Hi Callum, Khary Polk here. Thank you for these really beautiful thoughts about the archive, accretion, and the body in and out of time. Also, thank you so much for reading my book! I always hoped that it might be read by folks from own queer and trans communities (my biggest regret is that the most explicit LGBTQ material didn't make it into this volume) and that its focus on archives might resonate with their experiences. Anyway, looking forward to reading more of your writing! Thank you for your work :)
Thank you for this luminous, short-but-deep meditation on the body as archive and archives of the body. And what a wonderful and richly symbolic photo. These are NOT about geologic time or natural history (I'm sorry), but I wonder if you have read Fantasies of Identification: Disability, Gender, Race by Ellen Samuels (https://nyupress.org/9781479859498/fantasies-of-identification/) or The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome by Alondra Nelson (http://www.alondranelson.com/books/the-social-life-of-dna-race-reparations-and-reconciliation-after-the-genome). If you haven't, they both trouble the "immutable truth of the scientific record," specifically the assumed inherent value of "knowing" and recording the body through technologies that are never developed innocent of a desire to confirm what's imagined to be already known, for better or for worse. Anyway, thank you and as usual after I read one of your pieces, I will now be thinking about this all day!
Hi Callum, Khary Polk here. Thank you for these really beautiful thoughts about the archive, accretion, and the body in and out of time. Also, thank you so much for reading my book! I always hoped that it might be read by folks from own queer and trans communities (my biggest regret is that the most explicit LGBTQ material didn't make it into this volume) and that its focus on archives might resonate with their experiences. Anyway, looking forward to reading more of your writing! Thank you for your work :)
Thank you for this luminous, short-but-deep meditation on the body as archive and archives of the body. And what a wonderful and richly symbolic photo. These are NOT about geologic time or natural history (I'm sorry), but I wonder if you have read Fantasies of Identification: Disability, Gender, Race by Ellen Samuels (https://nyupress.org/9781479859498/fantasies-of-identification/) or The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome by Alondra Nelson (http://www.alondranelson.com/books/the-social-life-of-dna-race-reparations-and-reconciliation-after-the-genome). If you haven't, they both trouble the "immutable truth of the scientific record," specifically the assumed inherent value of "knowing" and recording the body through technologies that are never developed innocent of a desire to confirm what's imagined to be already known, for better or for worse. Anyway, thank you and as usual after I read one of your pieces, I will now be thinking about this all day!