Generation n. 1 All of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively; ‘one of his generation’s finest songwriters.’ 1.1 The average period, generally considered to be about thirty years, in which children grow up, become adults, and have children of their own; ‘the same families have lived here for generations.’ 1.2 A set of members of a family regarded as a single step or stage in descent; as modifier, in combination ‘a third-generation Canadian.’ 1.3 A group of people of similar age involved in a particular activity; ‘a new generation of actors and directors.’ 1.4 A single stage in the development of a type of product or technology; ‘a new generation of rear-engined sports cars.’ 2 mass noun The production or creation of something; ‘methods of electricity generation’; ‘the generation of wealth.’ 2.1 The propagation of living organisms; procreation. Origin Middle English: via Old French from Latin generatio(n-), from the verb generare (see generate).
Entries published at 11/04/2017
Introduction to “The Face Gone:
Generation in Presentist Poetics”
presented at ASAP 9, 27 October 2017
“Generation and the Arts of the Present”
with Lawrence Rinder and James Smethurst;
chaired by C.D. Blanton; Rita Raley, respondent
In critical and creative terms, “generation” is a blindspot in the discourse of the arts of the present. My essay starts by questioning the reliance on art historical, literary, and critical paradigms of periodization as assumed across the disciplines: from Foucault’s “epistemic shift” to Jameson’s “cultural logic of late capitalism” to periodizing notions of the literary, artistic, or cultural succession of one movement, school, style, or group to the next. Rather, I see “generation” as a cultural logic is negotiated at every moment in poetic practice: for instance, Language writing does not simply succeed and overturn the “presentness” of the New American poets, nor is it simply overturned by conceptualism or new activist poetries—rather, a complex negotiation of generation takes place at each moment, which may be seen both within the details of the work or movement’s construction or self-understanding, and externally in terms of its aesthetic positioning. … More
ASAP 9
The Arts of the Present
Oakland Marriott Hotel
University of California, Berkeley
26–29 October 2017
Ken D. Allan
Vincent Adiutori
Peter Hitchcock
Annie McClanahan
Regina Weinreich
Erik Mortenson
Tyler Coburn
Sara Blair
Richard Purcell
Daniel Reynolds
… More
Poetics
The Grand Piano
