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Academia Art Free-For-All Radical Ceramics

The Bollocks Is Bolted On

July 30, 2024 168 Comments

Further to this, and also via Charlotte Gill, let’s visit the world of politically radical tableware. Specifically,

Whiteness is a location of structural advantage, of race privilege. 

Because this is what you need to know when taking a class in ceramics:

We funded this.

But remember, universities need more money 😉 pic.twitter.com/gKEbweQsVG

— Charlotte Gill (@CharlotteCGill) July 29, 2024

For those deeply intrigued:

Participants will gain an understanding of the history of whiteness as a racial and social construct and discuss how it continues to embody and uphold white supremacy today. 

Well, obviously, you can’t just learn how to make plates.

Participants will be able to reflect on how highlighting whiteness in this way is crucial to any antiracist social justice work. These workshops are inclusive and open to all and will create a sensitive and supportive environment in which to develop our racial awareness. 

And hey, who wouldn’t want some of that lovely racial awareness? Or, less coyly, practised question-begging and pretentious racial guilt. Or unearned racial resentment, depending on how brown you happen to be. I mean, you can’t just go through life interacting with people as individuals. You have to cultivate a neurotic habit of seeing people as avatars of some supposedly put-upon racial group. Or conversely, as oppressors, as proven by their pallor, their deplorable whiteness.

And a fragrant utopia will surely follow.

The creative titan behind the project – named, inevitably, Working With Whiteness – is Victoria Burgher, a self-styled “artist from a colonising country,” for whom pretentious, and rather invidious, racial agonising has been a path to many grants and awards. Ms Burgher, we’re told,

uses porcelain as a ceramic material and investigative tool to reveal and challenge the hegemony of whiteness in relation to the values and legacy of British colonialism.

You see,

Porcelain, cherished as it is for its ‘purity,’ becomes an apt material and concept to embody, expose and contest social, cultural and historically constructed ideologies of whiteness.

And,

Her practice-based research explores how the properties of porcelain – its fractiousness and vulnerability when raw, its strength, whiteness and translucency when fired – can challenge terms such as fragility and innocence explored through ideologies of whiteness.

Strained metaphors are very in, it seems. Along with teetering piles of assumptions. Also, Bad Whitey. It’s all terribly original. Very daring. Not at all conformist.

It occurs to me, however, that Ms Burgher’s contrived, modish waffle may make a kind of sense if you think of it as an attempt to add social heft to the otherwise pedestrian art that she actually produces.

For instance:

“From The River To The Sea… #2 (2023). Porcelain, cobalt, gold lustre and glaze, 27cm.”

And,

“White But Working On It (2022). Glazed porcelain ceramic badges, 5-6 cm.”

And,

“Whiteness (2018). Ink on bagasse (sugar cane fibre), fabric, pins, 14 x 14 cm.”

It would, I think, explain a few things. As it often does.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the unattractive objects shown above, and others very much like them, Martin D adds,

What kind of f*cked up people would think these were cool? Or even well made?

A fair question. One worth pondering.

Ms Burgher approvingly cites Ms Robin DiAngelo, the peddler of neurosis mentioned here, the L Ron Hubbard of wokeness, and whose devotees, as we’ve seen, are often wildly unhinged and nakedly malevolent. Which probably tells us much of what we need to know about Ms Burgher and her racial affectations. The mindset she wishes to inflict on others. And by extension, those who succumb.

And so, Ms Burgher makes her unattractive tat, and calls it art, and treads on ceramic eggshells, and calls it performance art, while listing the hallucinatory evils of having pale skin. And while telling those sufficiently credulous that “whiteness is oppression,” the source of all that is wrong, a basis for eternal shame, and that white people should “not behave white.”

You see, we will purge the world of bigotry by embracing wholesale the mental habits of the bigot.

So, yes. Someone quite fucked up.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Written by: David
Academia Free-For-All

Between The Thighs

July 1, 2024 136 Comments

Speaking, as we were, of Clown Quarter academics and their relentless intellectual thrusting, I bring you this:

A PhD researcher is “investigating pole dancers’ digital media practices,” with funding from the taxpayer, the Telegraph can reveal. 

“Digital media practices” sounds so much more scholarly than, say, tarts who use OnlyFans. Oh, and Instagram. Naturally, this is being done “through an intersectional feminist framework.” One that “centres lived experience.” So lofty stuff, and rigorous to boot.

The researcher behind this colossal undertaking informs us,

“As someone who frequently practices pole dancing for recreational purposes and also has some experience of online sex work… 

Quiet at the back. Don’t make me flick the lights on and off.

…I am committed to respecting the origins of pole dancing as a practice that was created by strippers, and supporting all sex workers, who face significant inequalities within the UK (and beyond).” 

As I said, all terribly high-minded. Political, even.

Should any doubt remain,

A spokesman from the University of Lancaster said: “As a leading research-intensive university, we stand by the value of the contribution of arts and humanities to society.”

And as we’ve seen, many times, the Clown Quarter is driven purely by academic enquiry, a ceaseless thirst for knowledge.

Update:

In the comments, Twin Cities Teegan asks, not unreasonably,

Was there a hypothesis to test? Don’t research papers typically have a direction or theory that they are testing? That the information being gathered presumably will be used to create datasets which will then in turn be used to make conclusions about… something?

Alas, such details, should they exist, are now hidden from view. We are, however, assured,

The project recognises the labour often involved in creating / engaging with pole content and is therefore designed to provide accessible ways for pole dancers to participate that require minimal amounts of time and additional uncompensated labour from participants.

At risk of being presumptuous, it occurs to me that this theme of minimised intellectual labour may apply more generally. A suspicion not shaken by our scholar’s claims of “challenging patriarchal systems” by sharing nude photos on Instagram. Or by her public ruminations on such topics as “The Gendered Politics of Body Hair,” a feat of rote regurgitation and colossal self-involvement, in which we learn of the crushing oppressions of leg-waxing and eyebrow maintenance.

Readers who wish to probe further into the bush can find our scholar’s inexpert twerking here.

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Written by: David
Academia Free-For-All Music

Don’t Oppress My People With Your White-Ass Folk Music

June 24, 2024 232 Comments

In crushed-by-niche-culture news:

University of Sheffield researchers handed taxpayer cash to ‘decolonise’ folk singing.

A mere £1,485,400, since you ask. A gnat’s eyelash. For an issue of such fundamental importance to the turning of the world.

The project… has also been granted extra funds on top of this from bodies such as Research England. 

Whew. I was getting worried there.

Taking place at the University of Sheffield, researchers “will take an unflinching look at the white-centricity of folk music repertory, performers and audience by conducting fieldwork to shed light on long-standing vernacular singing practices of ethnic minority cultures in England.”

Obviously, activities that are chiefly indulged in by white people – in this case, folk singing – must be deemed suspect and found problematic with great urgency, and then probed for hidden wrongness. At taxpayer expense.

And all this scholarly rigour ain’t cheap:

Researchers describe one of their methods as, “ask a friend,” which “involves community researchers interviewing acquaintances.” 

And – and – a word-association game.

Interviewees were asked about their culture and arts background, their attitudes and experiences of folk singing. To give us a sense of the interviewees’ understanding of key concepts, they also took part in a word association game using seven terms common in the folk scene: ‘folk music’, ‘traditional music’, ‘folk songs’, ‘folk singing’, ‘folk singer’, ‘folk club’ and ‘folklore’. 

Those interviewed – and subjected to this no-doubt-gruelling test of word-association – included “36 women, 21 men, and 2 non-binary people.” The researchers thereby deduced that “male associations are more prevalent than female ones.” By which they mean, members of their tiny, rather incestuous sample were slightly more likely to mention Bob Dylan than Joan Baez. And to mention “beards” slightly more often than “long dresses with red trim.”

Also, the word guitar was mentioned more often than tin whistles.

It’s Earth-rumbling stuff. Heaving with import.

However, given the puny sample size, the researchers concede that “it is hard to draw conclusions” from their academic toil.

Presumably, this limitation will be more than compensated for with further “systemic reflections” on “various notions of Englishness.” By Higher Beings who wish to “decolonise” folk music, on account of its “white-centricity,” and whose motives and impartiality will therefore be utterly beyond reproach.

Update, via the comments:

Fay Hield, professor of music at the University of Sheffield, said: “The term decolonisation is often misinterpreted.”

Oh, I think it’s understood quite well, thank you. Along with the kinds of people to whom such things most typically appeal.

“Our research highlights the different under-recognised communities who have helped to establish cultural life in England. Folk music is a constantly evolving genre, which has taken influences from a diverse range of people over centuries. It is part of the UK’s cultural heritage and should be celebrated.” 

Except for the “white-centric” bit, obviously.

That will have to go.

And behind this mannered waffle is the weird implication that devotees of folk music are somehow, simply by existing, excluding racial minorities. Shooing them away. Though, again, details on this point are neither obvious nor forthcoming. Still, perhaps we can look forward to an academic interrogation of classic car shows in Nottinghamshire as some heinous bastion of “white-centricity.” Another item on the list of Things That Must Be Decolonised And Morally Corrected.

“Our aim is to break down the barriers for people to get involved in folk music. Opening up the genre to different audiences will help to sustain the nation’s folk music for decades to come.” 

Different audiences. Not the audience it actually has, mind, the one it attracts, and which is arrived at via choice and musical inclination. No actual barriers to participation are specified, of course. But the audience is nonetheless all wrong, apparently.

Update 2:

Following the quip about British classic car shows as another potential target for pointless academics, commenters svh and asiaseen caution against giving such people ideas:

Not just “white-centricity”, but judging by the photograph, “white-male-centricity.” 

That’s this photograph here. Do feel free to grip the arms of your chair.

Having covered quite a few of these “decolonisation” efforts, which generally rely on a fig-leaf of widening access and removing barriers, it’s remarkable just how rarely any meaningful obstacle to access is actually mentioned. Typically, the humdrum is depicted as gruelling and somehow agonising, and motes are inflated to the size of boulders.

We were told, for instance, that racial minorities are being “deterred” from visiting the British countryside “due to deep-rooted, complex barriers.” Barriers such as the fact that rock-climbing instructors are usually white. And apparently this unremarkable state of affairs, in a white-majority country, is something that needs fixing.

Though it occurs to me that if a person with brown skin were being deterred from trying rock climbing by the fact that the instructor is likely to be white, then it seems somewhat unlikely that said person is interested in rock climbing to any significant extent. And a person deterred by such things may also want to reflect on their own racial assumptions. But we’re not supposed to mention those, at least not in an unflattering light.

The monstrous yet invisible forces preventing racial minorities from walking down country lanes also include “a lack of culturally appropriate provisions,” though, again, details as to what these culturally appropriate provisions might be, or indeed why they should be provided, seemingly at public expense, remain something of a mystery. Perhaps we should throw a few more millions at clown-shoe academics.

As I said in reply,

If I were to move to, say, South Korea and complained in a national Korean newspaper about how I was being deterred from visiting Seoraksan National Park or Namiseom Island, on account of such places… not already having sufficient numbers of white Europeans striding about in a suitably affirming manner, you might think me a tad presumptuous.

And likewise, were I to complain about being prevented from participating in some Korean cultural activity due to the number of Korean people I’d have to encounter while doing it, you might think me dubious in other ways. You might even wonder why I’d moved there in the first place.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Reading time: 5 min
Written by: David
Academia Parenting

Where Perversity Is Status

March 18, 2024 51 Comments

Academia’s Clown Quarter, I mean:

“Marriage fundamentalism” advances “white supremacy,” according to a George Mason University professor. “I theorise that marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key structuring element of white heteropatriarchal supremacy,” Professor Bethany Letiecq wrote in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

The meaning of the term “marriage fundamentalism,” a term used repeatedly, isn’t made entirely clear, and its allegedly racist and life-crushing particulars are, inevitably, “hidden,” “invisible,” and conveniently vague – despite the loudly announced use of “an intersectional lens.” But it seems to mean something like the tendency of many adults to see marriage as of mutual benefit and an optimal way to raise children.

However, our stipulator of pronouns and lecturer in Critical Praxis in Education prefers a more dismissive formulation:

an ideological and cultural phenomenon, where adherents espouse the superiority of the two-parent married family, 

Well, statistically, and by almost any measure, it is superior. Hence, presumably, the espousal.

Letiecq employs “critical family theorising… to delineate an overarching orientation to structural oppression and unequal power relations that advantages [white heteropatriarchal nuclear families] and marginalises others as a function of marriage fundamentalism. 

Stripped of contrivance, I’m assuming this is a roundabout admission that, on average, people who find marriage an alien concept and much too demanding, and who opt instead for transient partners, fatherless children, and unstable relationship trash fires, tend to do less well in life, along with their offspring. And quite possibly, in turn, their offspring too.

Though I’m not sure why the response should be to blame those who get their shit together, marry, and raise children more successfully. As if their competence in this matter, or good fortune or whatever, were somehow lamentable, and racist, and a basis for indignation. And from the child’s point of view, other, more credible candidates for resentment may come to mind.

Letiecq concludes that only white heterosexual couples reap the social and financial benefits of marriage. 

A conclusion that is simply untrue. With the benefits of stable two-parent families – an exclusively “white” phenomenon, according to Professor Letiecq – actually extending to all racial groups:

The advantages of growing up in an intact family and being married… apply about as much to blacks and Hispanics as they do to whites. For instance, black men enjoy a marriage premium of at least $12,500 in their individual income compared to their single peers. The advantages also apply, for the most part, to men and women who are less educated. For instance, men with a high-school degree or less enjoy a marriage premium of at least $17,000 compared to their single peers. 

The author of the study quoted above, Brad Wilcox, can be seen being interviewed here. An interview in which he points out,

The data suggests that about a third of the increase in income inequality for families between the ‘70s and the 1990s was related to the retreat from marriage. 

Buy hey, let’s not let the numbers get in the way of our radical posturing. Instead, let’s offer the young and credulous really perverse advice, and bitch about marriage as merely an act of complicity in “white supremacy.”

And yes, we’ve been down this path before.

Update, via the comments – which you’re reading, of course:

Regarding this,

Though I’m not sure why the response should be to blame those who get their shit together,

EmC replies, tersely,

That.

Well, if little Don’t-Know-Who-My-Dad-Is is starting fires at school and looks destined for a life of delinquency and crime, this is not obviously the fault of the happily married Mr and Mrs Jefferson and their two non-fire-starting children. And no amount of chest-puffing about “heteropatriarchy,” “unequal power relations” and “white supremacy” seems likely to alter that fact.

A child in an unstable home and consequently on an unhappy trajectory may have things to grumble about, in between the brawling and disruption, and starting fires in the toilets. But those grumbles have little to do with other people’s parents making better choices. The grumbling, it seems to me, should probably be directed closer to home.

FredTheFourth adds,

Shades of the argument, a couple of years ago, that parents who read to their young children were giving them an unfair advantage over children whose parents did not.

That’s this argument here, for those who may have missed it. I recommend reading the linked post in full – there’s much to chew on, and much of it mirrors the assumptions aired by Professor Letiecq.

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Written by: David
Academia Free-For-All Parenting Pronouns Or Else

Impermissible Thoughts

March 5, 2024 181 Comments

Via Uma Thurman’s Feet, some educational news:

An eastern Ontario teachers’ union is warning its members they could face discipline under the human rights code [for] regulating student misbehaviour and expressing a series of opinions, 

The particulars of which, we’ll get to in a moment. But in the meantime, do feel free to take a guess. Perhaps it could be the basis for a drinking game.

The email to union members, sent by John Vince, the chief negotiator for Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation district 27, is positively heaving with thou-shalt-nots:

Vince encouraged teachers that keeping secrets from parents is not a bad thing, telling teachers that they shouldn’t tell parents if they catch their child vaping and implied that if a teacher caught a student snorting cocaine or other illicit substance, parents shouldn’t be notified. 

As we’ve seen, many times, some teachers and educational bureaucrats do seem rather titillated by the prospect of actively deceiving parents. As, for instance, when middle-school teachers in Missouri were urged to fabricate and publish a false curriculum, purely to hide from parents the details of their activism and what they were actually up to in class. A move pre-emptively described by its proponent, Natalie Fallert, as “not being deceitful.” And regarding which, I wrote:

It occurs to me that when your solution to such complaints [from parents regarding classroom indoctrination] includes the words “so parents cannot see it,” it may be time to revisit your assumptions.

But I digress. Let’s get back to Mr Vince’s emailed instructions to Ontario educators:

Teachers were told to not tell students to get off their phone, to pull their hoodies down, and should not ask a student why they had arrived to class excessively late. 

Apparently, tardiness is a human right. Other sins to be avoided include the words blind spot, and the immensely oppressive phrase ladies and gentlemen. 

Also forbidden are:

The opinion that women who have gone through male puberty should not participate in women’s sport.

The opinion that women who have male reproductive organs (ex. a penis) may make some women uncomfortable in change rooms or washrooms.

The notion that there are only two genders.

Disagreement that someone could be born in the wrong body or that we all have a ‘gender-soul’.

The idea that keeping secrets from parents/guardians is bad. 

These, it turns out, are “right-wing” opinions, and therefore have soul-blackening properties.

Needless to say, this quoted selection is but a small sample, a mere appetiser. Teachers are also warned not to congratulate parents on their child’s performance in a school play. Why this humdrum politeness should be avoided, with the threat of disciplinary consequences, is not entirely obvious and no hints are offered as to the reasoning. It is, however, framed as equal in sinfulness to informing a parent that their child has been “snorting a white powder.”

Because if little Billy is chopping them out in class, it’s now a teacher’s duty to keep parents in the dark, you see.

The full text of the email in question can be found via the link above. Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.

Oh, and by all means consider this an open thread.

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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.