Black Regions of the Imagination: African American Writers Between the Nation and the World | 
So, this sentence may have stopped me: “Focusing on the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, then, this chapter explores how she employs ethnography to orchestrate the difficult task of offering a public articulation of African American identity and artistic production in the midst of twentieth-century U.S. global expansion and a growing sense of black modernity, which would eventually help enable the integration of black ⬇️⬇️
Graywacke Americans into a recognized public sphere as equal subjects to whites within the United States.” 1y
Graywacke Had she split the sentence at that last comma, I might have been ok. This is a characteristic sentence of the book. … phew, academia… 1y
wanderinglynn That‘s a sentence! 😳 1y
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LeahBergen Crikey! 1y
Graywacke @wanderinglynn @LeahBergen - right. 🤔😣😖 I‘ve gone through a couple times and tried to reword it. But… i get that “articulation” is roughly “expression”, but i don‘t know what “public articulation” means. What is non-public articulation. And so, why “articulation” instead of expression? What‘s the extra-meaning behind “articulation”, or does it just sound better. Anyway… I might have taken it a bit too far. ☺️ (edited) 1y
wanderinglynn Quite frankly, it sounds like someone trying to appear smart. But honestly, it fails. Like, “how she *employs ethnography* to *orchestrate the difficult task*” Seriously, WTF. Academia. I knew there was a reason I didn‘t go into it as a career. 🙄 (edited) 1y
Graywacke @wanderinglynn yes, but she‘s mainly talking to colleagues in the field and has to use their jargon so they understand what she means. I mean, she‘s not the only who writes that way. It‘s the whole academic literary community. So, I give her a little slack. It‘s bloody painful to read, though. 1y
Graywacke @wanderinglynn still, I can‘t help myself. “she employs ethnography to orchestrate the difficult task of offering a public articulation of African American identity and artistic production” = she uses African American folky stuff in her work (I believe “stuff” is equally precise with her wording) (edited) 1y
wanderinglynn I get it. I‘m an attorney and we have our jargon too. You have to talk in the language that your audience understands. But you demonstrated my point beautifully. 😆 1y
Graywacke @wanderinglynn I do find the academic literary language fundamentally insecure. Not sure if geology/geophysics papers comes across that way, but they really aren‘t readable. When I contribute text, it‘s always secondary, just get it right. And when I edit, i need to brace myself. But the reader is skipping to the figures and tables anyway. They just want data. 1y
Graywacke #RichardWright 1y
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