I was really interested in the topic of conversation geared towards discussing private and public intellectual life, which reminded me a lot of, once again, Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy metaphor and the constant back-and-forth between functioning on the front and backstage.
Further, Hooks catches something that’s been really simmering with me about Hall - in juxtaposing his presence on the front stage as this public influential scholar and activist as juxtaposed with his private intellectual life; what is his general relation with intersectionality? On page 15 - he mentions that historically ‘there were a lot of black women involved at that time, very few. My experience of what has happened in that particular formation is, first of all, it was raced as the black women came into it …” Here, I would have appreciated an explanation of why - a sociological precursor or articulation of this first wave of British feminism. It’s not until Hooks acknowledges that Black male scholars, especially, were not listening to Black women; Hall eventually posits *after the fact that White women began to rethink their place in the movement as an outcome, as opposed to thoroughly acknowledging his own potential role in the exclusion of Black women. I would appreciate a conversation in the seminar about the private/public intellectuals; should we even care? I also asked what the opinions of Black women in the UK were towards Hall, especially in the 60s. Hooks touches on it a little, but I think further historical evidence would be helpful.
I think it would also be interesting to discuss the “state of conversations” Hooks references near the beginning of the conversation on page 4. When Hooks was discussing their disenchantment at Stanford and the notable lack of conversations being had in a designated “elite space,” I thought about Fran Lebowitz’ and Martin Scorsese’s dialogue in Pretend It’s a City and Lebowitz’ discussing how great art has died because of laws restricting people from smoking inside; destroying these niche community/sites of collaboration. This is no endorsement of smoking … or Stanford, but I wonder how ideas, friendship, walk-and-talks - and beyond have evolved since our 2020 historical conjuncture - and how the willingness to collaborate through leisure conversation has shifted in the 21st century with new forms of collaboration; social media, texting, and so forth?
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