"It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech." - Mark Twain

***

(Quoting from Nadia Lovell's 'Belonging in need of emplacement?' in her Locality and Belonging)

Me: Fardon (1990) warned of the dangers of confining 'local' discourses into isolated and alienated hinterlands bearing little connection with the wider world through the methodological conditionings and theoretical insularity of the anthropological discipline itself.

sounds like much of academia haha

Someone: that sentence requires three readings just to grasp its meaning. academia indeed
:S

Me: Similarly, Fog Olwig and Hastrup (1997) question the usefulness of concepts of the 'local' and 'location' as viable entities for the understanding of culture.

the same could apply to academic jargon. this just satirises itself

Someone: they have nothing else to talk about, so must spend time making us confused
/meh

Me: =D

However, whether these objects should be read as text is open to debate (Vansina 1985, 1994), as the memories which inscribe themselves on objects or, indeed, narratives themselves, are never 'objectively' synchronic in the way that a text can be (Fentress and Wickham 1994: 6-8)

please lah
texts can be 'objectively' synchronic meh

Someone: lol. that line is a blur to me now. i'm getting a headache over *** ><

Me: this seems to mean that texts can be studied without reference to their historical context

OMG
this line actually makes sense without being more complex than it needs to be

What Taussig succinctly describes as 'the magical harnessing of the dead for stately purposes' (1997: 3), adding that: 'In the making of modern nations, the dead do double duty. Out of nowhere, it seems, people conjure up a slice of deadness and borrow from it their names, battle cries, and costumes, in order to present the new scene of world history in dazzling form' (Taussig 1997: 10).

succinct indeed

Someone: lol. i remember reading this line and being fascinated. both by the idea of "using" the dead in the political aspect, and by the fact that it's the most easily understood line, probably


Me: 'We should beware of attempts to define landscape, to resolve its contradictions; rather we should abide in its duplicity'

great. confusing people is good

Frigid Girl: wah lau it sounds like stupid philo or lit reading
maybe soci
haha =p