(no subject)
In case anyone's interested: The full version of my take on Catherynne M. Valente's Silently and Very Fast read in the light of Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto is here - The Crown of Being.
The breaking of taboos is really the core of what Elefsis is, and why it relates so powerfully to Haraway’s cyborg: Elefsis is essentially transgressive in almost every important respect. Every aspect of its existence is the violation of a rule. This, for Haraway, is a great deal of what a cyborg is: a total overturning of an established order of meaning, understanding, and identity. Cyborgs are transgressive; that’s why they’re so powerful:
There is no drive in cyborgs to produce total theory, but there is an intimate experience of boundaries, their construction and deconstruction. There is a myth system waiting to become a political language to ground one way of looking at science and technology and challenging the informatics of domination- in order to act potently.
For Haraway and Valente both, this transgression is not something that is consciously done - it’s merely an artifact of something being what it is.
For cyborgs the only verb that matters is to be.
Cat Valente called it "an amazing piece of critical work" so I was kind of over the moon about that, a little.
The rest of life... I don't fucking know. Not so great at the moment. Not sure why. I was so pumped after comps, even with the exhaustion, and I'm still really having a hard time picking myself back up and being motivated about anything. Even writing is hard a lot of the time right now. I'm about 45k words into my dystopian angel novel and I'm still pushing through it but it's in that awful fuzzy stage where I'm not clear on where I started or on where I'm going--this is despite the fact that this is the most completely plotted long work I've yet written. I'd hit this point regardless, because guess what, this is just what writing books is actually like, but it's being made worse by the fact that I'm generally fuzzy anyway.
I have a dissertation proposal draft that I've barely looked at. I have a paper to revise, possibly split into two papers, and submit. And I just. Can't.
I know a depressive period when I hit it. I know them well enough to know that I'll come out of it and be okay. But right now I feel like all the shit I should be working on is slipping away from me and I'm frankly worried about the state things will be in when I really feel like I can function at peak efficiency again.
And honestly? I'm sort of wondering what three years of a really demanding graduate program has done to my brain.
I'm looking seriously at going on the job market next summer, even if it's just putting out feelers. I don't want an R1 job (God, please, no). I don't even necessarily want a tenure track job. I want A Job, preferably somewhere far away from the Mid-Atlantic region of the country. Preferably somewhere where I don't feel like I'm just kind of getting by until something better happens. But that's not going to go well if I don't get my shit together.
I feel weird complaining about this, given that I can at least fake a high degree of functionality most of the time. I guess to a lot of people I look like I'm doing fine. But this last semester I've felt like the mask slipped away and I'm not sure what the hell I'm doing anymore. Why am I here? What am I ultimately hoping to get out of this? Three years ago I went into grad school at least in part because I was literally unemployable almost everywhere else and there was no fucking way I was going back to temping or retail. Now I have an MA, I'm officially a PhD candidate (the paperwork finally went through), and I still feel sort of like I'm just faking it because I can't cut it out in the Real World.
I don't believe in the Real World, by the way. Not anymore.
It's very weird to feel like I'm failing at living up to standards that don't actually exist.
I believe in sociology. I believe it's really important, beyond a job. I still feel that when I teach--which is something I'm still sure I enjoy and which I'm still fairly sure I'm sort of good at. I'm closing my final Social Problems class today with this quote from Audre Lorde:
Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in the days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all: self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position.
I believe in that. I believe this is important, necessary work.
And I believe in stories, because I know I'm good at those, and I know I love them--right now I'm pretty sure I love them more than anything else I do. Even when they're hard and every word is something I have to struggle for.
And I believe that there's a lot less distance between the two primary things I do than there might appear to be. I'm just not sure yet how it all fits together.
Figuring Things Out is something else I don't believe in anymore, incidentally.
This entry was originally posted (with
comments) at my Dreamwidth.
The breaking of taboos is really the core of what Elefsis is, and why it relates so powerfully to Haraway’s cyborg: Elefsis is essentially transgressive in almost every important respect. Every aspect of its existence is the violation of a rule. This, for Haraway, is a great deal of what a cyborg is: a total overturning of an established order of meaning, understanding, and identity. Cyborgs are transgressive; that’s why they’re so powerful:
There is no drive in cyborgs to produce total theory, but there is an intimate experience of boundaries, their construction and deconstruction. There is a myth system waiting to become a political language to ground one way of looking at science and technology and challenging the informatics of domination- in order to act potently.
For Haraway and Valente both, this transgression is not something that is consciously done - it’s merely an artifact of something being what it is.
For cyborgs the only verb that matters is to be.
Cat Valente called it "an amazing piece of critical work" so I was kind of over the moon about that, a little.
The rest of life... I don't fucking know. Not so great at the moment. Not sure why. I was so pumped after comps, even with the exhaustion, and I'm still really having a hard time picking myself back up and being motivated about anything. Even writing is hard a lot of the time right now. I'm about 45k words into my dystopian angel novel and I'm still pushing through it but it's in that awful fuzzy stage where I'm not clear on where I started or on where I'm going--this is despite the fact that this is the most completely plotted long work I've yet written. I'd hit this point regardless, because guess what, this is just what writing books is actually like, but it's being made worse by the fact that I'm generally fuzzy anyway.
I have a dissertation proposal draft that I've barely looked at. I have a paper to revise, possibly split into two papers, and submit. And I just. Can't.
I know a depressive period when I hit it. I know them well enough to know that I'll come out of it and be okay. But right now I feel like all the shit I should be working on is slipping away from me and I'm frankly worried about the state things will be in when I really feel like I can function at peak efficiency again.
And honestly? I'm sort of wondering what three years of a really demanding graduate program has done to my brain.
I'm looking seriously at going on the job market next summer, even if it's just putting out feelers. I don't want an R1 job (God, please, no). I don't even necessarily want a tenure track job. I want A Job, preferably somewhere far away from the Mid-Atlantic region of the country. Preferably somewhere where I don't feel like I'm just kind of getting by until something better happens. But that's not going to go well if I don't get my shit together.
I feel weird complaining about this, given that I can at least fake a high degree of functionality most of the time. I guess to a lot of people I look like I'm doing fine. But this last semester I've felt like the mask slipped away and I'm not sure what the hell I'm doing anymore. Why am I here? What am I ultimately hoping to get out of this? Three years ago I went into grad school at least in part because I was literally unemployable almost everywhere else and there was no fucking way I was going back to temping or retail. Now I have an MA, I'm officially a PhD candidate (the paperwork finally went through), and I still feel sort of like I'm just faking it because I can't cut it out in the Real World.
I don't believe in the Real World, by the way. Not anymore.
It's very weird to feel like I'm failing at living up to standards that don't actually exist.
I believe in sociology. I believe it's really important, beyond a job. I still feel that when I teach--which is something I'm still sure I enjoy and which I'm still fairly sure I'm sort of good at. I'm closing my final Social Problems class today with this quote from Audre Lorde:
Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in the days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all: self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position.
I believe in that. I believe this is important, necessary work.
And I believe in stories, because I know I'm good at those, and I know I love them--right now I'm pretty sure I love them more than anything else I do. Even when they're hard and every word is something I have to struggle for.
And I believe that there's a lot less distance between the two primary things I do than there might appear to be. I'm just not sure yet how it all fits together.
Figuring Things Out is something else I don't believe in anymore, incidentally.
This entry was originally posted (with
comments) at my Dreamwidth.