I’m trying to figure out the place of ephemera at Jewish Philosophy Place (JPP). In part this is a question about the place of images in Jewish philosophy.
Image-ephemera re-direct more theoretical exploration. They loosen up, complicate, and volatilize thought. They change the mode of thought from necessity to potential and possibility. They mix things up. They contribute to more vital assemblages. They bring life, color, action, pleasure, or violence to concepts.
I’m coming to realize, that for the purposes of Jewish Philosophy Place (JPP), it’s best not to put image-ephemera at the center of things. They work nicely at the margins, in the afternoon after the longer post in the morning, which I tend to send out the night before.
Go ahead and deconstruct the difference between ephemera and non-ephemera. I’ll go along with you. There’s nothing more foundational than ephemera. But for the purposes of JPP, I’ll stick to the pragmatic difference between the quick, scatter-shot quality of an image-ephemerum (??) versus the more complex thought-block worked up over a sequence of paragraphs.
Future “ephemera” at JPP will be less wordy.
