Autotheory’s stated distrust of words and genres constitutes a rejection of linguistic mediation.

Evidence

The melt that opposes itself to genre bounds or defined job responsibilities or making sense pools on the page as a rejection of linguistic mediation: theory, genre, and even words all miss the mark. … Representation itself is constantly at issue, the insufficiency of words. … Insufficient words, inadequate theories, unspeakable intensities, outmoded genres—so many refrains against mediation, toward immediacy. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 139

Categorization

• QUESTION: The reader will want to decide whether Nelson’s ‘I don’t want to represent anything’ is a genuine immediatist position or itself a rhetorical performative that depends on mediation—a useful lever for the Antitheory fight.