Reading the Unreadable: Kenneth Goldsmith, Conceptual Writing and the Art of Boredom

Abstract

This article explores conceptual writing and the linked concept of boredom in the work of Kenneth Goldsmith. Specifically, the article examines Goldsmith's claims about boredom and uncreativity; suggesting that Goldsmith's work furthers our understanding both of the materiality of language and of the “function of language,” situating Goldsmith's work within the context of a “gift economy,” and, most centrally, proposing Goldsmith's poetics as “durational” rather than “spatial.” The argument then develops this reading via an extended discussion of the role of boredom in Goldsmith's volume Day.