Our real first gay president – Salon.com
How mustaches and beards relate to gay presidents and racism is still an open question. I mean, I get it. But really? Nevertheless, it was an interesting article.
Our real first gay president – Salon.com.
Thoughts on Article from The Chronicle: Cultural-Studies Journal Gets Revamped
The conversation around the role of academics in public life is intriguing. My own inclination is to practice writing in multiple genres, from the most abstruse academic article or monograph, to forms of creative nonfiction and journalism. While some writing certainly calls for jargon and complex sentence structure (Derrida’s writing, at least the English translations I’ve read, comes to mind), often academic writing unnecessarily complicates for the sake of throwing up a smoke screen to popular criticism. Academic writing is impoverished of the short sentence. Many writers are wont to throw in unnecessary clauses.
There might be something else going on as well. Those who draw on critical theories and philosophies of the last 60 years often use them as tools (as Ken Rufo always says), rather than as discourse to engage. When you plop a theory down on the page, cite the author, and then move on to a discussion of the theory’s “application” in the domain of your investigation, you are suddenly disenfranchising the majority of readers. What’s more, that theory might be relatively easy to explain (at least in rough terms) in a paragraph or two, which would allow the educated reader to follow your argument. Some nuance is lost, but does someone really have to read de Certeau, Foucault, or Bourdieu before they read any of your work? Can’t you say something that is comprehensible outside of their terms?
I love reading philosophy. The intense thinking-work has, for me, become a dopamine bath. There’s no doubt that I have trained my brain to enjoy that kind of thinking, and so I appreciate writing that is hard to read. So, I am in no way saying that there is never a time or place for philosophy and theory (note: I’m still confused on the difference between these). But, the audience for that kind of writing is small. That’s okay. Thinking and ethical engagement with the world doesn’t require one to read particular philosophies (though, I think an earnest effort to understand most thought will lead inevitably to the underlying philosophical assumptions a thinker makes). The point is: we can write for an educated and engaged public without trying to beat them over the head with what we’ve read.
Rhetoric and Media Studies: Communion and Disjuncture
As I approach my doctoral program, I am working to situate myself in and between a number of fields, namely, rhetoric, media and technology studies (which includes media historiography and intersects with Science and Technology Studies), and pedagogy. Here, I’d like to think through the relations between the first two, described broadly as rhetoric and media studies.
Comparing and contrasting academic fields can involve juxtaposing research topics and questions, philosophical or theoretical underpinnings (ontologies, epistemologies, axiologies), and research methods (quant. vs. qualit., rhetorical inquiry, archival, historiographical). Rather than undertake a cataloging of this sort, I’d like to articulate what my goals are, and then attempt to situate them within these academic fields.
The Geography of Government Benefits – Interactive Map – NYTimes.com
I find it interesting that the “red states,” where many decry the expansion of government, are reaping the benefits of these horrible, socialist programs. Of course, this is always the ironic aspect to the politics of government. There is a group of people who seem to vote against their own self-interest, largely based on the myths of freedom and individualism, as well as xenophobic rhetorics.
The Geography of Government Benefits – Interactive Map – NYTimes.com.
