Techno-Prosthetic Romantic FuturismBibliobreakdownSomething is happening to books. Oh, they still look like books, at least in their off-line avatars: two covers, pages between them, typography, graphics. But some of the best recent critical books eschew the scholarly apparatus of criticism and the academic convention of argument. [1] They punch and jab, surprise and provoke. But they're bad Aristotelians: no beginning, no middle, no end, no categorization, no commonplaces, no concern for consensus. Check Kodwo Eshun. Check Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky. [2] What can we learn from these innovators? What does it mean for criticism that both are black? Notes1. Perhaps the "crisis" in scholarly publishing is an index of the cultural obsolescence of traditional criticism. One can only hope. 2. Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (London: Quartet, 1998), paul d miller, rhythm science (Cambridge: MIT, 2005). Navigation |