Notes towards an Afterword: On “Hundreds for Katie”

Abstract

This afterword performs a contradiction. It simultaneously describes a theoretical argument against finalization while serving as a type of conclusion to “Hundreds for Katie,” a multi-authored, curated project engaging and honoring the influential work and mentorship of Kathleen Stewart upon her recent retirement from the University of Texas. “Hundreds for Katie” is a collaborative endeavor and comprises various experimental, often personal, styles and formats. Despite their poetic and theoretical diversity, each piece in the collection is about one hundred words long, honoring the same poetic form in the final collaboration of Kathleen Stewart and Lauren Berlant, a collection of hundred-word pieces published in The Hundreds (2019). This afterword attempts to engage some of the capacities in ethnographic voicing Kathleen Stewart pioneered. Like the other pieces in the collection, my article uses poetic license to achieve a specific affective and aesthetic effect.