Analyze Everything
Time for a Monday morning tease. Or more of a mock, really. I know I shouldn’t – it’s fish/barrel stuff – but I want to, so I will.
There was this lecture, see. And it was full of new, profound, fresh, original, searching stuff that no one had ever thought of or said before. Not a word of it was stale or familiar or old news.
Jasbir Puar, an assistant professor in the department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, spoke on “Queer Biopolitics and the Ascendancy of Whiteness” yesterday in Stimson Hall to provide a theory for the way race and sexuality affect U.S. and international politics…Puar’s was the first of a series of lectures sponsored by the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department that “seek to explore the future of queer studies”…The series of lectures are also a “concerted effort to talk about race and imperialism…”
Well great! That should cover it. That should pretty much dot all the eyes and cross all the tease. Terrific. Women, gender, queerness, biopolitics, whiteness, race, sexuality, U.S. and international politics, feministgenderexuality studies, queer studies and its future, raceandimperialism. A modest menu! A humble, self-deprecating agenda for the various Studies departments. I suppose they really ought to have sorted out capitalism and acne while they were at it, but still, it’s a good try.
Puar said her lecture explored the “intersections of sexuality and the war on terror, specifically how some [lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered and questioning individuals] are complicit with nationalist, racist, and orientalist politics of the U.S.”
Fan-tastic! It’s about time someone cleared that up. I’ve been fuming for years now about the way lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered and questioning individuals, violinists, beet-pickers, cats, goldfish, and lentil farmers are complicit with nationalist, racist, and orientalist politics of the U.S., and I’ve been wondering when someone was going to point it out. At least Puar has made a start! Props to her eh.
The core of Puar’s lecture, underlying the theory and terms, focused on identity. Puar began her work as a graduate student after four years of travel around the world, where she realized her self-identity changed wherever she traveled. In an interview with The Sun, she said identity is complicated, that it is a localized concept, and that who you are depends on where you are.
Oh my god!! Identity is complicated! It can change, depending on circumstances! Wow! Who ever knew that, who ever imagined such a thing? The insight is staggering. It’s like Freud’s discovery of the unconscious, or Homi Bhabha’s discovery of liminality, which is also about the staggering discovery that identity is complicated. What a precious hour that lecture must have been, how fortunate the interdisciplinary people of Cornell who were there to hear it.
She said the ideas of her lecture are important because they “complicate single identity politics” and that organizing and activism on many college campuses focus on only one identity.
Yes. You bet. Important. Yes. Very important. Well done. ‘Complicated – identity complicated.’ Important idea. Yes.
Shirleen Robinson grad explained the idea of the dilemma of identity Puar proposed in her lecture. She said that if a guy wearing a turban is the victim of a hate crime and it also turns out he’s gay, one must analyze what identity his attackers intended to target. She said his identity can be read in different ways; his Arab identity is associated with terrorists and 9/11, while harems and a mystique of hypersexuality are associated with his sexual identity.
Err…yeah, and his jeans and T shirt are associated with creeping Americanization and the Starbucks cup he is holding is associated with globalization and the copy of Discipline and Punish he is carrying is associated with Paris and the Marlboro he is smoking is associated with cowboys. Could keep the analyzers busy for some time.
“I think there are ways of talking about diversity and inclusiveness that embrace initiatives like open hearts, open minds,” Villarejo said, but added that “a lot of those communities are deeply homophobic” and that we need to “make sure discourse of inclusivity is also offered” to queer African Americans, queer Asian Americans, and queer Latinos.
You forgot queer Native Americans! And queer Muslims! And queer disabled African Americans! And queer disabled – stop, cut it out, what are you doing, get off, help, let go of me
Identity politics reaches the epicycles stage. If we just put in another layer of crystal spheres, we can keep the self at the centre of the universe. Mend it ’til it’s baroque.
Ptolemy, though, at least had the excuse of coming _before_ Copernicus.
“Mend it ’til it’s baroque.”
Ha! Very good.
“`UNimportant, of course, I meant,’ the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, `important–unimportant– unimportant–important–‘ as if he were trying which word sounded best.
Some of the jury wrote it down `important,’ and some `unimportant.’ Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; `but it doesn’t matter a bit,’ she thought to herself. “
You guys crack me up. My god, if this is what “leftism” and “intellectual life” means, maybe I’ll just go over and sulk with Paul Craig Roberts while watching WWE Monday Night Raw :)on the boob tube.
(Of course, Mr. Roberts does go on and on about how evilllllll public healtha nd safety regulations OPPRESS the oppressed capitalist class. So even there, there is no escape.
Brian,
Don’t ‘You guys’ me, pal.
It’s not just the level of insight in “identity is complicated” that gets me, it’s the ground breaking approach which shakes up complacent old ideas like scholarship, thought, and study: “after four years of travel around the world, […] she realized her self-identity changed wherever she traveled.”
Is this now being taken into account in the award of grants?
Sorry, Don. No offense intended.
But don’t you see the danger!
If someone can have more than one identity, what is going to happen if someone with an ‘oppressed minority’ identity gets an ‘oppressive majority’ identity as well and tried to bring them together in the same personality?
It will be like matter and anti-matter colliding, and it could lead to the complete destruction of the universe!
Or – at least – the complete destruction of identity politics – then were would we be?
‘Puar said her lecture explored the “intersections of sexuality and the war on terror, specifically how some [lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered and questioning individuals] are complicit with nationalist, racist, and orientalist politics of the U.S.”’
Note the word “complicit”.
Remember that Puar’s “department of Women’s and Gender Studies ” is at a university, an institution supposedly devoted to open-minded intellectual discovery. Instead we are treated to intellectual hectoring by some of the most closed-minded people imaginable. If Rutgers University takes itself seriously it should abolish this cabal of nutty ideologues.
How can a person have more than one identity?
“The really sad thing is that, at the heart of the cultstuds babble that permeates this kind of academic rubbish, there is often a thoughtful individual trying to engage with the injustices of the world.”
Maybe. But not all that thoughtful, I tend to think. Not thoughtful enough.
Not a very charitable view – but I just have a hard time believing that people can put up with the endless repetition, and actually be thoughtful. I have a hard time believing that people who do nothing but endlessly recycle formulas and tell each other what they’ve already been told, over and over and over again – and then pat themselves on the back and call each other superstars for doing it – can really be all that thoughtful.
In short, I think the thoughtful ones take one look at the field and get out.
“How can a person have more than one identity?”
They can put a hyphen between them – that has worked for a long time. Another tactic is to keep one in the closet.
Or they can wear the turban on top of the cowboy hat – or vice versa.
Or, maybe they can paint one side of their faces one color-and the other side another . . .
And battle vigrously against oppression by those who have their faces painted in the opposite pattern!!!!!
Just like in that classic Star Trek episode (A nerd am I)
“How can a person have more than one identity?”
Exactly!! I think the terms “category” or “class”, or “demographic group” are the terms people usually mean when they abuse the word identity.
One uses identity to identify something. How does being black, or muslim, or white, or gay, male, or female identify someone? A social security number is identity. Being chinese is not.
Jim wrote: “They can put a hyphen between them “.
I suppose one could then write a biography called “I am a hyphen” (apologies to Christopher Isherwood) or a set of fantasy novels set in “Hyphenworld” (apologies to Terry Pratchett).
Ophelia wrote:”Or they can wear the turban on top of the cowboy hat – or vice versa”. I object to this privileging of the turban over the cowboy hat. How dare you describe wearing the turban under the cowboy hat as a “vice”. I am sure this “vice” must be outlawed in at least states of the Union and expect more tolerance of unusual lifestyle choices from this website. So there!
Are turbans part of an Arab identity? I always thought turbans belonged to Sikhs.
And Sikhs are not Arabs.
There was an article I read online critiquing the whole “is a” thing of identity politics. I’m sure I made a note of it in a notebook – but I haven’t got it with me.
Damn. Note to self – improve those organisation skills.
How can someone have more than one identity? Come on! Clark Kent and Superman. Peter Parker and Batman. The question is whether it’s mandatory that one identity be mild-mannered and the other identity wear tights.
It’s hard to wrap a turban around a cowboy hat, but that’s what makes multiple identities so fraught with complexity, contradiction and thesis topics.
And it’s even harder to wrap a cowboy hat around a turban (let alone wrapping a cowboy hat around a keffiyah, which is really fiddly work), but boy is it ever transgressive.
“the other identity wear tights”
where would having the underwear on the outside fit in?
“Are turbans part of an Arab identity? I always thought turbans belonged to Sikhs.”
Although nowadays turbans are primarily associated with Sikhs, historically they were important in the Arab world. But the reason most people associate turbans and Arabs is that those swarthy types all look the same to them.
In the interests of keeping up the intellectual standard and to avoid writs from DC and Marvel Comics.
Peter Parker is Spiderman.
Bruce Wayne is Batman.
If you do not get your facts right, how can your argument be taken seriously.
Non-fictional examples of using different personalities could be Marilyn Munro/Norma Jean Baker or Archibald Leach/Cary Grant.
What about bipolar disorders or multiple-personalities or are these just myths?
Joanne Jacobs wrote:”How can someone have more than one identity? Come on! Clark Kent and Superman..”.
I can’t see this as a refutation. Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same. There is only one identity here, and to describe it fully you must include both the Clark Kent part and the Superman part. It’s just that Clark Kent hides the fact that he is also Superman and Superman that he is also Clark Kent. Do not confuse the underlying reality, that Clark Kent = Superman, with the false image of Clark Kent that people have (as the mild-mannered reporter).
Actually, both Clark Kent and Superman were Erving Goffman in disguise.