Category: Cultural Studies

  • Eric Mottram Remembered: Videos of the Kings College Conference

                                     Eric Mottram Remembered: Poet, Professor and Cultural Firebrand King’s College, London 23 April 2018    Master of Ceremonies: Clive Bush Videos: Optic Nerve                                          1 An introduction to the Mottram papers by Valerie Soar, including her recent work Eric, the man and his archive 2 Allen Fisher on The Ethical and Marvellous:  Eric  […]

  • Eric Mottram on Triggernometry (5)

    V Samuel R. Delany understands more of the myth in his novel The Einsten Intersection (1968), where Billy the Kid appears as a redheaded boy with gold lashes and transparent skin whose eyes ‘had no whites, only glittering gold and brown … dog’s eyes in a human face: “My mother called me Bonny William,” the […]

  • Eric Mottram on Triggernometry (4)

    IV The reality and fantasy of Billy the Kid contain the social issues. Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) needed Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson to attract a public, and in 1974 Dirty Little Billy, starring the radically unheroic Michael J. Pollard, was advertized at the Hiram College, Ohio, cinema Under the […]

  • Eric Mottram on Triggernometry (3)

    III Walter Prescott Webb’s The Great Plains described the development of the cattle kingdoms of the American West and of the cowboy who worked the ranches and ranges. The Homestead Law of 1862, the invention of barbed wire in 1874, and the advent of the windmill, the railway, artificial irrigation systems, and the automobile combined […]

  • Eric Mottram on Triggernometry (2)

    II The technological morality of gangster and police movies provides a full iconography from the Thirties onwards. The obvious symbolism of black and white shirts is there in cowboy films, of course, together with other ancient characterizations: blonde and brunette, fair and darker skins. But clothing and other ‘extensions of man’ furnish gangster films with […]

  • Repeat: Eric Mottram on Triggernometry

      Below, the headnote from the first time I posted this essay (December 26, 2012). Reposting it again over the next five days, both because recent events make it retain its usefulness, and as an introduction to next Monday’s conference on Eric Mottram’s work at King’s College, University of London, where I’ll be giving a […]

  • Eric Mottram on France Culture

    While preparing my essay on Eric Mottram for next week’s conference at King’s College London, I came across a radio-program I did for France-Culture in 1983 (available right now as they rebroadcast it in August 2016). It was the opener of a series that also included one-hour programs on Tom Raworth, Bob Cobbing, Allen Fisher […]

  • Eric Mottram Remembered: poet, professor and cultural firebrand

    We are pleased to present the following conference, alongside an exhibition of manuscripts, books and digital material relating to Eric Mottram. Sponsored by the Archives Department at King’s College London. Date: Monday 23 April 2018 Duration: 10.00 to 17.30  Location: Council Room, 2nd floor, Strand Building, King’s College London, WC2R 2LS Master of Ceremonies: Clive […]

  • Leonard Schwartz’s “The New Babel: Toward a Poetics of the Mid-East Crises”

    An interesting review of Leonard Schwartz’s book by Kathleen Eamon just appeared on the talisman website. Here the opening paragraphs, link to the full article below: Leonard Schwartz’s The New Babel: Toward a Poetics of the Mid-East Crises (The University of Arkansas Press 2016) is a timely book, emerging at a historical moment that its own capacious political vision lets us find internally […]

  • Deleuze on Wolves, Jaws & Anuses in Freud

    Portrait de Gilles Deleuze à “La demeure du chaos”, à Lyon THIERRY EHRMANN © FLICKR