Persons and Things
Persons and Thingssecures Barbara Johnson's place as the most important literary critic of our day. This exhilaratingly intelligent book is an American grammatology of pop culture, advertisements, and political  rhetoric. Johnson provides lucid, even thrilling insights into the rhetorical framing of living subjects, legal persons, non-persons and things. Filled with the phantasmagoria of talking tombstones, babbling Barbies, puppets, pets, and golden calves,Persons and Thingsis a trove of cracklingly decoded insight. Never has text spoken so eloquently. (Patricia Williams, author ofAlchemy of Race and RightsandThe Rooster's Egg)Barbara Johnson's well earned reputation is for being a rare theorist who knows how to write. InPersons and Thingsshe juggles like a pro as she throws Ovid, catches Keats, throws Marianne Moore, catches Francis Ponge, throws Kant, catches Winnicott so as to illuminate the relationship that humans have to things. This book is itself a thing of beauty to read. (Juliana Spahr, author ofThis Connection of Everyone with Lungs: Poems)A most readable and interesting book filled with insightful comments on everything from Toys R Us to lyric poetry...The book has rich interpretations of the usual suspects (Derrida, Foucault, Paul de Man, Nietzsche, Baudelaire), rich and comprehensive notes, and a useful index. (Bob LaneMetapsychology2008-10-14)