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The Argonauts

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The Argonauts

By: Maggie Nelson
Narrated by: Maggie Nelson
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About this listen

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family.

Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making.

Writing in the spirit of public intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson binds her personal experience to a rigorous exploration of what iconic theorists have said about sexuality, gender, and the vexed institutions of marriage and child-rearing. Nelson's insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry of this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.

©2015 Maggie Nelson (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Gender Studies Social Sciences Women Sexual Health LGBTQIA+
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Imteresting exploration of contemporary feminist issues influenced by the post structuralist work of Judith Butler through the lens of the life of a lesbian mother.

Not for Razzle fans.

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A hugely inspiring literary experience , which I enjoyed even more as read by the author than reading it myself (which I loved!) She started out writing poetry & that comes through in the delivery. Bravo.

Even better read out loud

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All I have to say is “yes”. Innovative and brainy, yes; but never at the cost of its driving force: feeling. This book is incredibly grounded, and brings the “angels (of philosophy) back down to earth”, to tell them (and us) about the realities that lofty languages often fail to completely describe. Writing. Thinking. Queerness. Sex. Memory. Identity. Childhood. Development. Relationality. Motherhood. Nelson doesn’t have THE answers, but she has hers - and offers them knowing that this, too, is “good enough”. Absolutely brilliant and evocative in equal measure. Blew my mind with alarming pace.

Yes.

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Saw this recommended elsewhere and thought I would follow the random thread. It was perfect as serendipity often is. Love MN’s style and am looking forward to her other work. So rich with thought, subject and sources. Truly inspired.

I will listen to it 5 times and still get more from it.

Keep your ship afloat in these challenging times

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I had to get used to Nelson's storytelling but once i got into this I couldn't stop listening, her writing is beautiful

Gorgeous

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