The weird – What course are you taking in separating the weird from the strange? According to the OED the origins of the weird are rooted in control or revelation of the unknown future, linked through destiny and fate. My random searches for “weird” brought me to UFOs and aliens. The supernatural power of the fates has transformed into the science fiction(?) of extra-terrestrials as mysterious unknowns invested some how in Earth’s future. And what could be weirder than Alien Fresh Jerky? A store in Southern California (no where near area 51 by the way) that sells Abducted Cow Premium Teriyaki Jerky and Colon Cleaner Hot (No Sugar) Jerky. --hans
Not to steal hans' idea but yeah you're definitely going to want to check out the concept of "wyrd" as it applies especially to norse mythology. The concept is basically one of a strange mystical dynamic that relates past present and future in a mystical way. the concept in exactly that sense often gets appropriated by later authors (shakespeare's wierd sisters in macbeth) and as you might imagine the word then becomes a grounds of contention between different conceptualizations of fate time and being.
It's hard for me to get past Weird Al Yankovic, which points to a general trend in the societal casting off of whatever historical connotations the word had by assigning (kinda) new ones and alternately rejecting the weird as foreign, abnormal, and alien, and embracing it as quirky, unique, and unexpected. There's also the popular adoption of the expression "that's weird" among the ranks of "that's crazy" and "that's cool," as a sort of filler in the case of having nothing more insightful to say in reaction to an experience or dialogue in a conversation. The same thing that motivates a person to fill silence with the sometimes inane statement "that's weird" seems to be connected to the trend towards the assigning of "weird" to the threateningly unidentifiable other. -Crow Jonah Norlander
http://www.weirdus.com/ website for a book / youtube channel / travel package deal.
I think that the marketing of the weird is interesting. Is the current sense of "weird" derived more from for-profit spectacles of the strange (the carnival sideshow, freaks, Ripley's believe it or not)? Is there a certain out-of-place-ness that goes along with the weird (the outlandish)? Is the "weird" in the sense of controlling or predicting the future related to some kind of mere oddity? Derrida says that the future is absolute danger--is there something of the dangerous in the weird?
Does science fiction's predeliction with the future make these works narratives of the weird?
In thinking about the weird and its relation to science fiction, I think of fan-fiction and some aspects of zine culture--this is a well-developed place that is, at least in part, carved out specifically for the weird.
Commodities, fetishes, souvenirs, relics, rubbish. What theories help us think about things? In this course we will read Victorian travelers on West African "fetish," Michael Taussig on his imagined cocaine museum, Susan Stewart on longing and souvenirs, Freud on shiny noses, Marx on tables, Annette Weiner on the similarities between gift and commodity exchange, Mary Douglas on dirt, D.W. Winnicott on string, and Arjun Appadurai on the idea of the social lives of things. The singularization of things, the ways in which history and memory are stored in real and imagined objects, the commodification of the human body, the animation of the inanimate, utopian recycling, gleaning, found objects as art and craft: we will consider a broad range of theoretical issues in our readings and in projects that put them to quirky use.
6 comments:
The weird – What course are you taking in separating the weird from the strange?
According to the OED the origins of the weird are rooted in control or revelation of the unknown future, linked through destiny and fate.
My random searches for “weird” brought me to UFOs and aliens. The supernatural power of the fates has transformed into the science fiction(?) of extra-terrestrials as mysterious unknowns invested some how in Earth’s future. And what could be weirder than Alien Fresh Jerky? A store in Southern California (no where near area 51 by the way) that sells Abducted Cow Premium Teriyaki Jerky and Colon Cleaner Hot (No Sugar) Jerky.
--hans
Not to steal hans' idea but yeah you're definitely going to want to check out the concept of "wyrd" as it applies especially to norse mythology. The concept is basically one of a strange mystical dynamic that relates past present and future in a mystical way. the concept in exactly that sense often gets appropriated by later authors (shakespeare's wierd sisters in macbeth) and as you might imagine the word then becomes a grounds of contention between different conceptualizations of fate time and being.
--Evan. God I have to remember to put my name on these things.
It's hard for me to get past Weird Al Yankovic, which points to a general trend in the societal casting off of whatever historical connotations the word had by assigning (kinda) new ones and alternately rejecting the weird as foreign, abnormal, and alien, and embracing it as quirky, unique, and unexpected. There's also the popular adoption of the expression "that's weird" among the ranks of "that's crazy" and "that's cool," as a sort of filler in the case of having nothing more insightful to say in reaction to an experience or dialogue in a conversation. The same thing that motivates a person to fill silence with the sometimes inane statement "that's weird" seems to be connected to the trend towards the assigning of "weird" to the threateningly unidentifiable other.
-Crow Jonah Norlander
http://www.weirdus.com/
website for a book / youtube channel / travel package deal.
I think that the marketing of the weird is interesting. Is the current sense of "weird" derived more from for-profit spectacles of the strange (the carnival sideshow, freaks, Ripley's believe it or not)?
Is there a certain out-of-place-ness that goes along with the weird (the outlandish)? Is the "weird" in the sense of controlling or predicting the future related to some kind of mere oddity? Derrida says that the future is absolute danger--is there something of the dangerous in the weird?
Does science fiction's predeliction with the future make these works narratives of the weird?
In thinking about the weird and its relation to science fiction, I think of fan-fiction and some aspects of zine culture--this is a well-developed place that is, at least in part, carved out specifically for the weird.
--Nicole
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