Bøger af Michael Rectenwald

"Slaughter's book is a novel of linguistic and conceptual richness. It is at once sensuous, paradoxical, harsh and beautiful, a beautiful surrender to unpardonable brutality, and an artistic rendering of it. Slaughter's development of ideas from the raw material of a rich and varied life, his epigrammatic delivery of strange wisdom, and his uncompromising fatalism, make this a challenging and yet rewarding read. The chief character is divided into three selves: Pee-Pee, Wee, and Ronny. These three persons in one, although representing different stages of the protagonist's life, are nevertheless simultaneously existing. Pee-Pee is so-named because of the attachment that others especially have to his particular physiological organ, and somewhat because of the connection of self to its very extension in the world, the beginning of personhood. Wee is not only the older Pee-Pee, but also, as the name seems to suggest, a collective identity comprising not only the character but also all of the book's characters, as well as the readers of the book, and everyone else in the world, whatever that may mean. But, as the name suggests, Wee also leaks. He is unable to prevent anything from penetrating, and invariably lets everything out. Ronny is the adult Pee-Pee and Wee, but also a character, who incorporates everything he has witnessed and that has been done by every other character in the book. He contains Pee-Pee, Wee, and the thinking and actions of others, only in somewhat an obdurate way, such that he becomes like a graveyard filled with the stones commemorating their lives. Yet he is charged with continuing as the witness who cannot forget." -- Michael Rectenwald, author of The Thief and Other Stories, The Eros of the Baby Boom Eras, and Breach

"Michael Rectenwald's new collection of poems, Breach, offers a powerful and yet humble vision of the world where the poet has found new inroads to connectedness. Rectenwald manages to embrace and resist his subjects all at once-his authority is relinquished and, as such, the poems are invitations to the readers. He speaks not for us or to us, but with us: 'The lone tree quotes the aesthetic of/all trees so all trees/don't have to be trees.' The strength of these poems is not in the breach of contract with the world, but the breach in confidence and authority... a leap into humility and the unknown. These poems will connect you to a world you think you already know." - Rob Fitterman, author of twelve books of poetry, including Rob The Plagiarist, and Now We Are Friends. "The speaker of Michael Rectenwald's 'Split Personalities' says, 'we sting to survive.' Another turns 'Togetherness' into a Lennonesque walrus of self-doubt. And in 'My Son Signals, ' the speaker concludes, 'The world's nothing but/one gesturing after/another.' "In Breach, his new collection of poems, Michael Rectenwald stings, doubts, gestures. His forms range from the metered-and-rhymed, to the prose poem. His music ranges from post-doc analytics to morning after confessionals. The poems are surreal, hyperreal, they posit debtors in space, and wind up landing in Topeka, Kansas. It's a wild ride. Exhaustion and promise coexist in the same line: 'It seems like the autumn of my youth.' Wisdom pours forth from children: 'Look Daddy ... the future is MOVING.' "Yes, it is. And so is Breach." - Tim Tomlinson, co-author of the Portable MFA; co-founder, New York Writers Workshop

Springtime for Snowflakes: "Social Justice" and Its Postmodern Parentage is a daring and candid memoir. NYU Professor Michael Rectenwald - the notorious @AntiPCNYUProf - illuminates the obscurity of postmodern theory to track down the ideas and beliefs that spawned the contemporary "social justice" creed and movement. In fast-paced creative non-fiction, Rectenwald begins by recounting how his Twitter capers and media exposure met with the swift and punitive response of NYU administrators and fellow faculty members. The author explains his evolving political perspective and his growing consternation with social justice developments while panning the treatment he received from academic colleagues and the political left.The memoir is the story of an education, a debriefing, as well as an entertaining and sometimes humorous romp through academia and a few corners of the author's personal life. The memoir includes early autobiographical material to provide context for Rectenwald's academic, political, and personal development and even surprises with an account of his apprenticeship, at age nineteen, with the poet Allen Ginsberg.Unlike many examinations of postmodern theory, Springtime for Snowflakes is a first-person, insider narrative. Likening his testimony to that of an anthropologist who has "gone native" and returned, the author recalls his graduate education in English departments and his academic career thereafter. In his graduate studies in English and Literary and Cultural Theory/Studies, the author explains, he absorbed the tenets of Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, as well as various esoteric postmodern theories. He connects ideas gleaned there to manifestations in social justice to explain the otherwise inexplicable beliefs and rituals of this "religious" creed. Altogether, the narrative works to demystify social justice as well as Rectenwald's revolt against it.Proponents of contemporary social justice will find much to hate and opponents much to love in this uncompromising indictment. But social justice advocates should not dismiss this enlightening look into the background of social justice and one of its fiercest critics. This short testimonial could very well convince some to reconsider their approach. For others, Springtime for Snowflakes should clear up much confusion regarding this bewildering contemporary development.The book provides a clear and balanced suggestion for unraveling the tangled twine of social justice ideology that runs through North American educational, corporate, media, and state institutions. Never soft-peddling its criticism, however, Springtime for Snowflakes delivers on the promise of the title by also including appendices that collect Dr. Rectenwald's saltiest tweets and Facebook statuses.

Nineteenth-Century British Secularism offers a new paradigm for understanding secularization in nineteenth century Britain. It argues that George Holyoake's Secularism represents a historic moment of modernity, a herald for understanding secularization and modern secularity.