A bit too distracted for posting the last couple of days. I’m still awaiting the outcome of an employment decision, which seems to be unfolding in a form that provides a little too much cogency to Adorno’s analysis of what happens to the ego when gratification comes to be infinitely delayed… At the same time, I’m trying to cobble several courses together, finish some reports for the folks who pay the bills, and get a bit of actual fieldwork done… The combination hasn’t been terribly productive for blogging…
Which, in the scheme of things, shouldn’t be a big issue – blogs are meant to be hobbiest concerns where we discuss the dimensions of our work that don’t require sustained development or serious reflection. And yet I caught myself the other day, writing an email to someone, and offhandedly mentioning that I was unfortunately going to have to take a break from “serious writing” for a few days. I was amused to realise that what I had in mind when writing those lines was actually… blogging. Not that I don’t also post a great deal of trivial and ephemeral material here, but this has become the setting where I develop at least the kernels of my “serious” ideas. It’s not an accident that my last several “formal” bits of academic writing, have been essentially reworkings of material initially posted here.
Since I may still be treading water for a bit, I wanted to post a pointer to Larval Subjects, where Sinthome has taken stock of some of the points from our recent discussions on Adorno, and then expanded on these, in a post that reflects on interesting parallels between the Lacanian understanding of the breakdown of the symptom, and some of Adorno’s comments on what might lead particular individuals to engage in critique. I hope to be able to take up some points from both of these posts, and continue the conversation, but in the meantime thought I should direct readers to interesting material elsewhere, since I’m not sure when I will next find time for “serious writing”… ;-P