… demands the articulation of an agenda. It is a space where one takes a stand, expressing and revealing points of view that are particular, specific, and directed—a great place to “throw down,” to confront, interrogate, provoke
with a realm of thought that may be contemplative but is active, not passive. As Michel Foucault writes, “Thought is no longer theoretical. As soon as it functions it offends or reconciles, attracts or repels, breaks, dissociates, unites or reunites; it cannot help but liberate and enslave. Even before prescribing, suggesting a future, saying what must be done, even before exhorting or merely sounding an alarm, thought, at the level of its existence, in its very dawning, is in itself an action—a perilous act.” Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977, epigraph
Critical writing that remains on the edge, able to shift paradigms, to move in new directions, subverts this tendency. It demands of critics fundamental allegiance to radical openness, to free thinking. June Jordan has said that “if you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable
That moment when I whirl with words, when I dance in that ecstatic circle of love surrounded by ideas, creates a space of transgression. There are no binding limitations, everything can be both held and left behind. This intimate moment of passionate transcendence is the experiential reality that deepens my commitment to a progressive politics of transformation.
I write to live.
