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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
The book was too theoretical for my liking. It didn't help that I haven't read the books Morrison discusses here so I felt like I wasn't able to fully get her analysis.
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
lucid.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
informative
fast-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
"Excusing the political from the life of the mind is a sacrifice that has proven costly"
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
Way more technical and academic than I had thought when I picked this up, but once I got used to the scholarly writing style, this had some fascinating points. Read because I read a lot of Poe and wanted some insight and context into how race/Blackness play into his writing. Some of the notes I took down, just pasting here more as notes to myself than anything:
-Freedom can be known and felt by unfreedom: the love of and obsession with freedom in the US is underscored and emphasized by the unfreedom of lower castes; suffering of the lower castes (including but not limited to the enslavement of Black people) is necessary for the freedom of the upper castes (usually but not exclusively white and privileged) and must be maintained—ascension of the lower castes therefore feels less free, and feels oppressive to upper caste people.
-Freedom can be known and felt by unfreedom: the love of and obsession with freedom in the US is underscored and emphasized by the unfreedom of lower castes; suffering of the lower castes (including but not limited to the enslavement of Black people) is necessary for the freedom of the upper castes (usually but not exclusively white and privileged) and must be maintained—ascension of the lower castes therefore feels less free, and feels oppressive to upper caste people.
-Negative space in writing—what is left unsaid and undescribed says as much as what is said and described.
-The nurse fantasy partly comes from the lone wolf masculinity, which can only accept help when asking for it is taken out of the equation. When the nurse chooses or is paid to help, and does so without being asked, it does not threaten the fragile, fragile masculinity of the stoic male. This is extended to the idea of the perfect wife or (female) lover in a cishet relationship, who knows what and when a man needs without needing to ask and provided for those needs tenderly, selflessly, without asking anything in return, complaining, or having any needs of her own