rickwysocki reviewed Immediacy by Anna Kornbluh
Review of 'Immediacy' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Kornbluh's diagnosis seems correct. Across domains--writing, video, theory--there really does seem to be a resistance to anything that doesn't come neatly packaged, ready to consume. And much of supposedly "radical" thought is radical in style only, failing to take any sort of stance, to "draw lines." To exist in academic spaces is to see immediacy style, daily. I am persuaded and fully on board.
That said, I wished at times that Kornbluh would draw more lines of her own. To be clear, I'm not taking up the lazy response that a text fails to enact its own argument. Largely, Kornbluh’s does. But her insistence on the connection of the literary, and mediation broadly, to political practice seems wedded to an assumption of the importance of the humanities in a world where that importance has been radically diminished. In a sense, this isn't even a critique of Kornbluh, because I agree …
Kornbluh's diagnosis seems correct. Across domains--writing, video, theory--there really does seem to be a resistance to anything that doesn't come neatly packaged, ready to consume. And much of supposedly "radical" thought is radical in style only, failing to take any sort of stance, to "draw lines." To exist in academic spaces is to see immediacy style, daily. I am persuaded and fully on board.
That said, I wished at times that Kornbluh would draw more lines of her own. To be clear, I'm not taking up the lazy response that a text fails to enact its own argument. Largely, Kornbluh’s does. But her insistence on the connection of the literary, and mediation broadly, to political practice seems wedded to an assumption of the importance of the humanities in a world where that importance has been radically diminished. In a sense, this isn't even a critique of Kornbluh, because I agree with her values. Mediation is necessary, and she has convinced me of the ways that it is under attack. I just wish that there was a bit less attention to how immediacy affects things like Safdie films, and more on how it affects labor conditions within the university, for example. Both topics are there, the balance just seems off. But maybe (honestly) this desire reflects my own investments in the "immediacy" of the useful. In any case, the book is well-argued, persuasive, and worth reading.