Skip to main content

Some thoughts.... by Rajorshi

I don’t know why instructors don’t assign texts like Uncut Funk. I am particularly touched by the reflections around death and dying, and what that meant for hooks and Hall. I agree that conversations, in general, are fluid and organic, as opposed to fancy conferences (5) and this text is an important reminder about how certain scholars don’t quite approach their personal lives with critical rigor. The praxis/theory binary is extremely redundant and dangerous. For instance, Lee Edelman’s No Future sounds like a piece of shit not only because it is exclusive to the white family but also because he is happily married in real life.

While I understand the danger of “heavy-handed political correctness” (12) and Evren Savci’s Queer in Translation is a recent intervention on that subject, I am not quite convinced by hooks and Hall’s references. The controversies over the Redemption Song episode and hooks’ remarks on Oprah are very specific and different, as is the criticism over Hall’s use of shit. Did Hall in particular consider who found these instances to be insensitive or even offensive? Were these voices demanding political correctness or accountability? Nowadays when people are quick to dismiss calling out culture in favor of calling in, the power dynamics are usually ignored. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Corrine Contemplates the Funk

 I will keep my intro brief, as I think I will mainly just be echoing my classmates, but what a delicious book! I have really be enjoying reading two great minds converse through "the mundane to the profound" (2). Gilroy mentions in his introduction that "readers...are invited to appreciate the tone and timbre of these interlocked voices in the same spirit with which the participants listened carefully to each other" (x). I was reminded of this early in the reading, through hooks and Hall's mediations on conversation as pedagogy, especially Hall's comments on page 7: "It is as much about rhythm as anything else. If you are living the rest of your life at a certain intensified rhythm, it just doesn't fit the rhythm of conversation. You can't hurry." This seems to be compounded for academic readers by their reflections on how being "paid to talk" or teach in the academy changes the status of talking or teaching. My question then rev...
Post a Comment
Read more

26 January 2022 Reflection.

I'm stuck on certain aspects of the Butler piece, and not necessarily because of Butler's own opinions; I'm particularly drawn to their citation of Adorno's position that "nothing radical could come of common sense." I like the idea, especially the fact that anything that could truly constitute "common sense" could be interpreted as maintenance of the status quo. However, I immediately think of philosophical and political movements based on the unity of the working classes. Toward the end of World War II, then-US Vice-President Henry Agard Wallace gave a particularly compelling speech in which he declared that, in order for society to progress and reach its potential and for all humanity to achieve a lasting peace, the era after WWII needed to be the "Century of the Common Man," in which peaceful intellectual and economic competition would enable the free people of the world to create a better society. Wallace insisted that WWII was, in fac...
Post a Comment
Read more