The Grotesque, The Abject, The Body.

[mrzachyboy]

Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto
-Terence

Nothing human disgusts me...unless its unkind, violent.
-Hannah Jelkes in Tennessee Williams's Night at the Blue Iguana.It is curious that our culture is so obsessed with excess in the world outside of ourselves. Big food, big cars, big

Comments

[mrzachyboy]

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. How are things lately?

[mrzachyboy]

Yeah, I graduated in June. Woot! I am still in Bellingham. I start Western's MA program this fall, and I will be teaching English 101. It is all scary and exciting. I need school to start, though. I need a distraction from the Hell that was this summer.

[evilweevil04]

You are brilliant. 8D

[mrzachyboy]

takes one to know one. ;-)

[hippybear]

This is a very interesting post for me to read at this point in my life, for a lot of reasons

[mrzachyboy]

Thank you for reading, hippybear. The "bear community" is definitely an interesting case, and I am glad that you bring it up. Its celebration of excess, of male flesh and body hair, provides a counter to much of the gay community and much of society in general. Several really good books have been written about the bear community and its philosophical foundations. Along with the celebration of size and fur, the bear community grew out of a rejection of a new commodity culture. As our commodity culture began to see gay men as consumers with disposable income, more and more images of gay men were provided through media outlets, and an incredible range of grooming products and new fashion industry came with it. A new (gay) masculinity was created and marketed. "Bears," not fitting in with this new image of the ideal man, rejected it, returning to an older concept of masuclinity

[hippybear]

Okay, now I feel like I need to give a big WTF

[mrzachyboy]

I feel like the tone of my comment is consistent with the tone of my post, and it is the way that I would talk in person, to be honest. It wasn't my intention adopt a some sort of formal air or to be condescending. Though technically I was responding to a comment that you made, I think of comments as extensions of the original post. My comment was as much about expanding my own thoughts as it was about responding to you. You brining up the "bear community" allowed me to consider it in terms of what I was already discussing. Though responding to you, I realize that with formats like blogs, other people will read the comments. Though you may know a great deal about the bear community, other people that happen across my journal may not. And, it wasn't my intention to "explain the bear community"; it was to talk about a couple specific aspects of its development--its relationship to commodity culture and to notions of beauty and the grotesque.

[hippybear]

Part II

[ladyoracle]

Kristeva's theory on abjection was a cornerstone of my diss, so I love to see her get a mention in lj world. Most blog entries of course don't include citations lol, but totally bravo. I enjoyed this introspection. Very Montaigne. And totally true because I detest to have the wetness of sweat apparent on my clothes, even in places where it's unavoidable and happens to everyone else, too.

[mrzachyboy]

I really love Kristeva, and I should have talked more about her theory of abjection because it is so beautiful. I really would have needed to discuss Lacan to talk about her, though, and I should probably try to keep my lj posts to fairly manageable sizes. haha.

I love Kristeva's discussion of chora/khora, too.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I really appreciate it.