Jed Rasula on Dada (6-minute video excerpt)

On December 5, 2016, Jed Rasula visited the Kelly Writers House to talk about Dada — and in particular about his recent book on the subject. Here, below, is a 6-minute excerpt from that discussion, in which Al Filreis attempts to get Rasula to talk about how anyone could teach Dada given the non-absurdist structures of the classroom and of academia generally. Watch as Rasula pulls what Filreis calls “a Dadaist performance” in evading the question.

The entire recording can be viewed here. 

Jed Rasula is the Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia, where he is currently Head of the English Department. His involvement in the poetry community goes back to the 1970s, as editor of Wch Way (1975-1984) and author of Tabula Rasula (Station Hill 1986). Subsequent poetry titles are Hot Wax, or Psyche’s Drip (Book Thug 2007) and Giacometti’s Dog (Opo Books 2017). He has co-edited two large anthologies: Imagining Language with Steve McCaffery (MIT 1998) and Burning City: Poems of Metropolitan Modernity with Tim Conley (Action Books 2012). Scholarly monographs include The American Poetry Wax Museum: Reality Effects 1940-1990 (National Council of Teachers of English 1996), and This Compost: Ecological Imperatives in American Poetry (U. Georgia Press 2002).