Why, the questioner asked, would Kraus and Semiotext(e) contribute to such gentrification? Semiotext(e), a long-standing publisher of radical continental leftist theory, politics, and fiction, would be directly contributing to gentrification.Īfter a brief impasse, the usual questions begin, with Kraus answering one on politics by pointing out that while Acker was no activist, her work held a subversive edge. Boyle Heights, a historically Latinx neighborhood, is currently engaged in a struggle against gentrification, taking on that seemingly naïve first wave of cultural pioneers: the artists, gallerists, and musicians who often head out to the frontier of what are often lower-income, nonwhite neighborhoods in search of urban grit, inspiration, and, most importantly, cheap rents. Instead, the questioner asked why Semiotext(e), Kraus’s publisher - and at one point Acker’s - was hosting a reading with Kraus at the gallery 356 Mission in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. But the question was not about the biography or Acker’s fiction or even Kraus’s own remarkable novels. Kraus was there to talk about After Kathy Acker, her excellent new biography of postmodern lit’s enfant terrible. AT A RECENT DISCUSSION at the CUNY Graduate Center with the writer Chris Kraus, the first question came from a protestor.
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