Robert Lunday
@rlunday.bsky.social
Author of Mad Flights (Ashland PP, 2002), Gnome (Black Sun Lit, 2017), and Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness (University of New Mexico Press, 2023). In pursuit of Missingness Studies (theories of missing persons across all disciplines).
From the preface to the 1988 edition of his 1982 "All That is Solid Melts Into Air," an important book by the late Marshall Berman; posted here ironically, but also hopefully -- that Americans (and others) overall will reject this crisis of today that is much older than Trumpism.
May 9, 2025 at 3:29 AM
From the preface to the 1988 edition of his 1982 "All That is Solid Melts Into Air," an important book by the late Marshall Berman; posted here ironically, but also hopefully -- that Americans (and others) overall will reject this crisis of today that is much older than Trumpism.
Join us to hear Robert Lunday and Maggie Messitt on Monday, Sept. 9, from 12 – 1 pm EST.
Writing the Missing: A Conversation on Family, Disappearance, and Creative Investigations
Register for the free Zoom link (and consider leaving us a tip to cover administrative costs?)
tinyurl.com/mr4d5arj
Writing the Missing: A Conversation on Family, Disappearance, and Creative Investigations
Register for the free Zoom link (and consider leaving us a tip to cover administrative costs?)
tinyurl.com/mr4d5arj
August 23, 2024 at 1:31 AM
Join us to hear Robert Lunday and Maggie Messitt on Monday, Sept. 9, from 12 – 1 pm EST.
Writing the Missing: A Conversation on Family, Disappearance, and Creative Investigations
Register for the free Zoom link (and consider leaving us a tip to cover administrative costs?)
tinyurl.com/mr4d5arj
Writing the Missing: A Conversation on Family, Disappearance, and Creative Investigations
Register for the free Zoom link (and consider leaving us a tip to cover administrative costs?)
tinyurl.com/mr4d5arj
Houston Missing Persons Day, 2/3/24:
February 3, 2024 at 6:00 PM
Houston Missing Persons Day, 2/3/24:
Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action. -- Franz Kafka, "Letter to His Father"
![Franz Kafka: By Atelier Schlosser & Wenisch - Otto Schlosser (1880-1942) & Max Wenisch (1876–?)[1] - Franz Kafka: Pictures of a Life by Klaus Wagenbach (1984), p. 89; sourced to Klaus Wagenbach Archiv, Berlin, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27147733](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f3mfe7wjorg6fwztk5lzhtuy/bafkreicx5ocuir5vnzzep32g4tjyf5dnkwjxn7akmia7y3ftfgn6zdutxe@jpeg)
December 3, 2023 at 4:32 AM
Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action. -- Franz Kafka, "Letter to His Father"
Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten. -- Marc Augé, "Non-Places"
December 2, 2023 at 4:40 PM
Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten. -- Marc Augé, "Non-Places"
...I’ll be lost in the between, in the emptiness of the between, with the threats and the moments of radiant danger, the perfect days, the oases, the furious whisper of the night wind in the trees, the happiness, my fears, the imminent dawn. --Jane Mendelsohn, "I Was Amelia Earhart"
November 24, 2023 at 4:08 PM
...I’ll be lost in the between, in the emptiness of the between, with the threats and the moments of radiant danger, the perfect days, the oases, the furious whisper of the night wind in the trees, the happiness, my fears, the imminent dawn. --Jane Mendelsohn, "I Was Amelia Earhart"
NamUs FYIs: Transgender and Indigenous missing / unidentified / unclaimed questions and answers. Even if wheels of govt. move slowly, they sometimes move progressively. (NamUs is the NIJ/DOJ-run database for missing and UID people in the US).
November 17, 2023 at 8:17 PM
NamUs FYIs: Transgender and Indigenous missing / unidentified / unclaimed questions and answers. Even if wheels of govt. move slowly, they sometimes move progressively. (NamUs is the NIJ/DOJ-run database for missing and UID people in the US).
Here's a link to a version of the hybrid personal/scholarly essay I presented at the 2023 conference for the creative/scholarly ALSCW earlier this month -- "Mystery and Missingness: The Literature of Disappearance” --
robertlunday.com/alscw-paper-...
robertlunday.com/alscw-paper-...
October 23, 2023 at 9:56 PM
Here's a link to a version of the hybrid personal/scholarly essay I presented at the 2023 conference for the creative/scholarly ALSCW earlier this month -- "Mystery and Missingness: The Literature of Disappearance” --
robertlunday.com/alscw-paper-...
robertlunday.com/alscw-paper-...
Among other themes, I'm exploring missingness "lore": story-cycles, fictional and non-fictional, that seem to demand reiteration. A few: Kafka and the Doll, the Vanishing Hotel Room (including Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes), and the tale of Martin Guerre. Any others?
October 22, 2023 at 5:59 PM
Among other themes, I'm exploring missingness "lore": story-cycles, fictional and non-fictional, that seem to demand reiteration. A few: Kafka and the Doll, the Vanishing Hotel Room (including Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes), and the tale of Martin Guerre. Any others?
Poetry of Missingness # 2: [You take a stranger's life] by Octavio Quintanilla, from his book "If I Go Missing." We're in the Borderlands, where vanishing is part of the weather, the landscape, the community, the family. It's a young man's doppelganger, the constant threat as common as one's shadow.
![Octavio Quintanilla, [You take a stranger's life], from If I Go Missing](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f3mfe7wjorg6fwztk5lzhtuy/bafkreicvgglaueljxmvbf7wbxbqkflkrso6e75t4ae4hgyzdb6wsuoyz4e@jpeg)
October 12, 2023 at 3:02 AM
Poetry of Missingness # 2: [You take a stranger's life] by Octavio Quintanilla, from his book "If I Go Missing." We're in the Borderlands, where vanishing is part of the weather, the landscape, the community, the family. It's a young man's doppelganger, the constant threat as common as one's shadow.
Poetry of Missingness #1: "Untraceable" by Jessica Goodfellow. I love the quick leaps of scale, the metamorphoses of matter, and the integration of body with landscape -- from "Whiteout," a book-length sequence about her uncle's 1967 disappearance (with other climbers) on Mt. Denali.
October 11, 2023 at 3:08 AM
Poetry of Missingness #1: "Untraceable" by Jessica Goodfellow. I love the quick leaps of scale, the metamorphoses of matter, and the integration of body with landscape -- from "Whiteout," a book-length sequence about her uncle's 1967 disappearance (with other climbers) on Mt. Denali.
Before moving on to another thread (perhaps micro-reviews of disappearance poetry), I'll link to one more of the longish pieces at the blog site -- this one on the digital trail I found leading to my missing stepfather's possible fate:
robertlunday.com/a-facebook-p...
robertlunday.com/a-facebook-p...
October 10, 2023 at 1:28 AM
Before moving on to another thread (perhaps micro-reviews of disappearance poetry), I'll link to one more of the longish pieces at the blog site -- this one on the digital trail I found leading to my missing stepfather's possible fate:
robertlunday.com/a-facebook-p...
robertlunday.com/a-facebook-p...
Disequilibria is out as an audio book from the main platforms:
libro.fm/audiobooks/9...
www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/di...
www.audible.com/pd/Disequili...
I will do a giveaway in the near future -- in time for the holidays! Watch this space....
libro.fm/audiobooks/9...
www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/di...
www.audible.com/pd/Disequili...
I will do a giveaway in the near future -- in time for the holidays! Watch this space....
October 8, 2023 at 7:10 PM
Disequilibria is out as an audio book from the main platforms:
libro.fm/audiobooks/9...
www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/di...
www.audible.com/pd/Disequili...
I will do a giveaway in the near future -- in time for the holidays! Watch this space....
libro.fm/audiobooks/9...
www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/di...
www.audible.com/pd/Disequili...
I will do a giveaway in the near future -- in time for the holidays! Watch this space....
Another reprise of a disappearance post -- on the Martin Guerre trope (more in progress on absconders & imposters). Janet Lewis is an under-appreciated poet in verse and prose -- she visited my Stegner class with Ken Fields, c. 1990, at Stanford -- lovely woman.
robertlunday.com/thoughts-on-...
robertlunday.com/thoughts-on-...
October 8, 2023 at 4:31 PM
Another reprise of a disappearance post -- on the Martin Guerre trope (more in progress on absconders & imposters). Janet Lewis is an under-appreciated poet in verse and prose -- she visited my Stegner class with Ken Fields, c. 1990, at Stanford -- lovely woman.
robertlunday.com/thoughts-on-...
robertlunday.com/thoughts-on-...
The Vanished podcast, a good, enlightened missing-persons series, produced a two-parter on Jim Lewis' disappearance, with excerpts from Disequilibria; and they have many other good episodes!
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
October 7, 2023 at 6:08 PM
The Vanished podcast, a good, enlightened missing-persons series, produced a two-parter on Jim Lewis' disappearance, with excerpts from Disequilibria; and they have many other good episodes!
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/202...
Another reprise of a blog post on disappearance themes -- this on on the trope of "fanciful lands" -- how we imagine where the missing go: robertlunday.com/fanciful-lan...
--with thanks to Britt Bennett (see earlier post) and Megan Abbott -- about whose works I will soon writer at greater length.
--with thanks to Britt Bennett (see earlier post) and Megan Abbott -- about whose works I will soon writer at greater length.
October 7, 2023 at 5:50 PM
Another reprise of a blog post on disappearance themes -- this on on the trope of "fanciful lands" -- how we imagine where the missing go: robertlunday.com/fanciful-lan...
--with thanks to Britt Bennett (see earlier post) and Megan Abbott -- about whose works I will soon writer at greater length.
--with thanks to Britt Bennett (see earlier post) and Megan Abbott -- about whose works I will soon writer at greater length.
...and another earlier blog post, somewhat geocritical, on Hisham Matar's works and disappearance: robertlunday.com/more-on-trop...
October 6, 2023 at 11:50 PM
...and another earlier blog post, somewhat geocritical, on Hisham Matar's works and disappearance: robertlunday.com/more-on-trop...
Another post toward the new book on missingness: A geocritical look at Julia Phillips' "Disappearing Earth": robertlunday.com/julia-philli...
October 5, 2023 at 10:40 PM
Another post toward the new book on missingness: A geocritical look at Julia Phillips' "Disappearing Earth": robertlunday.com/julia-philli...
A post toward a second work on disappearance: missingness in Jessica McDiarmid's "Highway of Tears," about Canadian MMIW; and Deborah Halber's "The Skeleton Crew," about unidentified cases, forensic sciences, and intersections with broader social issues. robertlunday.com/thoughts-on-...
October 5, 2023 at 12:14 AM
A post toward a second work on disappearance: missingness in Jessica McDiarmid's "Highway of Tears," about Canadian MMIW; and Deborah Halber's "The Skeleton Crew," about unidentified cases, forensic sciences, and intersections with broader social issues. robertlunday.com/thoughts-on-...
Re-posting, or first-time posting really, on Bluesky: blog articles on missingness toward my new book. This one is in part on Aimee Baker's "Doe,": a poetry collection on disappearances: robertlunday.com/693-2/ -- Coming soon: Hisham Matar, Julia Phillips, and more!
October 4, 2023 at 12:33 AM
Re-posting, or first-time posting really, on Bluesky: blog articles on missingness toward my new book. This one is in part on Aimee Baker's "Doe,": a poetry collection on disappearances: robertlunday.com/693-2/ -- Coming soon: Hisham Matar, Julia Phillips, and more!
When everything disappears by excess of reality, when, thanks to the deployment of a limitless technology, both mental and material, human beings are capable of fulfilling all their potentialities and, as a consequence, disappear...
October 3, 2023 at 2:01 AM
When everything disappears by excess of reality, when, thanks to the deployment of a limitless technology, both mental and material, human beings are capable of fulfilling all their potentialities and, as a consequence, disappear...
“The missing...are between two deaths: the symbolic space they occupy cannot be closed, although their biological existence is assumed...to have ended. They are…occupants of a zone of indistinction between life and death.” --Jenny Edkins, "Missing: Persons and Politics”
October 1, 2023 at 1:18 AM
“The missing...are between two deaths: the symbolic space they occupy cannot be closed, although their biological existence is assumed...to have ended. They are…occupants of a zone of indistinction between life and death.” --Jenny Edkins, "Missing: Persons and Politics”
For if there is a sin against life, it lies perhaps less in despairing of it than in hoping for another life and evading the implacable grandeur of the one we have. --Albert Camus, “Summer in Algiers”
September 30, 2023 at 2:16 AM
For if there is a sin against life, it lies perhaps less in despairing of it than in hoping for another life and evading the implacable grandeur of the one we have. --Albert Camus, “Summer in Algiers”
There was a time not too long ago when a man put out to sea and ceased to exist for two or three years or forever. -- John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley"
September 28, 2023 at 4:53 PM
There was a time not too long ago when a man put out to sea and ceased to exist for two or three years or forever. -- John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley"
“...living in a liquid modern world known to admit only one certainty...means a daily rehearsal of disappearance, vanishing, effacement and dying; and so, obliquely, a rehearsal of the non-finality of death, of recurrent resurrections and perpetual reincarnations…” -- Zygmunt Bauman, "Liquid Fear"
September 28, 2023 at 12:41 AM
“...living in a liquid modern world known to admit only one certainty...means a daily rehearsal of disappearance, vanishing, effacement and dying; and so, obliquely, a rehearsal of the non-finality of death, of recurrent resurrections and perpetual reincarnations…” -- Zygmunt Bauman, "Liquid Fear"