Aesthetics of Offal: Research on Abjection, Shame & Repulsion

$175.00 $200.00

Taught by Sasha Ravich (Acid Horizon Research Commons)

"There is nothing like the abjection of self to show that all abjection is in fact recognition of the want on which any being, meaning, language, or desire is founded. [...] But if one imagines... the experience of want itself as logically preliminary to being and object—to the being of the object—then one understands that abjection, and even more so abjection of self, is its only signified. Its signifier, then, is none but literature." - Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

An invitation into the agony and ugliness of otherness, the aesthetics of offal is a reading group promising intentional enfreudification via ninety-minute explorations of caustic and cathartic fiction and nonfiction. Sessions open with either an author speaking on their own text, an expert speaking on the author, or a short lecture by the instructor situating the text against its theoretical scaffolding (Julia Kristeva's abjection), alongside a breakdown of the craft devices that make such volatile, affective literature work. The remaining hour is participant discussion, guided toward greater connectivity, empathy, and love for humanity by neutralizing the shame charged around abjection as a quadratic configuration of pathos, logos, ethos, and eros.

This is not transgression for its own sake. The texts gathered here are searingly honest to the point of visceral, painful reading, confronting the monstrosity of the body and of desire, the secrets we'd rather be buried with, and the transsubjectivation of the self-surveilling ego, rooted not in shock value but in uncanny vulnerability. In an era of moral spectatorship and the panopticonizing of art, writing that confronts the pathological self is too often mistaken for narrativization of the self; this group insists that ugliness is integral to art, and that gazing without flinching makes us better humans to each other.

Readings draw across four sessions: Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror, 'Pemi Aguda's Ghostroots, Sayaka Murata's Earthlings, Joseph Earl Thomas's Sink, and Tony Tulathimutte's Rejection.

Course Structure
Four weekly sessions, each anchored in a text and a cluster of themes:

Insides Outside & Fluids Theory — self-exorcism, the (M)Other, and the blood as a sextant toward the real, via Kristeva and Aguda.
Alien Somatics & Monster Bodies — posthuman poetics, viscera as conductive force, and monstrosity as sublime, via Murata.
Phantasy, Infestation, & the Body — animal bodies, touch starvation, and erogenous shame, via Thomas.
Desire-Crises & Eruptive Neuroses — the poetics of paracastration and the screen as orifice, via Tulathimutte.

Instructor Bio
Sasha Ravitch presents internationally, teaches and consults on witchcraft and occulture, and writes weird girl fiction, theory, and nonfiction, pioneering a practice of witchcraft informed by cosmic horror and post-Lacanian theory. She is co-founder of Antilogos Press and founder of Offal Literary Salon at Public Records, Brooklyn, and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.

Course Schedule
Sessions meet Thursdays, 6:30–8:00 PM Eastern Time, via Zoom.

Session 1: October 9 — Insides Outside & Fluids Theory
Session 2: October 15 — Alien Somatics & Monster Bodies
Session 3: October 22 — Phantasy, Infestation, & the Body
Session 4: October 29 — Desire-Crises & Eruptive Neuroses

Students will receive permanent access to all recorded lectures and a recurring Zoom link for all sessions.

Taught by Sasha Ravich (Acid Horizon Research Commons)

"There is nothing like the abjection of self to show that all abjection is in fact recognition of the want on which any being, meaning, language, or desire is founded. [...] But if one imagines... the experience of want itself as logically preliminary to being and object—to the being of the object—then one understands that abjection, and even more so abjection of self, is its only signified. Its signifier, then, is none but literature." - Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

An invitation into the agony and ugliness of otherness, the aesthetics of offal is a reading group promising intentional enfreudification via ninety-minute explorations of caustic and cathartic fiction and nonfiction. Sessions open with either an author speaking on their own text, an expert speaking on the author, or a short lecture by the instructor situating the text against its theoretical scaffolding (Julia Kristeva's abjection), alongside a breakdown of the craft devices that make such volatile, affective literature work. The remaining hour is participant discussion, guided toward greater connectivity, empathy, and love for humanity by neutralizing the shame charged around abjection as a quadratic configuration of pathos, logos, ethos, and eros.

This is not transgression for its own sake. The texts gathered here are searingly honest to the point of visceral, painful reading, confronting the monstrosity of the body and of desire, the secrets we'd rather be buried with, and the transsubjectivation of the self-surveilling ego, rooted not in shock value but in uncanny vulnerability. In an era of moral spectatorship and the panopticonizing of art, writing that confronts the pathological self is too often mistaken for narrativization of the self; this group insists that ugliness is integral to art, and that gazing without flinching makes us better humans to each other.