From structural Marxism to aleatory materialism via deconstruction and poststructuralism

For this instalment of Books That Made Me, a human geographer fabricated in the 1980’s from an assortment of structuralist, dialectical, and anti-humanist parts, selects and discusses some books careering through social and cultural geography. As a fabricant, ‘I’ appears in scare quotes throughout the careering, partly to emphasize its structural scaffolding and differential articulation, partly to avoid the faux pas of autobiography, and partly to dramatize its suspension. Clipped and pegged into place, ‘I’ hangs there, as if on tenterhooks, providing the semblance of a seamless context that allows the books to career through geography, following a trajectory that curves away from structural Marxism towards aleatory materialism, via a series of deconstructive, poststructuralist, and postmodern inflections. From amongst the books careering aimlessly through geography, four are plucked out of their vagrancy and bestowed special attention according to the arbitrary rules of the genre: one impassions; one directs; one diverts; and one electrifies. To avoid any spoilers, suffice to say that each book is encountered in the context of its careering through social and cultural geography. ‘I’ am tempted to say that each is a pig in a poke, but that clanger would let the cat out of the bag.