critical eyes
The other day I wrote a Sticky note with a list of people whose reading eye I want to keep in mind while I’m finishing my thesis. Only a couple of these people will read the thesis, this is certain. But the list includes a bunch of people with fierce intellects and diverse interests. Writing ‘for’ them, addressing them, helps me attend to what they might wish I performed rigorously, the questions and critical eye they might contribute.
This person, for instance, will want me to go for the jugular: what theoretical density can I sustain, how can I push a line of argument further, how can I shock myself out of wishy-washy cult stud gestures? This other person will be attending to what he talks about as “having enough death” — acknowledging the material violences of inequality, the bodies that are regarded as disposable and whose deaths don’t ‘matter’. One person will care that the words are clear and readable and beautiful, because otherwise they won’t bother reading at all. Someone will attend to philosophical complexity and how I define my theoretical frameworks. Someone else will be interested in the rigour of my critique of political economy and what I’m doing with Marx. Someone else again will want my Thai history and politics to be accurate. Someone else will attend most to my treatment of transnationality and gender/sexuality, and the postcolonial. And so on. It’s a long list.
The beautiful thing is, most of these people are friends. The political and theoretical networks I inhabit are full of people who I respect totally. I feel so grateful to have these people around. Even if they don’t actually read anything I write, in the future, imagining how they might read this work forces me to write as if it were a conversation, larger than myself. (And some of you are reading this, anyhow, which means you’re already part of the conversation.)
I am having a really great time with writing at the moment. When it flows, I know exactly how to stitch everything together. This is why people spend three or four years on the same project. One simply knows, finally, how things fit — and one knows exactly what one doesn’t know, also, and why. But I’m only at this point because of conversations that have already taken place, and because of the generosity of those who have engaged with me, here, and in other spaces.
Did I just write a draft of an acknowledgments page? I think so.
At a time where there is so much discussion about networks and how to “expand circulation” for “impact”, it’s a real treat to be treated to your intellectual hospitality, the possibility that as a reader one could be present with you throughout the process in a very direct and specific way in so much more depth than the “general reader”. [As you point out, the existence of a relationship outside writing doesn’t change the dynamic.]
For myself, I am always struck by the risks you are prepared to take with both your conceptions of the body/subject and your desire for a political community as you bring the two into conversation with each other. I not only learn, but gain confidence to take more of those kinds of risks (with sometimes very different material) myself. That kind of learning is surely the real kind of “innovation” that can be fostered in the intellectual communities we share.
Plus, you can write like a mf demon, so glad you’re enjoying it and look forward to seeing the results. Cheers!
Comment by danny — July 7, 2008 @ 6:20 am
hi az, it’s great to hear things are going well with the writing. yay! but i can’t help but wonder: who are these wonderful critical readers & where were they when i was finishing my thesis??!! (joking, i had good interlocutors, altho’ not plenty!)
i just wrote a peer review for a feminist journal. someone had written on cross-cultural trans stuff and i gave a very thorough response! it seems every time i write a review i am very harsh… but it’s all in the name of improving peoples’ work and getting them to think more rigorously. i have been subject to such reviews myself & i have to say that i appreciate it!!! where, after all, would we be without that critical dialogue?
Comment by vek — July 11, 2008 @ 4:17 am
Hmmm, I should really come back to this thread and comment, shouldn’t I?
Danny, the thing about expanding circulation for ‘impact’ is that there isn’t a ‘general reader’, at least I don’t think there is. There are just lots of people who are sort of geeky and interested and working out their own theoretical problems, which may coincide with mine. Every time I discover someone who has, say, really liked the one journal article I’ve produced, they turn out to be not only interesting themselves but fantastic to open up dialogues wth. And this blog has been the same; I can’t count the number of people who have commented here and opened me up to new ways of thinking. I don’t feel like I’m taking risks, or being particularly hospitable; it feels necessary, and I couldn’t do this any other way. (Talk of competition, protecting ‘intellectual property’ and controlling its flow for career purposes always turns me right off; perhaps it’s because I’m not invested in academic success so much as writing what needs to be written.)
And Vek, if I’d known you were writing your thesis, I would have talked to you! Transsomatechnics made a big difference, I think, to having a sense of how many people are receptive to work I’m doing, or the existence of a theoretical/political community (even though I hate that word).
Then there’s the issue of peer reviews — I think it’s good to be harsh, although in a constructive way. There’s nothing wrong with encouraging people to be more rigorous :)
Comment by Az — July 11, 2008 @ 8:52 am