Monday, 22 June 2009

Eve

i just found out a few days ago that a friend and great mind died - eve kosofsky sedgwick. she died a few months ago but i hadn't heard - i am so out the loop. we never met and only emailed for an intense period a few summers ago, but i do not feel that i am 'over-egging' it by saying we were friends. and this is in the past tense, now, and always will be because of her death and the death of our friendship.

i mentioned at a queer conference to someone who purported to be her best friend that she had told me that her cancer had returned, and they promptly went back and told her. this has tortured me for years, and i am not sure why he did, or why i even mentioned it. i was giving a paper about how the death drive informs subjectivity, death at the core of the gutted and queered subject, and the processes of interpretation and iconology, and had been obsessed with this kind of theoretical take on death for some time, what with the emerssion in the subject whilst writing the paper. she was mentioned as a we spoke and for some reason i thought it ok to speak to him about the possible death of one of the most imprtant queer theorists to someone who said was her friend (i knew they worked closely together and he mentioned they had brunch every weekend, etc).

well, the my emails went unreplied and i got the message. so now i am in mourning not only for a friendship i never really had, but also for a friend i never really had. there is a lesson in this somewhere. maybe i should just learn to shut my trap.i am visiting my parents just now, and brought the books she sent me as a kind of talisman. i have been reading excerpts and chapters over the last few days, and as a pop-psych speak am 'identifying all over the place'.

A Dialogue on Love, pg 198. EKS.
(caps in the original and denote her therapist speaking, the 'big other', i suppose)'

TALKS ABOUT HER CURRENT DRIVE TO DOCUMENT HERSELF AND OTHERS AS HAVING SOME RELATIONSHIP TO AN AWARENESS OF DEATH, THAT SHE WANTS TO LEAVE A SENSE OF HER RELATIONALITY, AFFECTION AND FRIENDS, SHE NOTES.'
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous23 June 2009 at 15:04

    what was she like as a person, if I may be so inquisitive?

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  2. AK23 June 2009 at 23:00

    well, we only chatted via email, but spoke daily, seriously and personally for a decent amount of time. i wouldn't claim to know her (if that's based on amount of hours clocked in or lunches shared), but also couldn't say that i was a fan stalking her - she sent the books, gifts and postcards! the first word that came to mind in relation to your question (i could have chosen bodhisatva, magus, fat, sensitive, inspirational, dead, gone, present, genius, etc) was 'generous'. i just wanted to record the fact (her death), and the experience of mourning something you never had. then again, this maybe relates to 'fan' psychology, you know, when fans mourn when someone dies who they did not know, or when a band splits up or something. i suppose it's just another insight, for me, into how my mounrning works, or rather, melancholia, as the loss of an ideal - something that didn't really exist or was unatanable, but hindsight generates. maybe that's just waffle and i am just sad a great mind has gone. but i'm sure there will be others.

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