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Wisdom from brain disjunction
Jun. 11th, 2002 07:48 pmBits and pieces of semi-waking, semi-sleeping dream while under the influences of migraine and migraine drugs:
I remember being in a bar, with presumably peer level academics, and being asked to explain my critical perspective. From the bits I can remember, "post structural but not postmodern, and making ample use of structuralism, Marxist informed, and with an acute awareness of liminality, but not gender or queer studies per se". Someone asked me about the gender and queer bits (probably because it's the most titillating, or something).
"No, I'm not into gender studies because I don't privelege those categories, and don't want to give the appearance of naturalizing, or buying in to the naturalization, of artificial categories." This led to stupid questions that attempted to categorize me, probably unconsciously.
"I like lots of things; I don't see why only one thing should be preeminent in my self definition. What if I liked dark hair, or light skin? We don't make categories for people based on those criteria, but we do based on the genitals they seem to like best? That's just silly. While I tend to like girly types, I don't consider myself a lesbian (did I mention that I was all hot and girly in the drug induced dream state? Makes it much easier to take transgressive stances in public) because I don't privelege that category above all other; smart and sweet definitely takes precedence."
Then I was lecturing a class on presumptive categories, challenging them on the ones they chose as foremost (gender, sexual orientation) and questioning those that were not ("race", build, apparent age, height, apparent social class, etc.) I remember feeling an acute sense of accomplishment when one of the students, after the lecture, came forward and said that she redefined her sexuality based on the class to 's'ophile: sweet, sexy, and smart as the dominant criteria.
Despite the pain and near hallucination level of my afternoon and evening, I may have stumbled upon something approaching wisdom today.
I remember being in a bar, with presumably peer level academics, and being asked to explain my critical perspective. From the bits I can remember, "post structural but not postmodern, and making ample use of structuralism, Marxist informed, and with an acute awareness of liminality, but not gender or queer studies per se". Someone asked me about the gender and queer bits (probably because it's the most titillating, or something).
"No, I'm not into gender studies because I don't privelege those categories, and don't want to give the appearance of naturalizing, or buying in to the naturalization, of artificial categories." This led to stupid questions that attempted to categorize me, probably unconsciously.
"I like lots of things; I don't see why only one thing should be preeminent in my self definition. What if I liked dark hair, or light skin? We don't make categories for people based on those criteria, but we do based on the genitals they seem to like best? That's just silly. While I tend to like girly types, I don't consider myself a lesbian (did I mention that I was all hot and girly in the drug induced dream state? Makes it much easier to take transgressive stances in public) because I don't privelege that category above all other; smart and sweet definitely takes precedence."
Then I was lecturing a class on presumptive categories, challenging them on the ones they chose as foremost (gender, sexual orientation) and questioning those that were not ("race", build, apparent age, height, apparent social class, etc.) I remember feeling an acute sense of accomplishment when one of the students, after the lecture, came forward and said that she redefined her sexuality based on the class to 's'ophile: sweet, sexy, and smart as the dominant criteria.
Despite the pain and near hallucination level of my afternoon and evening, I may have stumbled upon something approaching wisdom today.
