Ahead of our “nonsite” event in Louisville Friday, I wanted to put the record of my contributions to the Louisville Conference up, to point to the critical and poetic work that has scarcely been considered in this instance. Content—not just projection—matters. I have added a sentence or two to each title, along with publication history, to give a sense of what my path through Louisville has been. The Louisville Conference has indeed been important for me, and I am deeply grateful for and committed to it. But I never shouted anyone down at this conference, though I did go on too long a couple of times early on.

Nonsite event

“Cancel Culture as Unfree Speech: Parrhesia @ The Louisville Conference,” independently organized, The Brown Hotel, Louisville, February 2020.

A brutal rationalization takes place in the neoliberal university beyond the wildest dreams of Mario Savio; the degradation of speech we have suffered is its symptomatic manifestation. The university has achieved a condition of unfree speech that has spread, in viral fashion, from the central core of the administration to the department and classroom, each internalizing and performing its version of the paranoia and defensiveness of the larger polity, where it reigns unchecked.

Lectures and panel presentations

“Refunctioning Surrealism: Eugene Lim’s Dear Cyborgs and Karen An-hwei Lee’s Maze of Transparencies,” The Louisville Conference on Literature After 1900, canceled February 2020. … More