in case you are mistaken for a cultural dupe. I’m trying to be brave about that, and risk being thought of as a person that says “yay” every now and then. And not just ‘but’. I’d be interested btw to hear about how you think your own empirical work (ala the storybox project) fits into this conversation?
Oh, and yes - the “what kind of publics” question is where it gets really interesting - I totally agree with that.
Hey Jean, affirmation can be as critical as resistance, and sometimes more so… plus it doesn’t mean you can’t speak about affirmation in a critical way… enthusiasts? Enthusiasm!!
I just finished re-reading The Filth last week; I think you’ve nailed Greg Feely on the combed-over head; but you can also never forget that he’s never a real narrative; the parapersonality discourse hangs over him like rotting drywall, a ten foot cockroach penis ready to burst through the door and ruin his day. Greg Feely is not merely a veneer, but escape, a reduction of the biopolitical into an unexcited state in order to rest. Oh wait.. that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?
So… I had this very obvious comics discussion a while ago, and you’d be the perfect person to inform it further as I’m still not satisfied that its done with; the position I was presented with was “The Invisibles = Cultural Studies.”
Did I mention I’m doing a paper in the middle of the year called “Magneto Was Right” about the anarch as hero? And yes I’m planning to get a t-shirt!
..and I got an extension for Blogstalk as I’m sick, so give yourself some extra days too!