in defence of theory (a rant)

apologies for what you're about to read. it's a rant inspired from my experience of listening to 5 old white men talk about knowledge and intellectualism today.

it's 5 men. 2 have just published books. all are cynical about post-structuralism and calling for a state of emergency in academia - "what are we teaching these kids? the kids are 'bluffing'! they don't need to be drawing on all that theory, particularly if they don't understand it properly. give them a copy of Wittgenstein and a slap on the wrists!"

don't get me wrong - i like Wittgenstein. i'd encourage people to read him too. but i wanted to challenge so much of what was said. as usual, i didn't. the words i wanted to say could not cohere in my mouth. perhaps i felt threatened as much as these men did.

apparently post-structuralism doesn't apply to scholars 'here'. it's need and usefulness is obvious in france where structuralism was the order of the day, but not for us. we can never understand it in the way the french can. maybe. but should we then abandon what might contain some useful practices and ways of knowing?

apparently if you want to use a theorist you have to know what 'he' is responding to, where he's situated, the context of his writing. maybe. but maybe not. maybe the author is dead!? but i wouldn't have dared to utter that.

apparently there's no room for contradiction in academic pursuit. to that i just wanted to raise my hand and shout "i believe in contradiction". it was a provocation, surely, but nobody else seemed unsettled. the man who said it had already shot down Latour, Woolgar, and all the other sociologists i read.

i wanted to say that social practices - everything we do - is full of contradiction. that that's the process of living. as John Law has pointed out, life is mess and social research is part of this. it is not beyond the social (dis)order. to deny this is to raise the social scientist above the everyday person, as the enlightened voice who can speak for others; as god. hello neo-colonialism. but we're all there, feet on the ground, walking through the mess that we study (even if we don't officially study). and these spaces, these experiences, bristle with contradiction.

these men seemed to think they have a crucial role in protecting the edifice that is the university, or rather, its knowledge foundations. we need to know, explain and understand everything. we need to no longer 'obfuscate' (word of the day) with theory. we need simplicity. there's a Wittgensteinian thread here, which I like, but the use of his theory seems pretty fucked up. as i understand it, Wittgenstein was of the everyday, and looked to 'ordinary language' - or the language of the day - because this gets us closer to the experiences we speak of. this might be seen as simplification, but i doubt it. because his work is complex, and this premise does not deny the shifting roles and use of language - 'the language games' that we're all engaged in. but these 5 men seemed to suggest that we should stop obsessing about language. upon the linguistic turn (as much as i hate that expression) they look away, towards their own certainties about how things really are and why it matters to say so. their foundations are being eroded and they're clearly threatened. old men on comfortable salaries with books published (which are partly motivated by the threat of being made intellectually redundant). which must suck, i'm sure. and it must be hard to be wedged so tightly by your beliefs in pure knowledge that you find yourself being challenged from all levels, including the 'bluffing' essays of students.

which is another point i wanted to interject on. perhaps we read different Wittgenstiens, but isn't bluffing part of our language games? isn't this a tactic (as per Certeau, inspired by Wittgenstein's language games) that we all engage in, whether undergrad students appealing to what the tutor wants, a postgrad student pre-empting the desires of a marker, or the academic going for an ARC grant? we're all bluffing! this is how we practice competence (as per Lyotard - another name I dare not mention). we are all 'poaching' (Certeau) - be it from theory, from data, or the people, things, and ideas around us that can elevate us, or better position us, or just get us laid - whatever it is we want. we are at play. how can we not laugh at the stupid things we do in these games? surely if you believe that this is significant and crucial (and far from game-playing), and a question of value, then maybe you deserve to fall with your sandstone castle.

or maybe it's okay to believe that something is significant and crucial. obviously some things are. like efforts to stop war, famine, suffering. values have a significant function in interrupting such events, as do institutions that can elevate us in making demands for change. but still, pure knowledge is not going to work on its own, only as one of many tactics, within language games, to get what is wanted.

oh man, how did i get here? oh that's right. famine was mentioned too, as a valuable concern, by the guy who dissed Latour and contradiction. and i guess i'm suggesting that because i believe in contradiction i'm not relegating myself to a relativist impasse where anything goes. my belief in contradiction has a political agenda. and that's a politics of practice which extends beyond (though also through) what i read and write (and my use of theory). more so, it relates to how i read and write. and somewhere in there is a need for not only contradiction, but obfuscation too.

in regard to obfuscating language, perhaps the task of coherence can be portioned to readers as well as writers. but that's another rant for later. until then, long live dead authors!

keeping the pace

this week i give my words to thesis, marking, writing a paper, but not here. there have been many moments of wanting to write here, something for myself. because here is the only space that feels entirely mine. but these moments are undercut by the rising pressure of urgent tasks. and all is urgent (except for this). but of course, nothing is urgent. i just go along with pretending it is because that makes things easier for me down the track; it ensures my 'productivity'. i am but a machine. the most i aim for is to have a little style and rhythm in my mechanical procedure. to which i thank music, the current tempo of the home space, and lefebvre, whose Rhythmanalysis arrived in the mail this week. says henri:

Spontaneously, each of us has our preferences, references, frequencies; each must appreciate rhythms by referring them to oneself, one's heart or breathing, but also to one's hours of work, of rest, of waking and of sleep. (page 10)

watching men

feeling a bit tired and overwhelmed by stuff today. i'd planned to be at uni writing my chapter, but i'm still at home. reading things, sending emails, responding to students and text messages, and now i write here. still no chapter. i'll make a list, go for a walk, come back and try again.

i have in mind zine projects, essays, and other adventures unrelated to my chapter. i still want to write on i am love. i've much to say and want to crystallise my experience of it, before i forget. i also want to write an essay/response to emma's nearly healthy zine. an amazing read that has me unsettled (in a good way) and needing to, again, process my response.

i have two birthdays to attend tonight, and still not sure how to manage this. tempted to turn my phone off and hide in bed instead.

in the meantime, an anecdote from yesterday:

in the pool change room there are 3 boys, blokey and loud, filling the room with their voices. i undress and dress quickly. i swim. when showering in a cubicle i hear the booming voices return. opening the cubicle door, towel around waist, soap bottle in hand, there they are: 5 boys in a row, each under their own shower, all wearing long shorts, all looking at me. but what is that look?

usually in this setting, the look is discreet. nakedness creates silence. or queer, furtive glances; often indirect, sometimes through mirrors. i often notice the queers by the way they look, and because i sometimes look in those ways. i can't deny noticing a nicely shaped arse, or body hair that i want to caress. but the queer glances are often shameful, and the tendency is to mostly look down, away, or at the wall. or a mutual queerness might bring eyes together; a mutual eye-caress. perhaps intensified, or cut short, by the danger of the situation. for this is not a gay sauna and there are straight men around, such as the men who travel in packs. so we look down, dress quickly, pretend we don't care.

and the seemingly straight men don't look. but the 5 boys, filling the space with wide bodies and deep voices, look directly at me. intensely, yet not sexually. they are free to look at anyone - queers, women, other men - directly, and without fear, for they constitute some monolithic beast who can eye-fuck without it being sexual. yet, perhaps a sexuality is played out here not between the look and the object, but between the mutual looking; between the 5 men. they fuck each other through me (and everyone else they look through). their bonds solidify, they spread into each other, they flood the room in these gestures of oneness.

walking back to my desk i notice them ahead of me. they walk in a line, nobody ahead of the others. they fill the width of a road. they walk with their knees slightly pointed outward, feet apart, taking up more space. but is it just about space? if i want to channel the likes of hocquenghem (which i do), i might say that this walk is about sealing their bodies, and unconsciously displaying a fear of anal penetration (turn your knees outward, and you'll see what i mean).

their gaze, their voice, their walk - somewhat alien, but so very familiar.

I killed Xavier Dolan...

It happened not too far into the film - I Killed My Mother - when he referenced Truffaut's 400 Blows; possibly my favourite film. But Hubert is no Antoine Doinel. He's the Lady Gaga version - a cheap reference that doesn't do much but signal the fact that Dolan has seen Truffaut. A nod, a signal, a claim to credibility through association and reference. Perhaps it's one of his favourites too. But if so, surely his engagement would be more interesting than this. But it's as though Dolan said "That's a really cool film, and I'd like to reference it in my film, so maybe I'll take 3 or 4 of my favourite aspects and add them to my groundbreaking film about an angsty, queer teenager". Hence, this is Gaga film-making. It is 'littered' with references to other texts on mothers/sons, but does not engage with them in any substantial way. Superficial. Pretending to be smart from using quotes from 'smart books'. We all did that when we were teenagers I suppose. And I know intertextuality can create amazing new fictions - Almodovar's All About My Mother comes to mind - but it is not done here.

My friends liked it. But for me, this was a posing, overly self-conscious, film-school text. It expressed its self-consciousness not only through its littered (disconnected) referencing practices, but its pretentious framing and filming techniques. And really, who cares? Unlike Antoine, Hubert had no resonance. I forget him already. He yelled a lot. He screamed and moaned. He was angsty, but without texture. In short, he's dead. There were no moments where our eyes met and I said "Yes, I know this story". Antoine however, breathes. The collaboration of Truffaut's words, Antoine's character, Leaud's acting, and the characters encircling him, give a series of eruptions where Antoine and I fold into each other. This is not about directly relating to his situation - my situation is no more similar to Antoine's than it is to Hubert's - it's about connection to his struggles before me. I didn't care for Hubert and his situation. Perhaps I was also too aware that Hubert was acted by Dolan, so my hatred manifested in both of them, equally. Surely if I'd connected, I wouldn't have had time to think about the Dolan/Hubert dyad in the first place. But he robbed me of my time and patience. I contemplated walking out.

I know that for a first film made by an 18 year old that this is pretty spectacular. But I can't really care. As a text, for me, it fails. I can't like this, and I don't feel the need to make allowances. Of course, my reaction is fielded by my love of Antoine. It's kind of like a hipster band covering a David Bowie song - it just wouldn't work for me. It lacks respect, engagement, dialogue between (and through) texts. And yeah, I know I'm the old man at the back of the room grumbling about the lack of respect, the arrogance, the precociousness of Dolan and his ilk, but so be it.

bodily evacuations

I gave this paper at the Open Fields conference in April. I just put in on a blog and thought of a bunch of people I could send the link to. But I won't, because I no longer like it.

I think at the time, for me, it was a certain point of reflection that was necessary. A crystallisation. A realisation of the undercurrents of my personal writing and where this intercepts with my research. A statement that needed to be made in order to move on.

With distance I'm critical of it as a text, which reads like it's trying to say something profound, but does not. There's no crescendo. As a pastiche of musings plucked from a year of writing, and with no linear narrative, it cannot. That wasn't the intention. But when I approach it as a detached reader, I look for this, and I'm disappointed.

As a reader, I prefer this blog with its more recent, less tempered, words.

Some anecdotes:

Friday: i find myself in bed with D. we're both surprised. he touches the bruise: "what's that?" "a love bite". we continue to fuck. it's too quick, there's not enough kissing. he apologises for cumming. i apologise for bleeding. i lend him a book and send him on his way. E comes over; my room smells of sex; i dress for the party.

Tuesday: i'm offered food and wine before the lecture. red wine, veg curry pies, guacamole and corn chips. he speaks about the sensorial turn in cultural studies. i'd not heard this phrase before but it rings true. everyone's talking about touch and hearing and the non-visual experiencing of things. but i wonder... why is this so unsatisfying? why do we find it compelling to address these things in our speech and our writing (always and only through language)? in academic papers and in blogs? what's missing? i guess it's the body. the further we extend the field of inquiry into the body, its organs, its senses, the more we can say about it, as though it were not really us. the more we lose sight of blood, skin, gristle, flesh, shit. maybe i'd like to stop talking about my feelings in ways that might limit them, or guide them, as though i can know them and how to use them. the pursuit of knowledge is a blinding sport of detachment (whether the subject is bodies or not).

wednesday: the second class is wrapping up and i really need to piss. i cross my legs. one leg inches higher up the other, i lean forward, crushing myself and the need to piss. but it doesn't subside. i keep talking. (shut up, leave the room, go piss.) class ends and there's a flood of students asking questions. they're telling me which weeks they'd like to present, asking about the tutorial paper. they're confused. i'm confused. they become more confused. i need to go. speaking faster, pointing more and more at the reader - it's all in the there! flipping pages. clear? is that clear? okay, great, next. finally the last student leaves. she wanted week 10 but everyone jumped in before her. whatever. it's yours. done. bye. i shove everything in my bag, and i leave. doors and steps later, the piss flows. it's a moment of absolute pleasure.

shape shifting

whingeing is boring. nobody needs to read that last post. nor do they need to know that i've just waited 30 minutes in a freezing cold bus shelter for the last bus. or how late it was. nor do they want to watch me unfurl my insecurities around ever being able to finish this phd.

it's raining. i'm simmering in a vat of self-doubt, wondering if i'm such a fuck-up that a simple impolite email can bring me undone. and i need to get out. to imagine myself elsewhere. a woman in china in 85 CE, in fact.

i'm one of few women who can read. my mother has put Ban Zhao's Nujie (Lessons for Women) on my bed. It's cold and raining, so i bury myself in blankets and i read...

Let a woman modestly yield to others; let her respect others; let her put others first, herself last. Should she do something good, let her not mention it; should she do something bad let her not deny it. Let her bear disgrace; let her even endure when others speak or do evil to her. Always let her seem to tremble and to fear. When a woman follows such maxims as these then she may be said to humble herself before others.

and so i come to learn the art of humility, silence, servitude, endurance.

the bus driver smiled at me and the other angry passengers. i wanted to smile back at her but couldn't. two seats forward a young straight couple are kissing; repeatedly pecking away at each other. i want to smash them. but i don't. because i'm practicing restraint, humility, submission. i find myself in a quiet place. i meditate on my own faults. silence is my power. not speaking. not judging. not wishing them dead. i look down. i write this essay with a steady hand and a slow, perfect, heartbeat. anger is of no use. consistent politeness and servitude is. silence will take me there. words unspoken need not suffocate me. but restlessness will.

Let her live in purity and quietness of spirit, and attend to her own affairs.

To counteract firmness nothing equals compliance.

fuck you fuck you fuck you

so i sent an email saying that as i have a postgrad review in august i expect not to need one in november. i say that i'm about to book a trip abroad for all of november.

so she sends an email that says:

Regardless of whether we have a follow-up review in August... you also need to have your annual review in November and this is not negotiable, so you need to book your trip either before or after the review.

I am sorry if this seem inflexible but you have not idea how difficult it is to get all the appropriate people in the room at the same time.

Kind regards
[name]

it's been a long day, and this makes me want to punch a wall. "sorry if this seems inflexible"? fuck you. it doesn't seem it, it is inflexible. it's ridiculous. the days you ask me to be available are November 16-18 - middle of the fucking month. November is my only holiday option. a holiday is my only impetus to keep working like your fucking slave. so fuck you entirely. argh!

i think i'll respond more cordially after a good night's sleep.

or maybe i'll just book my flight tonight. oops. sorry. au revoir!