Emma Dabiri
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Weekly round-up December 7th
🕑 Added 2020-12-07 23:37:11 +0000 UTCHey peeps.
Bare with my timekeeping and refer back to my arguments regarding the 'managing' of time in chapter 2 of Don't Touch My Hair (hahaha can I get away with that ?!)
Recently, I’m feeling a huge shift in my work. For quite a while I’d been feeling frustrated because it seemed an almost impossible task to translate some of the more complex ideas -the stuff that really excites me, and that forms the theoretical underpinning of my thesis – ways of engaging different forms of subject formation to the representational model relied upon by Western liberal humanism – into my more immediate public facing work. Increasingly, however it seems as though not only is it possible to do this work, but it is in fact entirely what the present moment demands! I’m feeling pretty inspired about the ways in which it all seems to be falling into place - am very much looking forward to sharing my upcoming projects with you all…
There was a quick turn around on my WWPCDN manuscript, so am back at it again, and feeling super excited about this second draft. I am currently revisiting the work of a number of activists from the 20th century, and honestly I just feel so held, inspired and empowered by their work, and I hope you will get a sense of that when you read my work. Speaking of which, I managed to get my hand on an out of print transcript of this 1971 conversation between James Baldwin and (the at times deeply aggravating) Margaret Mead. (I’m a book obsessive, I ran out of shelf space about a year ago and my house if full of towering piles of unsteady, dusty books, I really need to invest in a proper shelving situation, but that’s more of a note to self, omg I typo'ed that as *note to shelf* ) .
Anyway, I’ll post the link to the audio here, do have a listen if you fancy it, Jimmy is as expansive and demanding and generous in his thinking as ever, and the themes have A LOT of parallels with today! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WNO6f7rjE0
I've also been reading this insane book 32 Words For Field. Lost Words of the Irish Landscape and omg skskskskskskssks:
“The Irish language has thirty-two words for field. Among them are:
Geamhar – a field of corn-grass
Tuar – a field for cattle at night
Réidhleán – a field for games or dancing
Cathairín – a field with a fairy-dwelling in it
The richness of a language closely tied to the natural landscape offered our ancestors a more magical way of seeing the world. Before we cast old words aside, let us consider the sublime beauty and profound oddness of the ancient tongue that has been spoken on this island for almost 3,000 years.
In Thirty-Two Words for Field, Manchán Magan meditates on these words – and the nuances of a way of life that is disappearing with them”.
I will redouble my efforts to learn both Irish and Yoruba again ( Yoruba too is full of all sorts of wonder) and in fact these languages both map out co-ordinates for understanding the world and our relationship to it, ourselves, and each other in ways that are alternative to the Western human liberalism I refer to above (this is what my PhD examines in relation to "racial identity”)
I’m also thrilled to announce that I will be launching the podcast in February. I’ve been doing so much research, am so full of ideas and so inspired by the work of so many dissident, luminary thinkers, that it feels really necessary to get more of these ideas out there in more mediums. And I’ll certainly use the podcast to discuss some of the ideas that animate the book.
In terms of this week’s news the madness continues. I find the manner in which Marxist Leninist Socialist being bandied about as the latest right wing slur remarkable, on so many levels.
First of all how is it even an insult? lol But secondly, it’s lobbied at all and everyone -generally liberals- who are like the antithesis of Marxist- it just seems totally bonkers! But then again we are living in world of gaslighting and dogwhistles in which words and concepts are often so untethered from their meaning that in the context of nonsense it makes sense I suppose.Was ‘funny’ to hear the Millwall fans ‘justify’ their booing of the players talking the knee, with the excuse that they are sick of BLM ‘Marxists’. I mean at least in this instance BLM UK do actually identify as anti-capitalist and anti-imperalist so are more akin to Marxists then half the neoliberals I see accused of being Leninists all the time! Still I really hadn’t foreseen Marxism (the word if not the theory) going so mainstream that it would become the go to justification for racism in 2020?!
Hey what a world. At least theres a vaccine now amiright
Look after yourselves xxx
