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Punctuation: Art, Politics, and Play
In Art, Politics, and Play , Jennifer DeVere Brody places punctuation at center stage. She illuminates the performative aspects of dots, ellipses, hyphens, quotation marks, semicolons, colons, and exclamation points by considering them in relation to aesthetics and experimental art. Through her readings of texts and symbols ranging from style guides to digital art, from emoticons to dance pieces, Brody suggests that instead of always clarifying meaning, punctuation can sometimes open up space for interpretation, enabling writers and visual artists to interrogate and reformulate notions of life, death, art, and identity politics. Brody provides a playful, erudite meditation on punctuation’s power to direct discourse and, consequently, to shape human subjectivity. Her analysis ranges from a consideration of typography as a mode for representing black subjectivity in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man to a reflection on hyphenation and identity politics in light of Strunk and White’s prediction that the hyphen would disappear from written English. Ultimately, Brody takes punctuation off the “stage of the page” to examine visual and performance artists’ experimentation with non-grammatical punctuation. She looks at different ways that punctuation performs as gesture in dances choreographed by Bill T. Jones, in the hybrid sculpture of Richard Artschwager, in the multimedia works of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, and in Miranda July’s film Me and You and Everyone We Know . Brody concludes with a reflection on the future of punctuation in the digital era.
- GenresNonfiction
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
100 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 30, 2025
will be citing this mla style
Want to read
November 23, 2014read tiny bits of this for an essay and it's SO GOOD! so I'm off to find a copy.
July 16, 2025
5 ‘How, then, can we approach the “subject” (of) punctuation? Is it possible to breathe (new) life into this matter?’
24 ‘Ultimately, this book leads to what we might call the incursion of punctuation marks into our lived environment [...] Here, the book thinks of punctuation not merely as engraved matter, but also as grave matter and marks of gravure.’
24 ‘Ultimately, this book leads to what we might call the incursion of punctuation marks into our lived environment [...] Here, the book thinks of punctuation not merely as engraved matter, but also as grave matter and marks of gravure.’
January 11, 2009
Although I have a background in linguistics, where the first thing you learn is the futility of prescriptivism, I do love my language rules. I can’t stomach WalMart’s express lanes with ten items or less, I daily grind my teeth over an its/it's violations, and I’m one of those nerds who uses capitalization and punctuation in text messages. Therefore, reading Punctuation: Art, Politics and Play was tough on me. Jennifer DeVere Brody's rereading and redefining of punctuation made me push through my most OCD of prescriptive boundaries.
DeVere Brody’s methods are clear from the outset. She states: “Unlike most puntuationists, I eschew a punctilious approach to punctuation. As a result, this book, rather than arguing a point, argues and plays with points – specifically points made about punctuation[…:] Thus, this book focuses on punctuation marks as visual (re)marks.” She does, indeed, cast her net wide when searching for support of her theories and whims. She flits from Yayoi Kusama’s perfomative polka dots, which she equates with periods (or points) to Richard Artschwager’s interactive sculptures of exclamation points to “counter-hegemonic hyphenation” to the infamous ))<>(( scene from Me and You and Everyone We Know. The result is a bit of a wild ride, on a micro and macro scale. The book is challenging in its claims and intellectually limber in its associations, cajoling the reader to keep on her toes.
The most demanding aspect of Punctuation, however, is DeVere Brody’s affinity for wordplay. It is at times amusing and edifying, but ends up feeling a bit forced despite its jaunty playfulness. A sampling: She touches interestingly on Robert Hooke’s study of a period through a microscope, which reveals the punctuation mark’s wild side as a splotch of ink on textured and fibrous paper rather than a smooth, round dot. DeVere Brody is convincing in her connection between Hooke’s observations and her own belief in the wildness belying punctuation’s rather stalwart reputation. However, her wordplays become twee and may even cause the reader to doubt some of her important and legitimate conclusions. An example: “Hooke, hooked neither on phonics nor phonemes but rather on a punctuation mark, proved a point about the physiology and psychology of reading.” She does tend towards topicality, as well.
DeVere Brody’s work is undeniably vanguard in a subject that has long ceased to be edgy and new. She should be applauded for her vigor and bravery. It’s a hefty dose of insight and perspective for the prescriptivist in all of us.
Review by Jo Ristow
DeVere Brody’s methods are clear from the outset. She states: “Unlike most puntuationists, I eschew a punctilious approach to punctuation. As a result, this book, rather than arguing a point, argues and plays with points – specifically points made about punctuation[…:] Thus, this book focuses on punctuation marks as visual (re)marks.” She does, indeed, cast her net wide when searching for support of her theories and whims. She flits from Yayoi Kusama’s perfomative polka dots, which she equates with periods (or points) to Richard Artschwager’s interactive sculptures of exclamation points to “counter-hegemonic hyphenation” to the infamous ))<>(( scene from Me and You and Everyone We Know. The result is a bit of a wild ride, on a micro and macro scale. The book is challenging in its claims and intellectually limber in its associations, cajoling the reader to keep on her toes.
The most demanding aspect of Punctuation, however, is DeVere Brody’s affinity for wordplay. It is at times amusing and edifying, but ends up feeling a bit forced despite its jaunty playfulness. A sampling: She touches interestingly on Robert Hooke’s study of a period through a microscope, which reveals the punctuation mark’s wild side as a splotch of ink on textured and fibrous paper rather than a smooth, round dot. DeVere Brody is convincing in her connection between Hooke’s observations and her own belief in the wildness belying punctuation’s rather stalwart reputation. However, her wordplays become twee and may even cause the reader to doubt some of her important and legitimate conclusions. An example: “Hooke, hooked neither on phonics nor phonemes but rather on a punctuation mark, proved a point about the physiology and psychology of reading.” She does tend towards topicality, as well.
DeVere Brody’s work is undeniably vanguard in a subject that has long ceased to be edgy and new. She should be applauded for her vigor and bravery. It’s a hefty dose of insight and perspective for the prescriptivist in all of us.
Review by Jo Ristow
December 7, 2012
As someone who is way more interested in punctuation than your average bear, I was eager to read this book. And then very disappointed. For Brody actually has little to say about punctuation per se. Instead she uses punctuation as more of a jumping-off point for a set of essays on postmodern performance pieces and films, ending in a play of her own in which Beckett-like characters quote published comments about punctuation to one another—with extensive footnotes. And, yes, Brody's own use of punctuation throughout is showy, pomo, and distracting.
An unexpected prize, though: Brody cites a brief, unpublished but extraordinary essay on punctuation by Samuel Taylor ("Xanadu") Coleridge. Now, that's a piece worth reading
An unexpected prize, though: Brody cites a brief, unpublished but extraordinary essay on punctuation by Samuel Taylor ("Xanadu") Coleridge. Now, that's a piece worth reading
January 8, 2009
elegant, capacious, energetic, and hilarious, not to mention super smart.
April 20, 2016
very stimulating reading, well written but with some flaw of presumption. Recommend viewing
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews