The Argonauts
Maggie Nelson · 2015
The founding text of "autotheory." Personal essay fused with critical theory; Barthes and Winnicott and pregnancy all in the same sentence. Changed what essays could do by refusing genre. Won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The case against
Nelson argues by citation: a feeling arrives, then Barthes or Sedgwick or Winnicott appears in the margin to co-sign it, and the fragment ends before anyone has to finish the thought. If you lack the theory shelf, half the book is name-checking; if you have it, you may notice the names doing work the prose declines to do itself.
Essays · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
