Re: that oddly popular tweet:

I understand how some citations can be disruptive or even intimidating for some readers. I think hyperlinks can resolve some of these issues. But, this problem also stems from how we conceive of knowledge production.

For some, citations are just a flex. They become about the individual author or reader - “look at how much I’ve read/comprehended (give me a good grade/publish/fund/hire me).” This approach reinforces and naturalizes violent hierarchies of knowledge production and performance.

When either the author or the reader approaches citations this way, citation can fuse with intimidation, defense, and anxiety. It's a nasty and perilous mix.

The intersection of racial capitalism and episteme in academia puts undue pressure on intellectual curiosity, community, and creation. It's stifling. I'm committed to unlearning that pressure. Unlearning is always a process.

We all respond to that pressure in a range of ways - surrender, refusal, subterfuge, insurgency, disruption, appropriation, disavowal, excess, paralysis, discipline, critique, method, theory, art, subtweets, hashtags, becoming "reviewer 2"...

All of these responses are political choices. Sometimes they hide behind the work of maintaining disciplinary boundaries. Sometimes the absence of a note (or all notes) is just as (if not more) instructive and impactful as a good footnote.

I hold on to citation because "following footnotes" continues to expose me to new ideas and conversations I didn't know I wanted to have. I write them because I want other people to know what I know and I want to find people who already do.

I think it's possible to cite like it's a conversation, a reading list, a guide, a poem, shade, a fight, a remix, a homage, allusion, a small act of solidarity, a struggle, kinship, a heuristic, gratitude, smoke signals, a call and response - the list goes on.

I think the classroom is one space to expose folks to these other orientations. So, I’m saying yes to everyone who asks to put that strangely popular tweet on their syllabus.

For me, citation reveals "the work" to be a conversation or a contribution, rather than personal attainment or a display of preordained brilliance. This clears space for multiple interpretations and changes the stakes of making/identifying an intervention.

When those stakes change so does "the work" and perhaps we become accountable to a different set of epistemological rubrics. Or maybe I'm just rambling now...