Document Type
Introduction
Abstract
[First paragraph]
This special issue of Reconstruction began with a feeling of both exhaustion and excitement. The exhaustion concerned our feeling that there has been an excessive amount of theorizing about the historical avant-garde that takes rather traditional forms. The most exciting prospect for us, by contrast, was the feeling that marginalized tradition of the “critical avant-garde" as practiced by figures such as Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, and Walter Benjamin is now, more than ever, ready for a sustained exploration. This issue intends to be a small part of that exploration, one that realizes that the lessons of the vanguard arts can be applied to the practice of criticism and that, likewise, the most fascinating art of our time has taken on a certain critical edge, incorporating philosophy and politics in ways that create new attunements that may, hopefully, lead to revolutions in both thought and daily praxis. Key to this approach is the idea that theorization about a critical avant-garde might be best served through simulation rather than explanation, various experiments that act as both demonstration and speculation simultaneously. The idea was to find out about a critical avant-garde by performing it.
Repository Citation
Clinton, Alan, and John Sundholm. "Editor's Introduction." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 2, 2009, pp. 1–4. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss2/1