[...]well as pleasures


(what do you make out of ="trms"nttrm="already,spread">reading your gender ="trms">material='qstn'>?)

="large lg2" stl="font-size:112%">
="trms">Greek brainwomb


feminism  ='lgc'>='lgc'>~/= feminist theory='lgc'>='lgc'>-->='lgc'>{highly diverse, located in many domains of practices in and out of the university, and understood to be this highly diverse activity='lgc'>}


the talks i have been giving are done by someone with a kind of mind and soul that just makes connections fast. i work orally. the ="trms">lectures are heavily prepared (and some important ways unprepared in the manner of its performance='lgc'>: all those connections happening during the talk not knowing them beforehand, they happen by the encounter='strcls'>*) and full of cue (سخن رهنما، ايماء، اشارت) and quirk (تزئينات، تناقض گويى، تغيير ناگهانى فکر). my notes and scripting are invisible to my audience, but they are there at work. and it gets people ex="trms">cited. and that's the point. i work with confusion and ex="trms">citement. i have not been good at laying out groundwork of ="trms">skills, going to next level and so on. i am working with that feeling of “i am not sure what i am getting, by i think i am getting it”. i also always come back, loop again through the same ="trms">material, go back to the ="trms">question we were raising before and ='strcls'>***“watch what is happening to the ="trms">language”='strcls'>***(="ppl">="ppl">Haraway). these are the ways my connections work. artistic and scholarly work works by ='strcls'>**modes of attention='strcls'>** ='lgc'>[='lgc'>--re="trms">member='lgc'>='lgc'>--> your mode of attention (= your mode of abstraction) is doing the foregrounding and the ="trms">world is not actually built that way. so you make ‘your mode of attention='lgc'> = ="trms">world’ to inhabit something for a certain time only to do a certain kind of work)='lgc'>] ='lgc'>--(because)='lgc'>='lgc'>--> you are always jumping into the middle of something that is ongoing before you, into the middle of many conversations. you are learning how to get it in several ways at once. the hypertext that i have been building also characterizes these kinds of layering upon layering of textual work. teaching myself how to ="trms">write and how to play with ideas.
working with (="ppl">="ppl">Haraway's) kind of good-enough approach to a body of scholarship ='lgc'>='lgc'>--> inhabiting many things that i have only got half-di="trms">gested (='lgc'>=/= through di="trms">gestion, particular bodies of ="trms"nttrm="already,spread">reading that people need to have mastered in order to argue)

(after five years now i am) feeling myself (a little bit more) competent and confident in (some) ="trms">scientific ="trms">literacy and in (some of) the ="trms">skills of the arts and ="trms">literature ='lgc'>='lgc'>--> ='qstn'>?

after ="nms">apass='lgc'>: ="nms">apass was a safe-enough space for my inventive processes, to make ="trms">interesting mistakes, but do i need a real scholarly undertaking with ="nms">ajayeb='qstn'>?
i had a lousy education, don't know still how to ="trms">write well and coherently and sustain a project. i don't have the ="trms">skills to pull off ='mywrk'>my research as a phd, as a scholar. i need someone to work with me line-by-line. i need to go people who have ="trms">serious educations in my subject, and ask them ="trms">questions, and ="trms"nttrm="already,spread">read.
and i am missing that kind of connectivity that your ="trms">writing being ="trms"nttrm="already,spread">read performs. do i need an atmosphere in which my kind of ="trms">writerly activities are honored and foregrounded, and expected='qstn'>?

can my ="nms">ajayeb beome a real scholarly project with ="trms">seriously labor-intensive student work='qstn'>?


hostility ='lgc'>=/= indi="trms">gestibility ='lgc'>{they cannot recognize it, it is something else='lgc'>}='lgc'>='lgc'>--> it is not personal, but a ="trms">historical state of a discourse, and the ="trms">nature of the kinds of possibilities that being opened up or closed


(in ="nms">apass) all of us fail each other in ="trms">different ways all the time='strcls'>*

we can barely ="trms"nttrm="already,spread">read each other's works/="trms">books. but we do, and we struggle with each other's works/="trms">books


(in ="nms">apass i am catching my self giving “advice” to others='lgc'>='lgc'>---risk of the advice='lgc'>:) violation of their ="trms">integrity

='strcls'>*taxonomy='lgc'>: (constantly ="trms">morphing) tools, they work and get worked, ='strcls'>*they are part of ="trms">situated conversations='strcls'>* (='lgc'>~ “theory conversations” ="ppl">Katie ="ppl">King < ="ppl">="ppl">Haraway)
(='lgc'>=/= some kind of enemy that you never do)


='strcls'>***almost everybody is organically part of more than one conversation at a time='strcls'>*** (="ppl">="ppl">Haraway)
(this is so important to recognize specially in collaborative research environments such as ="nms">apass)


(in political movement='lgc'>:) working to a kind of clarity of ideological ="trms">position ='lgc'>='lgc'>==> to do certain kinds of things (that are harder to do if you don't have them ='lgc'>[those ideological ="trms">positions='lgc'>] in the ="trms">world) ='lgc'>='lgc'>--> they are used as ='strcls'>*tools='strcls'>* to produce what got called ='strcls'>*political correctness='strcls'>* ='lgc'>='lgc'>--> always producing those who count and those who don't count='strcls'>*
='lgc'>=/=='qstn'>? feminist movement='lgc'> = ='strcls'>***a kind of vulnerability to not being who you thought you were='strcls'>*** ='lgc'>: openness to risk, less of a defensiveness, less of an attack mentality, not shaping each other up into vanguards پيشقراول ='lgc'>='lgc'>--> (towards thinking) ="trms">differential/op="trms">positional consciousness (='lgc'>=/= father, single kind of creators)


“you can know if you are wrong in rather ="trms">interesting, ="trms">situated ways”
='at'>@="frds scrmbld"nttrm="Leonardo">Leo
='at'>@="frds scrmbld">Maarten


='lgc'>[='strcls'>*='lgc'>]"was”='lgc'>: (so important for ="nms">iranians ='lgc'>[='at'>#="trms">past='lgc'>]) a geographical place, a place='lgc'>:
="lsts lst1">•of pain
="lsts lst1">•of fantasy
="lsts lst1">•of hope
="lsts lst1">•of possibility
="lsts lst1">•of defeat
="lsts lst1">•of breaking and building
(='lgc'>='lgc'>--> a borderland)


="trms">="trms"nttrm="metaph,metamorph,metabol,metal">metaphors that are also real places
figurings that are also (always unequally) lived in the flesh


to think “contact zone” instead of “binary shape”
ways of living and ="trms">technologies, ways of doing the ="trms">world forcibly brought together in ="trms">relations of ="trms">serious inequality, but which do not take the simple shape of dominator and dominated


='strcls'>*“abstractions are precious and they take a huge amount of work to know how to build them well”='strcls'>*

(='qstn'>?how do i know when in working with ="nms">ajayeb) sometimes you are required (at the same time!)='lgc'>:
="lsts lst1">•to be dead ="trms">literal
="lsts lst1">•to be precise
="lsts lst1">•to be analytically good
="lsts lst1">•to be unforgivingly ="trms">technically ="trms"nttrm="righ,rigo,riga,rigi,trig,rign">right
="lsts lst1">•to be flaming ="trms">imaginative
="lsts lst1">•


='strcls'>*breakdown='strcls'>*='lgc'>: where the normalizing fails ='lgc'>='lgc'>==> something else emerges


='strcls'>*every collective needs people who feel='lgc'>:
="lsts lst1">•(a grace given to you by the structure of your cells, you don't know where it comes from='lgc'>:) “root sense that the ="trms">world is not dead” ='lgc'>='lgc'>--> a sense that things are moving and alive and future-full
="lsts lst1">•its people who feel despair (...emphasize the futurelessness of it all)

='strcls'>*!!!='lgc'>='lgc'>--> we (also) need sensibilities that are angrey at each other

(aligned with ="ppl">="ppl">Haraway) my ="trms">position has been that='lgc'>: we don't choose our sensibilities, we wake up and figure out what they are


(="ppl">="ppl">Haraway take on the ways we) may enginner as a ="trms">species now (tech, syntax, etc.)


to refuse the ="trms">story of the apocalypse ='lgc'>+ (still) recognizing the depth of the trouble
='lgc'>='lgc'>--> ="ppl">Freud's thanatos غريزه مرگ, a death instinct, (it is a deep, instinctual ="trms"nttrm="failure,blur,plur,lurk,tallur,slur">lure='lgc'>:) ='strcls'>*a ="trms">perverse pleasure in believing in inevitable fai="trms"nttrm="failure,blur,plur,lurk,tallur,slur">lure='strcls'>*


="large lg3" stl="font-size:112%"> ='strcls'>*="trms">transference is descriptively very apt for what goes on in artistic moves ='lgc'>[='lgc'><='lgc'>-- to be careful of='lgc'>]


='strcls'>**to risk a feeling of (despair, of...)

the ways some of us risk things intellectually and emotionally ="trms">different than each other

="large lg4" stl="font-size:111%">
prima donna='lgc'>: doing whatever one does without any particular effort to nuance anything


='strcls'>*multiple impossibilities
learning from ="trms">religion, the ways of which the name of God has become an impossible ="trms">category. both catholics and muslim shia (='at'>#islam) are wellprepared for feeling this way, some kind of recognition of impossible thing. let's take that “being good at recognizing and affirming impossible things” and bring it to the name of women. that means as soon as you name what you mean by ‘women,’ you have told some kind of really impossible lie.
(how my muslim trained sensibilities are working and ="trms">mattering in my ="nms">ajayeb research='qstn'>? ways to ="trms">respond to ='strcls'>*the deadliness and the irreplaceable liveliness of ="trms">religion='strcls'>* ='lgc'>[کشندگی و سرزندگی یکتای مذهب='lgc'>], a ="trms">semiotics with implosion of sign and flesh)='lgc'>='lgc'>--> (i am so happy that) i cannot not know what it is like to be in a believing ="trms">community (a faith-based ="trms">community)='strcls'>***


="large lg5" stl="font-size:141%"> ...out of your own particular little ="trms">historical traditions


='strcls'>*because ='mywrk'>my research is about ="nms">ajayeb it can never only be about ="nms">ajayeb='strcls'>*


you can't do feminist theory without paying attention to the details of women lives
your mode of attention to women in the ="trms">world ='lgc'>==(shapes)='lgc'>='lgc'>==> your mode of attention to='lgc'>:
="lsts lst1">•the way ="trms">databases get set up
="lsts lst1">•the ways ="trms">interdisciplinarities get ="trms">crafted<[...]