An Essay on Rachel Zolf's Human Resources



A few years ago, Margaret Christakos invited me to present a paper on Rachel Zolf's Human Resources (Coach House) for her Influency course at University of Toronto. It was a fantastic opportunity to examine this brilliant book. I had posted the essay on my website, but I have now uploaded it to Scribd. Here's the link:

Rachel Zolf's Human Resources

Rachel's new book is Neighbour Procedure (Coach House, 2010). It is, according to Coach House
a virtuoso polyvocal correspondence with the daily news, ancient scripture and contemporary theory that puts the ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine firmly in the crosshairs. Plucked from a minefield of competing knowledges, media and public texts, Neighbour Procedure sees Zolf assemble an arsenal of poetic procedures and words borrowed from a cast of unlikely neighbours, including Mark Twain, Dadaist Marcel Janco, blogger-poet Ron Silliman and two women at the gym. The result is a dynamic constellation where humour and horror sit poised at the threshold of ethics and politics.

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