Paperback
978-1-77212-376-0Size: 6" x 9"
Pages: 296
Pages: 256
Anarchists in the Academy
Machines and Free Readers in Experimental Poetry
By Dani Spinosa
Dani Spinosa takes up anarchism’s power as a cultural and artistic ideology, rather than as a political philosophy, with a persistent emphasis on the common. She demonstrates how postanarchism offers a useful theoretical context for poetry that is not explicitly political—specifically for the contemporary experimental poem with its characteristic challenges to subjectivity, representation, authorial power, and conventional constructions of the reader-text relationship. Her case studies of sixteen texts make a bold move toward politicizing readers and imbuing literary theory with an activist praxis—a sharp hope. This is a provocative volume for those interested in contemporary poetics, experimental literatures, and the digital humanities.
Case Studies
Jim Andrews
Christian Bök
Mez Breeze
John Cage
Andy Campbell
Robert Duncan
Kenneth Goldsmith
Susan Howe
Jackson Mac Low
Erín Moure [Erin Mouré]
Harryette Mullen
bpNichol
Vanessa Place
Juliana Spahr
Brian Kim Stefans
W. Mark Sutherland
Darren Wershler
Book details
Publication date: May 2018Features: 17 B&W images, notes, bibliography, index
Keywords: Literary Criticism / Postanarchism
Subject(s): LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, Literary Criticism / Postanarchism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, Literary studies: poetry & poets, Literary Criticism / Postanarchism, Literary theory
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Book details
Publication date: May 2018Features: 17 B&W images, notes, bibliography, index
Keywords: Literary Criticism / Postanarchism
Subject(s): LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, Literary Criticism / Postanarchism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, Literary studies: poetry & poets, Literary Criticism / Postanarchism, Literary theory
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Dani Spinosa. Dani Spinosa holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from York University. She teaches literature in Toronto, and can be found online at www.genericpronoun.com.
"Anarchists in the Academy is required reading for anyone in the field of contemporary and experimental poetry and the digital humanities."
“Dani Spinosa makes compelling arguments for a post-anarchist literary theory that sheds light on politicized reading practices fostered by both innovative print-based and digital poets. … Anarchists in the Academy reveals that the effort to find new ways of apprehending electronic literature, machine writing, and reader engagement is a fertile endeavour that offers rich rewards, and this book will certainly be an indispensable resource for scholars interested in the politics of reading in an ever-expanding digital culture."
"Anarchists in the Academy will provoke the poetics community and tempt us to reconsider how the mainstream of contemporary poetics has fundamentally misread some poets while overlooking others, particularly for electronic poetry. Reactions, disputes, exhortations, and fast flowing currents of productive new work are sure to follow the channel cut here by Spinosa and to redraw our understanding of radical contemporary poetics."
Book Design of the Year | Alberta Book Awards, Book Publishers Association of Alberta, Canada
Short-listed
2019
Jackson Mac Low Is Something Something 3
John Cage Making Excessive Noise 14
Robert Duncan Plagiarizing 25
bpNichol for the Curious Viewer/Reader 35
2 Feminism, Print, Machines 51
Susan Howe Sleeping in the Library 54
Erín Moure’s Name in Quotation Marks 71
Juliana Spahr Prefers Both 84
Harryette Mullen Making Kimchee in a Museum 95
3 Easy Concepts 107
Kenneth Goldsmith Talking to Himself 111
Vanessa Place Without Serifs 124
Christian Bök Obsolesces the Avant-Garde 134
Darren Wershler andor Any Number of Readers 142
4 Digital Interventions 153
Jim Andrews Drifts Apart 156
W. Mark Sutherland Puts the Cedar in Abecedarian 166
Brian Kim Stefans Alphabetizes Dreams 177
Andy Campbell, Mez Breeze, and the Constrict(l)ure of Code 186
Dani Spinosa. Dani Spinosa holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from York University. She teaches literature in Toronto, and can be found online at www.genericpronoun.com.
"Anarchists in the Academy is required reading for anyone in the field of contemporary and experimental poetry and the digital humanities."
“Dani Spinosa makes compelling arguments for a post-anarchist literary theory that sheds light on politicized reading practices fostered by both innovative print-based and digital poets. … Anarchists in the Academy reveals that the effort to find new ways of apprehending electronic literature, machine writing, and reader engagement is a fertile endeavour that offers rich rewards, and this book will certainly be an indispensable resource for scholars interested in the politics of reading in an ever-expanding digital culture."
"Anarchists in the Academy will provoke the poetics community and tempt us to reconsider how the mainstream of contemporary poetics has fundamentally misread some poets while overlooking others, particularly for electronic poetry. Reactions, disputes, exhortations, and fast flowing currents of productive new work are sure to follow the channel cut here by Spinosa and to redraw our understanding of radical contemporary poetics."
Book Design of the Year | Alberta Book Awards, Book Publishers Association of Alberta, Canada
Short-listed
2019
Jackson Mac Low Is Something Something 3
John Cage Making Excessive Noise 14
Robert Duncan Plagiarizing 25
bpNichol for the Curious Viewer/Reader 35
2 Feminism, Print, Machines 51
Susan Howe Sleeping in the Library 54
Erín Moure’s Name in Quotation Marks 71
Juliana Spahr Prefers Both 84
Harryette Mullen Making Kimchee in a Museum 95
3 Easy Concepts 107
Kenneth Goldsmith Talking to Himself 111
Vanessa Place Without Serifs 124
Christian Bök Obsolesces the Avant-Garde 134
Darren Wershler andor Any Number of Readers 142
4 Digital Interventions 153
Jim Andrews Drifts Apart 156
W. Mark Sutherland Puts the Cedar in Abecedarian 166
Brian Kim Stefans Alphabetizes Dreams 177
Andy Campbell, Mez Breeze, and the Constrict(l)ure of Code 186
