Language Is My Second Language: Noise, Nonsense & Idiolects in the Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common

• Books & Literature

Any time a group of people forms through the mutual adherence to a code, the strength of that group partly derives from the exclusion of those who don’t know or don’t practice the code. In this open discussion we will talk about a group of texts that explore the dimensions of speaking and listening that transcend language’s coding function: the moments when speech is instinctual, receptive and tentative rather than self-affirming or group-affirming. Our conversation will also constitute an act of composition through writing stations and writing scores to which participants can contribute as they wish throughout the evening as an alternative to “conversing” in the strict sense. In this way, “participation” is something we will interpret broadly, or re-interpret altogether.

Readings may include Robert Kocik, Gertrude Stein, Myung Mi Kim, Ornette Coleman, Jacques Derrida, Alfonso Lingis, Pauline Oliveros, Anne Carson, and more.