#i do not academically endorse a perspective on this

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Something about Matt being so absolutely brutal on the battlefield is strangely satisfying to me.

GOD RIGHT? The disconnect between who Matt is and what he's good at gives me such brain rot. He's not a good person! There's this disconnect between French and Anglo and between perception and reality that just drives me up a wall with fascination. How the culture that produced me went from the ghouls who haunted the northern border to uwu polite anglo's and sexy but weak French Canadians just ??? I've talked about this before so it might be annoying but it's incredible how it's even possible. And the way it was done largely by American media??? New Englanders were scared shitless by French Canadians even after British conquest and American independence. Why are the trees speaking French? A New England militiaman might have asked. And the answer is a French boarding axe through the back of the skull. Matt doesn't like to think about it, he wants to have that idealism and decency Alfred sticks to as a man if not as an entity but when hammer strikes anvil, he doesn't give a shit about what he has to do. He will live another day. When it comes down to the wire, MAtt doesn't give a shit if he's fighting for the French or the British or the Americans because La survivance is the best whetstone he could ask for. Francis didn't do shit for Matt his entire life and it was nothing but what Canada could give between Matt and the reaper's scythe for most of his life. Matt can be downright cruel, much less efficient!

[butchhamlet]

i said i was going to arrange a list of my favorite articles/criticism about shakespeare, so here’s my first little roundup! obligatory disclaimer that i don’t necessarily agree with or endorse every single point of view in each word of these articles, but they scratch my brain. will add to this list as i continue reading, and feel free to add your own favorites in the reblogs! :]

essays

Is Shakespeare For Everyone? by Austin Tichenor (a basic examination of that question)

Interrogating the Shakespeare System by Madeline Sayet (counterpoint/parallel to the above; on Shakespeare’s place in, and status as, imperialism)

Shakespeare in the Bush by Laura Bohannan (also a good parallel to the above; on whether Shakespeare is really culturally “universal”)

The Unified Theory of Ophelia: On Women, Writing, and Mental Illness ("I was trying to make sense of the different ways men and women related to Ophelia. Women seemed to invoke her like a patron saint; men seemed mostly interested in fetishizing her flowery, waterlogged corpse.”)

Hamlet Is a Suicide Text—It’s Time to Teach It Like One (on teaching shakespeare plays about suicide to high schoolers)

Commuting With Shylock by Dara Horn (on listening to MoV with a ten-year-old son, as modern jewish people, to look at that eternal question of Is This Play Antisemitic?)

All That Glisters is Not Gold (NPR episode, on whether it’s possible to perform othello, taming of the shrew, & merchant to do good instead of harm)

academic articles

the Norton Shakespeare’s intro to the Merchant of Venice (apologies about the highlights here; they are not mine; i scanned this from my rented copy)

the Norton Shakespeare’s intro to Henry the Fourth part 1 (and apologies for the angled page scans on this one; see above)

Richard II: A Modern Perspective by Harry Berger Jr (this is the article that made me understand richard ii)

Hamlet’s Older Brother (“Hamlet and Prince Hal are in the same situation, the distinction resting roughly on the difference between the problem of killing a king and the problem of becoming one. ... Hamlet is literature’s Mona Lisa, and Hal is the preliminary study for it.”)

Egyptian Queens and Male Reviewers: Sexist Attitudes in Antony & Cleopatra Criticism (about more than just reviewers; my favorite deconstruction of shakespeare’s cleopatra in general)

Strange Flesh: Antony and Cleopatra and the Story of the Dissolving Warrior (“If Troilus and Cressida is [Shakespeare’s] vision of a world in which masculinity must be enacted in order to exist, Antony and Cleopatra is his vision of a world in which masculinity not only must be enacted, but simply cannot be enacted, his vision of a world in which this particular performance has broken down.”)

misc

Elegy of Fortinbras by Zbigniew Herbert (poem that makes me fucking insane)

Dirtbag Henry IV (what it sounds like.)

Cleopatra and Antony by Linda Bamber (what if a&c... was good.)

[qqueenofhades]

Hey! I just found your blog and followed yesterday. Came for the fact that you're the only other person in this webbed site actually say out loud that they liked Biden, stayed for the hope and determination and perspective. Anyway just wanted to introduce myself and I hope you're coping well!

Hello and welcome to you and the other sudden flood of followers that I got after yesterday's event. I'm glad to have you and hope you are all in on the project of Kicking Fascism In The Shriveled Testicles 2024, American Edition. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

Biden was not my first choice (far from it) in the 2020 primary process, but when it became clear that he was going to win the nomination, I supported him early and often. Trust me, this was not a popular position, and it remains so, but so be it. By any reasonable metric, he is the most progressive president we have ever had, it is a crying shame that the media is so beholden to the Trump Teat of Drama that they gave him such a kid-gloved free pass and ratfucked Biden instead, and it makes me worry, a lot, for American democracy. I have always gotten a lot of "you support everything Biden has done so you're awful and going to hell!!!" messages, because this sure is a Webbed Site Where We Piss On the Poor, and like -- I don't. I had major disagreements with Biden, especially on foreign policy! But because I apparently did not performatively self-flagellate myself in every post about how awful he was but maybe I guess vote for him anyway, that got some people very mad! It's also true that there's literally nobody in the world anywhere, especially and including in Palestine, that would benefit from Trump becoming president again! Especially since Biden at the NATO summit recently and explicitly endorsed progress on the ceasefire framework he has been pushing for several months! So unfortunately, we live in a society where shitty choices are necessary, and that is part of being a grownup!

....anyway. Deep breaths. Rant for later. Glad you're here. I have been desperately trying to Not Politic for a bit, since doing so on social media in the year of our lord 2024 is a recipe for swift insanity, but the world keeps taking a large dump directly on those plans, and I guess someone's gotta do it. In more normal times (OH LORD WHEN), you can expect history (I am an academic by trade), random posts, various asks, and sometimes a great deal of fanfic for assorted blorbos, though the Horrors have done a number on that and I am also working on an original fantasy trilogy at the moment. (Still deciding whether I should bother trying to agent it or just publish it on Amazon/Lulu/etc.) I have turned off anon for the moment because otherwise my inbox would be a nightmare beyond comprehension, but I do generally enjoy talking about things and/or answering them as much as I can. I am old, queer, tired, fueled by coffee and spite, have been politically conscious since the first Bush Jr. term and have therefore seen all the Anti Voting nonsense before (quick thought: if it was going to deliver the perfect Leftist Messiah and/or stop a flawed candidate from becoming president, don't you think it would have done so by now?) So yes. Welcome again and I hope you will enjoy (if that is the right word for it) your stay.

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

Some people need to understand queer coding opens character identities and relationships up to a solid queer interpretation, but that doesn’t equal “this character 100% fits my headcanon and if you disagree you’re a [REDACTED]”

From a literary analysis perspective, as long as your interpretation is reasonably evidence-based it’s valid. As this is fandom, I’d add “sincere” to that since unlike an academic setting we get bad faith actors but that’s it.

So, to have a valid “interpretation” you have to do the work in good faith, and you have to be able point at the text to support your interpretation. If you can’t, or don’t want to, that’s a headcanon, and it’s totally fine.

“But this character is a lesbian she likes a girl!” There’s more to queerness than straight and gay. You could reasonably interpret a girl who likes another girl as plenty of different things:

Lesbian

Bi

Ace/aro and something else

Straight and closeted trans

Straight and lover is closeted trans

And so on.

So when you have an interpretation, someone might tell you, “I think this other thing.” The polite way to handle this if you don’t like it is to say “that’s so cool we can see different things in the ambiguity of art”. Maybe blocking each other if you dislike their interpretation that much.

That’s of course unless you both want a debate to further refine your understanding of the text or just like to argue or whatever. Which is fine! As long as it’s not overly bitter or whatever, it’s fun to discuss.

“So how do I know which interpretation is more canon than another?”

See, that’s the thing, you can’t. Canon is kind of shaky in the first place. The canon is just what’s written that’s recognized as true/correct text, not the way to understand it (and not what the author says is true, some people take Word of God as canon because it allows the following of one concrete interpretation instead of acknowledging multiple, but strictly speaking it is not). You can only interpret the canon.

For example, 4-komas bonuses of serialized manga are usually non-canon because they are jokes and not meant to be taken seriously as a part of the story’s text. That’s what canon actually is for, originally it’s to talk about which books are genuinely part of the Bible and which are to be deemed offshoots that shouldn’t be taken as a Catholic Church-endorsed religious text.

I guess that’s what gets people confused? That there’s no actual truth to imagined worlds, only what happens in the eyes of the beholder when they interact with art?

Because that’s what it means, canon often has nothing to do with who’s “actually a lesbian” short of them saying it directly. An onscreen wedding is said to “make a couple canon” precisely because there’s only so many ways you can interpret a wedding, but all that means is that the text says they’re together at a point in time. One way I can think of having a canon sexuality would be a canonical character sheet, or an omniscient narrator saying so, but everything less is basically an interpretation.

Note that interpretation obviousness can go from “that’s a stretch but I like it”, to “you only need eyes to see it”, they’re both still interpreting. Even a character talking sexuality technically only makes canon that they’re willing to say so, but that’s when critical thinking comes in.

If you hear a character say “I’m a married lesbian” and think “they’re just confused” with no evidence, you look like an idiot. You absolutely can argue which interpretation is more valid or likely by pointing out inconsistencies, stretched evidence, or that one interpretation has a higher volume of evidence/etc. This is how you avoid relativism and “nothing the text says matters” trolls.

Occam’s Razor is another way you might be tempted to try and determine whose thesis is stronger. This technique works through figuring out which interpretation requires the least amount of assumptions (saying something arbitrary is true as a basis) but it doesn’t make anything canon, or more interesting, it’s not a concrete sign of superiority. Just means it has stronger fondations.

However… your interpretation being stronger, more popular, better worded etc. or you thinking someone else’s is immoral, stupid, etc. doesn’t give you license to be a bully, to call people names, to dox them, dig up dirt to make them look worse, and so on and so forth. Thinking you’re right and they’re wrong does not make you above basic respect, politeness, or consequences. You’re not better than everyone else.

As a child, I used to think I was always right because I was logical, and I clearly made logical sense so there was no way for there to be a logical reasoning that arrived at a different conclusion. (Newsflash: Child me was very wrong! Sometimes multiple things can be equally valid! And even if they were not equal, that didn’t give me license to deride people publicly!)

Queer coding is by its nature interpretative. Coding is the author leaving hints about their characters by using a “code”. Some hints, almost everyone in your section of fandom might have the exact same interpretation about. Some hints might be dead obvious. Some hints might leave you overjoyed. Some hints you might ignore because they make you uncomfortable.

Some people will disagree with you about how they interpret the coding, or might even just state that they believe people have a right to interpret the canon however they want, even in ways you don’t like. That is normal. That is not a threat to your interpretation.

Don’t be a petty cunt about it.

Essentially,

[janmisali]

Hi Mitch,

My name is Joey and I'm a PhD candidate in linguistics at the University of Arizona with focus in semantics. I really like your video on /hj. Like, really really like it. So much so that I am currently planning to write a pre-dissertation prelim investigating the semantics and pragmatics of half-joking from a formal perspective (using scoreboard theory, if you're hip). I think I've got some really cool insights that both you and the academic publishing circuit might want to hear.

My question is this: I understand you're cool with derivative works given proper citation. But when it comes to citing you, how would you prefer I do it? I could be minimal, saying "Inspired by [this video](link)," or just put you in the acknowledgements. My ideal attribution, though, would be to go more in-depth, giving a little bio description of you as a youtuber with an interest linguistics and a [insert degree? in linguistics here]. I also wanted to ask if it was ok if I framed your video from the neuroatypical angle-- "misali, an autistic creator describes their frustration with interpreting half-joking statements and gives several semantic definitions . . . etc." I feel that it could be meaningful to attribute such deep pragmatic introspection to a unique neuroatypical perspective.

Just to be upfront, I will be problematizing your definitions given, but it's much more of a yes-and then a well, actually. Very academic. I also will of course give you advanced access before it's submitted for publication or even review.

Please do let me know. You can either respond here or at my professional email joeybalke@arizona.edu.

Thanks for your time,

-Joey

oh, you have my enthusiastic support to do this. this is a wonderful idea

to answer your specific question, a standard academic citation would be sufficient of course ("Misali, jan" is technically incorrect but so funny that I endorse formatting it this way regardless), but if you also want to include a bio then, one, I have no formal linguistics education or degree of any kind, and two, it is appropriate and I'd say very relevant to mention that the video comes from an autistic perspective.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I have no idea if any religious texts explain this or not but when I have a world that has reincarnation in it, how does it explain increases in population and where all the new people come from if they aren't a reincarnation of a previous dead person? Obviously any religion never explains everything and clearly so many things are contradictive, but it might be a bit more important in my story when there is a lot of science that explains things. In my story, reincarnations are also a science and one important invention they have is a high-tech machine that can probe someone's mind/soul that can identify many of someone's previous lives. I'm not sure how to go about though with explanations. Obviously it will need a lot of handwaving. Now, this only happens with humans. I understand that real life religion people reincarnate as animals and so many other realms of existence but this is not true of my world. A part of my story focuses on researching to find the earliest known reincarnation.

Tex: How do they define a soul? How is this defined in relation to consciousness? If there’s the belief that there can only be one soul per body, does this inform their cultural norms on reproduction? Do certain people and their families have a higher priority on who’s allowed to reproduce, because of this? How restrictive would this be, and who and how actually enforce these rules?

Both religion and science are means of communicating to a culture on a mass scale, and because of that there will be inconsistencies in how this information is conveyed and the ability for the average lay person to understand what this information is, and its finer nuances.

Because of this, simply replacing one mode of communication about How The World Works ™ is not going to magically increase literacy on a subject, nor make anyone more likely to adhere to something. It’s the reason why religion leverages indoctrination tactics as a core part of its message - obtaining loyal followers requires a lot of work, and a risk/reward ratio to ensure compliance to a particular ideology. Filing off the identifying words and replacing them with different ones does not change the underlying perception of a “new” message.

Science, historically, has been just as politically-aligned as religion, because both have been deeply connected to money. How your world will define a soul, and consciousness, and how it ranks who gets to have what, will inevitably follow the papertrail that is money - it’s up to you how much of an economy to include, and what concepts like equality and egalitarianism look like in your world.

Licorice: This sounds to me like a question the scientists in your world would be busy exploring. In fact, from a narrative perspective, I think it would be more interesting if this were an aspect of reincarnation that they themselves did not understand yet. They could have many different theories floating around, different schools of thought endorsed by rival academic cliques. 

In our world it is often the case that scientists devise practical applications for natural phenomena that they don’t yet fully understand. They’re not sure why it works yet, but they know that it does. So it would be perfectly possible for your scientists to have plenty of unanswered questions about reincarnation, while at the same time inventing a machine that can read people’s past lives. 

For example, does reincarnation in their world operate like a parking garage, where no new cars can enter until a space becomes available? No new babies can be born until a body dies and frees up a soul? If this were the case, how would human beings deal with it? Would people remain pregnant for months or even years, waiting for a newly-liberated soul to enter the foetus so it can become a person and be born? Or would it not be possible to get pregnant at all unless a soul was available? In that case, might people who were desperate to have a child go out and murder randos? Would older members of the community be encouraged to hurry up and recycle their souls? 

Or maybe we can go the Philip Pullman route and argue that souls are made of Dust - space dust, star dust, magic dust, what have you - free-floating in the universe, which can be attracted to your earth by a variety of means. 

Or maybe they have actual gods in this world who simply create more souls as required. 

It would also be interesting to know what social distinctions - classes, if you will - might be created based on one’s soul level. For example, do souls that have undergone a certain number of reincarnations enjoy higher social status? More rights? Or maybe more responsibilities?

Another possibility is that souls can split, like amoebas, if they cultivate enough mana or whatever. Perhaps society is structured around ways of encouraging people to do this?

And finally, in your world, is there any end to the cycle of reincarnation? And is this something to be desired, or avoided?

I think you have a really neat idea there with a huge amount of potential. 

[brybryby]

Hi hi! So I’ve been outlining a Video Essay to inspect Outlast’s portrayal of the relationship between US capitalism and queerness (along with immigration/xenophobia due to Trials coming up) and…

…I was initially going to keep it private within my IG circle, but after spending hours searching up academic articles and master’s theses discussing heteronormativity and social theory—as well as revisiting textbooks from the few philosophy and gender/racial studies courses I took from university—I’ve decided that I’d like to share here also!

It’s in the process, but I want to put a lot of care into it since JT Petty’s writing is incredibly interesting to me, while also dissecting the material from a brown, queer perspective and being someone who was born/raised in the US from a family of immigrants. (I’m not trying to push an “agenda”, but I think my background is a pretty good reflection of where my values lie lol). Another reason I’m putting a lot of care into this is because I understand that the franchise’s narratives and stories get into intensely heavy topics/themes, and it would pain me if I were to misinterpret and/or cast certain plots in such a way that is unfair, ignorant, harmful, and overall awful.

Because of this, I’d like to open up this post and my DMs to any constructive conversation surrounding these themes in the games/comics! I’ll be posting questions & argument points gradually so feel free to wait to discuss in the specifics in those.

A huge reason I’m doing this is because a lot of people who know me irl know I hyperfixate on this franchise, and I fear that their surface level interpretation of that would just be chalked up to me liking/endorsing f-ed up stuff (which I adamantly say is NOT the case—I think we all know that a dissection of horrors and traumatic events can be therapeutic and empowering). With the video essay, I want to explain that my hyperfixation is related to the nuanced themes in the narratives, especially regarding gender/queerness and social theory.

Plus it’s been a while since I’ve written something in an academic-style with citations, peer analysis, etc.! I forget how enriching it can be.

I’ll admit that I’m not a very opinionated person (and I think I tend to error on being critical of my own opinions). My ultimate goal here is to spread empathy and share a wide variety of perspectives from many backgrounds. Additionally, I respect JT Petty for being so daring to tackle heavy/“taboo” themes in film, cinema, etc. and I want to show my appreciation. I’m not necessarily endorsing anything—instead, I’d like to understand the stories as an art, understand it’s intentions, and inspect how it affects different communities.

Plus I think this video essay process will be fun! Idk, I hope this doesn’t come off as self-righteous or anything LOL—or maybe it does so please make fun of me, I need to be humbled.

Alrighty, thanks y’all. Hope you have a fantastic rest of your day/night!

[hero-israel]

https://www.tumblr.com/her-moth/726167324355444736/from-saids-invention-memory-and-place-2000?source=share

I’ve become interested in the figure of Edward Said, a Palestinian-American academic and activist who more or less coined the terms/studies/activism/etc of Orientalism and Post-Colonialism, both terms I find deeply important and which I apply to my leftist Zionism, something I’m sure he and his followers would strongly oppose. On that topic, I’m looking into some of his anti-Zionist (though I’m sure it’s more nuanced than that) work, both to broaden my perspective and because I’m much more willing to listen to a Palestinian who lived in historical Palestine before and after Israel’s establishment as opposed to a modern Westerner. I’ll admit, he has plenty of valid critiques of Zionism and movements he associates with it, though there are of course elements I disagree with. One point he made that really bothered me however (shown in the above linked screenshot) is, while comparing European Jewish Zionists to the Crusaders (partially valid but for the most part 😬) and the medieval European imagined environment of the land Jesus lived and died in as “denatured Palestine”; “after hundreds of years of living in Europe Zionist Jews could still feel that Palestine had stood in time and was theirs, again despite millennia of history and the presence of actual inhabitants.”

I agree the terra nullius mindset many Zionists and Zionist allies had (and sometimes still have, about history or the present to justify settlements, war, and discriminational policies) was awful and a horrific and regrettable way to begin Israel, but I really hate how Said just wastes no breath lumping Jews in with powerful European Christians and maybe subtly implying an acceptance that Jews are from there but ultimately just leaving it as “Tough tiddy, you’ve been gone too long, you should’ve stayed in your diaspora forever” with so little consideration that the Jews did not fit in Europe, nor could they survive there, and they needed some place their heritage was. Obviously this is just a manifestation, perhaps inspiration, for the notion that Jews don’t deserve return from diaspora, no matter the cost, but Palestinians do, and this not only a double standard but the first one is apparently the direct cause and justification for the second. Idk, I just wish Said would be a little more considerate or something.

That's the frustrating thing about Said. The man could write, and he would often home in on a decent, poignant comment - and then he would derail it with some ridiculous rabble-rousing bullshit about how Jews were the agents of European imperialism, or how Israel is constantly hoaxing archeology. He tried to pass himself off as a victimized Palestinian refugee, when he was born a privileged American citizen and spent his formative years in Cairo.

The Tumblr post you provided shows Said's frustration that people get so caught up in symbolic mythical Jerusalem that they forget or don't care it's an actual place where people live real lives. And that's a totally fair point! Co-signed! And then he ruins it by whitewashing Jewish history. His perspective that "before the Jews came, there were ACTUAL inhabitants there" is nothing less than a purported anti-colonialist / anti-imperialist giving an implicit endorsement of the Ottoman Empire. Which is less surprising when you remember he also gave EXPLICIT endorsement of the Ottoman Empire.

He was honest enough to admit that his preferred outcome for Palestine would put Jews in danger. I co-sign that too.

[f1ghtsoftly]

Lesbians I love all of you but for the love of god please stop voting for politicians, volunteering for organizations and just generally carrying water for any movement that endorses trans ideology. It is conversion therapy. These people, whether they are manipulated into it or not, all are saying 1.) masculine women should become men and 2.) the lesbians that remain are obligated to have sex with men or “give them a chance”.

If the past 10 years have taught us anything it’s that the only people who have our backs is us and the rare militant bi or straight woman. Put them before anything and don’t compromise for shit. You will never, ever get that energy back. Especially from any organization that men are in.

The amount of compliance that this movement has found among women’s studies academics, feminist organizations, gay male communities, socialist and communist organizations (even if trans ideology contradicts materialism like directly), anti racist organizations etc etc…is LITERALLY sickening. When it came time, everyone fell in line. And it will hit lesbians hardest for the longest. And nobody gives a fuck.

A huge swath of lesbians my age will have transitioned at least partially. How will that affect us in 10 years? 20 years? Do you think those organizations will apologize once it becomes undeniable taking T is actually dangerous for female bodies? They won’t. They’ll hop onto the next homophobic trend and they will still expect lesbians to do the dirty work.

I think it’s easy for us to live in denial that this has really happened, especially if we are stealth in our waking lives, and believe that the left still has our interests at heart but this is…I think a really naïve perspective. Established adults in the early 2000s and 2010s knew on some level what they were doing. A small group of predatory activists, doctors and academics manipulated an entire generation of teenage lesbians into hurting themselves in ways that are irreparable, and will get worse as they age and *plenty* of older LGBT and feminist adults not only understood the consequences but *allowed* us to be collateral damage so they can keep their wealth and power. They knew stopping this would be a big fight, they knew they would lose ground if they stood with gays and lesbians and they knew this was conversion therapy. They fell in line anyways.

When I say separatism is an imperative for this generation this is ^ these events that I think about most strongly. The more we give our time and energy to organizations that are not women aligned the more power they have to control us and to hurt us. Many academics and cultural leaders made a choice to sell out the young people who identified as trans because they felt their lives work were on the line and they knew that the power structure demanded their submission.

It is clear lesbians as a group are not protected by male society. Not by their families, their friends, not by educational or intellectual leaders, not by businesses, not in the arts or in any aspect of public life. Our only viable shot for creating a world where this cannot happen again is to focus on supporting each other and building our own power and institutions, as independent as possible from men because this hatred will take new forms yes, but as long as males dominate society we will be persecuted, erased and hurt, merely for the crime of being ourselves.

We need to do this quickly and aggressively because things are set to continue to get worse and we are very, very easy scapegoats for social problems. The more actual unconditional power we can grab for ourselves the better we as a community will be able to withstand the challenges now and in the future. The less likely another generation of young lesbians will grow up hating themselves, feeling victimized and with no one to turn to.

[sizablelad]

the hbomb video has inspired me to think a lot about the video essay culture on youtube and, in general, the academic institution of Queer Theory. there's a lot to be said about how Queer Theory as an academic pursuit has a very different and much more rapid ascent to prominence than a lot of other disciplines that affects the work done in it today. a badillion scholars, particularly scholars of color who because of their positionality might recognize these things out of the isolation of Queer academia, are presently discussing the state of Queer Theory as an academic pursuit and what the goals of this research can/should be, but that's a huge and complicated topic that others know more about.

at a more basic level, i feel like the sheer popularity of the video essay format as academic scholarship but for the Masses has inspired a lot of people without the basic training on how to do research to do research. i mean i'm only a frackin undergrad, but in high school i participated in a program specifically designed to teach us the basic foundation of how to do quality original research. and, simply put, it's a lot less glamorous and a lot more rigorous than people realize (including me-- i've only had a taste of what this research involves from a program that obviously has a limited scope; also only from a humanities perspective). there's a really important part at the very beginning of your research when you figure out the gap, then scope of your research. you have an idea of "oh this topic interests me and i think i want to add to the knowledge around it" and then you figure out a gap in the research that could be addressed by your own research. so i was interesting in queer characters and the potential differences when queer characters are written by queer authors vs non queer authors. so then you conduct a literature review to find out, okay, what research has been done on this topic? what has already been done, how useful would my perspective be on this research, what hasn't been addressed, how can i adjust my research goals so that i am not just conducting a review of others' research, but adding something new to the field. which, conducting a literature review and stopping there is fine! that's okay! but that is different from a goal of doing original research which says something new, and doing that requires a very symbiotic process of review and adjustment between your own research goals and the reality of the research that's already been done.

so i guess in a case like somerton's, he might genuinely want to add something to the field. maybe he loves the ideas he talks about and wants to be like the people that put those ideas to paper. but either he doesn't know how to do research so he gets stuck at doing a historical literature review, or is embarrassed that he might be "not as smart" as the community of people he admires and wants to be a part of, or maybe he just wants to make a quick buck. i don't know. but even if that's the case, him and people like him have demonstrated that they do have the skills to at least find past research, so why not just acknowledge the reality of what you're doing and say "hey look at this research i found and find interesting, i'm going to introduce you, my audience, to these people's work" and emphasize collaborations with the people who's work you're talking about. like with the internet historian video, obviously the video was very well done and funny and enjoyable to watch, and his methodology is different from someone like illuminaughtii's content mill production, which obviously requires a way different approach. what would've headed the WHOLE thing off is if he reached out to the og journalist and said "i read your article and am thinking about doing a video on it, want to endorse (.....and profit from) it?" but that would be assuming a lot of these people are good faith actors, which they aren't.

i don't really know what my point is here. maybe experts in their field are experts for a reason? the academic institution and it's scholarship have it's problems (boy does it), but at least there's processes in place to ensure academic integrity? the video essay as a genre is a cursed hellscape that is a great idea in theory but has been taken over by bad faith actors? misinformation is a plague partially perpetuated by people claiming they act in good faith and audiences can't be expected to constantly be on alert for the myriad of ways creators can take the good will of their audiences and manipulate it for their own personal agendas?

on a side note, this is why (at least, during my more intense youtube days) i tended to be suspicious of youtubers who would either 1) make a lot of research-intensive essays about a lot of different topics in a relatively short amount of time, or 2) make videos about things completely unrelated to their background. i have a hard time believing that jimbob the youtuber was able to become an expert and produce high quality of research in a topic they'd never previously publicly expressed knowledge or interest in. obviously there are exceptions, but with the proliferation and popularity of the video essay it seems like the well has been poisoned in that so many bad faith actors, realizing it's potential, have entered and been proven as bad actors on the video essay scene that it's impossible to see it as a genre with blanket integrity. i don't know the exact history of the genre, but i have to believe that this was not nearly as big a problem as it was before now.

[grandhotelabyss]

Thoughts on Kantbot? Do you think his shift in views and people he associates with is a cynical move or an organic development? (i. e. he met his wife and his social circle changed so he gained new perspective or just had to appeal other people)

I haven't kept up with him in years. A viscerally unpleasant character, smug and nasty. I just checked—he hasn't changed. If I understand the shift in his views correctly, and I'm not sure I do, he's provided a different set of answers, now materialist and information-based where once they were idealist and affect-based, to the same set of questions about how modern power and consciousness operates. He was telling people to read Lukács and Habermas when I stopped reading him; this, too, is completing the system of German Idealism, very explicitly in Lukács's case:

In Section II of this essay we discussed Kant’s view of the ontological proof of God’s existence, of the problem of existence and thought, and we quoted his very logical argument to the effect that if existence were a true predicate, then “I could not say that precisely the object of my concept exists.” Kant was being very consistent when he denied this. At the same time it is clear that from the standpoint of the proletariat the empirically given reality of the objects does dissolve into processes and tendencies; this process is no single, unrepeatable tearing of the veil that masks the process but the unbroken alternation of ossification, contradiction and movement; and thus the proletariat represents the true reality, namely the tendencies of history awakening into consciousness. We must therefore conclude that Kant’s seemingly paradoxical statement is a precise description of what actually follows from every functionally correct action of the proletariat.

But I don't know nearly as much about any of that as he does, and I never could read Kant, even though, from my first semester of college straight through my orals in grad school, they kept making me read Kant. "Who cares?" he always demands, now seeing culture, I gather, as epiphenomenal to esoteric economic manipulation. He seems like a true academic in his soul: a genius-level ability to synthesize extraordinary quantities of information coupled with endless reserves of pettiness and spite rendering this intelligence irrelevant. If you demand of someone who hasn't even addressed you, "Who cares?," then you're the one who cares, perhaps inordinately. I doubt his change of views is cynically motivated, though. You really can work your way honestly through your intellectual concerns and only realize later what your mental traversal implies of a practical political shift. Also, those guys are always darkly hinting at what they saw behind the scenes of the far right, the involvement of big money and intelligence agencies, I assume, and, since you have me re-investigating, he just re-X'd this, for example—

—and has endorsed the lib-media-is-promoting-BAP theory, which I have also come to believe (twice now they've done an "exposé" on him just before he releases a book)—

—and, as I have never succeeded in attracting the support of big money and intelligence agencies myself, I will take their word for it. I'll leave you with a sincerepost in conclusion:

I'm sure he believes this; I do too, but how we get from here to there is unfathomably complicated given the world we have co-created around us, and I don't pretend to know all the determinants that have landed us in this dilemma nor all the determinants it would require to get us out.

[schraubd]

Why Does DEI Make Good Free Speech Advocates Go Bad?

Keith Whittington, Princeton professor and chief of the Academic Freedom Alliance, has been reviewing various state-level attacks on academic freedom. Today he visits Texas, which has a trio of bills under consideration that all put public universities under their sights in various ways. Whittington is generally skeptical of all these proposals, but he does have kind things to say about portions of one of the proposed laws, SB17.

That bill would shift greater authority to the university boards of trustees, would prohibit the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring, and would abolish the activities of diversity, equity and inclusion administrators. A similar prohibition was adopted as an appropriation rider in the House. Violating the DEI ban can be a cause for terminating even tenured members of the faculty. The bill would also require state universities to adopt as part of their mission statements a set of pledges regarding intellectual freedom, including a commitment to "viewpoint diversity" and "institutional neutrality."

[...]

From my perspective, the DEI ban and the institutional commitments are all to the good in enhancing the intellectual freedom on college campuses. The potential penalty for faculty who violate the DEI ban is worrisome, however, in both its chilling effect and its unjustified expansion of the bases upon which tenured professors can be terminated.

(Whittington also raises the alarm about shifting review power to the boards of trustees).

I want to flag Whittington's claim that the DEI ban is "all to the good" (even if, perhaps, too draconian in its enforcement mechanisms). It is not all to the good! It is very bad, and pointedly, it's very bad for reasons that Whittington identifies elsewhere in his post! This is yet another example of how the anti-DEI obsession amongst some "free speech" advocates has caused them to endorse policies and practices whose impingement on academic freedom would otherwise be nakedly obvious.

Among the things prohibited by this part of SB17, universities would be prohibited from soliciting or acting on any statement regarding an applicants "views on, experience with, or past or planned contributions to efforts involving diversity, equity, and inclusion, marginalized groups, antiracism, social justice, or views on or experience with race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or other immutable characteristics."

As a constitutional law professor whose work focuses significantly on questions of race, equity, inclusion, and so on, I shudder to think how an interview with me would go if the hiring committee were forbidden from asking about or considering my views on these topics. What, exactly, would we talk about -- the Dodgers? And while for someone in my shoes there is an obvious relationship between the banned topics and my disciplinary work, there are also areas where this is germane for professors of any academic affiliation -- most notably, in discussions of pedagogy. As I've written before, it cannot be the case that university actors are forbidden from caring about questions like "will the job candidate do a good job creating an equitable and inclusive environment for our diverse academic community?" But SB17 strongly suggests that such concerns would, in fact, be legally proscribed.*

This is why I've written before regarding how anti-DEI bans are inevitably academic freedom trainwrecks. They're justified as checks against "compelled speech", but in practice they serve (and intentionally so) as massive chills on important facets of academic conversation. And the thing is, Whittington is well aware of the mechanics here -- he explains them ably in his critique of the companion SB16 bill. SB16 purports to forbid professors from "compel[ling] or attempt[ing] to compel" an enrolled student "to adopt a belief that any race, sex, or ethnicity or social, political, or religious belief is inherently superior to any other race, sex, ethnicity, or belief." Here's what Whittington says to that proposal:

It would likely chill classroom speech as faculty try to avoid any appearance of compelling belief on various sensitive topics routinely discussed in college classrooms. To the extent that the law simply codifies the constitutional prohibition on compelled speech, then it accomplishes little other than attempting to chill speech. To the extent that it might be interpreted to prohibit professors from advocating certain views in the classroom or requiring students to correctly describe and analyze such views in their coursework, then it will invite controversy. Not hard to imagine students complaining that a professor attempted to compel them to believe that, for example capitalism is superior to socialism by assigning them to write an essay with that premise.

Emphasis added, because that's the rub. If it's just an attempt to forbid compelled speech -- someone being forced to swear allegiance to a particular ideological framework -- it's redundant except for its knock-on chilling effect. But of course, the law isn't just about the specific "compelled speech" case -- it is designed to and inevitably will curtail very normal academic conversations.

Yet this exact same problem besets the DEI ban. If it's just about forbidding a requirement that prospective professors genuflect before a graven image of Derrick Bell as part of the application process, then it's unnecessary and only serves to create an additional halo of chilling effect. But SB17's DEI ban doesn't "just" do that; it by its term stretches to cover any "statement" on matters of diversity, equity, inclusion, race, or other like topics -- topics that a hiring committee regularly and appropriately should be considering. For example, as someone who has served on a hiring committee, I very much want to be able to inquire into whether (to pick a recent example) a candidate openly believes Jews should never be hired again. It is important and good that a person like that not get hired; I absolutely can and should be giving preference to candidates who do not take that sort of view! And more broadly, we can and should be able to consider and debate over whether given candidates will do a good a job facilitating an effective academic and pedagogical environment for diverse communities. That's normal, and that's salutary, and that would likely be either forbidden or at least significantly chilled by application of Texas' proposed DEI ban.

Again, the logic for why the DEI ban is problematic is contained in Whittington's own post. He should be able to spot it, and yet it says that the provision (absent the penalty provisions) is "all to the good." FIRE went through the same thing a few weeks ago, drafting a trainwreck proposal against DEI statements that -- were it on any other topic -- FIRE would be screaming bloody murder about the obvious academic freedom impingements. Something about the DEI issue is corrupting free speech advocates, causing them endorse obvious violations and ignore flagrant threats. They're going to need to address this blindspot sooner rather than later, because this fever doesn't seem to be going away.

* SB17 has a provision that exempts requests for information regarding "pedagogical approaches or experience with students with learning disabilities." That narrow and highly specific carveout strongly suggests that inquiring generally how a prospective professor would seek to facilitate an effective and inclusive classroom environment for students of diverse backgrounds would now be verboten.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/bO1oDRU

[lettersiarrange]

Kind of surprised I have to make this post, but as a PSA, I don't agree 100% with everything I reblog

Sometimes I reblog things because I think they're an interesting perspective I hadn't considered before, but want to think more about. Sometimes I reblog things because I agree with the overall point even if I disagree with the phrasing of some things or minor points. Sometimes I reblog things I'm still making up my mind about, but that I thought added value to a conversation. Sometimes I reblog things whose ideology I align with but that take a completely different approach than I would.

I'm not going to write out a whole thesis in the tags on every post about which sentences I agree with and which I don't. I think if you've been following me for a while you know my values and what I'm about, and it's fair to assume that perspectives that show up over and over again are things I really do fully agree with. I'm never going to reblog something I fully or mostly disagree with without commentary making that clear, but if I see a post that makes a good point but that I have some more nuanced feelings about during my Mindless Scrolling Time, I might reblog it without putting on my Academic Hat and deconstructing every bit of it in my reblog. Maybe I'll bring it up to a friend irl later if I have a lot of Thoughts.

The only thing you should assume I agree with 100% without question are posts I write myself. And even then, if the post is more than a year old, I may have grown and changed some of my opinions since then.

Just wanted to put that out there because I've gotten a few asks recently that say something to the effect of "I can't believe you really think x" (referring to a post I thought had an interesting perspective I hadn't seen articulated in that way before), or "wooww, [quotes a line from a post that's referring to a specific approach I wouldn't take, but respect the right of other people to]". Like sorry but if you have an issue with the way a post is written or the choices of the person writing the post, consider taking that to the OP??

If you want to come into my askbox and start a conversation in good faith abt something, that's fine. Please do definitely tell me if you feel like I've reblogged something that's part of a broader context that doesn't seem in line with my values but that you think I probably am not aware of. Ie, I reblogged a post with terfy undertones without realizing, or I reblog something that I think is just being critical of the government but is actually contextually part of an anti-voting strategy/discourse. It's ok to say "hey I was surprised to see that on your blog, I didn't think that aligned with your values"-- maybe I'm missing context or am still figuring out how I feel and would welcome other perspectives.

But I'm not going to take responsibility for how other people phrase things or the choices they make with regards to how they live their values/politics. People coming into my askbox mad about one sentence of a post I reblogged, assuming I agree with the post 100% and would say that myself, without making an effort to educate/discuss in good faith, will be ignored.

Surprise surprise, reading something and thinking it would be valuable for other people to read too is not the same thing as endorsing the entire text uncritically by default.

If you want to know how I actually feel about something, feel free to politely ask.

[kyogre-blue]

Doing Golden Slumber on my alt for... furnishing reasons, mostly. 

Surprising that wind gliders seem to not be an international thing? Yes, the desert has long flat stretches, but there’s a lot of cliffs too, so you’d think the eremites would be familiar with them. And no, you don’t need a Vision to operate one. Former ill girl Anna in Mondstadt gets a gliding license after becoming an adventurer, and she’s just an NPC. 

This, combined with how Tirzad’s sister worked on the Scarlet Sand Slate, which is also the same research that Jebrael’s wife was pursuing (with the same slate??) made me sure that they’d turn out to be the same person. I am still shocked that this isn’t the case. 

I wonder if that was the plan originally but the writer changed it later? 

Given how Jeht is dragged into the Tanit mess because she has nowhere else to go, I suppose they couldn’t have given her this long-lost relative on the side while still barreling into that plot. Tirzad is a spineless little weaner, but tbh I think he’d still be better than the Tanit. 

(fun fact I just found out from the wiki: Jeht is mentioned in some notes you can find in 3.6, which says she’s formed her own mercenary group to hunt down that blind dude from the falcon world quest. That’s something, I suppose, though not really the direction I’d want for her)

I missed screenshotting this in-game because I’m buttonmashing most of the time, but I did a double-take when I processed this properly. 

The traveler has a backpack?? And that’s where we’re keeping our carrots and cabbages? 

Combined with Venti citing no pockets as a reason for why he misplaced his invitation during Irodori and Enjou knowing how much mint we’re carrying around, it seems like the thing with characters being able to pull out stuff (including weapons) from some pocket dimension is not an actual thing that exists in Teyvat and is rather just a player-only visual shorthand. 

Well, not that you can entirely trust quests to correctly give worldbuilding details. See: GAA 1 Paimon not knowing what waypoints are until you activate one on the island, while in the very next patch, Katheryne cites you using them to teleport around as an obvious thing. 

This is so weird to me, in light of Dirge of Bilqis. 

Look at this thoughtful, gentle perspective on the desert. Jeht loves it, she loves the sand and sees hope in the desert. Look at the significance she gives Benben. Look at how kind she is even to Tirzad. 

I know you can say that her time with the Tanit made her change, but it just doesn’t feel like two parts of the same story. 

I really, really wonder if Jeht was not originally part of the Tanit plotline and got written into it at a fairly late point for some reason. Maybe she replaced a separate character that was originally supposed to be a new NPC? There’s several reasons I could imagine as to why this might have been decided on...

But I suppose there’s no way to know. 

At the start of the quest, Tirzad refused to even consider taking opinions from non-academics, so he’s... slowly growing... VERY slowly. (This is at the double pyramid, so still only like halfway through.)

One thing I do like is that Paimon and Traveler are very able to call out that Tirzad is annoying and just plain wrong. Jeht and Jebrael don’t hold back either, and Jeht is the one who is generally portrayed as the middle ground, “correct” option in the NPC group, so this is pretty much writer-endorsed. 

This is really nice compared to Liloupar in Dirge, who gets maybe a couple half-hearted admonishments about calling everyone servants or worse and suggesting they should be in chains. 

Seriously, how are these two quests supposed to be two parts of one story...

I wouldn’t call Golden Slumber unapologetically hard-hitting, but it’s obvious enough with what it shows that you can’t call it accidental. It definitely wanted to say that academics steal from native people and are barely different from Treasure Hoarders in the worst case, that they make unfounded assumptions and refuse to consider any alternative perspectives, that they are prejudiced against native people, rude and entitled... Seriously, this is spelled out directly. 

It’s a hell of a thing, compared to Dirge of Bilqis and the Tanit. Man. 

Anyway, I got the furnishing I wanted, so we’ll see how much I manage to progress after this. 

[opiatemasses]

Athlete welfare and the mental challenge

We all know that professional athletes are in the top tier of sportspeople in the world. They possess natural talent that has been nurtured and coached over time, which is now on show at the highest level. Athletes are some of the  hardest working people, striving to achieve to be the best. However, from this  questions arise: how do athletes compare the physical challenge to the mental challenge, and how does abuse and harassment impact on this?

Example

There are a number of different issues to explore. The first of these relates to a woman called Mary Cain.

Photo credit: https://gen.medium.com/it-will-take-female-coaches-to-protect-the-next-mary-cain-a0edf5ad9538

To understand some of the contest, watch the video below. 

In short, Mary Cain was one of the best up-and-coming track and field athletes in the world. She got an offer to join the Nike Oregon project from Alberto Salazar who at the time was the number one track and field coach. She had future aspirations to be the world’s best female athlete, but was instead abused by Alberto Salazar with endorsement from Nike. Some of the things she experienced included:

Dangerous levels of weight loss

Her period had stopped

Publicly humiliated

Got weighed in front of her teammates to hit a target of 114 lbs

Alongside these, Cain had to deal with severe mental health challenges as well as the physical demands of the sport and training. 

To add to this illustrative example. there are a number of other news articles which have interviews from other athletes talking about their mental health and the challenges they have faced. To see a short list, which includes some other examples see here: 12 athletes who have spoken up about their mental health

Facts and statistics

Thinking more broadly about mental wellbeing, here are some non-sport related statistics: 

The World Health Organisation stated in 2015 that an estimated 350 million people worldwide are experiencing depression or have had depression in their life

1 In 4 people are affected by mental health in any year

It is recognised as a significant public health issue

Linked to levels of functioning and work/performance

What the above illustrates is that mental health is a challenge which can affect anyone, as well as how commonplace it is. It is widely acknowledged that if someone is stressed or struggling with their mental health, a good stimulant to stop this is by taking part in physical activity or exercise. This can include both team or individual sports as well. In my case, anything I worry or stress about I love to take it out on the rugby pitch, whether it be tackling or running. It’s fun and you feel amazing at the end.

Below includes some more information on the potential mental health benefits of participating in sport and the WHO website to learn more about mental wellbeing.

World Health Organization (WHO)

10 mental benefits of sport

However, for professional athletes this might not be the same. 

Research has suggested that “athletes may be more predisposed than the general population to depression, because of the physical and psychological demands placed on them by the sporting environment. Stress is associated with depression and is inherent In the life of an athlete.” 

Taking this into consideration, this perspective provides a counterpoint, referring to the physical and psychological challenges athletes experience and so  participating in sport may also create different challenges to add to the stress already there. It also mentions that athletes could have higher levels of mental ill-health in comparison to the general population. 

Some potential reasons for this have been explored by Parham (1993). These are: 

Academic challenges

Social and leisure challenges

Challenge to succeed

Health and injury challenges

When fans stop cheering

Contextual parameters

These factors are especially particular for young athletes just like Mary Cain. They may struggle to have time to learn, struggle to meet people and have relatively little time to themselves to relax. They are always being pushed to succeed to the top level while trying to stay in peak physical shape and without injury. They are also trying to impress fans or family who support them and may respond negatively if they under-performed. Finally, it is important to recognise the background to every performer and their upbringing or other challenges they have to face alongside the stress of being an athlete.

So that begs the question, what can be done to help athletes both novice and experienced? There are many different coping methods that can be used instead of sport to provide the same effects. 

The first is meditation. Many well-known athletes including Michael Jordon use meditation. It is used to relax participants, improve mental clarity and self control.  

Another coping strategy is imagery. This can be used to increase mental stimulation and can also be used to improve performance as athletes can imagine themselves in a situation in their sport completing a task to maybe win a game or score crucial points. 

More methods of coping can be found at Oregonsportnews.com. 

Additionally, another way to help is to donate or read about the Mental Health Foundation. They have a page linked here which is specifically related to athletes.

N0918704

[cosmicanger]

Delving into the discourse at hand, I posit an examination of the perils inherent within the realm of the arts under the pervasive influence of neoliberalism. An illustrative case emerges wherein a fair-skinned, non-black Palestinian artist receives what can be construed as a token recognition, owing to the absence of institutional endorsement from museums or academic establishments. This acknowledgment serves as a makeshift consolation, as the artist, previously poised to become the first Palestinian artist to feature in a retrospective within the United States, encountered an abrupt cancellation of her showcase. Unspoken, yet palpable, is the rationale behind this recognition—a byproduct of the Venice Biennale's theme, 'Foreigners Everywhere,' which, regrettably, precluded the provision of a pavilion for Palestine, thereby compelling many Palestinian artists to exhibit outside the confines of the Biennale. To broach the subject of whether Samia Halaby ought to have rescinded her invitation and exhibited in solidarity alongside her compatriots remains a taboo. Equally taboo is the candid acknowledgment that the works which clinched the Biennale prizes lacked substantive significance, instead prioritizing the reinforcement of the hegemony of whiteness within the Biennale's framework, thereby diluting the purported essence of its thematic narrative amidst global tumult. Curiously absent from the award ceremony were masks, those facing extreme, violent circumstances or facing detention can masks but most Biennale attendees and awardees do not. Furthermore, the disconcerting reality persists wherein a non-black artist's creation bearing the title 'Black is Beautiful' garners far greater patronage and acclaim than comparable works espousing identical sentiments by Black artists themselves. This disconcerting phenomenon underscores the pervasive reluctance within the artistic community to vocalize dissenting perspectives, such as the one articulated herein, for fear of societal censure or professional repercussions.