my advice to anyone out there in academia is to write with the confidence of an ancient natural historian talking in a position of authority about something he knows absolutely jack shit about
like imposter syndrome is a real and terrible thing but if it makes you feel better you’re definitely not nearly as wrong as pliny “there are 176 kinds of fish in the ocean and that’s a real true fact” the elder
Painted quartzite, recut for her father, Thutmose I
The word “sarcophagus,” from the Greek sarkophagos, “flesh-eater,” refers to a stone coffin that devoured its occupant. (Such a coffin was presumably made of limestone, because of the material’s corrosive action on flesh.) Although the very notion of a container that would devour the body inside it would have horrified the ancient Egyptians, we use the term “sarcophagus” today to refer to coffins of stone as opposed to wood. The Egyptians used a happier name, “lord of life,” because it was meant to protect and preserve the body forever.
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Hatshepsut, ca. 1478-1458 BC. Now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 04.278.1
on the one hand there are many aspects of academia that should be criticized but on the other hand i’m concerned about the rise of anti-intellectualism as a tool of fascism
Hey yo what the fuck does this say in English? Because if you can’t explain in layman’s terms you’re not doing a good job of getting your point across to everyone.
1. we are right to criticize the many problems in higher education
2. fascists manipulate people into hating anyone involved in higher education for supposedly looking down on them and being worthless to the “real world.” as a result, funding for education is cut, especially for the arts, no one listens to historians who point out that history is repeating itself or speak out against the regime, freedom of speech is lost in favor of the party line, and/or climate change kills us all since no one listens to scientists.
3. therefore, when we criticize higher education, we should be careful not to contribute to fascist tropes that claim that having knowledge is bad/smug/out of touch/useless to society.
not to be harry potter on main but i honestly think the fantastic beasts series would have been so much more interesting if it was just about the beasts. i don’t give a fuck about grindelwald, just give me a movie about an eccentric wizard travelling the world looking for magical animals and teaching us the power of friendship
newt’s character should have been like the crocodile hunter but in a wizard hat send tweet
i dont care about any of this 1920s magic drama i just want newt scamander to cheerfully inform us how bad it hurts to get stung by various wizard animals
“Imagine a woman in the long skirts and high collar of the early 20th century standing in front of the painting she created. It is a massive piece—about 10 feet tall by 8 feet wide—and it is not a landscape, a portrait, a still life, nor a scene from myth or history. Dominating the composition is a bold yellow form reminiscent of a plant or sea creature, glowing amid colorful, biomorphic shapes and vigorous lines. This is just one of 10 such works that she has created almost entirely alone—sometimes walking on her work as she lays down the paint—and one of 193 radically abstract paintings that she has made in a few short years, between 1906 and 1915. None of these details fit with the story told in museums and art history courses. We know the first abstract painters so well that we often refer to them by last names alone: Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian. We know who is celebrated for doing “action painting” on giant canvases laid on the floor—Pollock. Each of these men has been lauded for opening a way into new territory. As it turns out, that territory had already been explored by another artist. Her name was Hilma af Klint.”
