Response: The Blur of Letters, the Residue of Reception

Abstract

This short piece offers a reflection, in light of the papers preceding it, on how we might engage some of the epistemological provocations associated with affect to reconceptualize letters and “reception” (the receiving of letters, the ongoing life of other kinds of texts). Drawing especially from Michal Beth Dinkler’s notion of “epistolary embodiment,” and putting it in conversation with Fred Moten’s description of “blur” in Black sociality and Erin Manning’s (related) understanding of infrathin moments of perception, this piece proposes that semantic meaning is only one part of the way we make sense of letters, and texts at large.