Category Archives: So-Cal Scholar

So-Cal Scholar

Fred Moten, The Sustain: Blackness and Poetry

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Acclaimed scholar and poet Fred Moten will be speaking on Thursday, March 20, 2014, 8:30pm at REDCAT.

Presented in association with the Master’s Program in Aesthetics & Politics at CalArts.

Known as a compelling and brilliant speaker and performer, Fred Moten works at the intersection of performance, poetry and critical theory. In his lecture “The Sustain: Blackness and Poetry,” Moten discusses instances of black poetic inscription in visual, plastic and performance art. These inscriptions are by black artists, implying that there is such a thing as black poetic inscription and that many non-black artists engage in it. Through this talk, he seeks to shed light on some recent debates in the poetry world regarding race, politics, conceptualism and the form/purpose of the anthology. Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, Moten is Theorist in Residence this spring in the CalArts Program in Aesthetics and Politics.

Poet Douglas Kearney is on hand to lead a post-lecture Q&A.

Fred Moten | REDCAT.

So-Cal Scholar

Interview with Daniel Tiffany

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The Conversant speaks to USC Poet and Professor Daniel Tiffany about his latest book, Neptune Park.

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Andy Fitch: In Neptune Park’s epigraph, Strabo, the Roman geographer, declares, “I shrink from giving too many of the names, shunning the unpleasant task of writing them down—unless it comports with the pleasure of someone.” I’m interested in the role preemptive or productive apology plays in your poetics. Who are some of your favorite apologizers? Robert Walser comes to mind, perhaps Joe Brainaird.

Daniel Tiffany: I haven’t thought this through carefully, whether Strabo’s statement suggests strategic calculation or an embarrassed admission. I like the way he doesn’t just apologize for the obscurity of certain names and places but acknowledges his hope of “comporting” with someone’s pleasure. I appreciate an apologetics qualified by the hope that someone out there just might want to hear terribly dull things. I also love Strabo’s way of cataloging obscure places, tribes, peoples he has heard or read about—almost as an obligation, from a sense of duty.

Daniel Tiffany with Andy Fitch