[presentation slides]
a talk presented for
Dialogues in Dance Studies: Author Series
22 October 2025
Department of Dance
Ohio State University
For those of us with a strong critique of logocentrism, the problem of machine learning (“AI”) is quite nuanced and critically challenging. We have long argued against the idea that reading/writing is the only or most important way to think. Yet now we find that very mode of “white writing” under attack by a metastasized version of itself.
We watch as these two behemoths do battle, and it is difficult to see where we can intervene. This is a battle between the old white colonial/liberal episteme and a new white neofascist episteme. It’s Biden versus Trump, on a much larger scale. It is actually very difficult to articulate what aspect of reading/writing skill we want to defend as distinct from simply the old logocentric hegemony.
Of course, critical writing locates itself in cracks within that hegemony. But critical AI will eventually do that also (if it’s not already). We need to find a better argument here, so that we don’t find ourselves simply defending the old logocentrism in order to stop the new fascism.
