Fashioning Critical Theory Transistor (https://transistor.fm) https://feeds.transistor.fm/fashioning-theory Podcasted conversation on critical and literary theory, drawing on a range of theorists from Europe, the United States, Caribbean, and Latin America. Our title is drawn from Audre Lorde's essay "Poetry Is Not a Luxury," where she writes that poetry fashions a language where words do not yet exist. How does theory make words and world new, attuned, and embedded within inventive and inventing lived-experience, tradition, and cultural production? 2023 Critical and Literary Theory Group 973a6f70-a850-5f49-8c60-0c581670463f no en Fri, 09 Feb 2024 15:01:22 -0500 Tue, 02 Dec 2025 20:23:11 -0500 https://img.transistor.fm/fBvtg4O7Z7RdgxRJcDupKVxUxldsEZsVsjG6-_ZHKXA/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzM4MjIzLzE2NzQ4/NjEzOTktYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.jpg Fashioning Critical Theory episodic John E. Drabinski Podcasted conversation on critical and literary theory, drawing on a range of theorists from Europe, the United States, Caribbean, and Latin America. Our title is drawn from Audre Lorde's essay "Poetry Is Not a Luxury," where she writes that poetry fashions a language where words do not yet exist. How does theory make words and world new, attuned, and embedded within inventive and inventing lived-experience, tradition, and cultural production? Podcasted conversation on critical and literary theory, drawing on a range of theorists from Europe, the United States, Caribbean, and Latin America. critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory John E. Drabinski No No Wynter and Quijano on Politics, Coloniality, and the Human 12 12 Wynter and Quijano on Politics, Coloniality, and the Human full aa19232a-8ca1-4c0f-a7f8-a8a8314204ed https://share.transistor.fm/s/a76050a0 A discussion of Sylvia Wynter's essay "Toward the Sociogenic Principle" and Aníbal Quijano's "Coloniality of Power" essay, with particular attention to how each diagnoses the pathologies of the colonial relation, the world is buoys, and the kinds of racial and national identities it produces. How can we think outside the coloniality of power? How can the social be constructed otherwise, such that it produces liberated forms of subjectivity, knowledge, and being?

]]> A discussion of Sylvia Wynter's essay "Toward the Sociogenic Principle" and Aníbal Quijano's "Coloniality of Power" essay, with particular attention to how each diagnoses the pathologies of the colonial relation, the world is buoys, and the kinds of racial and national identities it produces. How can we think outside the coloniality of power? How can the social be constructed otherwise, such that it produces liberated forms of subjectivity, knowledge, and being?

]]> Mon, 24 Apr 2023 18:03:44 -0400 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 3320 A discussion of Sylvia Wynter's essay "Toward the Sociogenic Principle" and Aníbal Quijano's "Coloniality of Power" essay, with particular attention to how each diagnoses the pathologies of the colonial relation, the world is buoys, and the kinds of racial and national identities it produces. How can we think outside the coloniality of power? How can the social be constructed otherwise, such that it produces liberated forms of subjectivity, knowledge, and being?

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Glissant on Difference, Opacity, Traces, and Creolization 11 11 Glissant on Difference, Opacity, Traces, and Creolization full 0161708c-6aa2-4d4d-a924-eccd46695e45 https://share.transistor.fm/s/1e8d460d A conversation about Édouard Glissant's work on creolization, with particular emphasis on how that conceptualization of relation emphasizes both the right to opacity and the necessity of cultural contact. What happens to concepts, to art, to expressive life when it is put in contact with differences? How do vulnerable communities and traditions protect themselves in moments of asymmetrical contact? And so what are the ethics of these kinds of encounter?

]]> A conversation about Édouard Glissant's work on creolization, with particular emphasis on how that conceptualization of relation emphasizes both the right to opacity and the necessity of cultural contact. What happens to concepts, to art, to expressive life when it is put in contact with differences? How do vulnerable communities and traditions protect themselves in moments of asymmetrical contact? And so what are the ethics of these kinds of encounter?

]]> Mon, 24 Apr 2023 12:10:43 -0400 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 2344 A conversation about Édouard Glissant's work on creolization, with particular emphasis on how that conceptualization of relation emphasizes both the right to opacity and the necessity of cultural contact. What happens to concepts, to art, to expressive life when it is put in contact with differences? How do vulnerable communities and traditions protect themselves in moments of asymmetrical contact? And so what are the ethics of these kinds of encounter?

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Celan, Levinas, and Derrida on Representation and the Unrepresentable 10 10 Celan, Levinas, and Derrida on Representation and the Unrepresentable full 9b6cdd17-7a5a-4676-b46b-51b83e095f21 https://share.transistor.fm/s/8907499b A discussion of Paul Celan's essay "The Meridian," along with companion pieces of Emmanuel Levinas. Claude Lanzmann, and Jacques Derrida, with particular focus on the poetic word's capacity to bring the deconstructive, dismantling, and interruptive function of absence in reckoning with traumatic experience. How does such a word reflect an ethics of speaking about catastrophe?

]]> A discussion of Paul Celan's essay "The Meridian," along with companion pieces of Emmanuel Levinas. Claude Lanzmann, and Jacques Derrida, with particular focus on the poetic word's capacity to bring the deconstructive, dismantling, and interruptive function of absence in reckoning with traumatic experience. How does such a word reflect an ethics of speaking about catastrophe?

]]> Mon, 24 Apr 2023 12:02:00 -0400 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 2644 A discussion of Paul Celan's essay "The Meridian," along with companion pieces of Emmanuel Levinas. Claude Lanzmann, and Jacques Derrida, with particular focus on the poetic word's capacity to bring the deconstructive, dismantling, and interruptive function of absence in reckoning with traumatic experience. How does such a word reflect an ethics of speaking about catastrophe?

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Spillers on Gender, Race, Naming, and Possibility 9 9 Spillers on Gender, Race, Naming, and Possibility full 7d83bbd1-9cb8-4b5d-8986-40206ae6ef41 https://share.transistor.fm/s/4f543ffb A discussion of Hortense Spillers' essay "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book," with particular emphasis on the critical possibilities opened up by her interrogation of naming, gender, and race after The Moynihan Report. What does the Report tell us about the status of the phrase "Black woman"? And what remains to be thought after what that Report erases from our conceptual approach to the world?

]]> A discussion of Hortense Spillers' essay "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book," with particular emphasis on the critical possibilities opened up by her interrogation of naming, gender, and race after The Moynihan Report. What does the Report tell us about the status of the phrase "Black woman"? And what remains to be thought after what that Report erases from our conceptual approach to the world?

]]> Mon, 24 Apr 2023 11:56:31 -0400 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 3560 A discussion of Hortense Spillers' essay "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book," with particular emphasis on the critical possibilities opened up by her interrogation of naming, gender, and race after The Moynihan Report. What does the Report tell us about the status of the phrase "Black woman"? And what remains to be thought after what that Report erases from our conceptual approach to the world?

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Kristeva on Abjection, Misogyny, and the Symbolic-Political Order 8 8 Kristeva on Abjection, Misogyny, and the Symbolic-Political Order full 0a752c26-adda-463b-a69a-8fab5f65d831 https://share.transistor.fm/s/240fedd1 Long discussion of Julia Kristeva's The Powers of Horror, with special attention to how her theory of abjection informs political strategies of oppression and exploitation rooted in the body. Our discussion works through the conception of the abject and its relation to misogyny and patriarchal cultural formation and reproduction, with particular attention to the aging feminine body, the "formless" and "plump" girl body (Nabokov's words and example), and how abjection sits at the center of our cultural-political imagination.

]]> Long discussion of Julia Kristeva's The Powers of Horror, with special attention to how her theory of abjection informs political strategies of oppression and exploitation rooted in the body. Our discussion works through the conception of the abject and its relation to misogyny and patriarchal cultural formation and reproduction, with particular attention to the aging feminine body, the "formless" and "plump" girl body (Nabokov's words and example), and how abjection sits at the center of our cultural-political imagination.

]]> Wed, 29 Mar 2023 12:47:09 -0400 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 3689 Long discussion of Julia Kristeva's The Powers of Horror, with special attention to how her theory of abjection informs political strategies of oppression and exploitation rooted in the body. Our discussion works through the conception of the abject and its relation to misogyny and patriarchal cultural formation and reproduction, with particular attention to the aging feminine body, the "formless" and "plump" girl body (Nabokov's words and example), and how abjection sits at the center of our cultural-political imagination.

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Spivak on the Subaltern, Epistemic Violence, and Representation 7 7 Spivak on the Subaltern, Epistemic Violence, and Representation full 8f967a07-6da3-408e-ae7f-3d694a297e93 https://share.transistor.fm/s/7cd0ee0e A discussion of Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?," an essay that interrogates the discursive conditions of speaking and the coloniality of such conditions. We focus here on silence, withdrawal, and the refusal to enter into discourse as a form of resistance and ethics. In particular, we are here interested in why Spivak makes this claim - what is protected, what is kept from colonial view - and what are its implications for thinking about gaps and silences in the archive of subaltern history and lives.

]]> A discussion of Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?," an essay that interrogates the discursive conditions of speaking and the coloniality of such conditions. We focus here on silence, withdrawal, and the refusal to enter into discourse as a form of resistance and ethics. In particular, we are here interested in why Spivak makes this claim - what is protected, what is kept from colonial view - and what are its implications for thinking about gaps and silences in the archive of subaltern history and lives.

]]> Mon, 13 Mar 2023 17:09:13 -0400 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 2310 A discussion of Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?," an essay that interrogates the discursive conditions of speaking and the coloniality of such conditions. We focus here on silence, withdrawal, and the refusal to enter into discourse as a form of resistance and ethics. In particular, we are here interested in why Spivak makes this claim - what is protected, what is kept from colonial view - and what are its implications for thinking about gaps and silences in the archive of subaltern history and lives.

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Derrida on Origin, Supplement, and Deconstructive Practice 6 6 Derrida on Origin, Supplement, and Deconstructive Practice full 8c809b4c-9e55-472c-a3c0-d194c6ae309a https://share.transistor.fm/s/65e97c63 A discussion of Jacques Derrida's deconstructive practice, which seeks to identify "the supplement" to any origin story or set of claims in a text. What are the characteristics of this readerly practice? What motivates Derrida to make these kind of readerly, critical interventions? And where does deconstructive practice bring us as thinkers, critics, and readers - and perhaps even writers? It is to an anti-authoritarian place, a place oriented toward a future of multiplicity and refusal of origin stories, purity politics, and imperial principles of ethics and morality.

]]> A discussion of Jacques Derrida's deconstructive practice, which seeks to identify "the supplement" to any origin story or set of claims in a text. What are the characteristics of this readerly practice? What motivates Derrida to make these kind of readerly, critical interventions? And where does deconstructive practice bring us as thinkers, critics, and readers - and perhaps even writers? It is to an anti-authoritarian place, a place oriented toward a future of multiplicity and refusal of origin stories, purity politics, and imperial principles of ethics and morality.

]]> Wed, 08 Mar 2023 20:08:14 -0500 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 1896 A discussion of Jacques Derrida's deconstructive practice, which seeks to identify "the supplement" to any origin story or set of claims in a text. What are the characteristics of this readerly practice? What motivates Derrida to make these kind of readerly, critical interventions? And where does deconstructive practice bring us as thinkers, critics, and readers - and perhaps even writers? It is to an anti-authoritarian place, a place oriented toward a future of multiplicity and refusal of origin stories, purity politics, and imperial principles of ethics and morality.

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Morrison on Memory, Imagination, and Place 5 5 Morrison on Memory, Imagination, and Place full 376041a5-632a-47d0-9b12-983ebec758f9 https://share.transistor.fm/s/47c27d24 A discussion of a cluster of Toni Morrison's non-fiction pieces concerned with gender, memory, and the imagination. We explore the relation between Morrison's meditations and our previous conversations about place and memory, in particular how transcendence is brought to sites through memory-work and the imagination. As well, the ways in which memory-work and the imagination entwine with landscape, meaning, and the ethics of reading emerge as both conceptually interesting and innovative and as imperatives placed on us by Morrison's deep work on the meaning of literature and literary production. How does that deep work make us different kinds of readers? How does it animate literature and our imaginations when we engage the text?

]]> A discussion of a cluster of Toni Morrison's non-fiction pieces concerned with gender, memory, and the imagination. We explore the relation between Morrison's meditations and our previous conversations about place and memory, in particular how transcendence is brought to sites through memory-work and the imagination. As well, the ways in which memory-work and the imagination entwine with landscape, meaning, and the ethics of reading emerge as both conceptually interesting and innovative and as imperatives placed on us by Morrison's deep work on the meaning of literature and literary production. How does that deep work make us different kinds of readers? How does it animate literature and our imaginations when we engage the text?

]]> Fri, 24 Feb 2023 17:35:21 -0500 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 2565 A discussion of a cluster of Toni Morrison's non-fiction pieces concerned with gender, memory, and the imagination. We explore the relation between Morrison's meditations and our previous conversations about place and memory, in particular how transcendence is brought to sites through memory-work and the imagination. As well, the ways in which memory-work and the imagination entwine with landscape, meaning, and the ethics of reading emerge as both conceptually interesting and innovative and as imperatives placed on us by Morrison's deep work on the meaning of literature and literary production. How does that deep work make us different kinds of readers? How does it animate literature and our imaginations when we engage the text?

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Murray and Ellison on Blues, Memory, Embodiment, and the Origins of Tradition 4 4 Murray and Ellison on Blues, Memory, Embodiment, and the Origins of Tradition full f54a9e85-dc4c-46b4-bbcf-abe9976373f6 https://share.transistor.fm/s/bb9e8998 This podcast is bookended by musical pieces by Arthur Cooper, Malaco Records recording artist and great grandfather of participant and University of Maryland doctoral student Timmy R. Bridgeman.

A conversation about Albert Murray's The Hero and the Blues and two essays by Ralph Ellison, "Living with Music" and "Blues People." In this discussion, we explore the relation between Murray's and Ellison's development of blues as a form of thought, life, and expressive culture and ideas of tradition. With particular emphasis on and extension of blues and jazz as "idea emotions" (Ellison), we link their work to ideas of tradition, orality, invention, selfhood, and the relation between the bold or strong musician and their predecessors - articulating a relation of working with rather than, as with Harold Bloom, a parricidal impulse in relation to precursors. We also explore how blues, jazz, and the African American intellectual tradition reconfigures transcendence and ecstasy to locate intellectual-tradition work inside the body and inside the club, akin to the vision of poetry developed by Barbara Christian, which renders a very different sense of memory, history, and world than we find in the pessimistic work of Martin Heidegger.

Participants: Katelin Ten, John E. Drabinski, Shannon Neal, and Timmy R. Bridgeman.

]]> This podcast is bookended by musical pieces by Arthur Cooper, Malaco Records recording artist and great grandfather of participant and University of Maryland doctoral student Timmy R. Bridgeman.

A conversation about Albert Murray's The Hero and the Blues and two essays by Ralph Ellison, "Living with Music" and "Blues People." In this discussion, we explore the relation between Murray's and Ellison's development of blues as a form of thought, life, and expressive culture and ideas of tradition. With particular emphasis on and extension of blues and jazz as "idea emotions" (Ellison), we link their work to ideas of tradition, orality, invention, selfhood, and the relation between the bold or strong musician and their predecessors - articulating a relation of working with rather than, as with Harold Bloom, a parricidal impulse in relation to precursors. We also explore how blues, jazz, and the African American intellectual tradition reconfigures transcendence and ecstasy to locate intellectual-tradition work inside the body and inside the club, akin to the vision of poetry developed by Barbara Christian, which renders a very different sense of memory, history, and world than we find in the pessimistic work of Martin Heidegger.

Participants: Katelin Ten, John E. Drabinski, Shannon Neal, and Timmy R. Bridgeman.

]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2023 13:21:59 -0500 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 3144 This podcast is bookended by musical pieces by Arthur Cooper, Malaco Records recording artist and great grandfather of participant and University of Maryland doctoral student Timmy R. Bridgeman.

A conversation about Albert Murray's The Hero and the Blues and two essays by Ralph Ellison, "Living with Music" and "Blues People." In this discussion, we explore the relation between Murray's and Ellison's development of blues as a form of thought, life, and expressive culture and ideas of tradition. With particular emphasis on and extension of blues and jazz as "idea emotions" (Ellison), we link their work to ideas of tradition, orality, invention, selfhood, and the relation between the bold or strong musician and their predecessors - articulating a relation of working with rather than, as with Harold Bloom, a parricidal impulse in relation to precursors. We also explore how blues, jazz, and the African American intellectual tradition reconfigures transcendence and ecstasy to locate intellectual-tradition work inside the body and inside the club, akin to the vision of poetry developed by Barbara Christian, which renders a very different sense of memory, history, and world than we find in the pessimistic work of Martin Heidegger.

Participants: Katelin Ten, John E. Drabinski, Shannon Neal, and Timmy R. Bridgeman.

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No On Heidegger, Dwelling, Art, and the Fourfold 3 3 On Heidegger, Dwelling, Art, and the Fourfold full 499f7f5b-bd04-4db1-a0bd-1ebaab6a344c https://share.transistor.fm/s/5b441807 A process piece reflecting on our discussion of two essays by Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1936) and "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" (1951), with particular emphasis on how he rethinks the object of art and our sense of place. Heidegger's essays attend to the experience of alienation from what he calls "the fourfold," our relation to our own mortality, to the earth, to the sky, and to the divine. A key element in this, I claim, is the question of tradition. How has a sense of "the West" or "Europe" as an intellectual and human tradition been modified by the worst/essence of modernity? And what possibilities remain for thinking about being in modernity yet also outside modernity? And, most importantly, how do Heidegger's ideas travel from reflections on a Greek temple (the putative origin and foundation of European identity) to other sites of gathering of the divine, of memory, of moments of origin or transformation?

]]> A process piece reflecting on our discussion of two essays by Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1936) and "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" (1951), with particular emphasis on how he rethinks the object of art and our sense of place. Heidegger's essays attend to the experience of alienation from what he calls "the fourfold," our relation to our own mortality, to the earth, to the sky, and to the divine. A key element in this, I claim, is the question of tradition. How has a sense of "the West" or "Europe" as an intellectual and human tradition been modified by the worst/essence of modernity? And what possibilities remain for thinking about being in modernity yet also outside modernity? And, most importantly, how do Heidegger's ideas travel from reflections on a Greek temple (the putative origin and foundation of European identity) to other sites of gathering of the divine, of memory, of moments of origin or transformation?

]]> Fri, 10 Feb 2023 17:49:43 -0500 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 2277 A process piece reflecting on our discussion of two essays by Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1936) and "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" (1951), with particular emphasis on how he rethinks the object of art and our sense of place. Heidegger's essays attend to the experience of alienation from what he calls "the fourfold," our relation to our own mortality, to the earth, to the sky, and to the divine. A key element in this, I claim, is the question of tradition. How has a sense of "the West" or "Europe" as an intellectual and human tradition been modified by the worst/essence of modernity? And what possibilities remain for thinking about being in modernity yet also outside modernity? And, most importantly, how do Heidegger's ideas travel from reflections on a Greek temple (the putative origin and foundation of European identity) to other sites of gathering of the divine, of memory, of moments of origin or transformation?

]]> critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Violence, Love, and Influence in Bloom and Senghor 2 2 Violence, Love, and Influence in Bloom and Senghor full cd1492f4-8bc5-42b5-bd30-66f2250f2b77 https://share.transistor.fm/s/727b739d Discussion of Harold Bloom's 1973 book The Anxiety of Influence, with attention to the limits of the book and also how a perversion or transformation of revisionary ratios might provide insight into anti- and even post-colonial literature and cultural production. In particular, we discuss how Bloom's work presupposes and needs antagonism and violence between poet and precursor, and then how Barbara Christian's evocation of poetry as world- and self-making via love and generosity offers a different model. That shift helps relocate the question of influence and violence in Léopold Senghor's work, where he argues that even in a colonial context there is a possibility of influence without fear of contamination. Does Bloom's book operate under a fear of contamination? Is there anything left of the revisionary ratios without that fear? What is influence without fear of contamination, without the violent impulse toward the precursor? How does love offer another kind of revisionary ratio, or perhaps embellish and transform the six outlined in The Anxiety of Influence?

]]> Discussion of Harold Bloom's 1973 book The Anxiety of Influence, with attention to the limits of the book and also how a perversion or transformation of revisionary ratios might provide insight into anti- and even post-colonial literature and cultural production. In particular, we discuss how Bloom's work presupposes and needs antagonism and violence between poet and precursor, and then how Barbara Christian's evocation of poetry as world- and self-making via love and generosity offers a different model. That shift helps relocate the question of influence and violence in Léopold Senghor's work, where he argues that even in a colonial context there is a possibility of influence without fear of contamination. Does Bloom's book operate under a fear of contamination? Is there anything left of the revisionary ratios without that fear? What is influence without fear of contamination, without the violent impulse toward the precursor? How does love offer another kind of revisionary ratio, or perhaps embellish and transform the six outlined in The Anxiety of Influence?

]]> Fri, 03 Feb 2023 16:07:03 -0500 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 2819 Discussion of Harold Bloom's 1973 book The Anxiety of Influence, with attention to the limits of the book and also how a perversion or transformation of revisionary ratios might provide insight into anti- and even post-colonial literature and cultural production. Discussion of Harold Bloom's 1973 book The Anxiety of Influence, with attention to the limits of the book and also how a perversion or transformation of revisionary ratios might provide insight into anti- and even post-colonial literature and cultural pro critical theory, comparative studies, literary theory, theoretical humanities, philosophy, literature, cultural theory No Barbara Christian, "The Race for Theory" 1 1 Barbara Christian, "The Race for Theory" full 7af61ac3-4424-4f6a-be92-7aaed2119f1e https://share.transistor.fm/s/385eef0a Fri, 27 Jan 2023 18:22:54 -0500 John E. Drabinski John E. Drabinski 2064 Barbara Christian, Black women's writing, literary theory, Black feminist criticism, Black feminist literary theory, critical theory No