Linear History

A history of the arbitrary line that runs West from El Paso to the Pacific Ocean starts with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This declaration, like the NorteAmerican War with Mexico itself, was driven by the delusional project of "manifest destiny". Delusional fatalism is structural. Turn to Deleuze & Guattari. On the Line will be a crucial conceptual touchstone. Mapping resistance need not manifest itself in the structure of binary opposition if one explores the borderlands as a contact zone; a zone of contestation where difference is not something to be erased and resolved even if into dialectical synthesis. Difference is to be engaged, not endured, not tolerated. The myth of tolerance is one of the many problems troubling neo-liberalism's humanitarian impulse. Form for a multi-pronged project cannot, in searching multiplicities, necessarily be articulated in advance but rather, most likely, will be something discovered. What was walking the earth before learning to read stars? (November 13, 2017)