Andrei Guruianu

The Afterlife of Discarded Objects: Memory and Forgetting in a Culture of Waste explains and ultimately redeems our culture's fascination with discarded material objects as a means to encapsulate and shape the socio-cultural imagination. Printed in full color and includes references, an index, and over seventy hi-resolution color images.

The Afterlife of Discarded Objects: Memory and Forgetting in a Culture of Waste explains and ultimately redeems our culture's fascination with discarded material objects as a means to encapsulate and shape the socio-cultural imagination. Printed in full color and includes references, an index, and over seventy hi-resolution color images.

"In the streets the children of the darkest city fight imaginary wars like all of the children before them and all of the children to come. Death and resurrection in the shadow of abandoned factories. Just ordinary miracles easily forgotten with a fresh change of clothes. When you ask any of them what they did all day, the answer is always Nothing, which is as honest as they will ever be, as any of us ever have been. They are not unhappy."

A poet and essayist attempt to find their bearings in a civilization lost at sea. Dead reckoning is the nautical term for calculating a ship's position using the distance and direction traveled rather than instruments or astronomical observation. For those still recovering from the atrocities of the twentieth century, however, the term has an even grimmer meaning: toting up the butcher's bill of war and genocide. As its title suggests, Dead Reckoning is an attempt to find our bearings in a civilization lost at sea. Conducted in the shadow of the centennial of the First World War, this dialogue between Romanian American poet Andrei Guruianu and Italian American essayist Anthony Di Renzo asks whether Western culture will successfully navigate the difficult waters of the new millennium or shipwreck itself on the mistakes of the past two centuries. Using historical and contemporary examples, they explore such topics as the limitations of memory, the transience of existence, the futility of history, and the difficulties of making art and meaning in the twenty-first century.