An unconference and a conference and a link

[rax]

I'm speaking two places this month, and I encourage you to come to one or both if you want to hear me and some other people natter on about theory. The first one is this Saturday, and it's at KinkForAll Boston [0] which will be at BU from 10:30 to... 4? 5? The webpage describes it as "an ad-hoc unconference on sexuality for anyone and everyone, drawing participants from an astounding range of both sexuality-related and other communities. Anyone with the desire to learn or with something to contribute is welcome and invited to participate." It's basically based on BarCamp, which I've always thought was interesting --- which does something similar with tech people instead of sexuality people. I'm going to give a talk called "Why Gender Theory Matters To Your Sex Life;" I'll be cribbing some from Riki Wilchins's Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer and then disagreeing voraciously. Sadly I don't think I'll have finished Covering by then... If this sounds interesting, you should come! And talk about your relevant research or experience!

September 26th I'll be on a panel called "Race and Gender in Technology" at the MIT Women's and Gender Studies 25th Anniversary Conference, "Futures of Race and Gender." I'll be responding to Elizabeth Roberts (the anthropologist, not the RI Lt. Governor [1]) and I am very much looking forward to it. I'm pretty sure it is open attendance, but I can confirm that It is open to the public; if you're into issues of race and gender, and I know a lot of you are, I very much encourage you to sit in. The other two presentations are "Mentoring Women: Four Generations of Women Scientists at MIT" and "Genetic Testing: Gender, Race and Medicine." Ooooh, do I have opinions on the second one! I am looking forward to hearing what the panelists have to say. :) The room is 32-141 which I think I can translate into a handy-dandy link for people not familiar with the MIT campus. [2]

I hope to see some of you at one or both of these! If not, I should have writeups after they're done.

Oh and I promised a link! It's depressing, but David Neuwert's articles about Eliminationism in America are really, really worth reading. I don't know much about him or his politics other than these articles, but they seem very solid to me, research and citation-wise. He also reminded me to spend one of my Amazon gift certificates on Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen. You can read the first chapter in PDF format; if you haven't heard of this concept before, you should really click that link sometime you are ready for the sad-making. (Someone on my friends list posted this a while ago and I went OH MY GOD WHAT but then didn't buy the book. Remedying that now!)

And back to work.

[0] Despite having the word "Kink" in the title, it is at least in theory not primarily about BDSM; I hope that actually works out, because I'm interested primarily in things other than BDSM. There was apparently lots of stupid mailing list wankery about the name; I'm just showing up to talk and to listen. (There are lots of places I can go to hear people talk endlessly about BDSM, including "the Diesel, by accident." There are many fewer where I can hear about "an astounding range of ... sexuality-related and other communities.")

[1] I don't think I need to say anything snarky about Wikipedia's Elizabeth Roberts disambiguation page. I think it snarks itself.

[2] I actually had to look it up, because I don't think of that as "building 32," I think of it as "the architectural atrocity."

Comments

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

They sound interesting, though I don't think I'm quite in a position to come. :P Anyway, if you're the sort of person to compile a set of notes before giving a talk, I'd enjoy looking at them.

I somewhat share an earlier comment's reaction to the Neuwert series -- there's some good research in there (I read the first four, plus the last two parts), but some suspicious aspects in the first and last sections. It looks like historical research tailored to suit a political agenda, and while the research might be sound regardless, an endeavor like that immediately makes me wonder what might have been omitted or misinterpreted in the service of that agenda (even if it's an agenda I sympathize with). In particular, part of the purpose seems to be for Neuwert to demonize his opponents (ironically enough), complete with the invention of a new pejorative term for them.

Also, it's not relevant to the above paragraph, but the beginning of the second part really got to me. First, he contrasts Eastern and Western ideas of heroism, calling the former mystical and spiritual, the latter materialistic. *twitches* He backs his description of the West up by quoting canonical authors from its history, and backs up his description of the purported East by quoting... an American academic. *twitches again* Why isn't Orientalism required reading by now?! It wasn't significant, but I had to vent.

Regarding Wikipedia: its priorities are showing. :P

Do you receive email notifications for comments? I ask because there are a handful of very belated comments to earlier entries that I don't know whether you've seen.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I have notes for the first talk mostly-written-up but I'll probably only publish them after the talk, so that I can add in the things I get corrected on or talk about later.

I think your criticisms of Neiwert are spot-on, although I do think having a term to use to discuss eliminationist rhetoric is useful, or at least, it gave me a word to use to point to something I'd been trying to gesture to in my head but didn't have the language for. I really, really still need to read Orientalism --- I got completely embarrassed in a grad class last year by not even having heard of the concept. (Thus perpetuating the instructor's stereotypes about "those ignorant public university kids," as far as I can tell, for extra bonus irony.)

I do receive email notifications for comments! Unfortunately I do not yet have them hooked into the machine that bashes me on the head with the hammer until I actually respond. *shame* I have like three tasklist items involving responding to you on things that fell off of the short list, and I've been living on my short list for the past month. :/ If you want to talk to me in a timely fashion, interrupts via AIM work great, if you're into that sort of thing. Otherwise/in addition, I will get to them eventually!

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

*grins* I look forward to seeing the notes.

I do see how "eliminationist" is useful, but for me its pejorative aspect outweighs its usefulness. But I do have an unusual concern with separating semantics and ethics, in that I try to use pejorative and meliorative terms as little as possible.

I need to reread Orientalism, too. I absorbed some of its basic points, but that's it.

I also look forward to the responses! In general, I prefer non-real-time methods of communication for intellectual discussion, because I rely heavily on waiting for my subconsciousness to first digest a comment and later signal my readiness to compose a response. Although that (among other factors) slows the responses. :P But I may try AIM as well, in some free moment.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Do you have a suggested term you would prefer to eliminationist? Not that your criticism isn't valid, just that if you do, I can start using it instead. (I think its usefulness outweighs its pejorative aspect; different math.)

I think digestion is valuable. I am very interrupt-driven --- this is a great benefit for the line of work I am in, but can be a problem for deep thought. So I'm digesting... but I might not do much with it until I get interrupted into remembering that I was doing so. :)

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Do you have a suggested term you would prefer to eliminationist?

No, I don't. But, in this case, I also lack the gesturing-in-one's-head that you mentioned.

Several years back I identified my main two ways of creating ideas (blooming and flying, basically), but they're both predicated on long periods of time. Later on I added A Hu-Li's conversational method, though its domain seems different. Is that latter method what you mean by being interrupt driven?

[rax.livejournal.com]

That's part of it. But I also mean that I focus most on the things that are most in my environment and interrupting my train of thought; I do more support than documentation because customers call me and manuals don't, I think more about things that my friends talk about, I read the books people hand me before the ones on the list but not on the shelf, &c. One could probably exploit this by carefully timing when I was most suitable for interrupts and calling me at those times in order to get me to work primarily on the projects they care about. (I think one of my coworkers has actually figured this out.)

I do tend to think through things alone primarily by conversing with myself, though, which is why labels are so helpful --- that way I can point to the label when I'm arguing with myself, and since it's all in my head, I (at least theoretically) know what I mean. I do some percolating, but usually I still need the conversation, internal or external, at the end of the process.

[rax.livejournal.com]

For example, I remembered to come back to this post and respond because someone on my friendslist said "hey LJ exploit, watch out," and I clicked a link to LJ news, and it said "Check your recent entries for this!" and I did and this one had a cut tag so I clicked it and I said "Oh no I owe lhexa a response!" and then I responded and that triggered "Oh wow I owe lhexa like five responses" but then I remembered I was at work and so I stopped with this one.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

...but then I remembered I was at work and so I stopped with this one.

Shoot. :P

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

These are interesting statements, but I have nothing more to say. Thanks for sharing. :)