Join Rachel, Emily, and B as they delve into Maggie Nelson‘s memoir The Argonauts. As they discuss the power of the memoir genre as a tool for thinking critically about social life, they explore its political potential. How can the memoir, like poetry and other ‘forms’ of writing, allow for the kinds of destabilizing ‘epistemic unruliness’ that familiar forms of academic discourses disallow? If the memoir is thinking, and thinking-politically, what kinds of everyday experiences can be politicized and theorized? Listen as they consider Nelson’s contemplations of the queerness of pregnancy; the function and status of canonical philosophers in the memoir; and the general problem/inadequacy of words.
Thanks to listener @angellemke for suggesting The Argonauts. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. Thanks to Leah Dion and to B for the music.
Links!
- Maggie Nelson at CalArts and Wave Books
- The Argonauts at Graywolf Press
- Reviews of The Argonauts at the NY Times, NPR, and Salon
- “Writing as Performance: An Interview with Maggie Nelson”, a video from Superstition Review
- Catherine Opie exhibit archive at the Guggenheim
- What are Argonauts, you ask? PBS has an answer.
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