gradical

they/she/he 30 this is a sideblog

[pspsappho]

it's all reception innit

[inzaltsiknyam]

the problem marxists have on disability is that they aren't reading marxist thought on disability and just kind of winging it. marta russell already laid out the political economy of disability in the global north in the 90s and global south scholars have their own (marxist) schools of thought on disability and have iterated on global north marxist disability analyses. disabled people are workers, most often. and handicapitalism (russell's term) has also turned disabled people into commodities. it's impossible to understand modern politics without engaging with these two realities.

[inzaltsiknyam]

everyone read right to maim and capitalism and disability now !!!!!!

[butch-of-the-blades]

pdf of capitalism and disability

pdf of right to maim

[communistkenobi]

great reasons for accusing students of using AI:

you're racist and think there's no way racialized students could write an essay this good

you need to decrease your class average because it's the end of the semester and you haven't met your target average

one of your TAs gave out too many As and you don't want to regrade anything

you haven't redesigned your course in years and students have gotten advice on how to write their essay from past students

you're pissed off at a student with disability accommodations for making you do extra work

you want to feel powerful

you got into a fight with your wife

you want to bond with other professors over how lazy kids are these days and swap juicy stories about students crying in your office

you want social media clout

[pspsappho]

as a persian id like to hear your opinion on this actually. we hate it here too

(this is in reference to the zendaya's "ziwiye" earrings)

hey anon, i ended up writing a whole piece about this on my substack here: https://substack.com/@amoneill/note/p-207181232?r=31paxg&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web if you are still interested. this is obviously my perspective as a classicist and someone who's interested in the antiquities market + cultural heritage issues, but if you or anyone else has any writing on this by an iranian author to recommend please do!

i also thought this new arab article on the earrings was very good: https://www.newarab.com/news/zendayas-odyssey-premiere-earrings-spark-ethics-row, especially the comments from Zirrar Ali on the Orientalism of it all

[hagiomoto]

Please increase your contribution to The Sameer Project.

The Sameer Project Official: Instagram | Linktree

We are a donations based aid initiative for Gaza led by Palestinians,

[hagiomoto]

More and more community kitchens in Gaza had to close down because of the relentless bombings by Israel. Please consider increasing your donation to The Sameer Project so they can expand their operation

[pspsappho]

as a persian id like to hear your opinion on this actually. we hate it here too

(this is in reference to the zendaya's "ziwiye" earrings)

hey anon, i ended up writing a whole piece about this on my substack here: https://substack.com/@amoneill/note/p-207181232?r=31paxg&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web if you are still interested. this is obviously my perspective as a classicist and someone who's interested in the antiquities market + cultural heritage issues, but if you or anyone else has any writing on this by an iranian author to recommend please do!

i also thought this new arab article on the earrings was very good: https://www.newarab.com/news/zendayas-odyssey-premiere-earrings-spark-ethics-row, especially the comments from Zirrar Ali on the Orientalism of it all

[tokkibean]

"work in progress" is actually so misleading like it assumes that im actually making progress on my work

[daciancatamite]

knuckle tats that say ΕΚΦΡ ΑΣΙΣ

[pspsappho]

What's the big deal with Zendaya's earrings?

On the cultural biographies of things, looted Iranian antiquities, and Nolan's 'Odyssey'

I had enough thoughts about those "Ziwiye" earrings and the ethics & aesthetics of wearing them to an Odyssey promotional event of all things that I wrote an essay about it

[pspsappho]

What's the big deal with Zendaya's earrings?

On the cultural biographies of things, looted Iranian antiquities, and Nolan's 'Odyssey'

I had enough thoughts about those "Ziwiye" earrings and the ethics & aesthetics of wearing them to an Odyssey promotional event of all things that I wrote an essay about it

[apoemaday]

Odysseus’ Decision

by Louise Glück

The great man turns his back on the island. Now he will not die in paradise nor hear again the lutes of paradise among the olive trees, by the clear pools under the cypresses. Time begins now, in which he hears again that pulse which is the narrative sea, at dawn when its pull is strongest. What has brought us here will lead us away; our ship sways in the tinted harbor water. Now the spell is ended. Give him back his life, sea that can only move forward.

[dramatic-dolphin]

and if i said nolan's odyssey starring no greek actors and with no recognizable aspects of greek culture or involvement by greeks, is the direct legacy of white supremacist colonialism that treated ancient greece as not just the pinnacle of ancient culture, but of an artificially created "european" culture, which white western europeans and their settler descendants, as the new pinnacle of culture, were the sole spiritual inheritors of.

[doloneia]

ok ive seen nolans odyssey and what the fuck was that actually

[doloneia]

Parts that made me tweak in a dim-lit movie theater:

1. Every time we meet a woman or enslaved individual that, y’know, had some semblance of agency in the text, Nolan has just… removed that? Circe’s commanding presence & how she genuinely overpowers Odysseus? Gone. Helen actually stealing the show in Book 4 where she walks down into the room and controls the conversation re: Odysseus & Troy? Gone. Utterly Gone. Lupita Nyong’o gets 0 chance to speak on her own terms and its actually so depressing. Also I’m genuinely unsure here but it seemed like Circe & Calypso’s divine status was… nonexistent?? They’re both goddesses but apparently not to Christopher Nolan 🫤

And this treatment extends to Odysseus’ slaves, specifically Eumaeus & Eurycleia (eurynome & philoetius not appearing in this goddamn film ifg). Almost every action taken by Eurycleia in the Odyssey is attributed to someone else in Nolan’s adaptation, she gets 0.2 seconds of screentime, its actually absurd. I think she has two lines in the whole movie. Eurycleia. Odysseus and Telemachus’ nurse. The woman who canonically organizes the doors to be locked during the suitor’s slaughter? Who canonically helps secure Telemachus’ provisions for Pylos? fuckin. Not There. And Eumaeus (who literally perfectly models xenia to a disguised Odysseys while living in extreme poverty) notably Does Not Get To Do That in Nolan’s odyssey, instead he’s like. injured I guess? I’m so fuckin confused as to why that happened, it just made the plot more convoluted. Medon is also just not there at all. Medon who is actually the fuckin best?? My underestimated king??? Where Is He.

2. oh my god everything abt the scene with Polyphemus makes me want to claw my eyes out (except maybe his eye? that looked kinda cool idfk). yknow how polyphemus appears, speaks to the crew, and they let their guard down? how the polyphemus episode represents the world outside of greek customs like xenia? how he fucking talks to them? he talks to them and his neighbors? yeah. in Nolan’s odyssey, there are no neighbors. there is no existential mirror/cyclopean foil to ithacan society. there are no other cyclopes. He doesnt even fucking talk 😭😭 <- i mean he gets one line but the audios so distorted that without captions i had no idea what he said

3. Anticleia reunion scene? Nonexistent. Laertes? Nonexistent. Allegedly still around. Sir Not-Appearing In-This-Film. Book 15 reunion between Telemachus and Odysseus? Nonexistent. Reunion between Odysseus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius? Not there. The fucking marriage bed scene? The goddamn marriage bed? NOT THERE. screams into a bag

4. ODYSSEUS “DIDNT WANT TO RETURN HOME” 😭 they keep fucking saying this over and over again too and. No he very much did. No home means no guaranteed kleos guys. his sons life is in jeopardy but Ok christopher shitlan do whatever the fuck you want, i guess

5. every time i heard them say “our civilization is collapsing” or “they say the peoples from the sea are attacking” or “our age of bronze is ending” not only did i feel my soul die a little more inside but i also kept thinking “man, this sounds a lot like the white supremacist belief in ‘western civilization’ just superimposed onto a falsified image of the late bronze age” and thats because It Is.

strange decisions:

1. boar scar apparently occurred when odysseus was an adult???

2. elliot page’s sinon gets one helluva backstory which i guess was kinda cool if you ignore elliot page getting brutally slaughtered in the first 30 seconds of the movie? not sure how to feel about that

3. travis scott kept showing up randomly which was like. fine i guess? genuinely im not sure what the difference between him & phemius was supposed to be. i didnt even see phemius. tbf i was taking notes this whole time so maybe i missed him? but travis scott shouldve just been phemius idfk why he wasnt

4. The Phaecians are just not there guys and i have no idea why. odysseus’ wanderings are being narrated to calypso?

5. the crew mutinies at scylla instead? odysseus tries to sail towards charybdis??? this was a bizarre sequence

6. no nestor or peisistratus. somehow telemachus sails to the 100% inland palace of menelaus. who needs a chariot when you’ve got a Boat i guess

7. half of my notes just say “what happened to show, don’t tell” because the amount of exposition made me want to slam my head into the wall

highlights:

1. anne hathaway and tom holland had a very good dynamic, i feel like they really captured some of the tension between penelope & telemachus, ie penelope running the house for 20 years and still assuming some of that authority vs. telemachus trying to grow up/assume control of the household/establish his own kleos. loved that dynamic tbh. one of the better parts of the telemachy sections

2. lupita nyong’o was great in the uh. 30 seconds she had on screen. im so serious helen was fucking robbed in this movie

3. himesh patel fucking carried every scene he was in on his Back

4. rare cicones appearance

maybe the real sea peoples was the troy we sacked along the way

[pspsappho]

finding out nolan cut the phaeacians out of the odyssey is what finally released me from any lingering desire to hatewatch this film. i was not going to watch it because of its many ethical problems anyway but now i also don't feel like i want to either

[illustratus]

Erechtheion: Portico of the Caryatids by Vasily Polenov

[reallyreallyreallytrying]

nip over to troy, bit of rough and tumble, big horse, bish bash bosh, back home to ithaca. simple as

[stuckinapril]

[stuckinapril]

happy if you have scholarly inclinations there is usually something wrong with your sexuality july