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A woman sits in the lower righthand corner of the frame, her hands on her lap. She is enveloped in a net, which pools at her feet and which is suspended by two long white threads extending upwards past the top right corner of the photograph. Under the net she appears composed or, maybe, simply posed. She stares just past the camera, her eyesâdark dots in the pale oval of her faceâpointing at something that we, the viewers, cannot see. Or pointing at nothing.
The net makes DâEspĂ©rance ghostly: it falls over her body not unlike the way draped fabric swoops over the heads and bodies of the spirits who show up in photographs of sĂ©ances. The grey-white crosshatching of the threads sinks into the grey-white background of her skin and blurs her facial featuresâher nose invisible, her mouth a smudge of darkness. And it obscures whatever scarf or shadow falls across her neck and torso, so that her head appears to float.
In a 2003 article in Art Journal, Mark Alice Durant describes âthe blur of the otherworldlyâ: the tendency to associate the smudge, the haze, the vague shape with the not-quite-of-this-worldâthe spookification of the partially visible. Citing Victorian spirit photography, UFO images, and a set of blurry photographs supposedly produced by a man simply staring into the camera lens, Durant writes that âit seems that the visual proofs of paranormal activity must be conveyed in styles analogous to their tenuous accessibilityâ (14). That is, images meant to function as proof of the supernatural are often frustratingly vague or difficult to make out, which Durant argues is a manifestation of the difficulty of obtaining solid evidence of the paranormal. According to Durant, photography is particularly likely to produce such ambiguous proofs because it seems to hover between reality and representation, the material and the immaterialââBlack cloths and safe lights, apertures and sensitivities, filters and latent images: the glossary of photographic terms is suggestive of an entire world of betweennessâ (8)
-Lu Fairchild's dissertation
Read chapter 26 here.
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Read chapter 25 here.
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hey.
everything is terrible.
in this chapter, a conservative university administration threatens a queer scholar because they consider her work "pornographic." so it's feeling relevant to the state of the U.S. right now, and to some of the potential issues around censorship we may face in the next four years.
let's maybe do a better job sticking together in the face of this than the English department in this fictional university?
sending love and solidarity this week. đđđ
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read it here. so sorry to all my medievalist friends.
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Read ch. 22 here. It was a favorite to write--Charles and Piper finally getting to talk about their queer feelings and what it's like to be the Watson to a Holmes. An excerpt:
Charles clears his throat again. His throat feels too tight to speak. He opens his mouth and what comes out is entirely beyond his control. âI kissed Julian.â
For a second Piper doesnât speak. Then: âWhat?â
âI kissed him,â Charles says in a rush. âWe kissed each other. More than once.â
Piper blinks. Their eyebrows have shot way up. âWhen?â
âRecently. Uh. the first time was about a week ago.â
âHoly shit.â
âYeah. Uh.â
âOh my god. How long have you been working for him?â
Charles smiles shakily. âSince a few days before you showed up at his office.â
Piperâs eyes widen. âSeriously? I thought youâd known each other for a lot longer than that.â
âWell.â Itâs Charlesâ turn to look down at his lap. âI sort of have. HeâŠhe was in this TV show. Young Sherlock. When I was a kid. I was pretty much obsessed with it.â
Piper shakes their head. âShit. UhâŠdoes he know about that?â
âNo.â
A pause. âWow.â
âYeah. He seems to not like people talking about it. So I never mentioned it. But likeâŠI had his poster on my wall.â
âFuck,â Piper breathes.
âYes. So. Iâthe kissing.â Charlesâ face is very hot. âI canât tell if itâsâif itâs becauseââ
âBecause you loved the TV version of him as a kid.â
âRight!â Charles hesitates, then adds in a rush: âPlus itâs the first time Iâve ever kissed a man. Maybe the first time Iâve ever wanted to? I donât know. I donât know! But. Now Iâm thinking, likeâcould that be enoughâthe childhood detective stuff, is that enough toâto make me think that Iâactually want to kiss him? But maybe I donât? And itâll justâŠwear off eventually?â
Piper stands up, rubbing their face distractedly as they pace to the window. âHoly shit.â They stare out at the brick wall opposite and say, âYouâre in a fic. Youâre in a Sherlock Holmes fic.â
Charles laughs a little. âI know.â
Piper whirls back around to face him. âThis is absurd.â
âI know. Iâve read Luâs stuff.â
âOn Archive of Our Own?â
âYeah.â
âHoly shit.â Piper sinks back down into the armchair.
âItâs justâŠâ Charles hesitates. âWhat you were saying. About the way you make people into sort of mythical characters. How do you knowâŠhow do you know whatâs real?â
âOh.â Piper pauses, thinking. âI guessâŠI guess I donât really care. I donât really believe in âauthenticityâ anyway.â
Charles lets this sink in. âBut what ifâif you get to know that person, say, and theyâre not the way you imagined. Isnât it, likeâŠcrushingly disappointing?â
Piper lets out a startled burst of a laugh. âPretty much.â They shrug. âItâs worth it.â
âYeah?â
They nod. âAlthoughâŠI meanâŠit does hurt. Not even just the disappointment. Before that. TheâŠwanting. If that makes sense.â
âYeah. Yeah, it does.â Charles is quiet for a moment. âDo you think I could do that? Sort ofâsubconsciously manufacture an attraction to men because of some made-up idea of a detective I was obsessed with as a kid?â
Piper doesnât answer right away. Eventually, they say, slowly, âI think most people would say no. Thatâs not how we like to think about queerness, or being biâlike, Iâm supposed to tell you that you can be bi for a long time without realizing it, but now you are realizing it and youâve always been bi andâŠand that could totally be true! Totally. But the possibility that you might sort ofâŠtemporarily feel this attraction thatâs a kind of overflow of that intense fannish devotion to the Julian you remember as a kidâŠâ They shrug. âIt actually sounds possible to me.â
Charlesâ stomach plummets. âOh.â
âBut,â Piper adds, âbut that doesnât meanâthat doesnât mean itâs, like, fake? Or dumb, orâŠlike, if you feel attracted to him, thatâs notâthatâs real, even if itâs notâŠeven if itâs because of some complicated thing happening in your head. Even if youâre not sure why youâre attracted to him, or how serious it is, itâs still real. I mean, if you like kissing him, you like kissing him.â Piper tilts their head. âDo you like kissing him?â
Charles nods.
âIt seems to me that the question is, will this last. And also, maybeâŠhow would it affect him if it didnât?â
âYeah,â Charles whispers. âYes. What if Iâm really fucking this upâwhat if I, I get to know him, the real him, and stop thinking of him as this mostly made-up persona, and I justâŠstop wanting him like that? And he feels like Iâve been lying, like Iâve been stringing him alongâlike I donât really like him, just that made-up persona?â
Piper blows out a breath. âYeah. I donât know. Iâm sorry, IâŠIâm either a really good person to ask or a really bad person to ask, Iâm not sure which. I wish I could just be like, youâve just realized youâre bi, congratulations! ButâŠdesire is so so complicated.â
âRight.â Charles swallows. He feels small. He looks down, trying not to show Piper the miserable expression he knows has just stolen across his face.
âHereâs a thing, though,â Piper says suddenly. âWhat do you want it to be?â
âWhat do you mean?â
âIf you got to choose. Whether your attraction to Julian was some sort of fluke that will go away, or if you really do want him in a more serious and long-term kind of way?â
âI want to really want him,â Charles says immediately, and then his mouth falls open. He feels dumbstruck. âIâŠI didnât know that.â
âItâs probably a good thing to know.â
Piper smiles at him. Their eyes meet, finally, and stay on each other.
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If you see this youâre legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book youâre currently reading
#a wilderness of error by errol morris#it is SO depressing idk if I can finish it#really good and also. yikes.#which is honestly what true crime should be like
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cannot stress enough how much I LOVE getting this message from Canvas when I'm trying to grade papers. thanks so much Canvas. you're working perfectly as always.
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J.C. Leyendecker is a never-ending source of inspiration when it comes to drawing pretty, sharp-dressed men...
It's always a tough choice whether to draw my beloved hair or make the clothing more historically accurate by adding hats........
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If you're an academic, think about what really bad stuff you could discover in your office. That's this chapter!
Read it here.
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"In The Epistemology of the Closet, Sedgwick writes: "the fact that silence is rendered as pointed and performative as speech, in relations around the closet, depends on and highlights more broadly the fact that ignorance is as potent and as multiple a thing there as is knowledge" (Sedgwick 4). She describes the very state of "closetedness" as "a performance initiated as such by the speech act of silence [...]" (Sedgwick 3). Our silence had never been hollow, an absence of words: instead, it was theatrical, conciliatory, convincing in what it disguised, affirming of people's assumptions, loud and provocative, a word play. Our existence was subtextual, we found shelter in the crevices of interpretation, we blossomed in the fields of others' guesswork."
© Sam L. Greene
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are you a Byron or Wilde apologist?
concerned citizens from 1895 are messaging me
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really love dynamics that are like 'it honestly doesn't matter if you view them as romantic or platonic, the point is that they love each other. the type of love is inconsequential, all that matters is that it's there'. gotta be one of my favorite genders.
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t-shirt that says i find victorian repression erotic
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bad vibes! gay kissing! what more could you need
read chapter 20 here
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Truly like. Anyone can become a lawyer. Only a chosen few can write the next great american destiel fanfiction.
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