Panopticon

Author: Steve McCaffery

Publisher: Bookthug (2011)

Announcing the long-awaited reprint of Steve McCaffery's rare 1984 intervention into fiction (if “fiction” indeed this be). Taking its inspiration from Jeremy Bentham's “Panopticon Papers” McCaffery's Panopticon shatters all omnivison in a tour de force of formal innovation, theoretical comment and narrative critique. In Panopticonnarrative stutters, repeats itself, sequence is deranged and complicated by a multi-media presence on the page of grids, film bands and acoustic channels. On its first appearance Charles Bernstein hailed the book as “as perhaps the exemplary 'antiabsorptive work'” and William McPheron claimed its first appearance as “an extraordinary act of revolution and charity.” Out of print for over twenty years, this new edition is enhanced by the availability of a revised audio recording of the book, its three voices, one male, two female teasing out the gender complexities of Panopticon. McCaffery has also added an Introduction to the book and has revised the text entirely.