Committed researcher and sometime cultural dupe

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, King of Cups

I know this feeling. When you read a passage in a book and it's so good you stop to draw breath. Finger on the page you read it again but it's too much to take in and you close the book and your eyes to savour this wonderful idea, an idea you thought no one else had ever had. And you want to sing and dance because suddenly things seem possible again. The thought of reading on fills you with trepidation - surely this level of magic can't be kept up. Either way it doesn't matter the mind is now energised and this is the point at which you start to write. 

This image represents how I want to feel about my thesis (I also quite like the whitewashed walls, inglenook fire and wooden floor - even critical researchers can be cultural dupes). After a morning of looking (with a lazy eye) at too many commercial fashion and lifestyle blogs and wondering if I should do something similar I am reminded of the value of my own path as an academic researcher. My job is to study these cultural intermediaries and expose their effects on other women not join them. 


Cultural intermediaries are the taste makers defining what counts as good taste and cool culture in today's marketplace. Working at the intersection of culture and economy, they perform critical operations in the production and promotion of consumption, constructing legitimacy and adding value through the qualification of goods. Too often, these are processes that remain invisible to the consumer's eye and in scholarly debates about creative industries. 

Sage Publishing, 2013

Amendment: Big Hair:

(C) British Museum