For example, Brock makes frequent use of cautionary quotation marks ("
scare quotes") around words and phrases, often without explaining why their punctuational exile is necessary, as when he discusses the difference between illustration and other forms of visual art: "While still using the same reference points/vocabulary as 'fine art,' the images generated are created to dramatize an aspect or principle of another work ...
The respectful attitudes are new, yet the jokes are familiar -- jokes about parents trying to figure out kids, puzzling over the secret code behind emojis, plus a lot of improv-style jokes with comedians arguing over trifles (the correct use of invisible
scare quotes, stuff like that), throwing out random riffs and sporting metaphors.
Levy and her wife, "Lucy," marry in a rather traditional ceremony, which Levy chronicles in a New York magazine essay that reveals her ambivalence: A photo of Levy accompanying the essay is captioned "The 'bride' in her Carolina Herrera dress." Having it all, apparently, requires a few
scare quotes.
(That its "disastrous" implications for Yiddish are on a par with the Holocaust I will set aside.) The
scare quotes are indeed "complicated" insofar as all of the studies in the book in some way argue that twenty-first century Yiddishism, New Yiddishism, or however one wishes to understand it militates against the very idea of monolinguistic cultural assimilation.
It does concern me that an ASA Fellow uses
scare quotes in the phrase "the 'proven facts' of Darwinian evolution." First, evolution is a fact.
puts "Arian" and "Arianism" in
scare quotes throughout the book, and he is most successful in showing how Athanasius succeeded in bundling the varieties of theology to which he was opposed into the single overarching heresy known to later centuries.
And nowhere does the editorial refer to Mariano as "leftist" or "biased"-which begs the question: Where did those
scare quotes come from?
And we hesitate to use the word "primitive"--even with
scare quotes. That nowadays we devote serious sustained attention to visual art from Africa, China, and India--from everywhere outside of the West--is due in large part to McEvilley's influence.
To remind the reader and reinforce the fact that racisms and racializations are fixed and constructed categories, he repeatedly identifies racialized terms such as "Chinese" and "White" with quotation marks, or "
scare quotes."
Its investigation of the central role accorded to the visual in the "Judaism"-Christianity polarity at the heart of definitions of Christianity more than justifies the
scare quotes around "Judiasm." The term is an empty signifier, its significance more structural than specific.