‘There is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending,’ writes Gertrude Stein in Composition as Explanation in 1926, ‘except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking.’ Perhaps the playful circularity of Stein’s writing was less concerned with a formal modernism, and more with queer ways of occupying the present and its differences. To say we live in times of circularity is, then, distinct from claiming that we are trapped in acts of repetition. We do, however, live in times of rupture and dispossession, where shifts feel like precarious acts of improvisation.
This ninth chapter of Something Other explores circularity: not as repetition, but as a movement that reaches into different times, relations and places. Circularity, to borrow from poet Fred Moten, holds various modes of activity: political, social, conceptual, cultural. Circularity as moving through, again, perhaps differently. Circularity as understanding a break as a form of continuity, or an echo or ghost as an active presence. What kinds of circularities do we silence? How do we write within and through circularity? How is circularity a mode of regulation or governance, or one of resistance?
Submission guidelines for this call out can be read here. The deadline for submissions is 10am on Monday 23 March.
Something Other Live – UPDATE
Our performance night, Something Other Live, was originally due to take place in April 2020 at the Live Art Development Agency in London.
Due to world events, SOL will now be a listening event, held on Tuesday 5th May at 8pm. Please join us to listen alone and together.
please email departmentfc@gmail.com to receive the direct link in time.
Something Other 