Author Spotlight
Massumi and Malbec: Intro and Chapter One
This is the first part of the discussion group for Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, and Sensation. I am very late doing this. I am sorry. I was having whiplash and making phone calls because I got in a car wreck on the freeway. Nobody was seriously hurt, and more importantly, it was not my fault. But it happened and I am too easily derailed. There is a very wonderful Chapter Two post waiting for us; it is by Corey Wakeling. So I just want to do this so we can get to that. I am liking Massumi. I drank Rioja instead of Malbec because I had some.
Are you reading Massumi? What is the affect–equated by him with effect and intensity–of reading Massumi? Not the emotion. What is the sensation? For reasons I shouldn’t like to understand, reading really good academic prose turns me on as I read it, literally, but I haven’t read much of anything like this since college, so getting into Parables for the Virtual lent a tender, nostalgic, aroused sensation. Like the children in Ch. 1 I equate arousal with pleasure.
Here are some things I would love to talk more about if you would like to talk more about them:
Intro pp. 12-13. False modesty, wrongthinkingness of critics who think it is not their job to create. At times Massumi is writing about how to write, which was a nice surprise.
Ch. 1 pp. 24-25. The way Massumi writes “form/content” blows my mind. I know we can’t totally divide form and content, but to conflate/equate them thus is, for me, hard to do. Please help.
28. “[Emotion] is intensity owned and recognized.” Crucial distinction/delineation.
[I’m relieved that Massumi compared his own prose to a black hole]
39. Kinds of aphasia and their inverses. How they could help us hear.
Tags: massumi, parables for the virtual
Hi Amy. I’m just getting round to starting Massumi now, read the intro yesterday and will probably read chapter one today. Will post back when I’m up to date. Glad you’re okay. Car wrecks are hair-raising, it takes a while to come back.
Hi Amy. I’m just getting round to starting Massumi now, read the intro yesterday and will probably read chapter one today. Will post back when I’m up to date. Glad you’re okay. Car wrecks are hair-raising, it takes a while to come back.
Amy, with the conflation of form and content, it helps to consider Deleuze for a moment. Really, the form and content divide does not go far enough, since there is a form to content (as it is known in this paradigm) and content to form. So think semiotics, we have signifier and signified, but this is not enough, since there is the content of the signifier (think Barthes and the second order semiological system) and then there is the form of the content (here’s where we encounter Massumi: the signified, say, a rose as it is actually, is, in Massumi’s reasoning, a rose to the extent that we ‘plug-in’ to it. With this in mind, a rose’s form is its scientific attributes, its climate, the number of petals etc etc. There is form that we can’t necessarily know until we plug-in, thereby this is not the order of the signifier, rather the signified. Form of the content.)
Your question is better answered by Chapter Four. Sorry I hadn’t commented on this post soon enough, I’m waiting for my internet to start at my new apartment, until then it’s furtive visits to the university for plugging-in. Happy reading!
Amy, with the conflation of form and content, it helps to consider Deleuze for a moment. Really, the form and content divide does not go far enough, since there is a form to content (as it is known in this paradigm) and content to form. So think semiotics, we have signifier and signified, but this is not enough, since there is the content of the signifier (think Barthes and the second order semiological system) and then there is the form of the content (here’s where we encounter Massumi: the signified, say, a rose as it is actually, is, in Massumi’s reasoning, a rose to the extent that we ‘plug-in’ to it. With this in mind, a rose’s form is its scientific attributes, its climate, the number of petals etc etc. There is form that we can’t necessarily know until we plug-in, thereby this is not the order of the signifier, rather the signified. Form of the content.)
Your question is better answered by Chapter Four. Sorry I hadn’t commented on this post soon enough, I’m waiting for my internet to start at my new apartment, until then it’s furtive visits to the university for plugging-in. Happy reading!
Heuu, hope to join in the conversation at some point.
Would it be possible to add an extra link in the sidebar for this Massumi group? That would make it a whole lot easier to find (or am I missing something?).
Heuu, hope to join in the conversation at some point.
Would it be possible to add an extra link in the sidebar for this Massumi group? That would make it a whole lot easier to find (or am I missing something?).
[…] to catch up with a reading group that has been erratically going on over at HTML Giant. So far the first two chapters have been […]