{"product_id":"9780889224230","title":"ABC of Reading TRG","description":"\u003ci\u003eABC of Reading TRG\u003c\/i\u003e examines the writings of Steve McCaffery and bpNichol, with a special focus on their collaborative work as the Toronto Research Group (TRG). The book expands what little criticism there is on the Group’s collaborations by exploring their engagements with literary theory, by differentiating between each writer’s personal concerns, and by reading their reports in conjunction with their individually authored writings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the one hand, it reads TRG’s reports “against the grain”: it attempts to uncover the unconscious links among repressed affective and political elements that circulate throughout their writing. This approach predominantly entails situating TRG in the shadow of perspectives developed by Lacan, Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek. On the other hand, it also reads the TRG reports sympathetically, by underlining their construction of a positive, productive desire which does not centre on lack, but which actively celebrates multiplicity and affirmation, an approach that chiefly reads the group in the light of theories proposed by Barthes, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and Julia Kristeva. Readers can operate this book either by reading it conventionally from beginning to end, or by following chains of thought, indicated by superscript letters which link non-sequential chapters together-a device borrowed from Book 5 of bpNichol’s \u003ci\u003eThe Martyrology\u003c\/i\u003e. The rhetorical artifice of the alphabetical framework affords a means to preserve one of the TRG’s most significant contributions to research writing on contemporary poetics, i.e., their simultaneous stress on both form and critical investigation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the end, \u003ci\u003eABC of Reading TRG\u003c\/i\u003e discusses not so much what the Toronto Research Group’s reports are about, but what they invite us to think about.","brand":"Talonbooks, Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47022815379696,"sku":"9780889224230","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780889224230_p0.jpg?v=1763848877","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780889224230","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}