Engl507

Log 1: After Hermes?

On page 62 of Excommunication, Alexander Galloway writes:

hermeneutic interpretation and immanent iridescence are, at the turn of the millennium, gradually withering away; ascending in their place is the infuriation of distributed systems. In other words, and in more concrete terms, we can expect a tendential fall in the efficiency of both images and texts, in both poems and problems, and a marked increase in the efficiency of an entirely different mode of mediation, the system, the machine, the network.

For the first entry in your research log, please use approximately 300 words to directly or indirectly respond to the following questions:

• Generally speaking, are you persuaded by Galloway's observation?
• Do you find his assumptions compelling?
• Regardless of whether you agree with Galloway, what might be some of the implications of his claims (if we accept them)? What kind of scholarship could emerge from the "infuriation of distributed systems"? Would you call that scholarship "post-critical" or "post-hermeneutic"? How might literary or cultural criticism change? Here, feel free to speculate or conjecture a bit, especially since we have not yet examined some of the examples he references later in "Love of the Middle."
• Also feel free to comment on whether you think Galloway is endorsing or lamenting (or . . . ?) the ostensible withering of hermeneutic interpretation and immanent iridescence.

Since you only have ~300 words, make sure your response is concise/sharp. You may want to draft a longer response and then refine it. Also, wherever possible, articulate Galloway's argument in your own words, without too much quotation.