A note on stealing
It is the overwhelming advice of my friends to not include on my public website a detailed list of future research papers. Hmm. While I do not particularly mind my ideas being stolen, I am terrified that they might be written worse than they could have been. As a result, I am sharing the titles but withholding explicit descriptions of all my planned text projects, which you can find in the list below. Under each headline you will see a cryptic synopsis or table of contents that reveals only a glimpse of my intentions. I hope you will be equal parts intrigued and confused.
Kindly do not steal my ideas if you cannot do them justice. Otherwise, plagiarize freely but smartly, and let me know so I can update my list accordingly :)
A note on writing
It must have been some months into the global COVID-19 quarantine that I listened to a live, public academic talk for the first time, on Zoom. The first sign of trouble was that the only other participants were undergraduate students bribed with extra credit to attend. My own undue effort was owing to the subject of the presentation: humor in the revolutionary meme culture of the Arab Spring. I was in the final years of American public high school where research of this sort is worlds away from the encyclopedic prescriptions of worksheets and textbooks. It never occurred to me that you could do something like this. Shock does not suffice to explain my reaction to what followed: a powerpoint presentation so uninspired that it rivaled—unfavorably—the nutrition facts on the back of the cereal box on my desk. That the study of humor should want for wit? Those who know me will not need to ask how soon I left the Zoom. My initiation into the social sciences had begun.
The bewildering boredom of most nonfiction work is a tragedy. There is so much humor and heartbreak in my native English alone that I increasingly find myself defending it from otherwise very reasonable accusations of senselessness and inconsistency. To not make use of it is a failure of humanity. One of the highest privileges of doing scholarship has to be the chance to be clever with language. Stretch meaning to its breaking point or recede to another profession. Paint the world in fierce print and wear it everywhere. Save your asceticism for shopping.
As you will quickly observe from my academic work, I am tired of cold editorial conventions that prize frugality for frugality's sake. Even cautious writing need not be colorless. My own writing has been correctly criticized as "contrived" and "pretentious," but I'll eat my chair and table if it should ever be called "boring" or "lackluster." An academic who does not write with infectious obsession is no better than a bureaucrat. Science has always been art, and art science. Let's remember to be artists, too. To quote F. R. David, "Words!"
Coming soon! I have no officially published works but will add several writing samples in the next few weeks.
In this master's thesis, I curate and analyze uncanny multispecies histories in a small Arctic fishing town. The text is based on archival research and on-site fieldwork conducted in 2023 and 2026. A final copy of the thesis will appear here upon completion of the degree in Spring 2027.
I. Observations
II. Collaborations
III. Sensations
Inspired by landmark scholarship on bullshit, this manifesto studies the ways different kinds of bullshit attempt to pass for not-bullshit. It is written entirely in strawmen and sweeping generalities that, too, border on bullshit.
A Preliminary Postrequiem
Introduction
I. Toward an Anthropology of Arctic Planning
II. Toward a Genealogy of Arctic Cruising
III. Toward a Theory of Queer Oceanics
Conclusion
Introduction: The Gift, the Plantation, the University, and the Archive
I. Race, Rescue, and the Strategic Nonexpectation of Reciprocity
II. The Sexual Politics of “Giving” and “Receiving” in Captivity
III. A Maussian Anthropology of Violence
Introduction: Dispensing with Formalities or Dispensing, with Formalities?
I. Automation, or, The Total Unmanning of Exchange
II. Lottery, or, The Speculative Principle of Consumption
III. Bribery, or, The Political Economy of Snacks
IV. Umbilicality, or, The Sexual Anthropology of Wires
V. Desideration, or, The Disciplinary Architecture of Wrappers
Introduction
I. Hunters and Latherers
II. The Gift of Cleanliness
III. Manual Devotion
IV. D(o)uch(e)amp's Fountain
V. From Citizenshit to Shit-izenship
Synopsis coming soon!
Synopsis coming soon!
Synopsis coming soon!
No Copyright 2026 Halifax Vilensko