Reading
A running shelf: mostly postmodern theory and the fiction it rubs against, plus some Buddhist philosophy. Pull a spine.
“There is no linguistic sign before writing.”
Literature & theory
A MercyToni Morrison, 2008Set in the 1680s, told in looping, fractured voices, and closed by a mother’s explanation her daughter never hears.
Of GrammatologyJacques Derrida, 1967Writing is not a copy of speech, and meaning never fully arrives. It is always deferred (différance).
Translator’s Preface to Of GrammatologyGayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 1976The long preface that introduced deconstruction to English-language readers.
Structure, Sign, and PlayJacques Derrida, 1966The lecture arguing that every structure depends on a center it can’t account for.
The Death of the AuthorRoland Barthes, 1967A text’s meaning lives with its reader, not in its writer’s intent.
The Postmodern ConditionJean-François Lyotard, 1979Defines the postmodern as incredulity toward grand narratives.
Simulacra and SimulationJean Baudrillard, 1981Copies without originals, and the map that comes before the territory.
Buddhist philosophy
A Guide to Walking MeditationThich Nhat HanhWalking as the practice itself, not a way of getting somewhere.
Buddhism and Intelligent TechnologyPeter D. Hershock, 2021What a Buddhist ethics of relationships asks of AI and the attention economy.
Why Buddhism Is TrueRobert Wright, 2017Meditation and the idea of not-self, read through evolutionary psychology.
The Great AwakeningDavid R. Loy, 2003Turns the Buddhist account of craving on institutions, not just individuals.