When We Hold Ourselves Apart (Chloe Cooper Jones)
b"\\u201cThat's just like the human struggle, is how is it that our interiority and the way that we're perceived externally, how do we live with that? How does it act? Like, how do those things influence each other? Like, that's maybe the human problem. And so academia puts another layer on that, disability puts another layer on that, being an artist puts another layer on that because there is this expectation I think in those spaces to both use your identity to flag something socially to the world, but also, if you do that, then you take on all the trappings, the preconceived notions, the stereotypes of that.\\u201d\\nSo says Chlo\\xe9 Cooper Jones, the author of the truly stunning memoir Easy Beauty, which unsurprisingly, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Chlo\\xe9 was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition that impacts her gait and her stature, and makes it at times painful to move throughout the world. Her memoir is a study in the way her condition has kept her apart, driving her toward intellectual superiority as a defense mechanism against a world that doesn\\u2019t feel like it belongs to her. In Easy Beauty, she travels the globe, reclaiming spaces and her own body as she had always refused to make it the center of her scholarship. As she travels, Chlo\\xe9 probes big questions, like why do we gather at places where terrible things have happened and who gets to be a philosopher? She also explores the qualities of easy versus difficult beauty, beauty we have to work for. Chlo\\xe9 is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and an Associate Professor at Columbia University\\u2019s MFA program. This is one of my favorite conversations to date, so let\\u2019s turn to it now.\\n\\nMORE FROM CHLO\\xc9 COOPER JONES:\\nEasy Beauty: A Memoir\\nFollow Chlo\\xe9 on Instagram\\nChlo\\xe9\\u2019s Website\\n \\nTo learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy\\n \\n Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices"