Thursday, October 11, 2007

Local Celebrity?

It is rare that anybody cares about work that I do. I mean, seriously. But because of an item in the news today, my work all of a sudden matters. And, like, regular, non-academic people want to talk to me for, like, interviews and stuff. Strange times indeed.

(And, yes, I plan on saying "like" exactly that many times in any potential interview. It's all part of my campaign to alert people to the fact that English professors really do talk like "normal" people and so people need not "watch their English" around me.)

9 comments:

Flavia said...

I've been thinking of you, actually, since I heard.

Congrats on your new source of fame/hipness/relevance/whatever!

Anonymous said...

heh. i've been thinking about you, too.

BrightStar (B*) said...

oooo! I feel smart, because I figured it out. That's really exciting!

Maude said...

how cool are you? even though i have like no idea what's going on. props to you woman!

(um, i'm embarrassed i just said "props.")

New Kid on the Hallway said...

And me, I thought about you too! (Hope it doesn't freak you out that I knew to connect the two or anything.) Well, I knew a woman from grad school who did Reformation history and she ended up on McNeil/Lehrer once when there was some kind of Catholic/Lutheran reconciliation thing going on. So funny! Enjoy talking to real people.

Dr. Crazy said...

For those of you who figured it out, or who knew because I'm not terribly secret about my super-secret blog identity - why did you think I posted this? I'm happy you thought of me, and happy about the situation, honestly. It can only mean good things. I'll admit it: my first thought was "It's about fucking time!" in honor of the author, but my second thought was, "this will be good for me professionally."

The only reason I didn't post more explicitly is because I don't want it to be google-able to me :) Thus far it's only an interview on a local NPR program, but apparently Media Relations has sent out a press release as of today that I'm a Person to Talk To. You know? The best part about this is that it's something that my parents get and think is cool (unlike every other thing that I do). You can't IMAGINE the excitedness of my mom today, in that she actually knew the name of the Nobel Prize in Lit because her daughter works on the person who won it:) (Usually my mom is annoyed because nobody cares about what I do and because she can't understand it. Remember: my mom only has a high school diploma, and so her world is not ours.)

At any rate, I'm so glad all of you thought of me who have, and those of you who aren't sure what this is about, you'll figure it out in a day or two :)

Steve said...

I just assumed you were referring to the news stories about people dying in awkward s/m situations.

Doctor Pion said...

Heck, I made the connection without knowing what your research might be on. After all, I looked in on your blog once I got a spare moment to see what you thought of the lit prize. (Now if I see a bleeping visitor on the Daily Show on this topic, I'll know her Mom will be pleased.)

Other than the science folks who knew her science fiction work, I have no way of knowing whether this is a "long deserved" or "out of the blue" choice. The latter would be if the work was only available as a Sanskrit translation of the original Urdu, if you get my drift.

I can ignore the usual suspects who only notice that she is an anti-apartheid communist feminist, overlooking the fact that many (most?) people for integration in the 30s to 50s were leftists, so await your commentary.

Maude said...

oh, so my suspicions after a long day of thinking about this were true! it's even cooler now! super way more props to you!! total congrats woman! this is awesome!