Not Bad.

"Agency is predicated on self-reflexive, interpretive framings of power which are embedded not only in language but in relational sequences of action."

"Legitimation can be understood as constructed and mediated by two poles: the site of instantiation and the Archimedean point of the authorizing center."

"Thus there is a need to interrogate the mythicizing reception of violence in order to trace the path by which ideological readings of violence engender the subject of the act and the extrinsic site of legitimation in a single moment."

"Legitimation resides in the construction of a fictive depth, a dimensionality of force which draws consciousness away from the concrete material investment in acts and effects that reproduce domination in time and space."

1. I distinctly remember that much of what I read on LJ/DW, back when I was gainfully employed, was prefaced with "I should be working on my [homework/paper/thesis/some other school related thing], but I'm [writing/reading/vidding] fannish stuff, instead!" And I remember thinking how nice it was going to be to have some free time once I got back to school...
   
   BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!


2. A lot of our readings reference the writing of dead white guys that I should have already read but haven't--Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Lacan, Foucault... I feel like I've jumped into the middle of a very long discussion (decades long, centuries long--which is, I think, an accurate description) and am having trouble picking up all of the conversational threads.
   
   I would love suggestions for either:
   
   
   • Good, introductory books on any of these guys (or others I should be familiar with.
   
   
   • A basic, key article/paper/argument from any of 'em that I should tackle to start.