Funny story, perhaps. Today I spent some time on a fantastic blog I've heard about for years, Sara Ahmed's feministkilljoys. Had a grand time especially with the witty, queer and profound "Out of Sorts," but I have to admit where I started was "White Men." And the reason this is funny, or perhaps not, is because what finally got me to read it was a recommendation to read "White Men" from a white man. Worse, or maybe just funny, this white man was talking about decolonizing the study of religion. My crediting him is part of how the "institution" which Ahmed argues "white men" is works.
White men cite other white men: it is what they have always done; it is what they will do; what they teach each other to do when they teach each other. ...
Once on twitter I pointed out that an author had mainly cited other white men. He agreed with my description of the pattern but said that the pattern “was in the traditions that had influenced him.” To be influenced by a tradition is to be citing white men. Citing; reciting; an endless retrospective. White men as a well-trodden path; the more we tread that way the more we go that way. To move forward you follow the traces left behind of those who came before. But in following these traces, in participating in their becoming brighter, becoming lighter, other traces fade out, becoming shadows, places unlit; eventually they disappear. Women too, people of colour too, might cite white men: to be you have to be in relation to white men (to twist a Fanonian point). Not to cite white men is not to exist; or at least not to exist within this or that field. ...
I do not cite because I hope to become another point in the unfolding line of phenomenology. I hope I do not cite in this way! I have no wish to be a phenomenologist who inherits and reproduces this tradition. My aim is to queer the line that leads from one body to another.
I need to mull this over as I refashion the Theorizing Religion syllabus for 2020. While I cite (and assign) plenty of folks who are not white men, my understanding of academic work is unquestionably tied to a sense of traditions - plural and contested but still traditions.
White men cite other white men: it is what they have always done; it is what they will do; what they teach each other to do when they teach each other. ...
Once on twitter I pointed out that an author had mainly cited other white men. He agreed with my description of the pattern but said that the pattern “was in the traditions that had influenced him.” To be influenced by a tradition is to be citing white men. Citing; reciting; an endless retrospective. White men as a well-trodden path; the more we tread that way the more we go that way. To move forward you follow the traces left behind of those who came before. But in following these traces, in participating in their becoming brighter, becoming lighter, other traces fade out, becoming shadows, places unlit; eventually they disappear. Women too, people of colour too, might cite white men: to be you have to be in relation to white men (to twist a Fanonian point). Not to cite white men is not to exist; or at least not to exist within this or that field. ...
I do not cite because I hope to become another point in the unfolding line of phenomenology. I hope I do not cite in this way! I have no wish to be a phenomenologist who inherits and reproduces this tradition. My aim is to queer the line that leads from one body to another.
I need to mull this over as I refashion the Theorizing Religion syllabus for 2020. While I cite (and assign) plenty of folks who are not white men, my understanding of academic work is unquestionably tied to a sense of traditions - plural and contested but still traditions.
