Just North of Something Important: another overview of recent Taylor Swift debate

[H]ere is Donna Haraway talking about the Museum of Natural History.  Though she gives us a good history of the founding of the museum, Haraway is not really trying to explain the museum as a whole to us; she focuses on a few exhibits and glosses over the rest, while leaving out large swaths of the typical viewer experience.  But that’s fine, because that’s not what she’s interested in doing.  She’s interested in showing how the supposedly neutral facade of the museum works to cover up a history of injustice, which is a really good and really important truth to convey.  She could locate this truth in a lot of places - that is a big part of this truth, that it is everywhere! - but is using the museum as a particular example.  Whereas if you wanted to say something about the Museum of Natural History, you would pretty much have to talk about the Museum of Natural History.

Somewhat (more like totally) out of context, yes, but that article/essay that’s linked to is actually quite a good read, and I thought I’d share.

(I have nothing much to say about Taylor Swift.)

Notes

  1. rogueish reblogged this from barthel and added:
    The problem is, though, that...“cultural criticism” the anti-Swift people are...
  2. kecelakaanjalanraya reblogged this from barthel and added:
    Somewhat (more like totally)...context, yes, but that article/essay
  3. tomewing reblogged this from agrammar and added:
    Swift (audience perks up) because...want to clarify what I said about branding (audience...
  4. bmichael said: -Somebody?!- Ehhh… You *want* so many things! This Taylor Swift stuff is somehow vacantly interesting to me. I think we’d all be better served by reading some Husserl.
  5. viciousneutral said: I can’t believe you find Taylor Swift so worthy of this much discussion. If you like her, ok - although I can’t really figure out what your opinion actually is. This all comes off as a big rationalization for liking something you feel guilty about.
  6. agrammar reblogged this from barthel and added:
    I’m snipping this from a longer post —...— just to clarify
  7. cureforbedbugs reblogged this from barthel and added:
    I guess I’d like to see people talk...a person with agency
  8. hardcorefornerds said: isn’t this like a death of the author problem? or, it’s about context and one camp are looking inside the text and the other outside it, both may be valid but what’s not valid is not looking for the greater meaning, as it applies to society/listeners
  9. agrammar posted this
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