The first volume, Language and Misunderstanding, addresses concretism and its discontents. The essays and performance texts herein argue for an expanded consideration of concretism in contemporary practices oriented toward the embodiment of language, in works that challenge the privileging of the body of the word over the body of the artist. Thus Cory Arcangel, Fia Backström, Erica Baum, Paul Chan, Jimmie Durham, and Hito Steyerl all contribute works that in different ways insist on the somatic nature of writing; Andrew Durbin, and Ariane Müller, and Vincent Romagny address the drift of meaning across material; Lucy Ives, Daniel Grún, and the Young Girl Reading Group are skeptical of dogmas of authorship and identity; Alain Badiou asks when modern art will end; and Abraham Adams polemicizes against the loss of the body in the concrete work. With an introduction by Lou Cantor.