Reese Okyong Kwon

Adorno, you alarm me

April 2012 | Minute doubts, Villains

“Should the finished text, no matter of what length, arouse even the slightest misgivings, these should be taken inordinately seriously, to a degree out of all proportion to their apparent unimportance. Affective involvement in the text, and vanity, tend to diminish all scruples. What is let pass as a minute doubt may indicate the objective worthlessness of the whole.” – Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia

Archive

Villains, redux

The excellent Matt Bell published the talks from our AWP panel, "Villains, Killers, and Criminals, Oh My," in the March Collagist. You can see the talks/thoughts/essays from Matt Bell, Eugene Cross, Brian Evenson, Lauren Groff, and me here.

AWP, AWP, AWP!

February 2012 | Bird squawks, Readings, Villains
I'm speaking on two panels and giving a short reading at next week's Chicago AWP. Here are the details: March 1, Thursday, 12-1:15 PM R170. Villains and Killers and Criminals, Oh My: Representing Evildoers in Literary Fiction (with Matt Bell, Eugene Cross, Brian ...

The one weedy stalk

It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of ...

Too bad for marxism

"Not that I'm a marxist of any kind. I would have made a wonderful marxist if I'd been born into it, probably, which is the only way it could have stuck. Too bad for marxism. I feel toward marxists the ...