Please join us for a discussion of U-M English PhD candidate Deven Philbrick's dissertation chapter, "Again What Speaks of Speaking: Discrepant Metaphysics in Nathaniel Mackey's Long Song." You can sign up to receive the chapter and RSVP for the workshop here: https://forms.gle/J5bLEeA4gDw258tH8. A light lunch will be served.

Abstract:
In his seminal 1993 text Discrepant Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality and Experimental Writing, Nathaniel Mackey proposes a mode of critical reading that, "rather than suppressing resonance, dissonance, noise, seeks to remain open to them." This kind of engagement, from which the book takes its title, proceeds by combination of materials our disciplines have not normally grouped under a common rubric. Discrepant engagement is more than mere pluralism--more, that is, than an openness to variety regarding objects of scholarly reflection. It is, rather, a rigorous method of scholarly oscillation, mixing, and layering, whereby new creative possibilities are systematically opened up. In this chapter, I have two main contentions. First, I argue that Mackey's concept of discrepant engagement implies a certain metaphysical outlook, derived from a wide range of sources, including process philosophy, deconstruction, postcolonial thought, quantum mechanics, Rastafari, Sufi, and Dogon religious practice, the poetics of projective verse, and African American musical tradition, among too many others to list. Second, I argue that this metaphysical outlook governs the technical and conceptual innovations of Mackey's poetry. Mackey, as poet-metaphysician, offers a way of re-conceiving being, figuring it as "vibrational, rather than corpuscular," and in so doing, provides a model of poetic understanding with implications for both scholarly and poetic practice.