(Notes on) Panic & Plentitude

"American citizens in particular are encouraged to fracture their self-conceptions on the hard edges of panic and plentitude, suspicion and sympathy, particularity and universalism."
--Castiglia and Castronovo, A "Hive of Subtlety": Aesthetics and the End(s) of Cultural Criticism
‘I saw her on the floor,’ Mr. Rao said three days later, sitting at a table in a McDonald’s on Metropolitan Avenue. ‘You see the body of your own mother. You know what white noise is? A sound you hear and no one else does. I said, “Ma” and walked closer and closer, and saw the blood.’ Michael Wilson. “What a Family Faces After a Murder: The Terrible Mechanics of the First Week.” The New York Times,” October 28, 2011.