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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Giving Birth To Self, Gene Washington
Giving Birth To Self, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
In GIVING BIRTH TO SELF, the author, using the techniques of "thought-runs," meditates on Marquez's statement that "human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them to give birth to themselves. The focus in this essay is then on context and use, the "where" and the "how" of self. Where do representations of self, oneself and that of the other, typically occur in written texts and how does the author use self: how does it perform?
The Fascination Of The Unfinished, Abandoned And Wrecked, Gene Washington
The Fascination Of The Unfinished, Abandoned And Wrecked, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
The unfinished, abandoned (e.g., ruins), and wrecked provoke a strong reaction in such diverse persons as antiquarians, artists, writers and journalists. One can say that the UAW cause the new thing to appears. They are "news." In this book are a collection of unfinished MSS. The author invites the reader to, if not finish them, at least continue the ideas of each
What If...? A Counterfactual Thought Experiment, Gene Washington
What If...? A Counterfactual Thought Experiment, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
A Counterfactual though experiment on the effects of smog, not so much on us, as on the unborn. If the harmful genetic effects of smog are lethal to unborn generations, what will happen to our values and traditions? A response to recent (February 2014) program on KUED called "The Air We Breathe."
Movie: "Fury." A Representation Of Altruistic Sacrfice And Just War Theory, Gene Washington
Movie: "Fury." A Representation Of Altruistic Sacrfice And Just War Theory, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
All religions, as well as much fiction and many philosophies, employ a language to create the realities we want and to open the wonders elsewhere—that is, to go beyond a representation of the here and now to what may lie beyond the here and now. Names for such a "place" include "utopia," "the transcendent," "heaven," "paradise," nirvana," "peace" and the like and are embodied in the scripture of all religions and in secular works like Plato's Republic, Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As a linguistic artifact, the wonders elsewhere appear chiefly by means of modal verbs, "should," …
Polyvocal: Poems, Gene Washington
Polyvocal: Poems, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
In this text "polyvocal" has three general meanings. In one, after its etymology, it has the sense of "many voices." In another, it means, after the quote above, "many things," i.e., many subjects and concerns. Thirdly, it presupposes the existence of "many forms," the possibility of a poet writing in many styles, couplets, terza rima, fourteeners, blank verse and so on. POLYVOCAL in short, attempts to break the boundaries of the "univocal," the one voice, one subject, one style, one way of writing poetry. Writing polyvocally makes one anonymous, absent from the text. By contrast, writing univocally puts one on …
Shots In The Dark: The Presence Of Absence In Imaginative Literature (Iw), Gene Washington
Shots In The Dark: The Presence Of Absence In Imaginative Literature (Iw), Gene Washington
Gene Washington
Western metaphysics and IW can be described as a search for "first" presences, not absences. With the exception of philosophers like Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Aristotle, writers like Lord Rochester (John Wilmot), Jonathan Swift and Philip Larkin, no one, to my knowledge, has taken absence as a "first" and consequently as also a "last." This essay is a modest attempt to open the door, if only a crack, for investigations into the metaphysics and meaning of absence as a means of creating, and understanding an interesting IW—from the perspective of the presence of absence as "first" and as "last."
Becalmed: A Modest Contribution To The Vast Literature On Cannibalism, Gene Washington
Becalmed: A Modest Contribution To The Vast Literature On Cannibalism, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
A 10 minute play. 3 characters. A yacht out to win a sailing race is becalmed. The crew is starving. They decide to eat one of them. But they must first electioneer who shall be chosen to be eaten. Play ends with one of the crew asking the audience to decide who should be eaten
On The Benefit Of Sleeping In: An Exercise In Epistemological Irony, Gene Washington
On The Benefit Of Sleeping In: An Exercise In Epistemological Irony, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
Irony, as an Archimedean Point, is perhaps the most efficient way to reveal human delusions and downright stupidities. Three factors go into the construction of such a Point: 1) a standpoint independent of the subject; 2) a view of the whole, not the part, of the subject and 3) an inside view of its agency—who and what brought the subject into being and how did it terminate. "ON THE BENEFIT OF SLEEPING IN: AN EXERCISE IN EPISTEMOLOGICAL IRONY" exemplifies the above.
When Death Intercepts Life In Imaginative Writing, Gene Washington
When Death Intercepts Life In Imaginative Writing, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
The representation of death in imaginative writing is a "virtual" (as opposed to) an actual death. It always occurs in the context of a "virtual" (represented) life. In this text the author examines some of the ways death "intercepts" life in such writing. The subject is a vast, perhaps inexhaustible, one. The richest source, one the author dos not mine, is Shakespeare's interceptions of life by death.
Existential Vertigo, Gene Washington
Existential Vertigo, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
A MICROPLAY OF THE ABSURD. Two mountaineers out to summit a mountain in record time and win a prize. The logic of space is complex, as students of geometry can attest; yet people deal with it intuitively most of the time and have little trouble understanding it at the level of concrete operations. This play is absurd because it depicts a kind of confusion about space that people are not liable to fall into.
Pollyvocal: Short Stories, Gene Washington
Pollyvocal: Short Stories, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
Most fiction writers write (or attempt to write) in a univocal voice (or "style"). Hemingway's voice differs from Faulkner's, Carver's from Fitzgerald's and so on. Difference, it seems fair to say, helps to establish their identity. By contrast, this collection of stories embodies an attempt, over the last 55 years or so, to write in the polyvocal. One can see this "attempt" as an "interruption" of the old by the start of something "new." The voice of each story, with the exception of #1, interrupts that of a preceding one—just as the birth of a child invariably interrupts the voices …
The Mona Lisa Effect, Gene Washington
The Mona Lisa Effect, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
A short play about the effect of the theft of Leonardo's Mona Lisa from the Louve in 1911. Many people, including Franz Kafka, came to see the black space where it once hung. The idea for this piece comes from two sources. One is the theft of Leonardo's Mona Lisa in 1911 (missing for two years) and the heightened attraction this caused. The other source was the author observing masses of tourists frequenting the Louve solely (?) for the purpose of being in the area where the picture is hung but without being able to penetrate the crowd to see …
Betweenning: The God Of Experience, Cognition And Composition, Gene Washington
Betweenning: The God Of Experience, Cognition And Composition, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
In this book "between" or "in-between" appears as the PATER FAMILIA of terms like "middle," "center," "intersection" and the like. Book describes how "betweenning" is a major way language users create order (and disorder) in experience, thinking and communication.. Specimens of Betweenning range from Plato, to Aristotle to modern authors, novelists, essayists, poets and so on. Many of the author's titles listed on this web-site have Betweenning as their foundational unit.We are, in walking, standing, sitting always BETWEEN two (at least) things.
His Presence Adds Nothing To The Party His Absence Takes Nothing Away, Gene Washington
His Presence Adds Nothing To The Party His Absence Takes Nothing Away, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
ONE ACT PLAY. 5 characters. Study of what can be called a "negative character." We know him as much as what he does not do (for example leave his bed, get dressed, go out) as we do his few positive qualities. In his speech there are more negative forms ("no," "never' etc) than positive ones
Notes On Theatre Of The Absurd, Gene Washington
Notes On Theatre Of The Absurd, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
These are notes from the author's classes on teaching theatre of the absurd: these include plays by Ionesco, Beckett and Stoppard. Some of the author's own absurdist plays, which were part of his pedagogy, are on this website under "Presentations."
That Fatal Brew Pub, Gene Washington
That Fatal Brew Pub, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
Skit featuring St. Peter, the devil and other heavenly creatures. The skit is essentially a parody of folks in a small town attempting to establish a brew pub in their town,
Why I Stole H. G Wells Time Machine, Gene Washington
Why I Stole H. G Wells Time Machine, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
A spoof on time travel. Narrator breaks into the museum (in London) that houses H G Wells time machine. Then he rides it back to the past to re- smoke his last cigarette. In this way the last cigarette loses its status as a last cigarette.
Epistemological Vertigo, Gene Washington
Epistemological Vertigo, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
A ONE ACT PLAY. Three characters. A play of the absurd about a certain lack of knowledge about the characters location, how they got there, and how to go on from there (wherever that is).
When Stein Eriksen Ran Over My Skis: A One Sentence Novel, Gene Washington
When Stein Eriksen Ran Over My Skis: A One Sentence Novel, Gene Washington
Gene Washington
One sentence novels include, not only the present one, but also : Vanessa Place, Dies: A sentence; Thomas Bernhard On the Mountain (120);Augusto Monterroso's, "The Dinosaur" ": "Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavia estaba allí"; literally, "When h/s awoke, the dinosaur was still there." The novel is famous throughout ,