Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Ania Malinowska is a cultural theorist, experimental writer, and associate professor at the Arctic University of Norway, formerly at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. Her work explores the intersections of technology, affect, and creative practice.
<p>'This highly original and visually appealing aesthetic treat presents an experimental method called “textrapolation”—a collection of text collages that function as both poetry and scholarly references.' </p>
- Margret Grebowicz, Missouri University of Science and Technology,
<p>'<em>Cutting Up Books </em>is a profound and original contribution to critical theory, experimental art, and cognitive research, offering a revolutionary methodology. Challenging the orthodox paradigms of knowledge production, it systematically critiques conventional ways of knowing. In doing so, it instigates an emergent epistemology that fosters intellectual self-discovery, nurtures creative expression, and tests the very frameworks through which contemporary problems are navigated.'</p>
- Andrew C. Wenaus, University of Western Ontario, Canada,
<p>'An exceptional book that introduces and theorizes "textrapolation"—an avant-garde, experimental writing method involving "cutting up books" and collaging text fragments into short textual poems. Positioning this "cannibalistic design" process against contemporary crises, particularly the rise of Artificial Intelligence and digital writing, the book explores new modalities of form, automatism, and critical self-navigation.'</p>
- Émile Fromet de Rosnay, University of Victoria,
Cutting Up Books - A Writing Method In Critical Thinking is an experimental exploration of writing, creativity, and knowledge-making through the radical act of cutting up books. Blending theory, practice, and art, it proposes textrapolation: a method of critical composition that uses destruction as a form of discovery.
Drawing on traditions of the cut-up, collage, and automatic writing, the book turns the materiality of text into a thinking tool, showing how breaking and reassembling language can generate new modes of understanding.
Thematically, it connects literary experimentation with philosophy, media theory, and the crisis of creativity in the age of artificial intelligence. It reconsiders authorship, education, and the function of books in a culture increasingly defined by templates, automation, and cognitive fatigue. Combining academic reflection with poetic fragments and visual-textual compositions to move between the scholarly and the personal, the analog and the algorithmic.
Over six months, Ania Malinowska dismantled over 400 books, reframing their content into 111 poetic epigrams and combining conscious methodical experimentation with the spontaneity of automatic writing. Cutting Up Books addresses the crisis of creativity in contemporary academic and cultural practices while responding to
contemporary challenges, including the crises in education and the perceived threat posed by large
language models.
The result is both a manifesto and a manual: a hybrid text that invites readers to become practitioners. It encourages intellectual play, intuition, and embodied experimentation as ways of reanimating writing and thought. At once critical and performative, the book demonstrates how cutting up can be a method of thinking, creating, and living differently.
Exlores writing as experiment and destruction as discovery. Blending theory, art, and practice, it introduces textrapolation: a cut-up method that reimagines creativity, authorship, and knowledge-making in the age of artificial unintelligence. Encourages intellectual play, intuition, and embodied experimentation to reanimate writing and thought.
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
01 Experimentation turns
02 Templates of creativity
03 Textrapolations
04 Invitation to cannibalize
05 Writing in combinations
06 Cut up your books!
Conclusion
Bibliography
Can breaking and reassembling language unlock new pathways for understanding, research, and creative practice?
Over a six-month period, Ania Malinowska dismantled more than 400 books, reframing their contents into 111 poetic epigrams. This process combines sustained, methodical experimentation with the openness and contingency of automatic writing. In doing so, Cutting Up Books addresses a wider crisis of creativity within contemporary academic and cultural practice, while engaging directly with current challenges in education and the perceived threat posed by large language models.
The result is both manifesto and manual. Cutting Up Books invites readers to become active participants. It argues for intellectual play, intuition, and embodied experimentation as serious scholarly tools, capable of reanimating writing, research, and thought. Moving between academic reflection, poetic fragments, and visual-textual composition, Malinowska operates across the scholarly and the personal, the analog and the algorithmic.
'Cutting Up Books is a profound and original contribution to critical theory, experimental art, and cognitive research, offering a revolutionary methodology. Challenging the orthodox paradigms of knowledge production, it systematically critiques conventional ways of knowing. In doing so, it instigates an emergent epistemology that fosters intellectual self-discovery, nurtures creative expression, and tests the very frameworks through which contemporary problems are navigated.'
Andrew C. Wenaus, University of Western Ontario, Canada
'An exceptional book that introduces and theorizes "textrapolation"—an avant-garde, experimental writing method involving "cutting up books" and collaging text fragments into short textual poems. Positioning this "cannibalistic design" process against contemporary crises, particularly the rise of Artificial Intelligence and digital writing, the book explores new modalities of form, automatism, and critical self-navigation.'
Émile Fromet de Rosnay, University of Victoria, Canada
Ania Malinowska is a cultural theorist, experimental writer, and associate professor at the Arctic University of Norway, formerly at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Ania Malinowska is a cultural theorist, experimental writer, and associate professor at the Arctic University of Norway, formerly at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. Her work explores the intersections of technology, affect, and creative practice.