Reading Kenneth White: Anthropoetry/anthropoiesis, experiencing the earth and the living

“All cultures are incomplete (…) each one insists on one or two aspects of the human potentiality (…) and to come up with a somewhat exhaustive notion of culture, one should ‘nomadize’ around the world from one culture to the next” (K. White). Kenneth White’s work is an invitation to examine his  academic life and poetry and essays with an anthropo(i)etic critical eye. As such the field of contemporary research-creation which considers the literary creative process as a mode of enquiry is one that we would also like to be explored in this conference. In 2006, Michele Duclos 

suggested White’s work and thought be looked at from the perspective of his journey into the world’s cultures and from a new ‘nomadic’ anthropology. Almost a year now since he passed away, a considerable body of poetry and critical thinking is left for us to consider. What is it that his work is telling us on our Western society and culture? How does it resonate with our own fields of research? How does his poetic and theoretical work invites a critical examination of the porosity and shift of the dialogue between fields of research and the attempt to find and conceptualize new fields to speak of these possible contacts and the fluid circulation between disciplines.

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