This is a paper I delivered at the 2023 ALSCW conference in Houston earlier this month as part of the “Mystery and Secrecy: Ancient Origins, Modern Expressions” panel. I’ll likely cannibalize it toward later essays and eventually as part of the second disappearance manuscript currently in the works. the inflections Read more…
In Hisham Matar’s writing, I saw a rhetoric of missingness punctuated with lyricism. The strength of Matar’s keen lyric sense – the ways he captures small, vivid perceptions that convey a deeper and grander sense of place or situation – works as a tool for exploring missingness by catching and Read more…
In the podcast series “The Vanished,” produced by Marissa Jones, a recent episode focused on Madeline Babcock, who went missing in 1968. Generally, “The Vanished” episodes present lengthy phone interviews with people connected to the cases, framed in an overall narrative. When I listen, I’m searching for small details that Read more…
A fact or a theory that takes its meanings from a particular discipline interests me in the ways it might be useful outside that discipline. How might a biologist’s ideas about morphology transfer to literary form? Do literary texts have feedback loops, like thermostats or software? From architecture, Christopher Alexander Read more…