Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 22:31:04 -0500 (EST) From: "Bryan A. Alexander" <bnalexan-AT-umich.edu> Subject: Re: nomad (kinda long) More than 2 cents' worth, in this exchange economy! Bryan Alexander Department of English email: bnalexan-AT-umich.edu University of Michigan phone: (313) 764-0418 Ann Arbor, MI USA 48103 fax: (313) 763-3128 http://www.umich.edu/~bnalexan On Mon, 26 Feb 1996, Judith L. Poxon wrote: > > Some thoughts on the responses to my comments (and Bryan's): > > Dominic wrote, in part: > > > But have you ever listened closely when philosophers > > start talking about possible worlds? They act like they have > > never been there, but will tell you every fucking detail about > > the places. The truth is those worlds are just down the > > street-- if one has a geological map--lodged in the > > undergraduate bars and public mental-health wards, but shrouded > > in a historicized OTHERNESS. So look: the question is not > > "how can we be nomadic in academia?", but rather, "WHAT VENUES > > ARE WE WILLING TO ADMIT INTO OUR LITTLE ACADEMIC WORLD?" > > I think this is an important rephrasing of the question: it seems clear > to me that the academy needs to be opened up to new ways of > thinking/doing/becoming that have previously been left to the "real > world." I'm not offering practical tips for how to accomplish this, > though. Any thoughts, Dominic? Good rephrasing, and allows in all sorts of subversion. Even the possibility of damage. > > Then Bryan wrote: > > > Perhaps I have too much of an unreconstructed Marxist within. > > I fear these structures all too much, and am suspicious of > > nomads who can all too easily be recuperated by transnational > > capital. I am indeed thinking more about May '68 and a > > massive monkey wrench tossed into the workings of state and > > capital. This seems highly unlikely to occur without special > > circumstances within traditional academia (luck; an > > ill-displined institution; cunning manipulation), but might be > > easier from the gypsy position, which introduces more desires and > > flows into the machine... > > And the possibility of being recuperated by transnational capitalism seems, > on dandg's analysis, to be built into the structure of desiring-machines > and their relation to social-machines. So that, as they claim in AO, > "there does not exist a pure nomad who can be afforded the satisfaction > of drifting with the flows and singing direct filiation, but always a > socius waiting to bear down, already deducting and detaching" (p. 149). > And it seems to me that the possibility of being a nomad to ANY extent > within the academy is linked with the recognition of this fact, and the > will to continue to open up nomadic lines of flight within the socius > that is the University. of course. But there's possibility and possibility, variable intensities. What I see happening all too easily is a brief flavor of D+G, the slight lapse into nomadism followed by a hurtling back into the warm concentric rings - and that's a fate for D+G in the academy. I'm interested in breaking away from state capital, for developing oblique intensities. > > And Ed wrote, in part: > > > [...] we ought > > to take the intensity-extensity distinction seriously and think about > > what D meant when he said "I don't like to move around too much, it inter- > > feres with becomings." The nomadic experience perhps is more like what > > happens when you get done with a four hour stint reading something in the > > library and you walk out into broad daylight and everything seems a little > > wierd, cause you've spent all that time displacing your modes of thought, > > allowing them to interact with other one's in the book, etc. Perhaps it > > doesn't matter one bit whether you write an essay, a dialogue, or nothing > > at all about it? Just a thought. > > I agree completely with what Ed is saying here about staying with the > extensive/intensive distinction that I pointed out in my earlier post. > What troubles me a little, though, is this apparent emphasis on the > "nomadic _experience_"--as contrasted with, say, nomadic > _effects_--because it seems to suggest that what's most important to > becoming-nomad is that one _feels_ nomadic, rather than that one produces > nomadic effects (or allows them to be produced, or something like that). > And I would take it that the force behind Bryan's original question, and > Dominic's elaboration on it, is a concern with the revolutionary effects > produced (or not) by one's thinking/doing/becoming. That's about right. I can imagine someon feeling nomadic as they spiral into obscurity and death - which is alright; but I'm more interested in the truly chaotic productions of the nomad (interesting how chaos has become a synonym for control!). > > Just my two cents' worth.... > > Judith > > Judith Poxon > Syracuse University, Dept. of Religion > jlpoxon-AT-mailbox.syr.edu > > > ------------------
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