Rhizome

I have an intense love of lists!

Whenever the American Film Institute comes up with the 100 best movies or VH-1 airs a show about the 100 best rock songs, I feel compelled to look at the list. Also, I love creating lists of various things on amazon.com.

There was a movie out a while ago with John Cusack as a generation-x type slacker who created all sorts of lists, and I'm wondering if it's some weird kind of cultural logic that makes members of this generation in particular love lists of various kinds. (Movie was High Fidelity if memory serves.)

One of thing I love is to create a list of writers that I most like, which consist of a kind of counter-canon or underground canon. Right now that list is:

Denis Diderot
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Herman Melville
Emily Bronte
Emily Dickinson
Marcel Proust
Franz Kafka
Ursula LeGuin
Salman Rushdie

I want to try to explain why I think all of these writers go together somehow as a kind of anti-canon. I'm thinking, too, of Deleuze and Guattari's description of a minor literature in their book on Kafka.

I've produced a number of lists on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-fil/-/A3RNGSJLUSPC6S/ref=cm_hp_stats_list-count/103-5939994-2758233

This post is a list of works/texts I want to eventually write short reviews or abstracts about. One of my models in this endeavor is Clifton Fadiman, who came up with something called the Lifetime Fadiman Reading List. Fadiman crafted a list of THE Classics. There's a book out that has brief entries on a huge list of these works. I don't aspire to as "classical" a list as Fadiman, but I am coming up with a contingent list of my own that will probably tend to change over time . . . .

I. Literature
A. Poetry
Basho
William Collins
Christopher Smart
Friedrich Holderlin
Percy Shelley
Emily Dickinson
Sylvia Plath

B. Fiction
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Behn, Oroonoko
Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist and His Master; Rameau's Nephew
Cao, Hung Lou-Meng
Melville, Moby Dick; Pierre or the Ambiguities; "Bartleby the Scrivener"
Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Goncharov, Oblomov
Eliot, Middlemarch
Dostoevsky, The Possessed
Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
Joyce, "The Dead"
Kafka, Metamorphosis and other stories
Mansfield, Stories
Lu Xun, Stories
Borges, "Garden of Forking Paths" and other stories
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Orwell, 1984
Huxley, Brave New World
O'Conner, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"; "Good Country People"
Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Dick, The Man in the High Castle
Barthelme, Stories
LeGuin, The Dispossessed; Always Coming Home; The Telling; Earthsea series
Delany, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Kingston, Woman Warrior
Rushdie, Midnight's Children; The Ground Beneath Her Feet
DeLillo, White Noise; Libra; Underworld
Butler, Parable of the Sower; Parable of the Talents
Robinson, Years of Rice and Salt

C. Drama
Shakespeare
Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Soyinka, Death and the King's Horseman

D. Film
Modern Times
Sunset Boulevard
Throne of Blood
The Apartment
Zelig
The Matrix
Being John Malkovich

E. Children's Literature
Milne, Winnie the Pooh
Are You My Mother?
Dinotopia
People
Adams, Watership Down
Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Rowling, Harry Potter series

F. Essays
Montaigne, Essais
Wilde, The Decay of Lying; The Critic As Artist
Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind
Anzaldua, Borderlands/La frontera
Silko, "Language and Literature from the Pueblo Indian Perspective"
Shen, "The Classroom and the Larger Culture"
Medhurst, "Batman, Deviance, and Camp"
Bartholmae and Petrosky, Introduction to Ways of Reading
Freire, " 'Banking' Concept of Education"
Percy, "Loss of the Creature"

G. Criticism
Forster, Aspects of the Novel
Frye, Anatomy of Criticism
Deleuze (and/or Guattari), Proust and Signs; Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature
Plaks, "Towards a Critical Theory of Chinese Narrative"
Miller, Fiction and Repetition
Fish, "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One"
Jacobs, Uncontainable Romanticism
Pyle, Ideology of the Imagination
Parlej, Romantic Theory of the Novel
Gibson, Postmodern Theory of Narrative; Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel
Marder, Dead Time
Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
Saldivar, Figural Language in the Novel

II. Continental Philosophy
A. Primary Texts
Diderot, D'Alembert's Dream
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Critique of Practical Reason; Critique of Judgment
Schlegel, Fragments
Marx, German Ideology; Capital; Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Nietzsche, Gay Science; Genealogy of Morals; Will to Power; Beyond Good and Evil; Birth of Tragedy; "Truth and Falsity in an Ultramoral Sense"
Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics; "Discourse in the Novel"; "Epic and Novel"
Heidegger, Being and Time; "Letter on Humanism"; essays on Holderlin
Bloch, Principle of Hope
Benjamin, Origin of Trauerspiel; Passagen-Werk; "Theses on the Philosophy of History"; "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"; "The Storyteller"
Adorno, Minima Moralia; Negative Dialectics; Aesthetic Theory; "One Lyric Poetry"; "Cultural Criticism and Society"
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Blanchot, The Infinite Conversation; "The Siren's Song"; "The Essential Solitude"
Gadamer, Truth and Method
Barthes, S/Z
Levinas, Totality and Infinity; Otherwise Than Being
Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"
Foucault, Discipline and Punish; "What Is An Author?"
Derrida, Specters of Marx; "Differance"; "White Mythology"; "Structure, Sign and Play"
Deleuze (and/or Guattari) Difference and Repetition; Thousand Plateaus
DeMan, "Rhetoric of Temporality"; Allegories of Reading
Spivak, essays on Marx and/or Derrida
Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto"
Bhabha, "DissemiNation"
Agamben, Potentialities

B. Secondary Texts
Atkins, Reading and Writing Differently
Buchanan, Deleuzism: A Metacommentary
Caputo, Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida
Caygill, Walter Benjamin: Colour of Experience
Cohen, Ideology and Inscription
Coward & Ellis, Language and Materialism
Critchley, Ethics of Deconstruction
Dean, "Derrida and Process Theology"
Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction
Handelman, Fragments of Redemption
Hanssen, Walter Benjamin's Other History
Hatab, Nietschean Defense of Democracy
Hill, Blanchot: Extreme Contemporary
Jacobs, In the Language of Walter Benjamin
Lacoue-Labarthe & Nancy, The Literary Absolute
Monk, Wittgenstein: Duty of Genius
McCole, Antinomies of Tradition
Plotnitsky, Reconfigurations: Critical Theory and General Economy
Rapaport, Heidegger and Derrida: Reflections on Time and Language
Shaviro, Passion and Excess
Spanos, Heidegger and Criticism
Weber
West, Introduction to Continental Philosophy
Wohlfarth
Wolfreys, Readings

III. Religion
A. Comparative Religion/History of Religion
Armstrong, A History of God
Beaudoin, Virtual Faith
Billington, Religion Without God
Caputo, On Religion
Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?
Starhawk, Spiral Dance
Taylor, Critical Terms For Religious Studies; Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology

B. Abrahamic Religion
1. Judaism
Old Testament
Heschel, God in Search of Man
Kirsch, The Woman Who Laughed At God
Lerner, Spirit Matters
Rushkoff, Nothing Sacred

2. Christianity
New Testament
Gnostic Gospels
Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels
Meister Eckhart
Spong, Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism
Starbird, The Woman With the Alabaster Jar

3. Islam
Qur'an
Al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities
Esposito, Islam and Democracy
Khatami, Islam, Liberty and Development
Kurzman, Liberal Islam
Manji, What's Wrong With Islam?
Majid, Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World
Rauf, What's Right With Islam?
Sachedina, Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism
Surush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam
Taha, Second Message of Islam

C. Eastern Religion/Philosophy
1. Primary
I-Ching
Zhuangzi
Daodejing
Confucius, Lun-yu
Nagajuna

2. Secondary
Capra, Tao of Physics
Graham, Disputers of the Ancient Tao
Hall and Ames, Thinking Through Confucius; Democracy of the Dead; Introduction to A Philosophical Translation of the Tao Te Ching
Jullien, Detour and Access
Neville, Boston Confucianism
Saussy, Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic
Tu, writings on Confucianism

D. Unitarian Universalism
Buehrens and Church, Chosen Faith
Parke, Epic of Unitarianism
Robinson, Unitarians and Universalists

E. Humanism/Posthumanism
Humanist Manifestos I, II, & III
Lamont, Philosophy of Humanism
Davies, Humanism
Soper, Humanism and Anti-Humanism
Badmington, Posthumanism
Spanos, End of Education: Toward Posthumanism

IV. History/Economics/Politics
Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld
Capra, Turning Point
Cavanagh, Alternatives to Economic Globalization
Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas?
Fromm, Sane Society
Fuller, Somebodies and Nobodies
Hertz, The Silent Takeover
Hill, Fixing Elections
Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
Johnson, Sorrows of Empire
Korten, Post-Corporate World
Krugman, The Great Unraveling
Parenti, Assassination of Julius Caesar
Pollin, Living Wage
Putnam, Bowling Alone; Making Democracy Work
Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful
Shlain, The Alphabet versus the Goddess
Villa, Socratic Citizenship
West, Race Matters; Democracy Matters

V. Music
A. Primary
Bach, Suites For Unaccompanied Cello; Goldberg Variations; Brandenburg Concertos; Violin Concertos
Beethoven, Late String Quartets; Symphonies; Piano Concertos; Piano Sonatas
Schumann, Piano Concerto; Kinderszenen; Introduction and Allegro appasionato
Mussgorsky, Pictures at an Exhibition
Brahms, Symphonies; Violin Concerto; Piano Concerto; Piano Sonatas; Piano Quartets
Tchaikovsky, Symphonies 4, 5, 6
Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde; Symphonies 1, 6, 9
Rachmaninov, Paino Concerto 3
Bartok, String Quartets
Beatles, Rubber Soul; Revolver; Abby Road; White Album; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band; "Revolution"; "Magical Mystery Tour"; "Help"; "Imagine"
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon; Wish You Were Here; The Wall
U2, Joshua Tree; Achtung Baby; All That You Can't Leave Behind; "Discotheque"
Radiohead, The Bends; OK Computer
The Who, Tommy; "My Generation"; "Baba O'Reilly"; "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced?; "Star Spangled Banner"; "All Along the Watchtower"; "Axel's Castle"; "Voodoo Child"
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Queen, "Killer Queen"; "Bohemian Rhapsody"; "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions"
David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust; Let's Dance; "Space Oddity"; "Changes"
Elton John, "My Song"; "Good-Bye Yellow Brick Road"
Talking Heads, Fear of Music; "Once in a Lifetime"; "Mr. Jones"
Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven"; other songs
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
Madonna, Ray of Light; Immaculate Collection

B. Secondary
Stockman, Walk On: Spiritual Journey of U2

VI. Science
Feynman, Six Easy Pieces; Six Not-So-Easy Pieces
Gould, Mismeasure of Man; Dinosaur in a Haystack
Greene, The Elegant Universe