Date of Award
1-1-2019
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts
First Advisor
W. Scott Howard, Ph.D.
Keywords
Critical theory, Philosophy, Poetry, Socialism
Abstract
The poems in this collection are meant to be read as a preparation of ground and ask to be connected to a larger thought beyond the discrete experience of the poem itself. That thought is that no artistic expression exists outside of the historical conditions in which it was made, and those conditions must be broadcast in concert with the poem.
I cite that these poems are the result of existential degradation developed during the production of subjectivity under modern, hegemonic structures of Neoliberal Capitalism. They were cultivated from "bits of sensitivity" drawn from an unexceptional past regulated by systems of scarcity, in full view of a horizon of environmental destruction and vast inequalities burning down the present to control the future. They reside in the contradictions that today we each enjoy many privileges but receive fewer needs. As such the poems circulate a subjectless subjectivity as expressions that project "an agency without an agent" (Brian Massumi). The poems should be read with the actuality of these deficits in mind.
For that is where the site of these poems began their working-through: in the contradictions of what it means to be negatively capable today.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Brian James Foley
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
en
File Size
121 p.
Recommended Citation
Foley, Brian James, "There Must Be a Reason People Come Here" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1575.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1575
Copyright date
2019
Discipline
Creative writing