Promiscuity, not Production
Friends, comrades, lovers,
I must have said something spicy on Saturday because people seemed to identify with the Academia will not love you back idea. I’m grateful for the dialogue that unfolded across social media (Instagram and Bluesky). You never really know what is going to resonate with people, so I was glad to see how people took up the notion of resisting not precisely the commodification of the academe, but the turn to value (in the capitalist sense) as a shield against--the capitalist domination of the academe.
Academia is where I have been located for the past twenty years. But, of course, it is not the only place where the structural shenanigans and tomfooleries--the colonialism--endures. I was reminded that responses to what today seems unprecedented, actually does have precedents, in both the US and elsewhere.
There are two threads that stuck out to me.
First, the dance artist Biba Bell left a comment on the Gram suggesting that promiscuous engagement across fields—rather than a singular loyalty to any one institution—is how we can actively resist the corporate demands of "productivity". That comment got me thinking: Promiscuity, not production.
It lingers as a memorable shorthand, but what does that look like? What does it feel like to choose promiscuity over production?
The thought brought me back to a talk I saw in grad school by Brad Epps, a foundational scholar of queer and Spanish/Latin American studies. I don't remember what he said 15 years ago, but I remember it was about promiscuity.
Looking back, he had written an essay on the Argentine poet Néstor Perlongher titled "La ética de la promiscuidad" (The ethics of promiscuity), which I know I read back then, too. I wrote a little note on Sunday, which you can read here: Promiscuity Not Production. (I always know I'm onto something when K'eguro Macharia says he likes it.)
But the second thing is Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, the brilliant physicist and writer, reminded me that she has been working on these issues for a long time. Or, more precisely, that her new book The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie, is a direct response to the question of ascribing or demanding value to/from both the humanities and sciences in today's political climate. That book is sitting on my shelf waiting for me just as soon as I can finish the last one I need to read for the event I'm doing (below). YAY!
Indigenous Narratives/Center for Fiction (Brooklyn)
On Thursday, June 18th at 7:00 PM ET, I’m moderating a conversation at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn titled Indigenous Narratives of the Past, Present, and Future. I been doing my homework (gurl, its a lot of pages), and am looking forward to discussing Indigenous things with three great writers:
- Linford D. Fisher with Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History
- A banger of a history tome in the vein of Kathleen Duval's Native Nations and Ned Blackhawks's The Rediscovery of America--and I'm sure will get those comparisons, though I'll try to avoid them in my discussion.
- Eliana Ramage (Cherokee Nation) with To the Moon and Back
- A debut novel with lesbian astronaut love and dueling models of what it means to be Cherokee in the modern world. It also has an adoption thread, which I will definitely want to discuss. How do we navigate the past while searching for the future?
- Greg Sarris (Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria) with The Last Human Bear
- What a fucking novel. Deeply historical, while also somehow just floating along, just plucking at twangy strings of time and memory, until it all really just makes sense--a woman with a heavy burden to bear, secrets, yes, but also a kind of finality of peoplehood. And lots of meta-thinking about narrative.
If you're in town, come through and say hi. If you're far away, there is a livestream option as well. Tickets and livestream registration can be found here.
And happy pride babes!
