Impersonal forms of togetherness: Finding ways to (not) belong through reading groups

Author Identifier (ORCID)

Cassandra Tytler: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0357-7123

Abstract

This article is a collaborative writing experiment emerging from an ongoing reading group focused on more-than-human and decolonial philosophies of creativity. It takes up the concept of the ‘impersonal’ as a call to explore the affective dynamics of group subjectivity through practices of reading collectively. Over three years, the group has moved through, with and across a range of texts that intersect with studies in process philosophy, Indigenous studies, affect theory, critical posthumanism and the radical Black tradition. The conceptual figure of the impersonal haunts our readings across these diverse bodies of work. Even for just a few hours each fortnight, the reading group contours a time where the impersonal ruptures the demand to be and belong as individualised subjects. Our collaborative writing jumps and stutters across this chromatic time-scape, sifting through an impersonal memory of events and their reverberating tonalities and inflections in the passing present.

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

1-1-2024

Volume

12

Issue

2

Publication Title

Knowledge Cultures

Publisher

Addleton Academic Publishers

School

School of Education

RAS ID

71884

Comments

Rousell, D., Harrison, A., Ryan, E., Chapple, V., Beale, R., Zhang, F. B., Tytler, C., & Aleksić, J. (2024). Impersonal forms of togetherness: Finding ways to (not) belong through reading groups. Knowledge Cultures, 12(2), 112-129. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc12220247

Copyright

subscription content

First Page

112

Last Page

129

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.22381/kc12220247