At 9:41 AM -0700 9/6/03, Alison Croggon wrote:
>Depressing Tim that you didn't notice that I mentioned Sontag in my
>first post on erotics, though I suppose careful reading is too much
>to ask for on a list. Not to mention those comments about being
>thoughtless and superficial, when I have drawn on many more areas of
>argument than Marcus ever has, or the strange idea that I seem to be
>asking for a "clean slate" when I have situated my comments in a
>context which involves a genealogy of all sorts of other writers.
Further: I find this demand that I "explain" beyond the boundaries of
what is possible on email, while contesting arguments are not asked
to explain anything, and not required to situate their discourse in
any detail (in Marcus's case, has he stated anything beyond an
aggressive negative questioning, or related his argument in any terms
beyond a quote from Auden, dismissing all counter-argument as "ad
hominem" whether or not it fits the terms), really problematic. It
suggests that making an argument outside certain terms of discourse
is impossible. Which is rather amazing on a list supposedly devoted
to innovative poetics.
I refuse to believe that language is so powerless; I know it isn't.
And I am very glad that outside the stultifying realms sometimes
adumbrated here there are other possibilities.
A
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Alison Croggon
Editor, Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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