Essaying: The Use of Obsession

Presented by Darebin Arts as part of the inSITU: Workshop Program 

If to ‘essay’ is to attempt – to understand via discourse, to tease out the folds of an idea, to give our thinking a shape in language – we might understand the essay as an appropriate formal container for our obsessions. In Touching Feeling, Eve Sedgwick writes that ‘obsession is the most durable form of intellectual capital’. Obsession, when used critically, makes us rigorous, careful, curious.  

This workshop stems from this provocation, considering how indulging our fixations might be a generative approach to essayistic writing.  
 
Together we will explore texts that can be read as iterations of an obsessive mode. We’ll acquiesce to our own obsessions and experiment with writing into them. We’ll think about how the desire to know can lead us down surprising wormholes of thought.  

The Darebin Intercultural Centre is fully wheelchair accessible, has all gender bathrooms, a prayer room and a low sensory space. 

If you would like to come along and require Auslan Interpretation please send us an email at writingprojects@darebin.vic.gov.au.

Facilitator's Bio:

Madison Pawle is a writer living on Wurundjeri Woiwurrung land. They are the editor of dSCRIBE 17: 'Desire Lines'. 

Image by: 3sidedsquare