Flash Art uses cookies strictly necessary for the proper functioning of the website, for its legitimate interest to enhance your online experience and to enable or facilitate communication by electronic means. I have a vague sense that you originally worked in social services in Australia and then studied philosophy in Europe.
Is that correct? And how did one thing lead to another? Estelle Hoy: Yes, your memory is excellent, Chris. I was a serious child! The thing about front-line work, especially for empathetic people, is that you burn out. It takes its toll and is unimaginably difficult, though I suppose I can only speak for myself. All I really want is for these professions to become redundant.
Nine years too long. I worked in academia for all of three seconds and hated it. It takes its title from this event. CK: Your background in philosophy really interests me. Did you originally set out to become a philosopher? Maybe I should have. As an arts writer, I want to develop theories without being weighed down by academic formalities, which is mind-numbingly boring.
Palestine has also freed us from any doubt that academic institutions serve the systems of oppression, first and foremost, that of white supremacy, structural racism, and colonialism. Academic writers are inclined to regard their writing culture as the only highly developed one and the best.
I regard this as a petty conceit. There are so many forms of writing that are, in my view, richer. Which is to say, not taking things too seriously in order to take them seriously. Finding beauty in small things is a far-sighted pursuit for too many of us. I made the mistake of having a summer fling with a super neurotic, anxious German philosopher some years ago, who was a fatalist β fatalists can really ruin your life and remind you philosophy is an unattractively angsty pursuit.
