[Linganth] It turns out that Jane Hill is white(!)
William Leap
wlm at american.edu
Sat Feb 7 10:00:32 UTC 2015
Mark, "theory" doesnt "....try to differentiate its language from
everyday terms... " It is people that do that. And that question of
agency and responsibility -- may be the central to the discussion here. .
We have been struggling with this issue for some years at the Lavender
Languages conference. how to talk about sexual transgression and sexual
"difference" [different from what ? ] without falling deeply into an
esoteric vocabulary that few understand and fewer value. .
Conversations with the media about queer linguistics -- try it !
Hegemonies of whiteness and related issues are on the program.,
Join us next week (Feb 13-15, 2015) ,
www.american.edu/cas/anthropology/lavender-languages
Wlm L. Leap
Professor, Department of Anthropology, American University, Washington DC
20016
Co-editor, Journal of Language and Sexuality
http://www.benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/jls
"It is not very hard to silence us, but that is not because we cannot
speak." -- a Bengali villager once remarked to Nobel prize winning
economist Amartya Sen (The Argumentative Indian, Picador Books, 2005:
xiii)
"Don't be a drag, just be a queen." Lady Gaga
From: "Peterson, Mark" <petersm2 at miamioh.edu>
To: Frank Bechter <fbechter at gmail.com>,
Cc: "Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group
\(LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org\)"
<LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: 02/06/2015 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Linganth] It turns out that Jane Hill is white(!)
Sent by: "Linganth" <linganth-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>
That's true Frank, but it is also strategic. Critical theory often tries
to differentiate its language from everyday terms because those terms are
weighted by their associations with positions the scholars are trying to
critique. This kind of alienating vocabulary is common in any science
where specialized vocabularies emerge. But when media coverage of physics
or chemistry occurs, the media producers generally seek to translate the
concepts for their audiences. Here, they were deliberately making use of
Malinowski's "coefficient of weirdness" to make the discourse alienating.
Mark Allen Peterson
Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology
& Professor, International Studies Program
120 Upham Hall
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
513 529-5018
petersm2 at miamiOH.edu
www.connectedincairo.com
On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Frank Bechter <fbechter at gmail.com> wrote:
Critical scholars, take a critical look at your own discursive practices.
If the question is how to get the helpful message across, be willing to
see your own bad chess moves. We see in this piece,
http://jezebel.com/watch-these-two-white-ladies-freak-out-about-asus-white-1681368338
, that Fox leads with a string of specific words -- indeed, a string of
specific *types* of words -- found in the *course description* of the
disputed course, U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness:
"... postcolonialist, psychoanalytic, deconstructionist, feminist, new
historicist." The anchor omits the lead phrase, "Major critical schools of
recent decades," so as to make the wash of hyper-intellectual terms as
incoherent as possible. They are as alienating as possible, thus allowing
any construal of "whiteness" or "problem" to fly. One cannot stop Fox and
misguided students from selectively omitting phrases, but one should
wonder whether the string of words that Fox did latch onto for its own
purposes are actually helpful in any other way, i.e., in the goal of
greater critical awareness in the world at large, or especially in a
course description. If your goal is to equip students with tools to fight
institutional racism and disenfranchisement, these terms are not helpful.
They are not tools. To the contrary, they -- especially when you rattle
them off all in a row -- are the very discursive forms which can ensure,
in the minds of many readers, your complete irrelevance and hauteur. To
me, they ensure that you probably don't know what you're talking about. If
critical scholarship is to be useful in the world (which, of course, need
not be its function), then hit hard in your advertisements of it, explain
any big term you use, or simply don't use it. Realize what you're up
against. If a wash of such terms actually attracts select students and
colleagues who are content to have this discourse remain provincial,
consider how many more you will attract with terms that are designed to
arrest a much bigger audience, which hopefully is the real goal.
Frank Bechter
Charlottesville, VA
On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 12:00 PM, Matthew Bernius <mbernius at gmail.com>
wrote:
On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Peterson, Mark <petersm2 at miamioh.edu>
wrote:
What we think of as "objective" journalism evolved in a particular
historical and economic context. Before that, it was not at all uncommon
to have the Republican and Democratic newspapers in the same city, each
sniping at different targets the other supported.
And to that point, when one looks at the entire history of American
Journalism, the "objective period" (which I'd argue we are approaching the
end of) is more of a historical anachronism rather than the norm. To
Mark's point, the reality is that the Fox News approach is, in many
respects, closer to the traditional form of the press.
Great discussion all,
- Matt
-----------------------------
Matthew Bernius
mBernius at gMail.com | http://www.mattbernius.com | @mattBernius
My calendar: http://bit.ly/hNWEII
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