i'm sitting in a coffeeshop, trying to read gayatri spivak's "can the subaltern speak?" and it's just not happening. not only have i littered the margins of my photocopied essay with mini-question marks, but i still have no idea whether or not the subaltern can speak after all. come to think of it, i don't even know who the subaltern are!
for instance, i just read the deleuze and guattari line, "Desire does not lack anything; it does not lack its object. It is, rather, the subject that is lacking in desire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject; there is no fixed subject except by repression." what the hell does that mean? if you think you know, please don't hesitate to tell me.
still, the impenetrability of this 40+ page essay just isn't getting me down. i completed a four hour plus run today and the endorphins dancing through my body (okay, nothing much is dancing in my legs at this point!) are rendering me impervious to this academic pain.
recall, too, that i'm planning to run the ice age trail 50 miler this spring for precisely this same reason. long runs, it turns out, are my medicine: the only antidote to the pain that is preliminary exams. i figure the only way i can possibly make it through the 200 some books and essays on my PhD exam lists will be to temper all of that intellectual nonsense with some good, clean running - rather, good, dirty running. let's hope it works!
for now, it's back to desire.
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