Tuesday, April 19, 2011

COMPLEXITY-AS-SUCH

The uncanny has, as it were, been domesticated as yet another version of "an ethic" of better living through ambiguity, the ethic that of course continues to underwrite a wide range of literary studies.
- Mark Seltzer, "The Graphic Unconscious: A Response"

I was there during the Great Uncanny Goldrush of the mid-noughties, and for this diffident taught postgraduate in search of a lexicon with which to talk about "what makes weird stuff weird", that thing "The Uncanny" was a gift. It made "woooargh" legit. I'm still here, five years later, though, 'cos it's not quite as simple as that. That's the thing, with chasing the ball over the hill - you can't catch it, no, but neither is it enough to just stand there and point as it rolls away.