Search results
margins are perceived as more permeable and abstract (though Brexit and the rise of right-wing populism suggest a dissatisfaction with suchlike official culture). Hill likes writers who perceive the constitution in the double sense of ‘civil polity’ and ‘body’, captured in the image of the ‘body politic’. This kind of ‘constituted’ vision of society has been traditionally expressed as a human body or as a tree; or both, as with Coleridge, who refers in this context to “the circulating sap of life” and “the nisis formativus [shaping power] of the body politic”.12 “Life
UK are implicitly charged to forget, or at any rate not think about, the fundamental indebtedness of ‘Brexit’ to the nonsensical portmanteau-making of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty) 70 seems set to make the kinds of translational, translanational, transliterational, transgenic, telephonic might of ‘side thinking’ appear more irrelevant than ever. 71 But in the same breath, the same sigh, we might also suggest that now – more than ever – side thinking is needed. This postscript, seeking to return us to the beginning ‘at last’, offers another O, a side
What does it feel like to be on the brink of transition? 1 The date of writing is important. Much of this book was written during two years of negotiations counting down to Britain’s exit from the European Union. As I worked towards this book’s first deadline, I watched the political clock tick down several times as exit dates came and went. I hoped for infinite delay. As the late medieval playmakers understood, our experiences of time, and of writing, are heavily influenced by our politics. Underpinning much of the desire for Brexit is a nostalgic desire
forewords: each offers a sort of new entry point for reading Cixous, another beginning or beginningame (to recall a neologism from the previous chapter). 1 Nanoment Nanoment is a portmanteau of ‘nano’ and ‘moment’. As we have seen, Cixous loves portmanteau words: she scarcely ever travels without them. 3 Whether in a literary context (such as Lewis Carroll) or a real-life context (such as a motel or Brexit), the portmanteau draws attention to itself as a fiction or linguistic artifice. Whether dark or funny (or uncertainly both), it does something new
governmental support. The case of Trump’s word ban also makes apparent that the language of vulnerability does not only regard a competition for attention or a politics of recognition, but also a redistribution of resources and access to healthcare (Butler, 1997c; Fraser, 1997; Fraser and Honneth, 2003). In the wake of Brexit (the UK’s decision to leave the European Union), the 2016 US presidential election resulting in Donald Trump’s election, and the rise of European populism, narratives of wounded nations, genders, and classes permeate news and other journalism. As a