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“It’s like, now that we’re all in the Medium Place, I wonder if we’re still being watched all the time, or like, maybe we’re being watched sometimes and we don’t know when. And the people who are watching us are like out there and they’re like these mean judgmental people but sometimes it also feels like the mean judgy people are, like, inside me and see everything I do, and it like makes me nervous all the time. Like, I know little people don’t live inside me but I’m saying it feels like they do because I never know when someone is watching and maybe no one is any more but I still worry like I’m being watched all the time. It’s hard. Is that what this Michelle chick is saying?” Jason asked.
“It’s Michel Foucault, and no,” Chidi said. “Except yes. I mean, that is sort of what the panopticon is.”
“Panopticon? Like in the Transformers?!” Jason said, eyes lighting up.
Tahani rubbed Jason’s shoulder, her gentle way of saying no.
Chidi sighed. “When we internalize the apparatus of surveillance--”
“Internalize the apparatus? That’s what she said,” Eleanor said.
Chidi frowned. Foucault was going to be a challenge.
--
“Isn’t this kind of obvious, though?” Eleanor asked.
“Eve Sedgwick did a lot to shape how people understand homosocial relationships in media and art,” Chidi said.
“But this is basically saying that Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are doing it, right?” Eleanor said.
“No, Sedgwick does not use examples from Star Wars, and furthermore, it’s not about literal sexual relationships.”
“Yes, it’s subtext, we all love a good subtext,” Tahani said, and Eleanor nodded.
Chidi pushed up his glasses. “It’s not just that there’s subtext, it’s that the homoerotic subtext is signified in a way that actually promotes bonds among men based on homophobia and misogyny.”
“So… it’s saying that bros who are all about their other bros and smack other bros’ asses all day are sometimes homophobic, sexist dicks?” Eleanor said, then looked over at Jason and added, “Present company excepted.”
“Sort of. But … literary,” Chidi said with a sigh.
“Theory is easy, dude,” Eleanor said, giving Chidi a dazzling smile.
--
“So according to Saskia Sessen, a border is a modern construction created to give moral authority to the control of movement, making it appear morally wrong to move from one space to another space.”
“Like the Good Place,” Eleanor said.
“What?” Chidi asked.
“The Good Place, the Bad Place, the Medium Place. They separated the Places so we would feel like we deserve to be in one place instead of another place, but really they could easily make anyone be in any place. It’s totally arbitrary.”
“That’s… an excellent application of Sessen to our current situation,” Chidi said with a pleased smile.
Jason raised his hand. “Ooh! I think I get it. Like when people say it’s not okay to ‘break’ and ‘enter’ and ‘steal’ it’s because they want to make you feel bad when you do it, so it’s also… arbitrary,” he said, slowly saying the last word.
“Not exactly, dear,” Tahani said.
“Well,” Chidi said, “There are a few Marxist theorists who would suggest that property ownership is itself unnatural, which therefore potentially affects the moral value of stealing.”
“Sweet!” Jason said.
“But most ethicists still consider stealing to be bad,” Chidi added.
Jason pouted.
“Anyway, moving on…” Chidi said, erasing the chalkboard. “How does Sessen describe globalization?”
--
“So, does anyone have any questions on Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of the rhizome?”
Jason said, “This is not a question, it’s more like a comment.”
“You’re really learning to talk like a professor, Jason,” Chidi said, smiling.
“Oooh, academia in-jokes, always a crowdpleaser,” Eleanor quipped.
“Thanks?” Jason said, “So my story is, one time, me and Pillboi were really high and we decided that it would be funny if we went to this garden with all these fancy grasses at this tourist place and mow the grass. Cause all the tourists come just to look at the grasses but it’s not like pot it’s like actual grass on the ground, so we thought, it’s weird they come here just to look at this messy grass so we wanted to make it a nice lawn to look at.”
“You mean the Florida Horticultural Grasses Society? It’s world famous!” Tahani said.
“Is it? Really?” Eleanor said, deadpan.
“For those who have extensive gardens and need to keep up with grass trends, yes.”
“Yeah, it’s like a grass museum,” Jason said. “For rich tourists. So we broke in to mow the grass but there was no lawn mower there. What kind of grass museum doesn’t have a lawn mower? So then we decided to just start pulling up the grass. That was really fun.”
“You must have been super high for that to be fun,” Eleanor said.
“We were.”
“Those poor lovely grasses,” Tahani said sadly.
“So we kept pulling, but then we got to this one grass and we tried to pull it all up, but all the roots were like tangled up underground, and you couldn’t just pull up one blade of grass without pulling up all the rest because there were all these twisty roots underneath so you couldn’t even tell where one grass thingy began and another started and then we figured out that if we kept pulling we’d eventually have to pull up all the grass in Florida cuz it was all connected, yo.”
Chidi nodded. “That’s… literally a rhizome. That’s very good, Jason.”
“Sweet!” Jason said.
“Well done,” Tahani said to him, and Eleanor smiled and added, “Look who’s a smartypants today.”
“Now,” Chidi asked, “What do Deleuze and Guattari use the rhizome as a metaphor for?”
There was a long silence.
Jason raised his hand. “For grass?”
--
“Now what does it mean to say that gender is a performance? Not that it is an act exactly, but that it comes about through iterations - in other words, repetitions of performance. And so Judith Butler shows us how Hegelian philosophy can be used to think about how history and power shape the nature of these performances and even how we categorize and comprehend the human body and its sexuality.”
“Yeah, that’s cool,” Eleanor said, “Let’s go back to the part where she talks about orifices.”
“Oh, Eleanor,” Tahani said, her smile belying her disapproving tone.
Eleanor rolled her eyes. “No, I’m serious this time – is she saying that, like, there are like a million ways we could decide what parts you stick into what parts? Because if so, mind blown.”
“That is one of the implications of her argument,” Chidi said, “But not really the main point.”
“I knew a guy, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, and it was Pillboi’s cousin Frogger, who liked having sex with elbows,” Jason said, “But not like the dry, scratchy part, the part on the inside of the elbow bend,” he added, pointing to the inside fold of his elbow and flexing his arm.
“Ah, I can relate," Tahani said, “A certain celebrity- let’s just say the affection went in ‘one direction’ – that’s all I’ll say – had a very great regard for my feet. I wouldn’t let him touch them of course, but he did get a nice look at my sandals at Adele’s tea party one afternoon.”
“Well, fetishes are not exactly what Butler is talking about here,” Chidi said.
“Except it is! Right?" Eleanor asked, "Who’s to say what body parts are sexy? Who’s to say what a man or a woman is? Or who you should be attracted to? Who made those rules?”
“Someone who sucks?” Jason suggested.
“Yes! Someone who sucks,” Eleanor confirmed. “Holy crap, I think I get queer theory now. It’s saying that a bunch of old rich white guys a long time ago decided on a bunch of stupid rules about how women and men are supposed to act and who’s fuckable and what kind of fucking is okay for who, but those people ruin everything and we shouldn’t ever listen to them.”
“…That’s actually not the worst description of queer theory that I’ve heard,” Chidi said, impressed.
“And if someone wants to have sex with a Tahani-Steve Austin-centaur hybrid, who’s to fucking judge!” Eleanor added.
“Right on! Judith Butler rocks,” Jason said supportively.
“Well, it’s decided, then. Judith Butler is our favorite Hegelian,” Tahani added.
Chidi stared at them for a long time.
“Do we kind of suck as philosophy students, Chidi?” Eleanor asked.
“No, actually, I was just thinking that you three are the most enthusiastic students I’ve ever had.”
“Aww,” Tahani said, clearly flattered.
Chidi continued, “Which is weird when you think about it. And probably reflects very badly on me as a teacher.”
“Good point,” Eleanor said, “Next time start with the sex stuff before you get all up in our moral dilemmas.”
“That’s what she said,” Jason said quickly, then added, “Did I do it right?”
“Yes, your ‘that’s what she said’ made semantic sense that time,” Chidi told him.
“Sweet!”