First of all, I have to say that I
could make a book of Erin, Ronald and Nasrin’s words titled Quotes to fight self-doubt, depression and
all that bullshit. One of this week’s quotes was from Erin: “The worse
thing you could do is to lose your interest or excitement of what writing can
do.” I was definitely struggling to write something on the blog for the past
two weeks but I guess I'll have a little more faith on what writing can offer
me even if I don't know what form that would take…
Thinking about the struggle that you guys
(Erin, Nasrin, and Ronald) are even reflecting on the fact that imparting a
class like this irrevocably follows a fundamentally Eurocentric educational
structure, I got to say that it is definitely true that you are accommodating
knowledge for us through the texts we read every week and the kind of
conversations and reflections we are then prompted to have but with all
honesty, it has helped me so much to change my perspective on reading,
listening, acquiring knowledge, thinking, etc. as a practice and to feel like I
am digesting all this "excess on meaning" that I constantly feel that
I'm missing. So, all this to say that thank you! I am one of those who is
invisibly participating but rest assure because I AM LISTENING… Thank you for
giving me the opportunity to do so.
On another note, during our analysis of
Moten’s text on the meaning of words and their relation to sounds I thought
about the French music group ERA. The lyrics have no meaning and nevertheless,
the songs are amazingly compelling. They’re like a metaphor about the meaning
of words, the power of music and how we respond to them after all we are the
ones giving meaning to words.
Finally, Erin shared her
experience about being part of a symposium (I don’t really know what it was) in
Europe and being patronized for taking things too seriously. First of all, it
was shocking to know that Erin was treated like that and at the same time not
really since in an academic context the gender inequality is evident (which is
really unacceptable). I felt that I could relate somehow to this situation. I
am constantly thinking about race, identity, culture, racism, etc. and often I
feel I take those topics too seriously. Erin mentioned that she felt really
uncomfortable being part of that symposium until the moment where the male
academics told her that at some point you have to go home and let go (of the
practice of thinking/engaging with the topics you are interested in and the
struggles that that presupposes) when she realized the source of her
discomfort. She said there is no such thing as going home. It is so striking to realize that it’s the
same for me. Maybe some people are capable to do so but there is no going home for
me to take a break of race, racism, multiculturalism, etc. because those topics
affect me every single day. The question is who are the lucky one, they or we?
Everything is a matter of perspective.
I was also thinking of what she said as well, and how one can go home and let go?
ReplyDeleteI just remembered what we used to say: when someone keeps going around a place, beyond what place means, we say he is looking for his mother’s pearls .. one can go home when these pearl are found and able to reassemble them.
I was so moved by this, Mariana. I don't know quite how to articulate how generous I have found you all to be to allow for this measure of listening, or learning what it might sound like not to know.
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