I was going to blog about The Poethical Wager. But, here I arrived at Juliana’s surprises for us all. They sound really cool. Crossing border always brings fun things to the table!

I'm a big fan of Joan Retallack & as predictable, I am totally IN for The Poetical Wager. I haven’t read all of the essays but it’s really the book for me! I’m gonna read it and re-read it. It’s brilliant. It’s super smart. It’s wittily non-academic but also is academic. I really love it. The problem about loving something, though, is that I don’t have much to say beyond that & I am trying not to allow that to be an excuse for detaching myself from critical thinking. What I have to say might sound really over-praising. But, well, I’ll say it.

The questions the book discusses are importantly courageous as they challenge what seems to be mundanely normative: that essays should exhibit meticulously-referenced materials, that feminism should be about allowing silenced voice to be heard formally, that Stein was chaotic. The book said no to all these in a very informed, intelligent and “fun” manner. Her comments on Dictée totally got me. If it’s possible, I love Dictée even more after reading those comments.

And (this is a total treat for me) there are all these philosophers! Woo! I am all into it, although I can see this being an annoyance if one finds philosophy something that bugs. Sometimes it bugs me too—she’s referring to a lot of philosophers and I don’t know all of them. I came up with a list of philosophers to read though.

I’m gonna stop now. I’d like to hear what you all have to say and I might be responding to those.

(If interested, here's a talk by Joan Retallack. I wrote a whole series of my work taking an inspiration for this.)