Experimental / Innovative / Creative Historical Writing

If in the use of the term 'fictocriticism' the usually dispensed-with hyphen attempts to join the 'ficto' with the 'critical' it also inevitably severs them and holds them apart. Here the typographic device creates a complex conceptual space and a space of potentiality, that is to say, a space for both thought and action. In this tense and quivering gap arises the possibility of a writing otherwise: a writing in which the confident authority of argument gives way to hesitation and doubt, and the house of fiction begins to fall apart, perhaps into a chasm. Here the plot is uncertain; place is displaced; setting becomes unstable; site gives way to constantly shifting situation. We are in the middle of something, immersed in the materiality of writing as doing and making, a thinking taking shape in action, and then shifting that shape again at the very moment it forms. It is in this process that we could say that 'writing takes place'.

What would it be like to have a conversation with a human that lives 30,000 years in the future? In this paper the author attempts this, constructing an imaginary encounter with a future humanity. Beginning with indigenous scholarship and literature, the author explores the imagination of indigenous writer Barry Lopez and his deep connection to the land and the natural world. Moving towards French social theory and literature, the author then explores the works of Georges Bataille and J.K. Huysmans, building a case for a future vision that emerges from voices that remain in the shadows, highlighting literature that exists in the margins. The author engages the indigenous imagination, along with the mad, diabolic, the archaic and the magic of unearthed ways of knowing, forging an imaginal future encuentro of radical conjuration. Conjuration becomes an alternative way to think of the potentials of a radically conceived view of the potentials of critical social theory. Leaving behind concepts of current radical thought may help a distant humanity overcome challenges of those social problems still yet on the horizon and what a fringe, historically situated 21st century scholar was envisioning for a future era, sparking an experimental and utopian vision.

The asemic text seems to challenge the reader’s clairvoyance to discharge a signification of its own, rather than reduce itself to an aesthetic artefact of the renunciation of meaning. An extensive conceptual breach is set against the entrenched dogma of experience, whose uniqueness of content is suspended through the mimicry of language. Although the trigger may often be traced back to some previous idea of writing, text falsification is institutionalized.
First appeared on «Utsanga», n.15, 2018.
Excerpt from "In the swarm" (LN 2021), scheduled for winter 2021.
Last update September 2, 2021.

In this article, I rethink the genre of urban biographies and argue that it can be given new potency when remodelled to become a means of reinvigorating the critical public. In the first part, I reflect upon some of the recent biographies of cities in the Czech Republic. In the second part, I discuss promising strategies, drawn from a sample of innovative urban biographies. In the final part, I outline the guiding principles of an adapted model for urban biographies. I propose that the cities must be repoliticized and recentred in the biographies, which entails adopting a political concept of the city, a deconstructive approach, utilization of the urban presence and a more urban-sensitive treatment of time. In an ever urbanizing world, many societal challenges have taken on urban dimensions. Some scholars encourage stronger urban citizenship, 1 seeing the contemporary period as a time in which cities again become actors vis-à-vis weakening nation-states, whereas others declare the urban sphere to be a critical field of the social struggle. 2 Cities have become a prime locus of identity conflicts and memory clashes, or, as one radical public historian put it, 'crucial barometers of a society's attitude toward preserving the past'. 3 In this context, it is hardly surprising that the † The work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund-Project 'Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World' (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/ 16_019/0000734). The publication was further supported by the Research Framework of Charles University PROGRES Q09-History-Key for the Understanding of the Global World. An earlier version of the article was presented as a paper at the 13th International Conference of Urban History 'Reinterpreting Cities', organized by the EAUH in Helsinki, 24-8 Aug. 2016. I wish to express my thanks to Simon Gunn, Veronika Čapská and two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and to Barbara Day and Imogen Davidson White for revision of the English.

If in the use of the term ‘fictocriticism’ the usually dispensed-with hyphen attempts to join the ‘ficto’ with the ‘critical’ it also inevitably severs them and holds them apart. Here the typographic device creates a complex conceptual space and a space of potentiality, that is to say, a space for both thought and action. In this tense and quivering gap arises the possibility of a writing otherwise: a writing in which the confident authority of argument gives way to hesitation and doubt, and the house of fiction begins to fall apart, perhaps into a chasm. Here the plot is uncertain; place is displaced; setting becomes unstable; site gives way to constantly shifting situation. We are in the middle of something, immersed in the materiality of writing as doing and making, a thinking taking shape in action, and then shifting that shape again at the very moment it forms. It is in this process that we could say that ‘writing takes place’ .