I have a new piece published in Frame: Journal of Literary Studies, which discusses how we can think about ‘designs for and against evil.’ The piece draws on the work of Iraqi novelist Ahmed Saadawi, alongside architectural theory and praxis, to describe the ‘poetry of moans and sighs’ that afflict world politics. It begins with the idea that we can think about war and violence in ‘a-subjective’ terms (i.e. without an intentionally acting human subject), but then moves to asking what – if that’s true – we can ever imagine doing about it? To approach an answer, I draw on the philosophy of Donna Haraway, as well as work from Hanna Arendt and Franz Kafka, to suggest the necessity of moving beyond the epistemic and reflexive and towards the performative, artistic, material, and designed.

Click to access frame_poetry-1.pdf