Book Reviews

摘要

In Between Science and Literature: An Introduction to Autopoetics, Ira Livingston, focusing on performativity, treats the text itself as occasion for play. He coins terms such as "autopoetics" (his renaming of autopoiesis-self-making, minus the "i," which has traditionally stood for a discrete self), writes creative interludes that build "epistemological art" using household items (in his words, "Michel Fou-cault meets Martha Stewart"), and even provides stage directions (a quoted passage about eugenics should be read in a "Dr. Strangelove accent"). All of this playing, however, has a serious point: to look at the possibilities of theory in the here-and-now requires testing the limits of our own imagination. As Livingston states: "[O]ne can still ask productively of a theory: What can it do and where can it go? What is it possible to think and to do with it, and what kinds of things or thoughts does it make more difficult or unintelligible?" (10). These questions invariably raise the issue of self-reference, and Livingston considers the ways that systems loop in on themselves at all levels.