lutz

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i'm a boy from indiana and this is very emotional for me


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a fun academia thing that happens sometimes is.

when you're in a conference seminar and months ahead of time the seminar leaders begin introductions by asking you to reply all to the email thread with name, affiliation, research interests, etc (normal so far) they will also sometimes be like "and we want to build a bibliography for everyone in the seminar to use, so name 1-2 pieces of scholarship you find helpful for talking about our topic!"

which is great because the structure of academic disciplines is such that for every field-topic there is usually a "known" selection of core texts on that precise thing, and you are immediately presented with this choice of "well, do I name one of those and look plebeian to everyone, or do I expend effort for a deep cut but also risk looking weird if it's TOO out there?" and on top of this the longer you go without replying (it's soooo easy to procrastinate on the intro email) the more likely BOTH the popular texts and your obscure picks will have been put forth by someone else, meaning you'll have to scramble even MORE to come up with stuff that feels like a contribution.

Anyway there's no point to this story, it's just an example of the strange walls-closing-in social dances academia produces. I was the first respondent to the email thread that spurred this reflection and ultimately decided to go as far afield as possible (a 90s film studies article and a piece on Victorian spirit photography, for a conference on early modernity) because I'm old and tired


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