Beckonings

The assertion of scholarly and creative insight is usually accompanied by discomfort. Anything worth saying carries the hazard of refutation or, if proven irrefutable, of growing pains. But this is especially so in the case of one category of insight—the unmentionable. This article examines the nature of the unmentionable, the ways in which it is sanctioned in the worlds of philosophy and design, and the redemptive power its rehabilitation has for various forms of discursive stagnancy. Beyond the normative boundaries of the present an open zone beckons us to challenge the assumptions of ethics, aesthetics, predictability, and intelligibility. Mentioning the unmentionable is an essential part of this challenge and its projected successes.