Consolation and Melancholy
I started this Substack site partly motivated by my current research, as an incentive to write with freedom and spontaneity when ideas occur to me unencumbered by the agitation of causes and campaigns:
This is a place for experimental writing, for trying out ideas, and for meandering along pathways of creative thinking that don’t necessarily lead anywhere and with no clear destination in mind. The purpose is in the writing, and the pleasure is in what unexpected encounters with language and meaning occur along the way. I ask how language might acquire the tensile strength of a spider’s web — giving shape to air and absence, woven out of silken threads that are strong enough to bear the weight of meaning far beyond their seeming fragility.
Th…