Call for submissions

Posted on | April 29, 2005 | 20 Comments

While I appreciate the help with making sense of Gary Wickham’s article in the previous post, I think that maybe my request was taken a little literally… i.e. I wasn’t asking for a recap of the last 50+ years of political theory in order to understand it (I think I managed that bit). I was really asking for some discussion about whether people think the argument of my current book project fits in, adds to, or is disputed by the schema Wickham outlines. Anyway, talking about this with people off-blog, so to speak, it makes me wonder a bit about what kind of interaction this mc gregg space seems to encourage. The directions taken in the comments on this recent occasion and during my Deleuze project make me hesitant to continue using this blog think out loud about my research. It seems as though my posts are often read as positions or provocations rather than invitations to engage in some conversation – to share a work that is literally in progress. That’s actually the point of the ‘quasi’ in my title! If you want my position on something, by all means read my academic work, or ask me a question.

Given that my research is about the performativity of academic practice, however, at least the comments act as more grist to the mill. But I do want to note for other readers that I myself find the conversations here a little off-putting at times. And it seems strange that my own blog should be a space that I approach with apprehension, so I’d welcome feedback from other readers about the dominant mode of engagement here, whether in comments or somewhere else you feel (understandably) more comfortable.

Anyway, it’s Friday, and I need some fun to get me through the afternoon of marking. Apparently FHM readers have voted Bec Cartright as Australia’s sexiest woman. But wait – Nikki Webster came in seventh! (for overseas readers, Nikki Webster was the virginal blonde who bounced around singing at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympics. Wasn’t she?) Surely age is the only criteria that allows us to count these two girls as women. Or I have no idea of FHM’s readership. Anyway, it’s a bit like those two young laydees having the odd pash on The OC at the moment. They are so painfully skinny and unwomanly I’m waiting to see which one of them breaks first – when (or if?) things ever get really steamy.

Today I got new glasses, after finally admitting that my eyes don’t like airconditioning, computers or contact lenses. I’ve tried to avoid the nerdiest theory glasses this time round, but it makes me wonder, is it possible to be sexy and wear glasses? (And I don’t mean in that awful cliched librarian fantasy kinda way). Who would be in your top ten of the sexiest glasses-wearing women? Feel free to point us to pictures.

Category: Research, Viewing

Comments

20 Responses to “Call for submissions”

  1. jean
    April 29th, 2005 @ 2:26 pm

    I think glasses on women are just unbearably sexy, full stop, no argument, but even glasses on skinny asexual nymphettes cannot make them sexy ;)

  2. laura
    April 29th, 2005 @ 2:53 pm

    mel, i read your blog but almost never comment. The non-commenting is only because I generally don’t know the material you’re writing about, not from any feeling of being put-off by any atmosphere emanating from commenting discussions. Sometimes the commenters do get a bit disproportionately belligerent, but not in a way that bothers me. It might bother me if it was continually happening on my own blog, however.

    Thora Birch wears glasses in Ghost World and is she ever sexy.

  3. Kirsten
    April 29th, 2005 @ 4:57 pm

    Hi Mel,
    Like Laura, I often read your blog and do not leave comments. It is not because I feel that I am ill-equipped to contribute to the discussion, but due to a sort of performance anxiety. The ‘thrust and parry’ approach that many bloggers adopt is, for me, exhausting and unproductive – unless you are training to be a professional debater. This will undoubtedly prove to be a controversial observation, but there seems to be a fair bit of bravado informing these textual performances. I suspect this may also have something to do with the structural and temporal limitations of an electronic ‘exchange’ which doesn’t function as a fluid real-time conversation between participants, but as a series of (at times inter-connected) scriptural fragments.
    Zadie Smith, pre-makeover, could qualify as a sexy woman with glasses. If you’re into her writing. Which I’m not…
    So I guess that’s an ambivalent thumbs up to Zadie from me.

  4. melgregg
    April 29th, 2005 @ 5:45 pm

    Thanks Laura for that distinction – yeah it does feel different when it’s happening on your own blog, it’s more intimate or something. It leads to a whole other layer of neurosis as you try to work out what you’ve done to encourage even that possibility of belligerence. But, it’s an open space, and an improvised community, so I shouldn’t get too hung up about it. We’re all learning. In my ideal vision for this blog, tho, it’s the questions you would ask as someone unfamiliar with the material that would to me prove just as useful – no, more useful – than those of someone with a passing knowledge of the material who feel obliged to correct me on it. Anyway, things can’t be that bad if you’re still reading; I’m really glad you are.

    And Kirsten [hi!]: The ‘thrust and parry’ school of blogging, well! I don’t think it’s controversial at all – in fact it’s one of the best descriptions of this medium I’ve heard recently. Exhausting and unproductive are words I wanted to use, but didn’t have the guts… yes it’s *exactly* that feeling of being in a high school (private school?) debating nightmare. Thanks for the imagery, it will really help me in future!!

    And come on, an ambivalent Zadie Smith endorsement? Surely you can do better. As inspiration, I will offer my secret and massive crush on Megan Spencer!

  5. Mark Bahnisch
    April 29th, 2005 @ 5:55 pm

    I like Fenella Kernebone!

    Sorry if the last thread got a bit full on, Mel – I guess part of the cut and thrust thing with all blogs tends to be a default setting, if you like, regardless of the blog author’s intentions. As I said, I wasn’t trying to be polemical.

    There aren’t too many spaces to discuss this sort of stuff so perhaps that’s why such threads turn out as they do.

    Anyway, have a good weekend!

  6. Kirsten
    April 29th, 2005 @ 6:01 pm

    ohmigod. i so have a crush on megan spencer! can i have her on my list too? please?

  7. Administrator
    April 29th, 2005 @ 6:19 pm

    Fenella doesn’t have glasses!!

  8. Glen
    April 29th, 2005 @ 8:40 pm

    Hey mel does an academic have to have an ‘academic’ voice? lol!

    Hmmm… I should learn to respect the vibe of *your* blog much more and be called ‘offside’ more often in relation to the non-academic side of the ‘quasi’ qualifier, I think, hey?

    …but you often post such cool stuff! I can’t resist! Plus I am often joking around…

    I wear glasses to remind me I am actually a nerd. Otherwise I forget. Do you really think glasses will affect your sexiness, mel?

    Then there is that chick from NCIS that I have blogged about previously ;O Although I think the tats have something to do with it. Plus she likes those frozen drink things…

  9. Chris
    April 29th, 2005 @ 8:46 pm

    I sure can see why Melissa might feel a bit freaked out by her blog being invaded by guys in full academic battle dress…in as much as I was one…sorry….still the whole thing does seem to raise interesting issues about the kind of discursive spaces blogs and their ‘replies’ are: how much do they belong to their hosts? (I had totally lost sight of any sense that this was a space to comment on your work-in-progress, but then do you really want to restrict discussion to your own concerns???) And: how possible is to mingle work and pleasure in a blog? the public and the private? intellectual debate and goofing off? (some of us sad to say (I mean myself) take pleasure in intellectual blood sport…..

  10. Andrew Bartlett
    April 30th, 2005 @ 1:43 am

    Bloody hell – someone puts up a request for a top 10 sexy babes in glasses list, and people still want to crap on about the nature of the blogosphere!! I’m sure she said “she needs some fun” and I’m sure even an academic doesn’t equate fun to yet another academic discussion.

    Naturally I have to say that its what on the inside that makes people sexy, so wearing glasses makes no difference at all. However, if you insist on names, just find a picture of Christina Ricci and draw glasses on her. Kylie wears glasses now and then too.

  11. Kerry
    April 30th, 2005 @ 10:38 am

    Hot babes in glasses??? real sexy is on the inside ?? academics as serious bores????….. you’d hope that even a politician might be a little more allergic to a cliche .. and then there are those who actually like to think….you dont have to be an academic either

  12. Andrew Bartlett
    April 30th, 2005 @ 10:41 am

    Bah humbug. Cliches on blogs are the potato chips of debate – no nourishment but still more enjoyable than all that stodgy healthy stuff.

  13. Mark Bahnisch
    April 30th, 2005 @ 4:43 pm

    Yes, I’ll go with Andrew – paint some glasses on Fenella!

  14. rex bellatore
    May 1st, 2005 @ 3:40 pm

    my wife.

  15. Mark Bahnisch
    May 1st, 2005 @ 9:23 pm

    Ok, I’ve rethought – I’m agreeing with the popular choice of Thora Birch in Ghostworld. Excellent movie – even better comic! [me = obvious nerd now!]

  16. Christian McCrea
    May 3rd, 2005 @ 8:05 pm

    Leaving a comment here seems deeply wrong, as I feel like I’ve changed the brew here in some previous comment threards in directions you didn’t like at some points. Also because you’ve always approached the ways of communication with a gentle heart and careful eye, because its part of what you study and understand, (and also probably because you get it.) Also (and finally) because its precisely what I’m studying as well, the gaps of communciation and intent are always unclear and when you throw in curious minds and ready hearts into the mix, the affections of blogs and *talking* about the affections of blogs take on crystalline, metonymic, fractal and holographic dimensions. The ability to speak on speaking seems so dreadfully fraught.

    (And honestly, making your blog-acquaitance and that of so many other excellent people through you – through manifestos and reading your excellent work has been one of the big influences on me in the last few years. So its scary trying to quantify it in any direction at all.)

    (Also! Scary because this comment is basically a preview of my Blogtalk paper.)

    Nevertheless, I’ll leave a comment here.

    It seems that sometimes amongst this fractured community-of-many, commenters are making a gesture of continuance, of trying to formulate a velocity with you – but the language we use isn’t meant just for friendship, it has developed for multiple purposes – including a form of academic combat. So what is almost always a gestural act becomes a linguistic act by the time it is read. Blog comment technology has made this distinction clearer than ever before, and no-where else is it as obvious. Okay, so Bartleby’s problem it ain’t, but there’s still something about the writing act that isn’t clear with blogs yet.

    Its overwhelming to try and account for everybody’s entire history when they make a particular comment; but anything less is curiously violent. Everybody invested in the communication strata of their blog has breakdowns – this is a natural part of the writing process of weblogs, I believe. Alienation, rejection, love and fraternity are coded in these spaces , made obvious and clean, sometimes empty, sometimes necessary. Persistent flux between utter satisfaction of the writing act and the dread void of misunderstanding is absolutely common. Look around to see how many of your friends have had problems similar to yours re: comments? Sort of scary.

    Anyway, to the real questions:

    “Is it possible to be sexy with glasses?” is the kind of question that can only be answered with a picture of Janeane Garofalo. Apologies for the obvious lefty-comedienne thing; its basically the nuclear option of sexy!

    I’d also like to point out – and I won’t link the picture directly for fear of harming anyone – that Christian Bale once wore a pair of glasses. Ergo, glasses are hot on everyone.

  17. Kerry
    May 4th, 2005 @ 2:23 am

    Is Christian’s comment some kind of joke???

  18. melgregg
    May 5th, 2005 @ 9:18 pm

    I’ve been meaning to write: I don’t think Christian’s comment was a joke at all. To me it shows a characteristic depth of thought, attentiveness and feeling. But Christian, I hope you *are* joking if you think that any of your writing here in the past has been unwelcome. I get the velocity thing – it’s why I wanted people I know to read your blog, so we could join forces in some way, gain momentum. The anxiety I express in this post has to do with when the velocity reaches such a point that I’ve lost sight of our shared impetus. You’ve made me realise that that might not be so important. And I’m really looking forward to hearing your paper!

  19. Christian McCrea
    May 9th, 2005 @ 12:42 pm

    The only part of it that was a joke is where I left some room to move on the Christian Bale is hot issue.

  20. david tiley
    May 12th, 2005 @ 3:18 pm

    Glasses are hot, full stop. Glasses on my dog would make my dog hot.

    That particular noise when you kiss and your glasses clink together? HOT HOT HOT. That moment when you both take your glasses off and blink at each other all soft and dewy eyed. BEYOND HOT.

    You can tell I’ve worn glasses all my life.

    The big exception is Edna Everage. That makes the trouser tent collapse pronto.

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