I said I'd do a review of Elizabeth Grosz's new book,
The Nick of Time, for API. Not because I've got much from her work, but because it's always seemed to me to display the worst aspects of academic labour generally, and CultStud more specifically: canonical, textboook production, position, position, position. And this is another chance to talk about the forms and limits of cognitive labour. Although, I was hoping it would be more than just this.
I've been trying to come up with a way of being less dismissive, but it's difficult when someone begins by writing that "This book functions primarilly as a reminder to social, political and cultural theorists ... a rememberance of what we have forgotten. ... the nature, the ontology of the body, the conditions under which bodies are enculturated, psychologized, given identity, historical location, and agency." It's difficult to not be dismissive because I don't feel particularly interpellated by this "we" Grosz talks about. I mean who was it that 'forgot' about these things, other than Grosz? Yes, there is a minor attempt to note this, to talk about the book as a corrective of her own past work, but the form remains the same (canonical, textbookish), and the content is kind of peculiar. Like, talking about Nietzsche and Bergson as "negelected" writers? Neglected by whom? Or, worse, talking about 'race' as a given -- no historical, contingent sense of 'race', let alone much engagement with the vast amounts of
materialist theories of 'race': Balibar, Guillaumin, etc. Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that Grosz was (is?) such a keen anti-marxist that materialism vanished along with it. Which she feels the need, now, to remember. But the form of the rememberance continues the forgetting. And the forgetting is so ivory-toweresque that I get antsy.
So, trying to write a review, I've been trying to find other reviews of
The Nick of Time, of which I've found none. Well, people mention the book, reiterate the flyleaf blurb and quotes from friends, but I haven't found anyone who engages with the book itself. In other words, all I've found are markers of circulation, empty citation, where the only thing at stake is the market, niche market in this case.
Though, trawling the web I did find an interview with at least one fan who carefully reflected on the terms of the specific fandom at work: "What do you dislike about Elizabeth Grosz? - I find myself recoiling from that question, because I do dislike what she
does in her book production, but she does it well and I buy her books. So, at some level, I resent the fact that books like hers have a market at
all, and more than that, that I am her market. What she does is, she takes
*bites* on conceptual issues, and puts them into fashionable thematic
categories, her books are analogous to compilation albums where music
samples from old favourites make up the seed idea of each song. I can see
what she is doing, dealing astutely with a readership, giving us what we
all want - a position on things."
The rest here.
