It's a big day for the literary theory nerd in me!

[raybear]

First, what I will be reading tonight at work, assuming it is quiet:

A blog entry with lots of links about a NYT Poet Editor v. New Yorker Poetry Editor SMACKDOWN!^TM. Again, my New Yorker subscription runs out and then there's something I want to read! Be warned, there's annoying parts of this blog, including their obsession with the phrase 'kimono-opening', but the links are handy.

I missed that last week Jean Baudrillard died. My very first residency in grad school included a lecture on 'hyperreality' and how it relates to fiction writing and the differences and similarities. But also being a writer in the midst of a period of time defined by the idea of hyperreality. So anyway, RIP Jean. Here's to the authentic fake.

I didn't make it out to the coffee shop. I decided instead to go for a run and then came home and raked up some of the trash in the yard that had been collecting for months and hiding under snow. During this task, I discovered little pokes of green coming up in parts of the flowerbeds, from bulbs planted in the fall. Hope springs eternal, as they say.

I'm pleased to say that no one fat-harassed me this time. Then again, it was 11 am on a Wednesday so there were fewer people out. And I was wearing headphones the whole time. Perhaps I've been constantly fat-harassed in the past but never heard it because of my music. Does that mean it really happened, if the victim never hears the insult? No, I suppose it just means that the person yelling is the only one partaking of the poison.

Comments

baudrillard

[sorting-laundry.livejournal.com]

When I was first "introduced" to Baudrillard, I found his thoughts to be quite fascinating. However, after attempting to read his book, Seduction, I became less than enamoured of him. I don't know. Perhaps I was in a bad mood that week. Something about this paragraph bugged me:

"Now woman is but appearance. And it is the feminine as appearance that thwarts masculine depth. Instead of rising up against such 'insulting' counsel, women would do well to let themselves be seduced by its truth, for here lies the secret of their strength, which they are in the process of losing by erecting a contrary, feminine depth."

I'm not sure that I want to become just an "appearance" so that I can gain "power over men." Can't both men and women have depth? Or do I have to sabotage men's depth to gain power? Anyway... Contrast Baudrillard's statement with Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex:

"Woman feels inferior because, in fact, the requirements of femininity do belittle her. She spontaneously chooses to be a complete person, a subject and a free being with the world and future open before her; if this choice has a virile cast, it is so to the extent that feminity today means mutilation."

All that being said, Baudrillard's passing is a loss, because it is always sad to lose a great theorist -- even if one may not agree with his work. It is probably more important that his work makes one think, then that one agree with it. Does that make sense??

-k

Re: baudrillard

[raybear.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can easily see why you wouldn't be too keen on the book after reading that! Ugh. But you're right, I much prefer people who make me think (and argue) then people who don't challenge me. Even if the former are sexist pigs. :)