"This volunteering to let one's self be undone--not dissimilar to Judith Butler's notion of precarious life--leads Spahr's figures to a condition in which "they" come to terms with their writing bodies' extension of their political environments."
this sentence caused me to hesitate and i think now i've figured out why. thanks for pulling it out of its context so i could work on this thought.
i hesitate with the word extension. writing bodies as extension of political environments.
extension is secondary, separate from the thing it's an extension of. i don't think they're separate. i think one's allowing of oneself to 'come undone' is acknowledgment that one's writing body is wholly affected by its political environment, as in, is inside it, not an extension of.
so i'm thinking of two ways one's self can 'come undone' in this sense (writing body in relation to political environment):
-self absorbs the political atmosphere in which it exists, as in, self necessarily contains its political environment INSIDE IT. so the process of absorbing one's political environment into oneself is it's 'coming undone'.
OR
-allowing of self to infuse into the political environment, like, not an absorbing in of the environment, but an allowing of oneself to absorb OUTWARD into it, to put oneself inside the political environment rather than letting the political environment enter oneself.
i'm not sure if i've thought this through completely because is 'one's self' the same thing as one's 'writing body'? or are they supposed to be different things.
i agree that 'extension' might be the complicating term.
the writer's body insists a 'self' especially when constructed (writing) identity perceives itself as a force positioned elsewhere than inescapably complicit with (mutual to) its environment. the coming undone here maybe is the unraveling of that assumption.
2 comments:
this sentence caused me to hesitate and i think now i've figured out why. thanks for pulling it out of its context so i could work on this thought.
i hesitate with the word extension. writing bodies as extension of political environments.
extension is secondary, separate from the thing it's an extension of. i don't think they're separate. i think one's allowing of oneself to 'come undone' is acknowledgment that one's writing body is wholly affected by its political environment, as in, is inside it, not an extension of.
so i'm thinking of two ways one's self can 'come undone' in this sense (writing body in relation to political environment):
-self absorbs the political atmosphere in which it exists, as in, self necessarily contains its political environment INSIDE IT. so the process of absorbing one's political environment into oneself is it's 'coming undone'.
OR
-allowing of self to infuse into the political environment, like, not an absorbing in of the environment, but an allowing of oneself to absorb OUTWARD into it, to put oneself inside the political environment rather than letting the political environment enter oneself.
i'm not sure if i've thought this through completely because is 'one's self' the same thing as one's 'writing body'? or are they supposed to be different things.
maybe someone can help me out here.
i agree that 'extension' might be the complicating term.
the writer's body insists a 'self' especially when constructed (writing) identity perceives itself as a force positioned elsewhere than inescapably complicit with (mutual to) its environment. the coming undone here maybe is the unraveling of that assumption.
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