I Will Survive

Just popping in from hell month (affectionately!) to throw a few notes your way:

1) If you liked my last EMP paper, I am going to be there again this year. Rachel Arnold and I will be presenting a paper on pop songs used as campaign songs. The paper will probably show up around these parts in the future.

2) Generally I think Stanley Fish is a tool. But apparently if you give him 40 years to think about something, he can come to a pretty reasonable conclusion on it, at least if his article about postmodernism is anything to go by. It's pretty close to what I think about all them Frenchies these days: they weren't trying to disprove rationalism or claim that physical reality doesn't exist, they were just pointing out the socially constructed nature of things and kinda leaving it at that. I don't know if that's what they were actually trying to do, but it seems like the sensible way to think about them. That said, though, there were significant differences between them, and they're important. In retrospect, we can probably call Derrida and Baudrillard the Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin of theory: provacateurs who probably didn't mean all of what they said, and don't really need to be taken seriously, even if some people do. Barthes is kinda the Robin Williams: playful and entertaining, but harmless, if occasionlly annoying in the repetativeness of his schtick. And Paul de Man is just crazy.

But--and not to be a grad student talking about Foucault here, but--Foucault is genuinely important and generally right. His histories applied the deconstructive mindset to concrete and meaningful subjects, and what he turned up helped make strange questionable truisms. In a way, what he did is basically what Gallileo did; both questioned widely-held assumptions that had a real effect on people's lives. But where Gallileo did it with geography, Foucault did it with language. And that has to be attributed, at least in some small part, to the Frenchies, or at least the environment they whipped up.

I go on about this because the rection to Fish's post is just baffling. Comment after comment complaining about postmodernism! Who knew? And this is why I point out that not all French theorists engaged in the kind of rhetoric Fish is talking about (and people are complaining about). There were some that did do legitimate work that really called into question certain things. Many people would, I suspect, agree with Foucault's take on mental illness. It's unfortunate that certain theorists have given the whole enterprise a bad name, but it's really confusing how, after Fish spends a good number of words laying out a reasonable position, people still get really worked up about deconstruction. I mean, it sucks that the one dude went to McGill and had to read Derrida, but I think most English departments these days provide ample opportunity to engage in traditional studies of literature. All the postmodernists went off and formed critical studies departments, didn't they? Oh, what do I know. Maybe Foucault isn't even part of this group.

3) I had previously posted about how much I liked the video for Mariah's "Touch My Body," but I only now realize that I really like the song too! It's dirty but assertive, the melody is really strong, and I like that Mariah's standing up for both her own sexuality and her control of the situation. The sweet way she sings "I will hunt you down" is amazing. I think it's my single of the year right now.

4) Oh yeah: thanks, Universal, for making my entire BYOP post a moot point by removing "Becky" (and two other songs) from the final version of Get Awkward. You are a bunch of enormous cameltoes.

Labels: academia, announcements, emp, notes, pop, theory

posted by Mike B. @ 9:21 PM