WRITING, EROS AND EXCESS

RESISTING CAPITALIST LOGICS OF PRODUCTION IN WRITING PRACTICE

Abstract

This paper takes up the writing of Pierre Klossowski, and notions of eros, to consider how writing practices are shaped by, and work to resist capitalist logics of production. Discussing Agnes Varda’s, The Gleaners, this paper argue that creative “products” can be read, reframed and celebrated as a kind of excess which emerges through playfulness. This manoeuvre of valuing excess enables this writer to re-engage with the making process as an act of play which positions desire rather than productivity as the impetus for writing. It concludes with a discussion about how positioning desire in such a way may be useful when experiencing blockages or obstacles which emerge as a result of the tension between creativity and logics of production.