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Oct. 17th, 2011 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
localfreakI have purchased many books this week for my studies. Some old favourites and some new things. My copy of You Tarzan: Masculinity Movies and Men has arrived today from abebooks so I can once again re-read those lines that embedded themselves on my brain about Burt Lancaster's arms and Albert Finney's beefy neck. I have also downloaded the amazon e-reader for PC so that I could acquire a copy of Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology sooner. I'm quite liking its navigational tics so far and have sent a message to my Auntie Nik asking for immediate advice as to which kindle I should buy (she gave me advice and then the next day amazon released their new one so I just want to check if the stance remains the same).
All this is at least helping me to tamp down on my anxiety as the university website appears to be down today, so I cannot post my intial discussion thoughts, nor download the next lot of readings. *whimper* (and I have checked on down for everyone or just me about a million times to verify that yes, it is still down.)
I'm finding it rather fascinating at the moment to walk into what I felt was territory I was at least familiar with to find it made unfamiliar by the concept of race- and "black" in particular (most readings are generally being a bit vague on what they count as 'black' but general afro/caribbean heritage seems to be the overall assumption. I just...never thought of the experiences of masculinity differing by race. Location? Yes. Sexuality? Yes. Wealth? Yes. But it just, stupidly perhaps, never occured to me that colour- even in the same locations- made a particularly noticable difference.
Of course the article I read this evening was even stranger to me because it spoke of a world of Queers and Queer Politics that I barely recognise anything at all of- with a North American origin it speaks of social structures that differ greatly from anything I've ever known, refers to people I have never heard of (a bloke called Newt? Seriously? Newt??) and its general atmosphere too holds something that is deeply, deeply strange to anything I would recognise society-wise. It's all quite fascinating, even if it does make the reading substantially harder as in order to make sense of it I must continually reframe it upon my terms and my understandings- my frames of reference.
It does rather shake my confidence a little at my abilities in my chosen essay (the title of which I can't download because the site is down *argh*). Am I just too white to understand? Does my background- even as it is intriniscally Queered away from the hegemonic heteronomative white middle class (being, of course, genderqueer gay and working class)- exclude me from understanding? I begin to doubt my abilities to comprehend, in a matter of weeks something which, the readings suggest, I should surely have considered a Difference before now.
J's birthday party has been cancelled- which oddly makes the second birthday party happening this winter to have been called off. Am planning tentatively to spend the days I booked on the Christmas shopping for the Hoardes of Family. They best not expect too much of me this year- if I keep buying all these coursebooks and then have my course fees still to come they may have to be resigned to home made cakes and possibly the odd poem or photoshopped image.
Right, back to the grindstone- I should be able to get at least a litte more reading done before my brain fails me utterly and I haul my way to bed to dream of queer and language and dissecting all the little parts of words.
All this is at least helping me to tamp down on my anxiety as the university website appears to be down today, so I cannot post my intial discussion thoughts, nor download the next lot of readings. *whimper* (and I have checked on down for everyone or just me about a million times to verify that yes, it is still down.)
I'm finding it rather fascinating at the moment to walk into what I felt was territory I was at least familiar with to find it made unfamiliar by the concept of race- and "black" in particular (most readings are generally being a bit vague on what they count as 'black' but general afro/caribbean heritage seems to be the overall assumption. I just...never thought of the experiences of masculinity differing by race. Location? Yes. Sexuality? Yes. Wealth? Yes. But it just, stupidly perhaps, never occured to me that colour- even in the same locations- made a particularly noticable difference.
Of course the article I read this evening was even stranger to me because it spoke of a world of Queers and Queer Politics that I barely recognise anything at all of- with a North American origin it speaks of social structures that differ greatly from anything I've ever known, refers to people I have never heard of (a bloke called Newt? Seriously? Newt??) and its general atmosphere too holds something that is deeply, deeply strange to anything I would recognise society-wise. It's all quite fascinating, even if it does make the reading substantially harder as in order to make sense of it I must continually reframe it upon my terms and my understandings- my frames of reference.
It does rather shake my confidence a little at my abilities in my chosen essay (the title of which I can't download because the site is down *argh*). Am I just too white to understand? Does my background- even as it is intriniscally Queered away from the hegemonic heteronomative white middle class (being, of course, genderqueer gay and working class)- exclude me from understanding? I begin to doubt my abilities to comprehend, in a matter of weeks something which, the readings suggest, I should surely have considered a Difference before now.
J's birthday party has been cancelled- which oddly makes the second birthday party happening this winter to have been called off. Am planning tentatively to spend the days I booked on the Christmas shopping for the Hoardes of Family. They best not expect too much of me this year- if I keep buying all these coursebooks and then have my course fees still to come they may have to be resigned to home made cakes and possibly the odd poem or photoshopped image.
Right, back to the grindstone- I should be able to get at least a litte more reading done before my brain fails me utterly and I haul my way to bed to dream of queer and language and dissecting all the little parts of words.
