Boycott, and I can't stress this enough ....

[MarieIVanArkleStinks]

This GC book!, says a TRA, tagging the Oxford University Press, that bastion of critical thinking that is, you know, doing the job that an academic press should be doing.

twitter.com/jthomastremblay/status/1512212885627236352

Que a plethora of replies, memes of book-burning etc. The best responses are those saying they hadn't seen the book but thanks for the free advertising, and posting THANKS FOR YOUR ORDER screenshots from the OUP.

Fantastic own goal, but to see these overwhelmingly pro-GC, hell, even pro-free speech responses even on captured Twitter is quite a turnaround. Perhaps after all Emily Bridges, Lia Thompson and Kier Starmer have shone more sunlight on this than even they anticipated!

In the meantime I'm watching the replies roll out with popcorn in hand. Truly top-notch entertainment!

@VaginaRegina

This is Mx Tremblay's own magnum opus. I have a degree in English from Cambridge and I can confidently assert that it is utter bollocks.

Um, he does what now?

@VaginaRegina see, I can sort of get behind some of that

The structure of our society has upheld tradition, racism, patriarchy, imperialism, sexism and capitalism and has concentrated wealth and power in a small group, while the physical world we live in has become more and more polluted. I mean, I'm not sure how anyone could actually argue that that's not true - the only issues are how bad it is, how much blame to apportion and how to address it.

For example, certain areas of London have high levels of asthma - and surprise surprise it's poorer people who are most affected (a little while ago there was a big feature on a ?10yo girl who had died as a result).

Tremblay appears to have concentrated on a literature review rather than anything original, and used words like aesthetics and necropolitical to sound clever; but the underpinning concept is a sound one.

Thanks for the discount code, it pays for the postage.

@NecessaryScene

One thing I'm struggling to get over is how, and I can't stress this enough, odd it is to see someone using "I can't stress this enough" without attaching it to, and I can't stress this enough, anything.

Unless he wan't to stress Oxford University Press for some reason?

It's a rather tired meme-type phraseology, the kind you see frequently on Twitter. C.f. the handclap emoji between every word, the "no-one:... " format, etc etc etc. All mildly amusing for the first 50 or so times you see them, but now reaching "Keep calm and carry on" levels of bland ubiquity.

@NecessaryScene

One thing I'm struggling to get over is how, and I can't stress this enough, odd it is to see someone using "I can't stress this enough" without attaching it to, and I can't stress this enough, anything.

Unless he wan't to stress Oxford University Press for some reason?

When it comes to certain people's Twitter proclamations, I'm often reminded of that scene in Singin' in the Rain, in which Lina Lamont's screechy real voice is heard for the first time, unassisted by Kathy's discreet overdubbing.

Turns out those interfering editors do actually do something...

Excellent! Just ordered it. I've heard Holly L-S speaking on various GC topics. Eloquent and lucid. I'm sure the book will be a zinger.

Is that name for real? Maybe it’s just me translating John Thomas Tremblay as quite literal willy-waving.

I have now ordered the book and read a couple of articles about the author. She is a very impressive woman. I admire her.

Looks great, have ordered! Thanks to the fusspot on Twitter.

@VaginaRegina

This is Mx Tremblay's own magnum opus. I have a degree in English from Cambridge and I can confidently assert that it is utter bollocks.

Oh my god, reminds me of the word salad bollocks used to describe certain modern "art" that my toddler could do. It's all pseudo-intellectual garbage.

@NecessaryScene

One thing I'm struggling to get over is how, and I can't stress this enough, odd it is to see someone using "I can't stress this enough" without attaching it to, and I can't stress this enough, anything.

Unless he wan't to stress Oxford University Press for some reason?

I can't see his original tweet either. Very odd as I don't tweet enough or follow enough to be on any particular ban list. Perhaps he has just gone protected?

It's not odd. The account is locked so only people who were directly following them at the time they locked it will be able to see it.

I suspect locked due to attention they didn't want.

I read it yesterday as an attempt to get people to boycott the OUP itself, which struck me as one of the stupidest things I've ever seen an academic tweet, and that's from a crowded field.

Oh my god, reminds me of the word salad bollocks used to describe certain modern "art" that my toddler could do. It's all pseudo-intellectual garbage

There’s a website called Art Bollocks which specialises in this and comes up with suggestions for text for artists, eg

“what starts out as vision soon becomes corroded into a dialectic of power, leaving only a sense of nihilism and the inevitability of a new understanding"

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I read it yesterday as an attempt to get people to boycott the OUP itself, which struck me as one of the stupidest things I've ever seen an academic tweet, and that's from a crowded field.

Yes, that's what the tweet in the screenshot is saying!

@NecessaryScene

One thing I'm struggling to get over is how, and I can't stress this enough, odd it is to see someone using "I can't stress this enough" without attaching it to, and I can't stress this enough, anything.

Unless he wan't to stress Oxford University Press for some reason?

I was thinking similar. Is he an academic or a writer himself? If so I hope he has a good editor.

Of course it's a real name, it sounds typically French Canadian to me though I don't know his background. And FWIW I agree, the premise of his book sounds solid, albeit wrapped up in specialist academic discourse.

merryhouse

Thanks for the translation. I couldn't understand any of the pseudo- intellectual bollocks in that screenshot.

It’s a real name. There’s a Paul Tremblay who writes horror fiction, hope he’s not a relation or I’ll have to burn all the books I own by him

Tremblay is a common surname in Quebec.

@VaginaRegina

This is Mx Tremblay's own magnum opus. I have a degree in English from Cambridge and I can confidently assert that it is utter bollocks.

Oh my.

Coda: A Queer Theory of Benign Respiratory Variations

That’s quite … something.

And here’s me just breathing in … and out.

@Saucery

It’s a real name. There’s a Paul Tremblay who writes horror fiction, hope he’s not a relation or I’ll have to burn all the books I own by him

Oh yeah I like Paul Tremblay.

And here’s me just breathing in … and out.

How very heterorespirationormative of you.