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sunburnt-brian

theburialofstrawberries

awesome awesome interview with Emily Wilson

seraphalpha

paywall-free version

night-dark-woods

Transcript:

Interviewer: There is something stereotypically masculine about the kind of chest-pumping, overly stylish translations of your predecessors.

Wilson: I’m really skeptical about any gender essentialism on that. Other women have published translations of Homer into Italian and into other languages I can’t read. I’ve read some of the French translation by Anne Dacier from the 17th century, and it’s fairly loquacious. Could you pick the translations of The Odyssey by a woman out of a lineup? Absolutely not. But journalists wanted it to be about that. I get that you’re trying to create a story, but I just don’t believe it.

Interviewer: Have you followed the online discourse about the film so far?

Wilson: It’s made-up controversy. Nobody’s seen this movie. It’s just the usual triggers about race and gender, and I just find it very tedious.

Interviewer: curious about what it would look like to make a feminist version of The Odyssey. It seems that could be a helpful framework to have ahead of Nolan’s movie.

Wilson: I’ve been watching a lot of Nolan movies in preparation for all of this, and it seems to me that we don’t know what the script’s going to be like. If it’s the usual Nolan plot of “A guy is on a quest far from home and struggling to get back to an objectified female character,” then I’m not sure I see that plot as inherently particularly feminist.

Interviewer: Looking at those two changes, it seems to me that your translation has a feminist function, whether it’s intentional or not.

Wilson: I think the bar should be higher for feminist translation. There are people whose project that is.

End Transcript.

ewaneneollav

*sits up in bed, stretches, yawns* it’s another beautiful, glorious day full of opportunity a- *ominous bell toll and i am instantly replaced with a 10,000-year-old mummy sitting in the exact same pose*

creatingblackcharacters

This is what I meant by how a lot of white supremacy is projection.

"I feel like my penis/my Manhood as a symbol is smaller than Black man's" becomes "Black men have oversized penises and are sexually insatiable beasts."

"I am sexually attracted to, fetishizing, and feel entitled to Black women's bodies" becomes "well she's asking for it, look at how she looks, Black women are always more openly sexual."

"I am afraid of approaching Black men" becomes "Black men are a threat."

"I am afraid of approaching Black women" becomes "Black women are always angry."

"I am not smart enough/not qualifed enough/can't beat my white counterparts professionally" becomes "DEI and affirmative action are letting those Blacks steal my position in school/jobs!"

Your own fears and insecurities about yourself somehow become a reflection of my humanity, when it had nothing to do with anything. And somehow enough people think that and now it's systemic instead of the made up nonsense it always was. Ijeoma Oluo called it mediocrity, James Baldwin called racism the white man's problem, and they remain correct.

futchlings

"incurious" still GOAT insult. You could be better but you're not. You could learn but you won't, and for no good reason, just a base dispositional apathy. Get fucked

victusinveritas

frasohei

sunburnt-brian

briannyssey

some people read an awful lot, but don't read very well. deep reading is itself a skill. being able to untangle the threads of theme, subtext, characterization, narrative style, and more are all things that it takes time and intentional engagement to learn.

if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars

literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that. Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?

there are other more involved ways of finding criticism. Learning to use academic databases, going to your local library to do interlibrary loans, finding critical voices you appreciate; these are all useful subskills. Literacy isn't just being able to read words, it's being able to read words in context and think about what they tell you about the text, the author, or the time and culture in which the text was produced. Literacy is the skill of being able to look at the world with open eyes and think clearly about how its parts are connected. It'll change your life

briannyssey

this keeps getting shared around and ive seen some different tags responding differently so i just want to make some important clarifications and distillations

you don't have to read more deeply if you don't want to (but i'd recommend it, i genuinely think it makes you a better person)

if you want to learn to read more deeply, the resources are out there. try to find critical literature (that is, academic writing that analyzes the text) on works your familiar with so you can get a sense for how to do that analysis too

learning to deep read literature can help you deep read many areas of your life

writers tend to put a lot of work into their stories. if you learn to read that work you'll (probably) appreciate the stories you love even more. And if not, then you'll have developed your taste. This too is worth doing

caffeinewitchcraft

A 75 yo man proudly came into the cafe wearing an Ultra Maga hat. I excused my barista from the register to handle the transaction.

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.

Anyone wearing that type of shit and preying on workers for their own spank bank material is a brainless fucking sheep.

headedoutleft

something i want to mention because i’ve seen it growing as a trend online is that not only do people do this just for their own gratification, but watch for glasses. smart glasses are a growing segment of the consumer market, and creeps like this are harassing people in public in order to gather content without the victims being aware they’re being filmed

good job on how you handled it, op!

ralfmaximus

Indeed, spotting Meta glasses in the wild just got harder in 2026.

They are no longer exclusively Ray-Bans.

infectiouspiss

Is it acceptable that I do shave my legs only because it’s easier to put lotion on my legs when they aren’t too hairy and I do like the feeling of smooth skin when I finish up with it.

I also only really do it once or twice a month so sometimes I do go out in public with hairy legs.

come on man i'm on my lunch break can't you wait???