It's almost three months since I've posted here, which is FAR longer than I'd planned to be away. In my own defense, I haven't just been lying in a hammock the whole time. Among other things, I've been watching the Oscars, and writing about it. This piece on Quvenzhané Wallis, misogyny, and racism in Hollywood got quite a few people who rad it worked up, but that's part of the territory, and part of the point. I'll also be making my TV debut this week on the ABC (in Australia) as a talking head in a segment of racist stereotypes in video games on their Good Game program (link to follow when it's up).
Besides being good for my ego and (I hope) my career, doing these kinds of media things is important because they challenge people. Race and racism are topics that lots of people find really difficult and confronting to talk about, and if the comments on the piece I linked to above are anything to go by, some people don't always want me to talk about them either. But as academics we have a responsibility to engage with the world outside the pages of scholarly journals. Researching pipular culture means I have a responsibility to be part of it too. Which is one reason I am planning to post here more requently than I have been!
Welcome back! You have been missed.
ReplyDeleteI do think that your engagement with mainstream media is a good thing. The work of those in the academic humanities is often obscure, so that there are few images of us in popular media other than those which portray us as cloistered away from reality and concerned with things that "don't matter." By appearing as you are, you are helping to portray the work of the humanities as relevant to what continues to happen; we need more such work to be done.