(con)juncture was lawson fletcher's thought pile. Now blogging at soundofruins.net
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5.8.10

pataphysics

A scholar I know used this word when giving a critique of a paper, asking whether the paper was all some 'pataphysical joke' and I finally had a chance to ask him what the fuck pataphysics is. Pataphysics, essentially, is the 'science of imaginary solutions', invented in novelistic and theatrical form by 1890s Frenchman Alfred Jarry, who himself was particularly interested in and well-versed in the science of his day, in physics and machines, all that long nineteenth century stuff that academics froth over. Pataphysics inverts social and scientific norms, and Jarry was in many ways the forefather of Absurdist theatre and Surrealism.

I note it here because one could draw (perhaps intentionally prepostrous, in the vein of historiography/archaeology) a connection between pataphysics and science fiction, or sci-fi, which most certainly writes of imaginary solutions to scientific and social problematics. Then there's the famous notion from subcultural studies that young people invent magical or imaginary solutions to political problems, symbolically resolving society's disjunctures, tensions and contradictions. Much to think about.

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