[-empyre-] a last minute plea for discussion about transfeminism

[naxsmash]

The liminal zone-- Gloria was talking about this bridge-- its always  
on the edge of something we cansee, like those luminous jets, not  
touch,  just yet--

what does Eve Sedgwick say about touch?  LIke the biblical Thomas some  
need to touch the wound in order to believe.



naxsmash
naxsmash at mac.com


christina mcphee

http://christinamcphee.net
http://naxsmash.net





On Jul 29, 2009, at 8:21 AM, Judith Rodenbeck wrote:

> Dinner conversation: the missing "Bridge We Call Home" makes me  
> think of two
> things:
>
> 1 - TJ Clark's lengthy and brilliant discussion of the great social  
> satirist
> Honore Daumier and his relation to both the vanishing artisan class  
> and the
> beginnings of the avant-garde, an awkward phoenix/golem made from  
> those
> still-smoldering and not-yet-disappeared ashes. For some reason this  
> is
> associated in my mind with the description of the Pont-au-Change in  
> the
> novel (not the movie) Perfume...
>
> 2 - a memory of Gloria Anzaldua channeling so strong as she  
> described a
> dream in which she saw Cherie Moraga "with lavender flames shooting  
> out of
> her head" that we saw Cherie, too, with her bandana and luminescent  
> jets of
> lavender arcing skyward.
>
> J
>
> On 7/29/09 3:28 AM, "naxsmash" <naxsmash at mac.com> wrote:
>
>>>
>>
>> For the longest time, a book called "This Bridge We Call Home" was in
>> the bookcase by my bed. Every night I 'd see
>> that title and it would comfort me.  The image of a home on a bridge,
>> and calling (naming ) , this imaginary sound , resonated
>> with a sense of power and hope.  Now for some reason the book has
>> gone, missing.   I find it on googlebooks, though, in excerpts......
>>
>> Opening the introduction, I find the late Gloria Anzaldua walking
>> along the cliffs at Santa Cruz-- a walk I have taken so
>> many times as well, as I try to get ready to teach up on the mountain
>> above us.
>>
>> She muses on the natural bridges, huge limestone remnants of arches
>> that rise just off the edge of the beach, and how
>> the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 brought down the closest to shore
>> of three.
>>
>> The tension in all writing and speech is a kind of bridge between 2
>> unstable conditions , one/the nature of words as representations of  
>> real
>> and two/the nature of words as constructions of real.
>>
>> Queerness, for me involves the exhilaration and hope in the ex-
>> tensions between these.
>>
>> It is a 'tentative' but also a tent, a mobile unit.  I pitch my tent
>> on a bridge...  a sliver, just a shimmy, shimmer, of temporary
>> architecture.
>>
>> The real-- is an earthquake, it will come and change things,  
>> rearrange
>> things, without warning. The natural bridge falls.  Unlike words, or
>> my tent on the bridge,
>> The real is pure process, the real is that quake that will come. The
>> limestone bridge will fall, the beach will disappear....my legs may
>> break, my lungs may give out, I may not run fast
>> enough from the tsunami.  I know this which is why I can speak :
>> because I can anticipate pure process.
>>
>> There is no 'woman' but there is a place on the bridge 'for woman' .I
>> mark it x, I stay there, it is my mobile device, my free phone ... I
>> walk the bridge, my home.
>>
>> I like Gloria's naming too, for this walker on the bridge:
>> 'nepantlera' : those who facilitate passage between worlds.
>>
>>
>> -christina
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>    Micha wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> and i know the queer/feminist divide is long and painful and deep,  
>>> not
>>> just from reading about sandy stone's experience but also from my  
>>> own
>>> personal experiences with some second wave feminists...
>>>
>>> ....Really my own work even seek to sort of expand the notion of
>>> gender to the point that sandy stone said during one of our talks "i
>>> worry about the notion of gender floating away here". Of course
>>> there is
>>> still gender based violence all over the world on a daily basis,  
>>> and I
>>> struggle to get my students and nieces and sisters to understand the
>>> relevance of feminism even while I question its revelance to our
>>> current
>>> /evolving ideas of identity...
>>>
>>> out of breath, stopping there...
>>>
>>> m
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
>
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