Hoop Jumping or, “Yes, I am capable of participating in your obscure academic rituals”
Wednesday, September 12th, 2007As much as everyone in academia tosses about the grand idea that graduate students should be doing ‘original work’ and ‘finding their voices as scholars,’ dreams of being an academic renegade are quickly shot down. In order to ascend to the pantheon of senior art history scholars who publish about “the history of string” or present papers that sound like modernist poetry, the lowly grad student must first demonstrate an ability to confuse mere mortals. For my department, this means writing really, really long papers that use phrases like “transgressive materiality” and “abjection-based subjectivity.” These are strange academic hoops to leap through, an acrobatic feat necessary to prove to established scholars that you understand confusing ideas well enough to confuse other people with them. It’s relentless, really.
Still, I am excited to try my hand at this long-and-original-scholarship thing. I have a topic and idea that I’m passionate about. I’m eager to prove that this barely-known Japanese American artist has something relevant to say about current issues. I’m tickled that I arrived at the crux of my thesis through theological considerations which led to some solid research questions. I’m ready to write:
The thesis I am proposing suggests that Lynne Yamamoto’s ‘Chiyo’ pieces are more complex than the binaries of gender and race established by the existing scholarship. While Yamamoto creates installations with highly specific references to an unfamiliar history, she simultaneously allows for an intuitive response from viewers through her use of the abject. I will argue that Yamamoto’s work thus participates in two major theoretical conversations of American art in the nineties: the emphatic creation of personal identity through autobiography and the dissolving of identity through abjection. The ‘Chiyo’ pieces embody a tension between these positions, and new scholarship is necessary to explore the rich interplay between two seemingly opposed strategies.
Academic hoops, here I come.