Forms of unsiting in factory compositions by Leslie Kaplan and Joseph Ponthus

Bibliographic Data

ID12145136
AuthorsDaniel A Finch-Race (0000-0002-3884-0799, University of Bologna, corresponding author), Valentina Gosetti (0000-0001-5896-9146, University of New England), Greg Kerr (0000-0001-9515-9425, University of Glasgow)
Year2024
Volume41
Issue1
Pages31-51
Publication date2024-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0887-3631 • E-ISSN: 1940-6320
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08873631.2023.2295591
OpenAlexW4390538518
LanguageEN
References cited36

Leslie Kaplan's "Excess - The Factory" (1982, translated in 2018 by Julie Carr and Jennifer Pap) and Joseph Ponthus's "On the Line: Notes from a Factory" (2019, translated in 2021 by Stephanie Smee) are rare poetic depictions of industrial environments. Kaplan dwells on the manufacturing setting as exemplifying overproduction, whereas Ponthus attends to how precarious work in globalized supply chains gives rise to localized pressures. The two from-within stagings of labor offer testimony of dehumanizing infrastructure by pointing up intensities and ruptures in the margins of everyday capitalist cycles. They thereby demonstrate how poetry can perform a "critical unsiting" of the factory-site. In the light of this out-of-the-ordinary concept, our article identifies key aspects of (a) absence, (b) dispersal, and (c) density so as to show how poetic language can spark collective awakening and resistance to dehumanizing conditions

Art · Carr · Dehumanization · Factory (object-oriented programming · Literature · Poetry · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Anthropology · Computer Science · Contemporary art, education, critique · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

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