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Friday, April 15, 2005
Reputation Economy
“You poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles." I saw the film a few nights ago and enjoyed it. Through the art of screenwriting, Gabriel Byrne is spared the difficulty of calling Reese Witherspoon an ‘eathenware pipkin’, however. Try it yourself at home. Whether crockery or not, does she make a good Becky or not? Speaking of Thackeray: in comments there has been touch of Barry Lyndon blogging. The Kubrick version. Do you have an opinion about that?
One thing we need to do with the Valve is fill out our blogroll. It was haphazardly composed and we are sorry if you are not on it but should be. Several folks have emailed, politely requesting inclusion, and I mostly haven’t got on the case. So tonight - whether you have emailed with a request or not - please feel free to advance yourself with Becky Sharpish brass and alacrity. In comments, tell us about your blog. A few sentences; a short, winning paragraph. If you are in the blogroll, feel free to tell us about that post you wrote, your best, showing off your fine qualities; but no one noticed your need to be raised in the eyes of the world. If you feel a Dobbinesque devotion to someone else’s blog or post, that’s a fine thing to report, too.
As to whether you will get in our lofty roll? The criteria for inclusion are vague. We do contemplate some degree of quality control. A significant portion of your posts should be humanities stuff, literary studies-ish. Bookish. It doesn’t need to be academic though that helps. General cultural criticism stuff is alright. But if we keep going out and out we’ll let in everyone. That won’t do. I’m planning to add a few philosophy blogs. Because I am a philosopher. Where will it end? This isn’t your problem. It’s mine. “They say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall, and takes down the names of the great ones who are admitted to the feasts, dies after a little time. He can’t survive the glare of fashion long. It scorches him up, as the presence of Jupiter in full dress wasted that poor imprudent Semele - a giddy moth of a creature who ruined herself by venturing out of her natural atmosphere.” Poetically, I always identify with the moth rather than the Steyne.
Comments
"Because I am a philosopher.”
The unbearable lightness with which this word is slandered. What hubris.
Why do I belong on your blogroll? I’m an academic who writes about academia. I often post about the most trivial aspects of academic life, including the rigors of grading, the stress of syllabus composition, and the horrors of dissertation writing. I’ve also been known to compose mock CFPs in my spare time for the sole purpose of annoying my queer and queer theorist friends. To wit:
CFP: Transgendered Trans/Portation: “The El Word”
In multiple locations, activists and scholars are currently mapping the intersections of queer theory and public transportation. Recent years have seen an efflorescence of queer work on “the gaze” as a site of resistance for queer and transgendered commuters. Papers should explore how this gaze implicates voyeurs and exhibitionists in power dynamics and interrogate the dynamics these looking relations entail and cultivate. Topics may include:
* An analysis of gazing queerly, Queer gazes, gazes in queer spaces. The interuption of the transgendered gaze by ruffled newspapers, staring out the window, moving to the other side of the bus. Performativity of transgendered identity and its relation to the gazes of bewildered old widows who lost children in Korea and Vietnam and who wish this once they could get to Macy’s and back without a counter-hegemonic force invading her personal space.
* Looking at “Others” as a tool of identity construction. Conversely the psychological effect of the gaze of the other. The ways in which specific theories of transgendered spectatorship affect interactions between characters in the text. The specular relationship between the reader and characters in books cleverly marketed as “subway fare.”
* Disrupting the gaze: fragmentized narratives of missed stops, appointments and opportunities for radical performances of transgendered identities before captive audiences in buses/trams/subways/airplanes. Transcontinental performances of transgendered identities.
Why is it hubris? (You might think I’m only an academic philosopher, not a real one. But then I’ll only be blogrolling academic philosophers, not the real ones. So it all works out.)
It could be you have noticed “Vanity Fair” has a thematic subtext that might be glossed: hubris on display. Yes, I had noticed that myself. I do see the connection with my post.
I discovered Cephalous’ blog thru his/her comments here and second the rec that you blogroll it, JH. It would be good for everyone concerned: Cephalous is smart and entertaining and knows the Master of Networking at UC Irvine. Also recommend the Mad Montrealer, David Fiore, whose comments have on occasion appeared at J&B and whose blog, Motime Like the Present, is so full of critical vigor it’s like the anti-PMLA. He’s been doing mostly analysis of comics and movies but is announcing a shift in focus toward prose fiction and philosophy.
I’m taking you up on your invitation to promote my blog. It’s called Light Reading; I’m an English professor posting most often about what I’m reading for fun (recently, Kazuo Ishiguro, A.L. Kennedy, lots of crime fiction and young-adult fantasy), also about theater (recent brief postings on Marivaux and the Wooster Group House/Lights), and occasionally about academic matters as well, plus links to reviews I’ve written and/or reviews/interviews I’ve read with interest. I’d be very pleased if you decided to put it on the blogroll, but understand that considerations of space and fit may forestall it!