watching the boats go by

b. 30. she/they. sleep deprived phd candidate in indian ocean history

[acoydutchsomething]

last week i had a poster at a conference and someone pointed at a map of india i had on there and said "here in africa". and it has overshadowed all other interactions i had that day. like i'm sure i had fruitful and engaging conversations but i cannot remember them, they have all been wiped out by an adult man established in his field confidently mistaking india for africa. how?

[processedlives]

“I will have an undergraduate class, let’s say a young white male student, politically-correct, who will say: “I am only a bourgeois white male, I can’t speak.” … I say to them: “Why not develop a certain degree of rage against the history that has written such an abject script for you that you are silenced?” Then you begin to investigate what it is that silences you, rather than take this very determinist position-since my skin colour is this, since my sex is this, I cannot speak… From this position, then, I say you will of course not speak in the same way about the Third World material, but if you make it your task not only to learn what is going on there through language, through specific programmes of study, but also at the same time through a historical critique of your position as the investigating person, then you will have earned the right to criticize, you be heard. When you take the position of not doing your homework- “I will not criticize because of my accident of birth, the historical accident” - that is the much more pernicious position.”

— Gayatri Spivak (via fearandwar)

[acoydutchsomething]

going for a swim in the river directly outside the conference venue after all the senior scholars have left with your closest conference friends, going to have beers on a terrace in the sun together after & cycling home tired in the still hot summer night carrying your unwieldly poster

[victoriansecret]

Eighteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenth ceeeeeeeeeeeentury <- the long 18th century

[acoydutchsomething]

10.04.2018 | Flodden Wall, Edinburgh

[midnightinshadow]

[literary-illuminati]

I do appreciate an academic with a sense of humor.

[acoydutchsomething]

just made some truly unhinged train decisions for this summer

[rozzed]

why not have the reader re-read a sentence now and then? it won't hurt him....

[acoydutchsomething]

1.5.2026 • sitting against the sunwarmed wall of my balcony doing some reading as a slow little way to close off the week and this streak of warm weather

[heavensenthousepet]

you learn something new everyday. unless you're a historian. then you learn something old

[finnlongman]

In which my supervisor’s comment on my latest essay draft sounds like a summary of my academic career.

[romanceyourdemons]

proposing a new historical framework called “the very long nineteenth century: we’re still in it”

[crashdavis]

i've always wanted to visit the beautiful city of chicago because i love their citation style

[inkatesbush]

they're saying spending 2 hours in the word doc changing words slightly to be more specific and evocative and moving endless commas around is one of the most noble and respected things that you can do

[ohk4te]

[blue--period]

endnotes are hostile user design.