We spoke last class about beginning to form connections between our texts. After we spoke about “pastpresents” in relation to multiple aspects of our curricula, it really got me thinking. The term “pastpresents” was coined by Katie King, our professor, and she identifies it as “similar to feminist technoscience historian and theorist Donna Haraway’s naturecultures” but more specifically as “implosions across discursive and other realms”. The way I understand this “pastpresents” has to do with relating things in the past to current situations. And understanding that today’s situations could be exist without the blueprint from the past. Sometimes pastpresents are very similar, sometimes they have very little in common. I believe the word is very flexible and allows for many interpretations.
In the current work we have read, “The Art of Detection”, by Laurie R. King, it brings up the existence of gay awareness and acceptance in a culture that is similar to today. Through the additional manuscript in the book, it also speaks of the gay culture back in the early to mid 90′s. Looking at the gay culture as an example for “pastpresents”, the culture could be similar, vastly different, or maybe somewhere in between based on the situation. I believe “pastpresents” are subjective observations involving the past and something that is currently happening in the present. Chauncey also deals with gay culture in his book, “Why marriage? The history shaping today’s debate over gay equality”. This book also illuminates the past and how tough it was for gay couples to find a safe space. My opinion on gay culture and why it has not taken as many strides forward as it could, is because of societies ideal that anything alternative in nature is not an option because it would some-what eliminate differences between people, and while the community is looking for EQUALITY, the political sphere sees it as creating SAMENESS. They are mistaking equality for sameness.
All knowledges are repurposed. We as human beings, do not take in information and never use it again. When we learn something of the past, we bring that learning experience with us into the future. Take Colonial Williamsburg for example, when families go there on vacations, they are using the knowledge they have learned about Williamsburg through education and in the media to translate the visual experience they are currently having with that they think should be correct. They are not going there with a blank state and taking exactly what they see there as the real deal. They are putting their current experience up against their previous conceptions and forming a new idea. That is what I mean by saying all knowledges are repurposed.
