As I've been relegated to rest for the past week and for another week to come, I've been thinking a lot about how stressed I've been and why I've been pushing myself so hard lately to pursue my graduate degree and work full time in order to make my education possible. There are lots of motivations that make that question nearly impossible to answer directly. But one thing I know for sure is that I'm working toward this degree and hopefully a PhD because critical theory has been an incredibly meaningful and fulfilling way for me to make sense of everyday life.
Perhaps the most prolific stereotype about academia is that it is totally removed from the reality of everyday life, and I definitely see how that is true in some circumstances. However, the truth of the matter for me personally is that academia is where I am finding answers to real life questions that I find are answered on a fairly superficial level in the "real world" of social policy, etc. One of the theorists that I am currently reading and have been for the past few months, Lauren Berlant (in addition to many of her articles that I've read, I just finished Compassion over the summer and am currently reading The Female Complaint), is someone I've mentioned before, but who I continue to return to because her work deals with the everyday in a critical and deeply thoughtful way that offers insights into widespread suffering that most people experience on a daily basis. She doesn't deal with traumatic suffering, it is the kind of constant suffering that many people experience because of quotidian forms of suffering like financial woes, institutional racism, discrimination, etc.
I'm writing about her today because I was just listening to this podcast with her, and I think it is a really nice discussion about her new book Cruel Optimism which looks at how and why people desire the very things that are obstacles to their flourishing. I think she is a really smart critic and thought many of you might enjoy this interview since it discusses issues that most of us think about on a daily basis and offers new insights and ways of thinking about them. The interview starts at minute 3:30 on this site and is about 30 minutes. I hope that you enjoy it and definitely let me know your thoughts if you do listen. I'm always finding ways to talk about this stuff (as many of you found out at my birthday party last week).
Perhaps the most prolific stereotype about academia is that it is totally removed from the reality of everyday life, and I definitely see how that is true in some circumstances. However, the truth of the matter for me personally is that academia is where I am finding answers to real life questions that I find are answered on a fairly superficial level in the "real world" of social policy, etc. One of the theorists that I am currently reading and have been for the past few months, Lauren Berlant (in addition to many of her articles that I've read, I just finished Compassion over the summer and am currently reading The Female Complaint), is someone I've mentioned before, but who I continue to return to because her work deals with the everyday in a critical and deeply thoughtful way that offers insights into widespread suffering that most people experience on a daily basis. She doesn't deal with traumatic suffering, it is the kind of constant suffering that many people experience because of quotidian forms of suffering like financial woes, institutional racism, discrimination, etc.
I'm writing about her today because I was just listening to this podcast with her, and I think it is a really nice discussion about her new book Cruel Optimism which looks at how and why people desire the very things that are obstacles to their flourishing. I think she is a really smart critic and thought many of you might enjoy this interview since it discusses issues that most of us think about on a daily basis and offers new insights and ways of thinking about them. The interview starts at minute 3:30 on this site and is about 30 minutes. I hope that you enjoy it and definitely let me know your thoughts if you do listen. I'm always finding ways to talk about this stuff (as many of you found out at my birthday party last week).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.