barbara johnson stan account
@eleanoir
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Doctor of philosophy on what it means to play pretend. Writing about stand-up comedy, sound studies, and the avant-garde.
Rogers Park, Chicago
Joined January 2009
i wrote this and i didn't realize it came out! this is a v personal and dear piece to me, i hope you like it!.
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my son has invented a new version of rock, paper scissors called the void, the infinite, the mind.
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@katherineveritt The void defeats the infinite, the mind defeats the void, and the infinite defeats the mind. Duh.
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I feel like I would really excel as a tenured professor with a very low teaching load at a prestigious university. Anyone else feel this way?.
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the self-moralizing over reading less is a coping mechanism. if you admit you don't read a lot bc you don't have the attention span you have to admit that something has been done to you and you haven't stopped it. i want to be compassionate, but the delusion is frustrating.
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cancelling william s. burroughs, while i foresaw it happening when the movie came out, is still so so funny to me. who can we do next? let's do the marquis de sade.
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i'm normally sooooo pablo freire-coded and i'm honestly kind of a pushover in the classroom but students using AI has really made me change. like i do not make enough money to let someone treat me like this and then i hold their hand through it. you get a zero. bye.
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sry accidntally posted the same photo again, this is the void
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this is so much more smug than any literary critic could ever be. unbelievable. ma'am.
I have a degree in English. Every time my profs were explaining symbolism and foreshadowing in books, I wanted to know how they knew that was the author's intention. Now, as a writer, I'm convinced most of it was bunk. 😄😉
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The only kind of interesting art about this is the barrier in front of it.
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Writing about vomit. This article is crazy good. Does anyone know any other theory stuff about vomit?
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was feeling very sad and bad all day and then i started reading critical theory and now life is worth living again. i hate how often this works.
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again it is absolutely insane to me that of all people foucault is the go-to "opaque and annoying writer".
Foucault deserves his reputation as an opaque and annoying writer, but his basic analysis of power is the most parsimonious description of social reality I've ever seen, once you start looking power as he describes it out in the wild, it's as subtle as an avalanche.
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i'm increasingly convinced this girl has not read a word of hegel
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why the fuck did i waste my entire adult life in the academic humanities. what is wrong with me. what a fucking IDIOT.
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this is the frenchest thing to ever happen lmao.
SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN: The Paris Airports Union filed a notice today to go on STRIKE on the day of the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony!!!!.
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Oh my god shit the fuck up.
I don’t know what people learn from novels & poems that isn’t more rigorously exposited and defended in philosophy texts.
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“I’m stupid”.
i read science fiction to imagine what might change - i read ancient literature to understand what doesn't.
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This actually makes me want to leap from a building. What the fuck happened!!! We were doing so good for a while!!!!.
guys they’re reinventing “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” using tiktok therapy/self-help speak its actually so over
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I actually think it would behoove leftists to reconsider what the term “material reality” means in a 2024 context. I’ve been banging this drum for years but I legit think “libidinal economy” is a material economy at this point !.
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It’s so frustrating trying to explain to people why ChatGPT etc. is bad bc you essentially have to explain to someone with more power than you that they are stupid about something that they think they are smart at.
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oh my god conservatives can make good art and empathy is by no means required to make good art. lmao. im so tired of gryffindor vs. slytherin aesthetic theory.
Conservatives are incapable of producing good art because they lack empathy, which means they are incapable of creating anything which communicates to a larger audience. When they try to produce art, they only end up producing clumsy in-group signaling.
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It’s so weird that ppl tweet bc they want “engagement.” Like I was under the impression that this was the void? Am I wrong? I’m gazing into the abyss rn i thought that’s what we were all doing?.
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Me, a 36 year old woman, when my friend is describing a guy we used to know: is he in our grade.
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this was my favorite part of the whole thing honestly. the rest of it is superfluous imo. this could have been the entire review.
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Theatre studies is so funny if just for the sheer number of completely straight-faced serious conversations I’ve had about the ontology of puppets.
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What you wrote is actually easy to understand and please fuck off.
The opacity of academic prose arises from the epistemological imperative to operationalize disciplinary jargon, facilitating intra-specialized discourse while obfuscating heterogenous interpretive accessibility and perpetuating a recursive dialectic of erudition and exclusion.
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Ma’am are you sure that’s why they didn’t want to be friends with you
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why do all these people who aren't good at writing want to be writers? i'm pretty good at writing and i hate being a writer.
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Fuck word limit I am saint Augustine and must get this off my chest
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@Tyler_A_Harper this is PIPING HOT. like this is why i will never quit this site. this is what twitter used to be like before the nazis and porn bots took over, it was just weirdos making insane claims and ppl freaking out. thank you tyler for reminding me of the true meaning of christmas.
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Do you know that people used to read multiple newspapers a day, every day, bc that’s how news works.
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@beautifulrobot @ChairMartyr i swear to god, if i stumbled across this thread as an undergraduate. i would be so fucking sad lol.
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Leaving my family to do a series of one-year post docs and VAPs in every single state in America and recording an album about each of them.
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thinking about how carrie bradshaw and judith butler's writing share a talmudic formalism in the tendency to ask a series of rhetorical questions in a row.
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convincing liberals that in order to improve the world you might have to experience minor and sometimes medium and sometimes substantial sacrifices and hardships. we are not gonna fuckin make it. how can we organize these people? genuinely asking.
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This “100 pages a day” deal has me reflecting on my studying for comps experience where I was simultaneously the most insane and also most myself version of myself I’ve ever been.
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just once i'd like an artist to take a flinching look at their own inner life. i really do think that is more interesting.
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@imfleetwoodjack There’s just something so deeply “From Massachusetts” about her whole deal.
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@kathbarbadoro it's been my experience that anyone who lists "dark sense of humor" as a primary descriptor for their personality/interests does not actually have a dark sense of humor really. like @gillianhemme has a really dark sense of humor IMO but she keeps it chill.
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there's actually no acceptable form of action or protest for liberals. they just want you to shut up. the game isn't worth it, do what you need to do.
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My student evals are so hilarious bc they’re either “she sucks, she’s bad, I hate her, and she’s not hot” or they’re “Eleanor changed my life and has exquisite breasts and large eyes”.
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Last John ganz tweet but while I think most ppl who both-sides Israel/palestine do it for material benefit but for him I think it’s narcissism. His ego & brand rest upon being the most smart, nuanced guy. This contrarianism is ingrained and therefore solidarity is impossible.
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Mom ‘s spaghetti .Dad’s carbonara .Grandma’s penne ala vodka .My cousin Jonathan’s turkey tetrazzini . Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony.
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remember when that fascist was like "let's do Salo but without the gay shit" ? this is funny like that was funny imo.
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this is exhausting.
Current ick: men presumably under 35 reading books on the subway or in public.
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you are a kind of worm of a man, i think.
I wrote this about how jargon ate academia and the world.
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Sometimes you are 23 and you are the prettiest you will ever be in your whole life and at the time you thought you were a hideous troll and you look back on that time and you RUE
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One time I was chatting with a guy at a festival and when I told him I was getting my PhD in theatre studies he literally tot angry and it was a little scary! This kind of thing happened with men more than once, but thankfully this was the only time I felt actually scared.
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I’m thinking about having a Babygirl style affair but one befitting my societal position. Like I’m the babygirl and I’m a two institution adjunct and the guy who makes me drink milk or whatever is a three institution adjunct. Neither of us have dental.
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hello! i've accepted a job! i will be the Assistant Professor of Practice--Theater History and Dramaturgy at Southern Illinois University! i will relocate to carbondale for the school year while J & @TalkinLooseMeat & bubba stay in Taos! this is very hard but also very exciting!.
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Shirtless white man across the street just came out into his yard, removed his American flag, went back inside, brought out an Iranian flag and hung it up in its place. Right on and all that, but where did he get the Iranian flag? Those drones are still in the air.
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I’ll be real that chapo etc have issues but none of the stuff claimed against them and DSA has ever been near the shit the democrats do on a regular basis. I’m tired of the respectability politics. Like sorry you’re not funny or smart or offering anything! that’s not their fault.
The "Dirtbag Left" in 2019 was dedicated with every fiber of its collective being to electing a Jewish social democrat w/standard progressive views on abortion, LGBT rights, etc. If that project was "transparently" (!) "fascist" I have questions about how we're using that word.
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Did Brandeis University write this Wikipedia entry
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@FaenrikStaal @dee_of_e Ohhh I need to use this one. The “quotes from nowhere” are the worst part, to me.
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@itsdeezcontents i'm not that concerned with that aspect of the discourse, i'm just talking about people QTing @pourfairelevide being like "that's logocentric and ableist" or w/e.
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funny academic writers? i know the greats (koestenbaum, my hero tbh) and karen tongson and a few others, but what're some under the radar ones? i'm trying to figure out what my voice is so i want to steal from someone else's.
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So andré fucked up and thought the Halloween costume contest at J’s school was today. So J wore his costume and nobody else did. He said “sometimes I felt like a nerd.”
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It’s so difficult watching so many aggressively mediocre people succeed. Other than the financial insecurity, it’s the thing I think about the most, not even out of jealousy (tho there is that too, inevitably) but out of a desire to study.
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I saw a thread a while ago about how we need to distinguish b/t situational depression &chronic. Exercise & socializing helps with both but the thing about chronic depression is that I will always have it even if I go on field trips every single day the rest of my life.
In 31 years of age I think I’ve finally discovered the cure to depression and it’s just leaving the house at every single possible opportunity no matter how badly you don’t want to.
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Just quit one of my jobs! Amazing feeling. May each and every one of you have the opportunity to quit a job of your choosing.
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@tickled_joker the void defeats the infinite and the mind defeats the void according to him.
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locking my account for the next couple days bc I'm on my way to Boston for a big girl potential job opportunity and I only want 1300 of my closest friends to know about it.
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told my parents we got our bid approved for the house in rogers park, and my mom was like "oh, you should try to get tenure at loyola!" 💀.
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this is beyond the pale and still very normal treatment, i really think some senior faculty straight up don't realize how bad it is but at this point i gotta assume most don't care 🤠.
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How the hell am I just learning that A.O. Scott’s mom is Joan W. Scott???.
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re-reading my dissertation as i work on my stupid book and honestly? i was cooking.
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Men cannot process it when women writers have a playful tone. They lose their goddamn minds. This thread is insane.
Authors' unwillingness to show reverence for more accomplished writers' work is one of the most annoying features of this age of literary criticism. (Yes, I'm talking about the DFW essay in LRB).
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sorry but i do need to echo others: how the fuck has everybody read this book already.
This book has an incredible commitment to really thinking & synthesizing & making causal claims.Its critiques could be called ruthless but it's so pedagogical & generous; it takes the work of interp seriously enough to care which concepts clarify & which obfuscate and to say why!
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what is it like to be this fucking stupid.
Putting aside whether this decision is right, I just want to note that an educated student who says she is against genocide and violence has a literal hammer and sickle in her bio. This seems incompatible, no? The Soviet Union is responsible for the genocide of millions….
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This is a fundamental misunderstanding of theatre kids.
The key problem with SNL nowadays is that there is far too much theater kid energy and zero "everyone here wants to kill each other" energy.
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sry but i always get angry when the sinéads of the world die. all this sudden. i'm tired of really brave crazy people who told the truth being treated like garbage during their lifetime only to be fawned over when they're dead in the ground. integrity is so rare and she had it.
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I simply cannot continue to read this take anymore.
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i think what's most odious about this is the implication that the reason he got tenure, is a visiting scholar at harvard, and got a 6-figure advance is because of his brain at all, dumb or not.
Last year I got tenure, this year I'll be a visiting scholar at Harvard, and I got a 6-figure advance to publish a book next year. In honor of these accomplishments, here's a list of embarrassing confessions revealing how dumb my brain is in many ways:.
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interview next week for a NTT job at a place i dont want to live and certainly do not want to raise a child, wish me luck.
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