So marking is now completely done for the term, and I’m in full-time writing mode – which should eventually generate some more interesting writing around here, although I may need a couple of days first to recover from The Traditional End-of-Term Cold… *sigh*
As I had mentioned some days back, I’m currently trying to consolidate material from the Marx posts into something more linear and systematic (and, inevitably, also likely a bit more simplified and truncated). I’ll post this to the blog when I’m done – with the caveat that it may be of limited interest to readers here, as the goal for this piece won’t be to say anything new, but instead to experiment with a sort of narrative or presentational arc that might allow me to introduce this reading fairly efficiently, to readers who aren’t otherwise familiar with what I’m trying to do. Initial attempts at this kind of consolidation generally don’t go well for me – I’m perpetually choosing the wrong narrative arc, picking up on the boring bits and leaving out the interesting ones, etc. It generally takes several attempts before I come up with something adequate, and in the interim pieces are often worse than the source material they’re based on, although the final version does generally manage to be much clearer and more engaging. In any event: something along these lines will hopefully go up here soon.
The Modernities: Radicalism, Reflexivity, Reality conference will take place at the University of Melbourne next Thursday and Friday, the 22nd and 23rd. I’m scheduled to present on Marx – it’s a very short presentation (I’ll post the final version of that here, as well, once I’ve finished revising). At the moment, I think I can squeeze in a quick discussion of the concept of reflexive theory and the concept of theoretical pessimism, a vastly truncated version of the argument that Capital can be understood as a reflexive theory that unfolds through an exploration of “shapes of consciousness” “given” within capitalism, and a completely inadequate precis of some of the potential philosophical and practical “payoffs” of this kind of reading. We’ll see… I emailed the conference organisers to ask whether they could amend the title of my presentation – basically because what I originally proposed just didn’t seem possible to discuss within the allotted time. I gather the new title somehow sounded even more ambitious than the old one, as the only response I received was a reminder about the shortness of time allocated for the presentations… ;-P I’m not sure whether to take this as an indication that they won’t let me amend my title… ;-P
If anyone has any suggestions for what they think I can meaningfully say in 20 minutes, I’m all ears… ;-P
Not sure I can advise you on the content, but to say so far it sounds really interesting and a great basis for starting discussion.
I can also advise that most people speak at about 80-100 word per minute. That gives you about 1,800 words. You’re right, very short.
Also, a You Tube video my partner sent me on the fear of writing. I thought you would appreciate it – because of his discussion of the difficulty of taking on new theoretical areas.
All the best and see you at the conference.
Oh, I think’s not allowing embedding of video. Here’s the URL:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qoKnzsiR6Ss
Let’s see if this works:
It’s quite an interesting video (from the documentary film Derrida, for those who haven’t clicked through). I’ve written here quite often about experiencing fear around my writing – not sure whether it’s exactly of the same kind (and unfortunately, unlike in the clip, my experience of this fear doesn’t exhaust itself in my half-sleep…). Interesting stuff though…
Since you’ve heard me speak at greater length on Marx, you realise this obligates you to attend my presentation, all armed with questions in case my presentation doesn’t actually say anything interesting… ;-P
Don’t fear. I am always armed with questions. That I CAN do.