tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post1897741979806619321..comments2024-03-25T16:59:28.263-04:00Comments on Works Cited: The criticism of enthusiasmNataliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07898457401179147102noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-14633719135016388202011-03-22T18:23:45.573-04:002011-03-22T18:23:45.573-04:00Appreciation is where I was going with this more t...Appreciation is where <i>I</i> was going with this more than where I thought you were going. I'm not sure about that "whiff" you mention--and even if it did sound (smell?) that way to some, I'm more concerned with what it looks like as a critical practice today. <br /><br />Thanks for the links to your posts about Twitter; I'll take a look.Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-74084649663546455572011-03-22T13:52:24.559-04:002011-03-22T13:52:24.559-04:00Appreciation isn't really where I was going wi...Appreciation isn't really where I was going with this; I was thinking more of the kinds of informal critical projects that I linked in the post, which involve some appropriation as well as criticism. "Appreciation" still has that whiff of midcentury male authority, wouldn't you say? Whereas something like Gaga Stigmata bears a freakishly close resemblance to Jack Halberstam's (excellent) blog. Fan criticism is quite often a queer criticism, in the abstract sense of the term.<br /><br />As for Twitter: <br /><br />Since I didn't link in the original post, there's no reason you ought to know that I've written previously on Twitter as a form of feminine discourse. It's seen as gossipy and inconsequential, and it's characterized by a radical multiplicity associated with the feminine. Its figuration (or branding, let's say) as birdlike is also a way of feminizing the form, since birds have long been associated with femininity and especially an illegible and unsoundable female communication, from Philomel to Hitchcock's <em>The Birds</em>.<br /><br />Maybe Twitter's ultimate emblem is the emblem of its undoing, the Fail Whale. So many people are using Twitter that it crashes. The largest creature in the world is thus lifted out of the water by a flock of indistinguishable birds, each tiny on its own, yet powerful enough as a mass to move the unitary whale. Twitter is undone by all the tweeting.<br /><br />As the gender-bending ornithologist of <em>The Birds</em> puts it: "I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn't stand a chance!"<br /><br />[<a href="http://nataliacecire.blogspot.com/2009/11/gendered-twitter.html" rel="nofollow">on the gendering of Twitter</a> | on the gendering of birds: <a href="http://nataliacecire.blogspot.com/2010/11/nests.html" rel="nofollow">1</a>, <a href="http://nataliacecire.blogspot.com/2010/12/googles-automatic-writing-and-gender-of.html" rel="nofollow">2</a>]Nataliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01954034499196842959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-82628801972865781812011-03-21T21:50:01.753-04:002011-03-21T21:50:01.753-04:00Another term that might come in between Roland'...Another term that might come in between Roland's apparently quite restrictive definition of literary criticsm (vs. his "criticism" in scare quotes) and enthusiasm is "appreciation," which incorporates both love and knowledge, and need not be <i>un</i>critical.<br /><br /><i>the high-pitched, fluttering, terrifyingly feminine interface with mass culture known as Twitter</i><br /><br />I'm curious: are you being ironic? Or is this actually how you view / experience Twitter? If the latter, "feminine" how, exactly, and "terrifyingly" so to whom--to you? to the not-feminine?Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.com