Publication result detail

"Here-and-Now" the Time-Life is Recorded / Played Back: Kenneth Goldsmith Performs Living through Writing

KOTÁSEK, M.

Original Title

"Here-and-Now" the Time-Life is Recorded / Played Back: Kenneth Goldsmith Performs Living through Writing

English Title

"Here-and-Now" the Time-Life is Recorded / Played Back: Kenneth Goldsmith Performs Living through Writing

Type

WoS Article

Original Abstract

The article inquires into the place and function of autobiography in today's "hypermnesic" (Hayles) social, medial, and cultural situation. It discusses Kenneth Goldsmith's Soliloquy, Day, Fidget, and The Ideal Lecture, which hardly anyone reads as autobiographical texts. In a self-reflective and quasi-theoretical manner Goldsmith opens the question of a "life record," pointing at the medium of language and its performance, and at the media in a technological sense. In an attempt to theorize the way digitization changes the possibilities of subjectivizing the lived, experienced presence and human memory, this study relies on the concept of "tertiary retention" (Stiegler) and problematizes the notion of memory and "archive." It also points at "ideality" or "utopia," as used in Goldsmith's The Ideal Lecture, in light of the problem of language as a memory device and the inherently temporal narrative structure we are used to give to our lives.

English abstract

The article inquires into the place and function of autobiography in today's "hypermnesic" (Hayles) social, medial, and cultural situation. It discusses Kenneth Goldsmith's Soliloquy, Day, Fidget, and The Ideal Lecture, which hardly anyone reads as autobiographical texts. In a self-reflective and quasi-theoretical manner Goldsmith opens the question of a "life record," pointing at the medium of language and its performance, and at the media in a technological sense. In an attempt to theorize the way digitization changes the possibilities of subjectivizing the lived, experienced presence and human memory, this study relies on the concept of "tertiary retention" (Stiegler) and problematizes the notion of memory and "archive." It also points at "ideality" or "utopia," as used in Goldsmith's The Ideal Lecture, in light of the problem of language as a memory device and the inherently temporal narrative structure we are used to give to our lives.

Keywords

conceptualism; computer poetry; Kenneth Goldsmith; language processing

Key words in English

conceptualism; computer poetry; Kenneth Goldsmith; language processing

Authors

KOTÁSEK, M.

Released

20.06.2025

Publisher

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV PRESS

Location

BALTIMORE

ISBN

1936-9247

Periodical

Partial Answers-Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas

Volume

23

Number

2

State

State of Israel

Pages from

331

Pages to

350

Pages count

20

URL

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/961661

BibTex

@article{BUT198697,
  author="Miroslav {Kotásek}",
  title="{"}Here-and-Now{"} the Time-Life is Recorded / Played Back: Kenneth Goldsmith Performs Living through Writing",
  journal="Partial Answers-Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas",
  year="2025",
  volume="23",
  number="2",
  pages="331--350",
  doi="10.1353/pan.2025.a961661",
  issn="1565-3668",
  url="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/961661"
}