Tár

Tár is an ambivalent film about the dying of Western cultural institutions that run on abuse. We don’t know much about the victims, and my feelings about the protagonist, who has created a toxic environment, changed with each scene. My feelings are hard to define, much like the theory of music provided within the film: Music gets us to feel the undefinable. Whatever I think about the representation of the abuser is bracketed by the self-reflexive way the film entices me to mourn complex art.

It's yet another representation of abuse that could have just as well taken place in the humanities academy, which is also dying.

Writing in 2023

It's taken me a long time to return. My return first entailed a realization that my addictive social media consumption and time spent in academic work over the past decade have taken me off track. Then came a re-assessment of previous tracks and a new appreciation of my juvenile self, as problematic as she was. 

I write for myself, I decided at some point. I've always felt uncomfortable being read by a particular audience of people who need something in particular from what they are reading. I prefer a random audience. Academic writings are only read carefully by reviewers and other people whose job it is to find a way to subtly misunderstand in order to disagree or to subtly disagree in order to misunderstand. Academic writing is the opposite of what I want to spend my time doing.

Besides all of this, writing is dying. In the next few years, we teachers of writing will convert ourselves into AI platform specialists. Perhaps it is the darkness of mid-January in Northern Germany getting to me, but so many of the practices I have trained for these past few decades seem to be waning. So I might as well do what I want. 

I write for myself, but I'm happy to have random people listening in.