Reading Roundup for April 2019

“Impostor/Abuser: Power Dynamics in Publishing” by Sarah Gailey for Fireside Fiction: “It’s the little black dress of self-deception: easy to accessorize, appropriate for a variety of settings, goes with everything.

I’m not important, and nobody cares about my work.

I’m not important, and nobody knows who I am.

I’m not important, so it doesn’t matter what I do.

It’s an absolutely sterling lie, and it’s incredibly dangerous.”

“Hollow Beauty and Rotten Cores: What does your story stand for?” by Jeannette Ng: “It’s not that the movie lacked heart, the emotional beats are all there. But it’s that the beautifully visualised setting of fantasy Japan never quite touches the core story that its telling and in the end it feels like it’s nothing more than elaborate wallpaper.”

“Librarianship as Plantation” by April Hathcock: “I was up late one night contemplating slavery (as one does, especially as a Black American), and it hit me:

The library profession is a plantation.”

“Whiteness as Collections” by Sofia Leung: “I had this interesting mini-eureka moment a few weeks ago that I wanted to share for a few reasons. One, I don’t usually reflect on the connections that help me understand how I learn something new or what goes into coming up with some new concept. Most of the time, the connections aren’t clear to me. Two, I like to show students that inspiration for new “research” or “scholarly” ideas doesn’t have to come from only “scholarly” publications. Three, I need to write it out to fully understand how I came to this conclusion and to really understand what this conclusion means!”