Allison > Recent Status Updates

this book is 1000% not what I was looking for, but oh boy is it up my alley. cracked this open thinking I might find another survey of the field or some kind of textbook. instead this is an epistemological survey of the field and the pedagogy that informs art history research as it relates to "the Renaissance?".

I might not go here, but ooooh girl I am here. for. it.

Good lord, the fatphobia in this book is terrible. It's one thing to have devious or questionably a/immoral characters. It's quite another to connect it explicitly to their weight and describe someone as having a "hole somewhere in their soul, with a cavernous, ugly appetite looking to fill it."

Some chapters are things I knew but never really put to together. Some are concepts or facts I knew but never really appreciated the scale of (honestly the hardest chapter so far, talking about civilizational collapse from diseases that killed 8 or 9 in 10 people @ both macro and micro level). And a lot so far has been an incredibly in depth analysis of the evolving narrative about what is considered "true" history.

Pretty good so far but just got to an entire chapter devoted to discussing the Alpha/Omega dynamics "inherent" to wolves and how it applies to American racial structures. For a book that comes across generally well researched, failing to acknowledge or recognize that these so called pack dynamics aren't natural to wild wolves and a product of observer bias seems like a huge oversight.

Coming for all your faves, lol.

Been running a book club for this, so going back over the book each week. Back up to chapter seven now.

Almost stopped after the first chapter. This book claims to be about language and thus far he has exclusively talked about Darwin and Darwin's obsession with his rivals. Not to mention he repeatedly talks about how Malthus was an inspiration to Darwin and other naturalists, without ever managing to mention just how racist and ableist Malthusian social theory actually is.

Fascinating premise, so far bleak as hell.

deeply researched and goes into depth on the multiplicity of contexts and histories of those surrounding both the lynching and the trial. over a 1/3 of the way through and we're just touching on the setting for the trial.

First of the two book collection finished!

Part historical survey, part cultural commentary on our continual obsession with Roanoke.

According to GR, I'm reading like 6 books at once, I need to chill.

Made it through the first short story. I don't know if I'm going to finish this, there are so many things about this book that I don't particularly like.

this book is going to be a struggle, I can tell. if you're going to write and/or translate 'hard' sci-fi, for the love of God actually do the proper research on the science you're speculating off of. the big bang did not make black holes. and discovering one a few dozen AU from Earth would put it somewhere near Saturn and Pluto; it'd fuck up the solar system's orbits. sigh.