Being Human Is an Occult Practice

by Magdalena Zurawski

Literary Nonfiction. Essay. In the essay BEING HUMAN IS AN OCCULT PRACTICE, Zurawski argues that studying and sharing literature can function as a means of enriching the impoverished definition of "human" created by capitalist social relations. Beginning with an analysis of Robert Duncan's description of the moment in his high school classroom when he finds himself called into a life in poetry, this essay explores the possibilities of the literature classroom at the very moment that it's being dismantled by the neoliberalization of our university systems. Zurawski argues that the literary holds a revitalizing potential precisely because of its capacity of exceeding the narrow imaginative aims of life within our contemporary social order.

32 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2020

About the author

Magdalena Zurawski is the author of the novel The Bruise, which won the Ronald Sukenick Award from FC2 in 2008 and a LAMBDA literary award in 2009, and the collection of poems Companion Animal, which was published by Litmus Press in 2015 and won a Norma Faber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. The Tiniest Muzzle Sings Songs of Freedom (Wave Books 2019) is her most recent poetry collection. The Operating System also released Zurawski’s poem/essay Don’t Be Scared as a chapbook in Summer 2019. Her essay Being Human is an Occult Practice appeared from Ugly Duckling Presse in 2020.

Reviews

[Anna Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for everyone in higher education.

[Erik Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The freedom in aesthetic play aids us in recognizing the perniciousness of positing the acquisitive personality as the principal human form, a mode of being that demands that we devour ourselves, one another, and any life we can turn into profit."