Encounters with the work of thinkers in all media help to define who one is. Oxy faculty are sharing the works that played a formative role in their academic lives, work that shaped interests and served as milestones in their intellectual autobiography.
Alison Watt by Colin Wiggins; Don PatersonThis is a beautiful "catalogue" of a British National Gallery show by painter, Alison Watt, with an appreciative poetic response by contemporary poet, Don Paterson. The show transformed the way I thought about art, philosophy, people, bodies, time, everything.
Uses of Literature by Rita FelskiNot, I suspect, a "foundational" work for me, but one I do find of great relevance to contemporary critical practice--a provocative anti-manifesto aimed at the near-unchallenged hegemony of "critique".
"And In the Porches of My Ear Did Pour...": A mixtape of various recitations of poetry.The act of actually listening to poetry has been decisive for my intellectual development. Storing away little snatches of audible verse "that inscribe themselves in mechanical memory, Gedächtnis, that ask to be learned by heart, taken in, introjected, or housed as bits of alterity that can be repeated, considered, treasured, or ironically cited" (Culler) is perhaps what led to me to take the profession up in the first place.