@dunaevtimur asked with a bit of insistence for at least some outline of what I was thinking about when I wrote the below tweet. So let me try. 1/
I'll start with my perspective in the moments of noticeable divide. Reading and/or being trained in feminist scholarship, queer theory, anti-racist strategy, trans studies etc. is a disciplinary training. It disciplines your mind to see certain patterns, read in certain ways. 2/
If you've been in classes, rooms, committees, fora with feminists, queer theorists, anti-racist activists for years, you internalize those patterns and the language that comes with it. 3/
For example, when at this performance Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser made a brief comment about queering classical music. Not only did I know exactly what he meant, I also could immediately call up which elements of the show so far had been evidence of it. 4/
I imagine someone else who has not studied queer theory, LGBTQ counterpublics, or questions of LGBTQ representation in culture at large, would not have known what was meant and might have been puzzled by and even hostile to the language wall that kept them from understanding. 5/
Or, another example. When I asked these questions at the end of a thread I wrote several months ago, I knew that some of my Twitter friends--trained in feminist thinking--would know why I read the verb "grow up" in the way I did. Many agreed with me. 6/
It was just one email, you might say. Indeed, I don't know the person who wrote it, and I don't know at all how else he's acted in relation to female colleagues. And maybe in his mind he meant the email and the phrase "grow up" in quite a different way. 7/
Thinking through this in a way that's disciplined by feminist scholarhip--and I did think this through; I remember sitting on this thread for a while before posting it--the structures of sexism that contextualize the message make my reading of "grow up" possible & convincing. 8/
I'm trying to illustrate practices of discipline--being trained and training yourself in patterns of thinking. And they are researched patterns of thinking and analyzing, there is much theory and empirical work behind them. I don't want anyone to dismiss that. 9/
If you find yourself wanting to dismiss that discipline and its history, I want you to pivot instead to thinking that it's a discipline you've not been part of, or haven't wanted or been able to be part of. Like I haven't been part of the discipline of engineering. 10/
When some of us use terms like transmisogyny, cisgender, queering, heteronormativity, white privilege, these terms have readings, repeated use, examples, histories behind them.
When we jump on someone else's expressions, there's usually disciplined thinking behind it. 11/
When we jump on someone else's expressions, there's usually disciplined thinking behind it. 11/
Though the jumping on others for their choice of expressions is maybe not always well-advised or carefully executed or effective. I admit that. 12/
Now, I said I'd be talking about a divide in disciplined thinking, so I have to get to the other side somehow. I've had some--many times fun, but at times also a bit tortuous--conversations with followers who are not trained in feminist, queer, anti-racist scholarship. 13/
They'd probably describe themselves as libertarians, classical liberals, and/or rationalists. There have been some angry and upsetting moments, at least for me, in those conversations. I've tried to address them, but it's not always gone well, and I've run into trouble. 14/
Apparently, I come across as very negative. Uff. (To use a German expression.) That's not exactly how I thought of myself. I'm mulling on that. 15/
So, here's where I'll point out that those interlocutors also have disciplined thinking behind them. I'm thankful when they take the time to explain it, especially when we seem to be unhappily arguing at cross-purposes. 16/
It's in the nature of my research areas--written genres, research writing, #disciplinarity, #genrestudies--that I can respect a wide range of disciplined thinking. That's been helpful. And I don't want to make too many claims here about how my interlocutors are thinking. 17/
But I would like to insist that they view their disciplined way of thinking as no more universal than mine.
(If I were to write a longer piece, I'd be going into counterpublic discourse now & the friction that results when it makes incursions into dominant publics.) 18/
(If I were to write a longer piece, I'd be going into counterpublic discourse now & the friction that results when it makes incursions into dominant publics.) 18/
If this thread is trying to accomplish one thing, it is to remind us to bring our disciplined practices in the open, esp where they conflict or produce misunderstanding. It's not a diversion to stop the conversation to clarify how we're thinking (& feeling) and why.
Finis. 19/
Finis. 19/
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