anthropologee chickadoo

Met some more members of the silly covert student group calling themselves Hit Culture or something today. Got into conversation and I think they are serious. Totally mad, but serious. They want to extend political assassinations to academics. Claiming that people like Giddens in Sociology and Geertz in Anthropology are personally responsibl for various malignant mentalities across the planet. I guess at least they are international. Giggles Giddens they want to get because his introductory texts were so boring, and he went on to become the ideologue of Britain’s bland new Labour Party, lined up with that Tony – Thatcherite in a frock – Blair and the vote-winning sari girl, Cherrie. Geertz was, I can’t recall all they said, on the hit list for being a spy. Something abut 100,000 Indonesian communists killed while he was doing research into cockfighting in Bali, and none of it got into his book. I’ve read the essay in question, and remember that none of the political scene features, displaced only with elegant sentences about malaria, the disappearance of his wife, and predictable side-steps of phallic puns given his theme. Geertz winked a lot and I recall him speaking in Melbourne looking like an academic W.C.Field crossed with Colonel Sanders. ‘11 different herbs and spices in the new anthropologee chickadee’. Well, I guess its good that folks are taking an interest in culture. And its internationalist too. I have to approve of the sentiment, if not the messy methods. They idolise the Unabomber for getting the manifesto published. But the print was too small, and by the time it came out as an independent volume all the hype was overkill. I wouldn’t open any suspicious mail. I guess Giddens better not either now.
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From: John Hutnyk – Academic Director, Centre for Cultural Studies
Work: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cultural-studies/staff/j-hutnyk.php
Blog: http://hutnyk.blogspot.com/
Links: http://tawdrysouvenirs.blogspot.com/
Events: http://whats-on-occasionally.blogspot.com/

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