Jan Mieszkowski

Comp Lit Prof – Author of Labors of Imagination (Fordham, 2006), Watching War (Stanford, 2012), and Crises of the Sentence (U of Chicago, 2019)

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

He thought that he had learned patience, but he had only lost impatience.
–Maurice Blanchot, Awaiting Oblivion

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Don’t you know that "No" is the wildest word we consign to Language?
–Emily Dickinson

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Furcht vor der Nacht, Furcht vor der Nicht-Nacht
-Franz Kafka, 18 Okt. 1917

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Nice to see that someone was up bright and early to poster campus. #WalterBenjamin

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Top Philosophy Halloween Costumes
1) Sexy brain in a vat
2) Sexy Schrödinger's cat
3) Sexy Occam's razor
4) Sexy body without organs
5) Sexy the thing-in-itself

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

The history of philosophy is not a history of ideas; it is a history of problems.
–Fredric Jameson

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

The empty bookstore shelf sublime.

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Marx’s Capital, the film version, by Wes Anderson.

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.
–Samuel Beckett

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Representing for the team.

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Well what did you think was in the box?

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

My ontology: Greek
My semiotics: French
My decision to celebrate Hegel's birthday with an Owl of Minerva latte: decidedly American

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Twitter 2008: The meme is the message
Twitter 2012: The message is the meme
Twitter 2016: There is no message
Twitter 2020: There is no meme
Twitter 2024: There is no Twitter

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

@zenouttakes @gnuman1979 My first thought was that the spoon is a reference to The Matrix.

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

We are bored when we don't know what we are waiting for. That we do know, or think we know, is nearly always the expression of our superficiality or inattention. Boredom is the threshold to great deeds.
–Walter Benjamin

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

Samuel Beckett explaining to the actor cast as Godot that he doesn't actually make an appearance on stage.
#WaitingForGodot

[Jan Mieszkowski @janmpdx]

The Tractatus consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one.
–Wittgenstein