Saturday, September 22, 2007

Elam for Minimalism

I was flipping through Diane Elams' _Feminism and Deconstruction_, and I came across a passage I had underlined, with the anotation, "3 ways to apply to minimalism":

"Heirarchy is always grounded on the assumption that differences are differences of degree, along a homogeneous scale. If femininity is a natural category, then differences between women are merely the effect of degrees of false consciousness, and liberation arrives when all women have come to authoritative consciousness of their own, identical, sexual identity." (43)

Now I just have to try to remember the 3 ways...

1) a) What is often mis-labeled the anti-teleological in minimalism, it's driving repetition and lack of drive (?), is ostinsibly the removal of heirarchy, in that it eliminates defining dramatic moments.
b) (Via Brian Hulse and Deleuze) Viewing the repetition in minimalism as difference (not the same again) suggests, maybe, that the scale of heirarchy is shifted, or that the transition from one point to another is foregrounded, while the points themselves are diminished (I would like very much to keep this distinct from "becoming").

2) On the flip side. Minimalism as a representation of the impossibility of the late-capitalist phallus suggests reading this corpus not as an ostensibly feminine anti-teleology, but as a similacrum for ideal masculinity: unattainable, unsustainable, hollow, and ultimately fragile. In effect, this reading entails saying "men" instead of "women," and "masculine" instead of "feminine," in the above.

3) Not sure what 3 was... maybe it was 1b? Maybe these are all new.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

My inability to understand your post prompts me to provide this link

http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html