In Conversation with Davis Schneiderman @ The Nervous Breakdown
At The Nervous Breakdown, Davis Schneiderman and I talked about my new book Damnation, contemporary literature, and the expectations of “identity” from the readers, editors, and publishers.
Excerpt:
Something I’ve been thinking about is, what the point of these terms anyways, especially terms like “innovative” and “experimental” vs. “conventional” and “traditional” and “realistic.” There’s a history and context here, of course, but also these terms are less and less productive. To me, it seems that a term like “experimental” or “innovative” seems to want to be an empowering term, to legitimize types of writing and ways of writing, to lend them authority, especially politically. But at the same, these terms are marginalizing in themselves, that in seeking to categorize something to lend it some sort of power and authority in a certain context, it also allows itself to be categorized in that manner, allows itself to be marginalized as an other category and becomes complacent in this way.
