Progressive Geographies

APHORISM

A concise, often witty, turn of phrase that should be shared out of context on Twitter or Pinterest.

BILDUNGSROMAN

Novel where someone (preferably male) matures into the ideal state of bitter disillusionment.

CATHARSIS

Evocation of fear and pity. Best exemplified in modern storytelling by Lifetime Network original movies.

DECONSTRUCTION

A form of textual analysis. No one knows what it means. Apply liberally.

EXISTENTIALIST

Use to describe any French novel of the 20th century. Serve with coffee and cigarettes.

FOIL

First, Outer, Inner, Last.

GENRE FICTION

Deride genre fiction at all times. If a writer uses genre tropes, praise her for genre bending. (See LITERARY FICTION).

HYSTERICAL REALISM

Use to describe any big ambitious novel that does not meet your aesthetic and/or moral needs.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER

All poetry is composed in iambic pentameter.

JUVENILIA

A writer’s immature work, which she usually (wisely) withholds from publication. After the…

AFFECTIVE FALLACY

Avoid reading with emotions. Ignore any feelings you feel during reading—that’s not the point of literature.

BYRONIC HERO

Super-cool cool guy.

CANON

All the literature that’s fit to print. Declare it dead or meaningless or obsolete every few years. Revise as necessary.

DIARY

The private thoughts of an author, never intended for publication. Publish and disseminate widely after death.

ENLIGHTENMENT

A brief, optimistic mistake.

FRANKENSTEIN

Always point out that Frankenstein is the doctor’s name, not the monster’s. Argue that Percy Shelley’s edits were intrusive.

GOTHIC NOVEL

Wears black; smokes cloves.

HAIKU

A form of poetry grade school children are forced to write. Count the syllables.

INKHORN TERM

Linguistic aureation proliferated to adnichilate reader apperception.

JOUISSANCE

A nebulous, sticky French pun.

KITSCH

The sad process by which the consumerist trash capitalism necessitates colonizes an aesthetic perspective via defensive irony.

LIMERICK

The acme of excellence in poetry. Nantucket is a…

A bit of Internet sleuthing turns up the fact that finally Foucault’s book Le Desordre des familles, lettres de cachet, with Arlette Farge, originally published in 1982, is being translated into English.

Nancy Luxon, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, is listing it on her CV with a publication date of 2015.

I wrote about this a few years ago as having some potential parallels to the so-called National Security Letters (NSLs) which are in the news again regarding the NSA.

I found this out because I am looking for a translation project from French. Any other interesting candidates?

At Verso’s blog, news of the passing of Marshall Berman. See also Crooked Timber.

New book reviews for September:

David Correia (University of New Mexico) on Fiona Mackenzie’s Places of Possibility: Property, Nature, and Community Land Ownership;

Jill Williams (University of Hawai’i at Mānoa) on Beyond Walls and Cages: Prisons, Borders, and Global Crisis and Carceral Spaces: Mobility and Agency in Imprisonment and Migrant Detention;

Katrinka Somdahl-Sands (Rowan University) on Ben Anderson and Paul Harrison’s Taking-Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography;

Filip Stabrowski (Hunter College, CUNY) on Joseph Varga’s Hell’s Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space: Class Struggle and Progressive Reform in New York City, 1894-1914;

Christoph Scheuplein (University of Münster) on Felix Wiegand’s David Harveys urbane Politische Ökonomie: Ausgrabungen der Zukunft marxistischer Stadtforschung; and

Tom Slater (University of Edinburgh) on Imogen Tyler’s Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain.

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All Antipode book reviews are now freely available from our online repository, Wiley…