" this text is confusing. the point seems to be that the nation is merely a social ordering technology that is fun to dismiss, yet the writer frequently refers to nationalities as knowable entities, presumably to make the writing accessible, yet i noticed no caveat for this. i might have missed it, but he carries on so. would such a contradiction deserve better treatment than a footnote? i wished that he would just simply state what his unseemly predispositions were rather than insinuating through sociology. what winds up happening is the feeling that the only basis for a theory of the life of nationality outside of social construction is bias. there's material to source here for a both/and thesis of race despite the perils of anderson's voice. the usage of race as a coherent and solid entity, i.e. as 'black' is made to cohere for the consideration of 'the black question,' reminded me of marxists, so i decided anderson is a marxist. i don't know if he's really a marxist, but he does talk about benjamin twice at meaningful moments near the beginning and near the end of the text, presumably for emphasis. not that i mind marxists, until they start talking about race like that. and talking about race in a lot of different contexts with an ease that makes me kinda suspicious, in a way where i just have to wind up taking your word for it. he talks about a lot of different parts of the world in a way that kind of made me uncomfortable. like they were all supposed to make sense under one unifying concept (capitalism? class?) that never materially effects each place differently. even calling attention to that makes me sound like a globalization denialist. i'm not a globalization denialist. it's just that talking about too many different places as if they're all the same in some ways seems to just further globalization. but if you come into this being aware of the contingency/hegemony problem, you should be okay. i do feel that, assuming he is indeed a marxist, he shouldn't be making you do that extra work. who does that? someone who for this edition needs to add a lengthy ramble on the anecdotes surrounding the translation and publication history of the boo you've just read. i tried to figure out how i could care but i gave up. "
— Ralowe, 2/17/2014