Essays

Personifications. First published as ‘Personifikationen/Personifications’, in Ars Viva 2011-12: Sprache/Language: Erik Bünger, Philipp Goldbach, Jeurgen Stach (Berlin: Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft, 2011), pp. 34-47. [pdf version]

Plugs. A chapter from my book Paraphernalia, published in Forum: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture and the Arts, 10 (2010) . [pdf version]

The Dust That Measures All Our Time. An essay on sand, written May 2010. [pdf version]

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On. An expanded version of an essay on taxidermy in art published as ‘The Right Stuff’ in Modern Painters (March 2009): 58-63. [pdf version]

Thinking Perhaps Begins There: The Question of the Animal. A review-essay published in Textual Practice 21 (2007): 577-84. [pdf version]

Flysight. An enlarged version of an essay that appears in Cabinet, 25 (2007): 78-84.

Carter’s Parrot (And Other People’s Animals). This essay appears in ‘Shared Space, Brokered Time’, a special edition of Southerly devoted to the work of Paul Carter, 66 (2006): 7-20. [pdf version]

It. My contribution to Exquisite Corpse, a ‘collectively authored chain of thought’, devised by Aura Satz, and on show at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, as part of the Hans Bellmer-Pierre Klossowski exhibition, 20 September-19th November 2006. [pdf version]

The Antient Commonwealth of Flies. Some arguments and instances arising from, but not forming part of, my bookFly. [pdf version]

Gruelling. An expanded version of a review article of Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist (2005), which appeared in theMail on Sunday on 21st August 2005.

Thermotaxis. An essay on the thermodynamics of culture written in April 2005.

Circumlocation: Waves, Wheels, Worlds. An expanded version of a text written to accompany In the Shadows of Heaven, an exhibition of works by Max Mosscrop, produced as artist-in-residence at the Theatre Royal Margate, October 2004.

The Perplexity of A Tale of Two Cities (Tastes, Rather Than Glimpses). A talk given at the Tale of Two Cities Day held at Birkbeck, 25 September 2004.

The Strains of the Voice. English text of an essay written to accompany the exhibition Phonorama: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Stimme als Medium, curated by Brigitte Felderer, at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, 18 September 2004 – 30 January 2005.

Windbags and Skinsongs. A chapter written for The Book of Skin, and given, in compressed form, as a lecture at the conference Skin: texture/textuality/word/image at the Institute of English Studies, 14 April 2004.

A Certain Slant of Light. A sound-essay on twilight, broadcast in BBC Radio 3’s Nightwaves, 31 October 2003.

Maculate Conceptions. An essay on spots, also published in Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, 1 (2003): 49-63.

The Help of Your Good Hands: Reports on Clapping. Some thoughts on the singular cultural phenomenon of clapping, added 30 October 2002.

Men In Skirts. This essay also appears in Women: A Cultural Review, 13 (2002): 257-71.

Watching the Birdie. A response to the production of To You, The Birdie (Phèdre) by The Wooster Group at the Riverside Studios in May 2002, for a symposium on the work of the Wooster Group at the Cochrane Theatre London, 14-15 May 2002, organised by Andrew Quick and Adrian Heathfield.

Seeing Feelingly. Introduction to the catalogue of the exhibition Peter Randall- Page: New Sculpture, Drawings and Prints, organised by the Djanogly Art Gallery , Nottingham, 13 January – 25 February 2001.

The Shakes. A piece of writing that resulted from an invitation to speak at the Research Seminar of the Roehampton Institute Department of Drama, 30 March 2000.

Shifting Ground. English version of ‘Auf schwankendem Boden’, written for the exhibition catalogue, Samuel Beckett, Bruce Nauman (Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien, 2000), pp. 80-7.

Violence, Victims and Gender. An occasional piece aimed at The Guardian – and, as it turned out, missing by a mile.

A Few Don’ts By A Cultural Phenomenologist. A rough-and-unready manifesto for the kind of work I thought I wanted to do and see more of.

Virginia Woolf, the Baby and the Bathwater. Introduction to Virginia Woolf, The Years (London: Vintage, 1992).