[-empyre-] Word Bombs, Methodologies of the Oppressed, and Queer Tactics and/as Queer Relational (?)

[Robert Summers]

M writes, and I deeply desire to continue to think along these various
lines of what a "queer tactic (or strategy)" maybe because I think it
crucial not only to "relational aesthetics" thought otherwise
(_against_ Bourriaud), but to an "aesthetics of existence" and/as how
"we" live in the world -- relationally (I mean this in the
phenomenological sense -- via the work of Merleau-Ponty).  I also
think M points to a crucial "queer tactic (or strategy)" a la Ronell
... (btw, I think Ronell does "queer [un-]work[-ings]"):

"all this talk of violence and derrida reminds me of a moment i had in a
seminar with avital ronell. being the person i was at the time, very
immersed in community organizing and just stepping into theory, i asked
her something like "but how can we justify discussing the meaning of
this punctuation mark for so long, if we're concerned with social
justice and anti-racist, feminist practice, when there are actual bombs
being dropped on people every minute that we're spending here?"

[ ... ]

to which she responded with the answer, roughly, that she feels that by
introducing doubt into the definitions of terms such as addiction (in
crack wars), technology (in the telephone book) and certainty (in
stupidity), that she can actually defer, slow down or change the
decision making apparatus that actually drops those bombs, or puts
people in prison."

I think that M raises (as well as others have) important point
(exclamation points in many cases).  So, should we begin to articulate
a series of "queer tactics (or strategies)" -- which are never
exhaustive and never proscriptive, and should we see these as a
modality of a "queer relationality" or "queer relational"?  Is this
efficacious?

I also want to think back to the parasite.  M surfaces without
surfacing something of a parasite in her discussion: it is
intertwined, etc.

Apologies if I have gestured to too many lines (of flight).

As ever, Robert

Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
Lecturer
Art History and Visual Culture
Otis College of Art and Design
e: rsummers at otis.edu
w: http://ospace.otis.edu/robtsum/Welcome