Reassigned Time

Dr. Crazy's Moved House

2010-08-09T11:52:00.001-04:00

Not only in real life space but apparently in cyberspace as well. I may do an actual farewell post over here, or this may be it. Who knows. Anyhoodle, you can now find me at Reassigned Time 2.0.

Has Officially Had It With Spam....

2010-08-09T07:32:00.002-04:00

And thinks it may be time to move to Wordpress. But I've been screwing around on wordpress for the past 45 minutes and can I just say that the thought of having to redesign my stupid blog and deal with moving and blah is very annoying to me? Grumble. If I move, never fear - I shall direct you to the new location. Still haven't decided yet, though.

In Which I Am Filled with Positivity (Because Complaining is Exhausting)

2010-08-08T11:01:00.003-04:00

Anyway, I'm feeling quite chipper this morning and so I thought I should post so that you all would see how I'm actually feeling most of the time, as opposed to seeing me rant and rave and brood as I feel like I've been doing a lot on the blog of late. I think the broodiness is really just part of my process as a researcher/writer, and it's not really how I am 90% of the time, but the blog becomes the place where I put a lot of that, and so I think it seems like I'm this miserable wretch of a girl, which really isn't true for the most part.

But so anyway. I was looking at what I'd accomplished over the summer (because part of my problem is that summer is coming to a close and I feel a bit at loose ends without having the start of the semester to motivate me), and you know, I've done quite a lot, really. No. I haven't done everything I'd dreamed I'd do, but looking at my binder of book-writing goodness, it becomes clear that I've gone through something like 60 scholarly books (some with more attention and some with less, but still) and I have reams of notes - some of which are in paragraph form and can be transported directly into a draft - and I've got a clear outline and argument for the book. So no, I don't have tons of words written in a coherent way, but I'm on my way, regardless.

I would like it though if I didn't have to read Habermas, still. Or reread. But whatever. It hurts my feelings that Habermas cannot be avoided, but I know that Habermas cannot be avoided, and that is unfortunate.

In other news, this week I received my $8K from Uncle Sam for buying my awesome house. On the one hand, the money is burning a hole in my pocket. On the other, I do not want to just piss the money away. Anyway. So the first thing I'm going to do with that money is to pay off the credit card on which I have been putting purchases for the new house (everything from moving expenses to a new vacuum cleaner to paint to curtains to my new door, and, as of this morning, furniture for my porch). Now, doing that was a good thing because I had 0% interest on those purchases until Oct. 1, so I'll pay that off and will not have paid any interest on any of my moving things. But then I'll still be left with a good chunk of change. Now. I know that what I should do is to get estimates for getting the outside of my house stained first, and also to get somebody to put a cover over my chimney so wild animals don't decide to live and die in there. But then I'll still have a tiny bit of money left after that. I am thinking very seriously about buying a Kindle.... I mean, I deserve a present, right? My birthday is coming up..... Who has a Kindle? Thoughts?

The big thing is that I don't want to just piss this 8K away. I want to be very clear about where that money goes or has gone. I want to know how I spent it. Ah well. There's no reason why I need to spend it all immediately, so I will bide my time and wait until I really know what I want to buy with what remains.

Hmm. What else? Well, in like a week and a half FL* is coming for a few days for a visit, so that will be fun, and then my parents are going to come for a visit over Labor Day. I want to have another dinner party soon, but I've also been thinking about having a bigger housewarming party, though I'm not sure whether it makes sense to do that while on sabbatical. Maybe I should do that only after I'm back from sabbatical.

At any rate, on today's agenda is to do some stuff around the house, and then I shall do some more theory-reading. The brief respite that we'd had from the heat is now over, and that sucks because I really enjoyed having all of my windows open yesterday. But with heat indexes for today and the rest of the week topping 100, I embrace my air conditioning.

Wow, I really don't feel like accomplishing things. Perhaps I'll call some people up on the phone before I buckle down and try to get things done.

*For those of you who don't recall, FL is my first love, and we have now known one another for 20 years, which, as I said to him on the phone last night, my 15-year-old self NEVER would have thought that at 35 I'd be talking to that fool on the phone still. We've actually been talking a lot lately. Dunno what to think about that, but I suppose there's nothing to think about, really. We go through phases, and apparently we're going through one now.

I Guess a Post about Sabbatical-ing, in Which I Complain a Lot

2010-08-06T09:50:00.004-04:00

I know that I haven't written in an age. This is in part because much of my energy has been taken up since a week ago with not really knowing where I want to go next with Housewives and Hussies. Things are percolating. Fermenting. Marinating. You know. All of that stuff that has to happen passively. And then I have to feel guilty about the fact that I'm not actively "producing" anything, and that takes more energy. And after all that? Well, clearly I need a nap, and I don't have anything left over for blogging.

So now I have a stockpile of things that I might write about on the blog but I don't really know that I want to write a whole and entire post about any of them. I know. That is irritating. I'm even irritating to myself. So let me talk about my sabbatical and how I'm feeling about it and maybe you'll get an idea of what's going on with me and why I've been so quiet of late.

My sabbatical doesn't technically begin until the middle of the month (so like another week and a half), but I've been considering the summer as part of my sabbatical since I had an award that meant I was paid to do research this summer and was prohibited from teaching. Now, as I began with the leave time, I got a lot of advice and words of wisdom from people. Advice about taking time just to rest; advice about allowing oneself to enjoy oneself in this time, etc. And I have done those things. And, actually, in addition to resting and having fun I'd say that I got a good amount of work done, even considering the fact that I moved and all of that.

But I've found myself over this summer feeling a lot of stupid envious feelings, which I think has to some extent gotten in the way of me enjoying what I do have with this time as well as getting in the way of me celebrating what I have accomplished. See, lots of people I know in my academic generation are beginning their first sabbaticals, too, and they are either a) traveling to fabulous places, and in one case actually living in the fabulous place "abroad" for the time of the sabbatical; b) able to take a whole year instead of the one semester that I can afford (and this envy isn't just about money - it then feeds into the envy about people having partners whose jobs can carry the partner who gets a 40% salary reduction and then I don't have a partner and then woe is me I'm going to die alone and this is bullshit); c) I feel like everybody's work is more interesting than mine, more important than mine, and more ... just MORE than mine, so not only am I trapped in the United States, with only 4 months of sabbatical leave where other people get the whole academic year, desperately alone, but on top of that my research is stupid.

Now. I do realize that all of the above is pathetic and self-pitying and not only not useful but also not even how I really feel. Or, well, I feel those things, every now and again, but I also the majority of the time feel like I don't want anybody's life but my own because my life is pretty great.

And then I'm also feeling irritated about the fact that it's the start of the academic year and that as much as I want to be totally checked out from what's happening at my university and my department I'm not. Instead, I'm trying really hard to force myself away (which I know is good) but then certain things find their way to me anyway, and then I feel like I want to punch people in the face. Like, for example, I've got this colleague who... Ok, the most diplomatic way that I can put this is that this colleague's scheduling needs have had an impact on my teaching schedule (both in terms of times that I've taught as well as in the courses that I've taught) in a number of different semesters. I am sick of it. And yet, what's the first thing I hear when I pop into the office to check my mailbox? That once again this colleague may well be being accommodated and that it may well affect my rotation of courses. And I am sick of it. This colleague is unpleasant, doesn't carry hir share of the service burden, and students hate the colleague. Why in God's name don't we tell this person to suck it? Because I would really like to tell this person to suck it. But, if I were to do that, it would make other people's lives difficult and I don't really want to do that to them, and so.... Yeah. (Anyway, knowing the track record of this person I feel like this is probably going to come to nothing anyway because zie will change hir mind at the last minute, but whatever.)

And then I'm also irritated by the fact that my department chair had asked that people on sabbatical come to the department retreat (even though we are not supposed to have to go to it according to the faculty handbook) and I know that some people are just not going to show up, and I know that if I show up and they don't that it will fill me with rage, but on the other hand, I feel like it might be stupid of me not to go to the retreat because I know that we will discuss some important things and also it's really hard for me not to do what my chair asks. Colleague Friend suggested that I just plan to be out of town and that way I wouldn't need to worry about making an excuse, but that sticks in my craw. I don't want to lie or to shirk. What I want to do is to be up front with my chair about the fact that it's bullshit that I'll be at this thing while other people just ignore his request and that is why I won't be there - or won't be there for the whole time (because I can imagine wanting to be there for a couple of items that I think will be on the agenda). Gah.

But see? I feel like I have all of the irritation of the academic year without any of the joy of being excited about teaching my classes. And I also have hit this block with the book, feeling like it's lame and like I'll never finish it anyway so what's the point? (That last bit isn't true. It's just how one feels at this point in a project I think. I've done enough now that I see exactly how much I have left to do, and that's daunting.)

So. I'm going to go and attempt to make some headway with research (a) and with the conference I'm planning (b). Wish me luck.

Literary Criticism, Some Thoughts

2010-07-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

As I've been getting to the writing stage with Housewives and Hussies, I've been thinking a lot about what I appreciate in literary criticism, what I dislike in literary criticism, and what I think about what makes good scholarship and what makes a solid engagement with scholarship. You might think that you should stop reading now if you're not in English Studies, or in literary studies more specifically, but if you bear with me for a bit I think I might have some things to say that might actually be generalizable and that might start an interesting conversation.

I wrote the following in a recent post and I feel now like I should have said more, or been clearer, so that's where I'll begin:

"One of the things that I struggle with . . . is that I ultimately do believe that there is something special about literature and I have little-to-no interest in doing the work of a historian by analyzing pop culture of the time or advertisements or whatever. . . . Not that I think it's a bad thing to do interdisciplinary research - my research is that, actually - but I really hate literary criticism that seems like it doesn't actually care about literature."

First things first: I am not at all saying in the above passage that there is not a place for cultural criticism, nor am I saying that there is something wrong with a new historicist approach that values "low culture" texts alongside high culture ones, or that values an attention to popular reading trends as opposed to the reading trends of an intellectual elite. What I'm saying in the above is that I am bothered by literary criticism - and this can be oriented in a variety of ways - that puts the literature in the background. This happens with many approaches. One approach that can encourage this is a new historicist approach, wherein the critic chooses to focus more attention on the popular media and historical sources of the time than on the Lit'rature. But this also happens with theoretically oriented criticism (come on, you've read books or articles where people have used the literature to advance a theory rather than engaging theory to understand the literary text, and yes, I do believe that there is a difference between the two) and it happens with biographically oriented criticism (wherein the Great Man - D.H. Lawrence, Priest of Love, as just one example - or Great Lady - Virginia Woolf, Bipolar Lesbian Victim of Sexual Abuse, as just one example - overshadows the text that supposedly is the point). I could probably list more genres of literary criticism that perpetrate the "I'm going to pay attention to everything but the literary text" thing, but the point is, I have a hard time with criticism, from whatever perspective, that is more interested in "something else" other than literary texts. Because here's the thing: if one is doing literary criticism, I really think that the primary thing that we should be discussing is literature. That probably makes me ridiculously old-fashioned. Fine. I'm old-fashioned. But I don't think I'm wrong.

Part of the reason that I've been thinking fairly deeply about these issues is, of course, self-centered: I'm trying to figure out how to write the sort of book I enjoy reading. But I think these things are nagging at me for bigger reasons, too. Some questions that have been nagging at me throughout my recent reading and writing:

What happens when people who are interested in issues or texts that are marginal to the mainstream canon focus their attention away from literature in their research? The canon is still political, and it strikes me that if marginalized literatures don't get the same amount/kind of attention as do historically canonical literatures, than we are left with separate but equal canons - we've not really revised or opened up the Canon at all. In fact, we reify the canonical (primarily dead, white, male canon as the "real" canon) and then we associate anyone outside of that canon with tendencies that are marginal to being "worth" canonical status.
What happens to a discipline - or, to be fair, really a subdiscipline within English Studies, literary studies - when its practitioners fail to see that subdiscipline as having an obligation to produce new knowledge about literature? Is it really so shocking that people question the value of literary studies - notoriously in the annual newspaper articles that pick out wild titles from the MLA program - when it doesn't seem that practitioners in the field are analyzing and coming to greater understanding of literary texts? If we don't demonstrate the centrality of literature as an object of study, why should we think that anybody else will think literature is valuable?
How do the first two points intersect and contribute to "the crisis in the humanities" and to generally anti-intellectual cultural discourses?

But so if those are the general questions that keep recurring as I work, more specific ones have to do with women's literature. I think that there is value in situating women writers within a broader canon of literature - not to show how they are "like" their male peers but rather because if we keep women writers off to the margins that it seems we never challenge some oftentimes problematic (if not altogether wrong) commonplaces about the features of canonical literature of particular time periods. At least for me, this means that it's important to look at "literary" works by women - because while considerations of romance novels and chick lit and conduct literature are totally interesting, they just don't do the work that I think needs to be done in terms of the broader subdiscipline, and I think that focusing our attention on popular as opposed to literary works creates a kind of ghetto in which women authors are considered "popular" while male authors are considered "important" and women authors who could easily stand alongside those "important" men have their books fall out of print.

While all of this may seem very field-specific, reading this post over at Historiann's made me think that it really isn't. I wonder about the ways in which contemporary approaches to scholarship - within my field, yes, but also across humanities disciplines - results in keeping certain groups marginal, subordinate, and generally out of academic and public discourse. Further, I wonder if these trends in scholarship ultimately contribute to a public sense that what we do is insignificant, lacking in seriousness, or without value. I wonder, too, how much various approaches have to do with attempting to respond to the demands of a marketplace for scholarship that is severely constrained - is it possible that the effects of the horrible job market and the contraction in academic publishing are to enforce limits on the kind of scholarship that make their way into public view?

I don't really have answers to any of the above, but I think that there are serious implications to the methodologies that we choose - not just for the way that we think individually but also for our disciplines and for the profession more generally. And yes, it is bad to think about all of that because it makes what I'm trying to do seem really overwhelming sometimes, but I also kind of have to think about that because otherwise why would I bother doing this project at all? Because, seriously, it's really hard and I could totally just write a couple of articles and call it a day and nobody where I work would care and I wouldn't have to think about the consequences of scholarship in quite the same way.

Now. Enough of all of that thinking. I need to do some straightening up around the house because, slightly behind schedule but still happening, it is VPW (Vagina Power Weekend, in case you forgot), an annual tradition since 2007. This year J. will be joining A. and I for her first ever Vagina Power. It promises to be awesome.

Finding a Groove?

2010-07-27T14:44:00.006-04:00

So. Yesterday I was supposed to begin writing. I really had every intention of doing so. Like, for serious. Except... ok, so here's the thing about me actually doing the writing. I cannot attempt to violate my natural writing rhythms. Not at the beginning of a project. So I had this grand ambition that I was going to awaken and just begin composing yesterday, and that was stupid, because you know how people say you should "write first" before doing anything else? I know that doesn't work for me. Know it. Have had problems every time I've tried to do it. I know that what I should do if I really intend to write is to wake up, ease into the day with coffee and some reading, make notes about what I plan to do over the course of the day, and then, somewhere around 3 hours after waking up and after some lunch, then I should begin. And I will then accomplish as much in just a couple of hours as it might have taken me all day - or even a number of days - to accomplish.

Anyway, the point here is that yesterday was a wash because I was trying to pretend that I'm a different writer from the writer I actually am, and so somewhere around 7:30 last night I decided that today I would just go about it the way that feels comfortable and not the way that feels like how I'm "supposed" to do it. And so. I woke up, drank a pot of coffee while reading some things, made some notes, and then had lunch. I retired to the Nook at approximately 1 PM, at which time I sat down and organized 3 different conference papers that should form building blocks for the current chapter, and then after doing that I began writing. Rough writing. Not the kind of writing I'd ever show anybody. But I wrote. I wrote 3 brand new pages, and jammed into that three new pages are 4 other pages of stuff that once revised fits with what I'm getting at. Now, of course I need to do things like add critical context and to theorize what I'm doing and whatever, but the point here is that I have begun, the world has not come to an end, and I'm feeling totally good about the direction in which I'm headed. In large part, I think that my success does have to do with the Nook of Ideas. Which I just realized I've not shown to you all. here are some pictures.

First, the view to the right from my chair at my desk:

And then, looking at my desk from the doorway into the Nook:

Another post will be forthcoming in a bit... I did want to write more about the literary criticism stuff that I brought up a post or two ago in response to comments and in response to some further thinking about it on my part. But I need to make some notes for tomorrow before I lose momentum, so that will have to wait.

(Oh, and before you ask, Comrade Physioprof, there is a space below those books on that shelf of the desk where the MFJ can reside, should such measures be in order :) )

In Which I Think about How H&H is NOT My Dissertation

2010-07-25T11:01:00.003-04:00

So. When I came up with the idea for Housewives and Hussies, I had a fair amount of anxiety about what the project would mean to me in terms of my mental and emotional well-being. On the one hand, I was worried because when I think back to dissertating - which was the last time I embarked on something like this - well, that was a fairly dark time filled with a lot of angst. Part of that darkness and angst had to do with feeling as if I wasn't qualified to do what I was doing - like I didn't know what a dissertation was, like even if I thought I knew what one was that I was going to do a terrible job at it, like my ideas were just generally stupid, etc. I suspect a good number of you went through the same thing. And I was afraid when I started H and H that I was just asking to go back to that dark and angsty place. Which, let's face it, I did not want to do. On the other hand, I think that the beginning of this project has been especially scary because I came up with the idea with little-to-no input from anybody else. While my dissertation project idea was my own, the shape of the project was very powerfully influenced (and constrained) by my adviser and by my committee. By the time that I got to the book phase with the project, it sort of felt like I was polishing up something that wasn't entirely mine, but also that was so carefully crafted that I couldn't make sweeping changes to it. And, with my 4/4 load, I didn't feel like I was in a position to just scrap it and start a new project without a sabbatical if I wanted to publish a book before tenure, which I did, and so, I published a book that didn't really feel like it was mine, but I was confident that it was ok, if that makes sense. With this project, I feel like I don't know whether the idea is any good, really, even though I think that it's exciting, I don't entirely know whether it is exciting, if that makes sense. And sure, I've talked in a general way with others about it, and they seem interested, but who among them really would say "Oh, that sounds like a terrible idea!" People just don't do that when you're not a student anymore. And so, yes, starting on this is a pretty scary thing.

But. It's weird, because one of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is that for as much anxiety and fear as I've felt in really getting going on Housewives and Hussies, I've also been pleasantly surprised that working on this is not at all like how I felt when beginning work on the dissertation. Let me count the ways in which it is infinitely more awesome:

Virginia Woolf was right that you need money and a room of your own in order to write. Material conditions make a huge difference in what one can accomplish and how one feels about accomplishing it, whether we're talking about creatively or whether we're talking about scholarship. It makes a difference that I'm not constantly worried about money. It makes a difference that I'm not living in a crappy apartment (or, as I did for 3 months during the diss process, with my parents). It makes a difference that the material conditions of my life are not distracting me. In other words, I will never be interested in becoming some sort of starving artist or scholar. Not that I ever thought I would be, but seriously: far from thinking such a thing is romantic and awesome, I know now more than ever that for me it's misery. This is also why I never could have been a hippie.
I have learned so much in the 10 years since I started dissertating, and a lot of what I've learned has happened since finishing my Ph.D. Teaching, and teaching the kind of students whom I teach and the number of courses that I teach, has given me depth and breadth and focus as a thinker that graduate school absolutely did not give me. I find that I have all of these resources in my brain that provide context for the thing that I'm thinking about and that I make connections so much more quickly than I did before. Weirdly, I think I kind of know a whole lot about what I'm talking about and like I might - at least a little - sort of be an expert.
I've found my voice as a writer, and a lot of that has to do with blogging, but also it has to do with the confidence that comes from knowing that I've already done what I'm trying to do. Instead of being in a constant state of anxiety - will I get a job? Will anybody publish my scholarship? - I have the security of a job and a respectable cv. My life will not be over if this takes longer than I want or if it changes along the way.
Nobody cares whether I write this book or not. In graduate school, a lot of people had an investment in me writing that dissertation and in how I wrote it, and that for me was not a good thing. I have been infinitely more interesting and more productive as a scholar since I left an environment where people gave a shit about research. The fact of the matter is, I do best when I feel like my research is nobody's business but my own - sort of like how my blog works for me because it doesn't "count" for anything. Once something counts, I begin to despise it. It stops being fun. This book is ridiculously fun to work on precisely because it's only for me and for nobody else.
As much as not having some authority figure put the stamp of the approval on my idea is scary, I feel like I own this project because no one has done that. I finally feel like I'm a professional in my field and not somebody's student. And that, as much as it's scary, is really exhilarating.

When I was dissertating I was making ~12K/year, living with a guy who was only sporadically employed, totally intellectually insecure, afraid to fail, suffering from periodic bouts of writer's block (the only time I've experienced those, and quite frequently miserable. This time around, not one of those things is the case. Realizing that, and realizing that I'm still doing it without all of the misery, is sort of like realizing that being in love doesn't mean fighting all the time and jealousy and unhappiness and hurting and being hurt by the other person and drama. It's kind of a profound epiphany. And I really have a feeling, though I suppose I could be wrong, that it's going to make for a better book in the end.

Breaking Through

2010-07-23T14:56:00.003-04:00

I'm going to begin writing Housewives and Hussies on Monday. I hit that point today - and a glorious point it is - when I saw the entire project whole and entire, and something clicked in my head, and it became apparent that the time for preliminary research is done (or, well, will be done after a couple more days of reading) and the time for writing is upon me. I Have to say, it's really exciting to actually feel this "click," because the truth is that I haven't felt that since I started my job 7 years ago. Because, quite frankly, I have never written something without having some sort of external deadline (conference upcoming, deadline for an editor, whatever) and so I don't typically get the luxury of waiting for the "click" and feeling ready to write.

Anyway, today I revised my outline, and I've realized that my project can go one of two ways: it can be this wildly successful rethinking of gender and women's social roles and representation and stuff - or it might be lame. Whatever the case, my plan is ambitious but it doesn't feel undoable. It just feels... well, it feels new.

One of the things that I struggle with (and this was actually something I hinted that I would write about in my last post) is that I ultimately do believe that there is something special about literature and I have little-to-no interest in doing the work of a historian by analyzing pop culture of the time or advertisements or whatever. I'm a snob. And I'm a bad poststructuralist. But that's been something that's been interesting to me about the process of reading and research over the past weeks, too - not only do I not want to write that sort of a book, but also I find that I really kind of loathe reading that sort of a book. Not that I think it's a bad thing to do interdisciplinary research - my research is that, actually - but I really hate literary criticism that seems like it doesn't actually care about literature. Does this happen in other fields? Are there people who are biologists who seem totally uninterested in biology? Because I seriously don't know why this happens to so many otherwise smart people in my field.

Interestingly enough, Jane Gallop made an argument not unlike the position I describe in the previous paragraph at an MLA a few years ago, in which she talked about the lost art of close reading. I remember at the time thinking that in my world close reading is still very much a part of what students do in the classroom and that I really didn't understand why she thought nobody did it anymore. But in doing all of the reading I've been doing... I think I see what she means. And the fact of the matter is that since I've been reading outside of my discipline, I feel very comfortable in saying this: Historians write history, sociologists write sociology, geographers write geography better than Literary Critics do. And so no, I have no interest in writing the sort of book where literature takes a back seat to culture more generally. Let people in other fields do that work, thank you very much.

That said, I do realize that my vision for this book is so much broader and deeper than my vision for the first book, and I think that is exciting and terrifying... and also probably a good thing. I have a lot to say about how I think teaching and blogging both have influenced that - because I really do think that both have - but not in this post. I'll save that for another day.

Also, I've been reading with interest the conversations about Terry Castle's memoir over at Historiann's and Tenured Radical's and Comrade Physioprof's... but I'm going to just come out and announce that I won't be reading it because I'm not allowed to read things for fun since I'm trying to write a freaking book that requires me to read about a gajillion things. (As I'm seeing the thing take shape, I realize that I'm going to need to read or reread about 15-20 novels over the next 6 months or so, plus reading theory and criticism on the side, so lest you encourage me to read for fun, I will preempt you to say that reading stops being fun when you're reading as much as I'm reading, which is why graduate school in English is often for many people a soul-killing endeavor that makes them despise literature, but I digress.) But I did want to say something about the following in CPP's review:

"The last part of the book is a rumination on how this romantic/sexual liaison influenced both the development of her personality and her scholarly perspective. The latter I found very interesting: as scientists, we pretend that our personal lives do not influence our scientific tastes and perspectives, while Castle sees it as a truism that her escapades with the Professor would influence her scholarly pursuits."

I think that is a distinction between the sciences generally and people in literary studies (I was going to write "the humanities" but I don't know that other humanities disciplines do take things so personally as we do in English), and I think it's also probably why I don't like to write about my research in a concrete way on blog - it feels very personal to me, and I feel very exposed when I talk in non-work contexts about my work. In a very real way, my cv does tell a whole hell of a lot about who I am and what I was going through at different points. So I can see why somebody outside of my field might find that connection between life and work intriguing, but for me... Yeah, think about it people: why am I so interested in looking at housewives just at the moment when I bought my first home? (I've got more examples than that, but I feel like if I write them here that most of them are way inappropriate and more information about me than you want.) I realize that not everybody's research connects up to their lives in such an obvious and transparent (and, some might say, pedestrian) way, but I know a lot of people for whom that is very much the case. And I also think it's interesting that it's much more likely, in the blogs I read, to see that the people who most frequently will talk about books they're reading tend not to be the English proffie types. I mean, just look at the above conversation: two historians and a scientist. (I know that there are more "professional" style blogs by English types out there, and those do talk about the books, but I find them really stuffy and miserable to read as a general rule.)

So anyway, with that, I must go and return to my reading. While it is true that I won't be reading Castle's memoir, I will be taking a gander at The Apparitional Lesbian. Because as much as I whine about not having time to read anything fun, really, every single thing (with the exception of Habermas) that I'm reading for this project is fun. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing it.

Wishes She Were the Man-Kitty

2010-07-22T11:59:00.003-04:00

No, really. All he has to do is to lay around on my chair, sleeping on his back with his eyes open (which is totally creepy, and which I think is evidence of his utter laziness - he can't even be bothered to close his eyes properly - and also I should note that sometimes he sleeps with his mouth open and snores, which I think is just totally not an appropriate thing for a cat to do). He doesn't need to read books that he doesn't want to read. He doesn't need to do crap around the house. He doesn't need to go run errands, or worry about what to make for dinner. No. He gets to lay around, to meow when he wants his dinner, and every now and then chase Mr. Stripey around the house or use kitten telepathy to make Mr. Stripey kill a bug or something while he watches. Must be nice.

Ok, enough with the whining. I have about 10 books that I really need to get through, but I have absolutely no interest in looking at any of them. However, what I have an interest in doing is not what matters here. I will soldier on, and I will force myself to get through at least a couple. There's really nothing else for it.

In other news, I find people who beat dead horses really, really boring.

Yeah, I think that's all. I have to force myself to do work now, even though it hurts my feelings.

Hates It When People Break Up

2010-07-20T17:57:00.002-04:00

This actually has nothing to do with me. Or, well, only by association. A friend of mine is in the midst of the hellishness that is breaking up with a person with whom one lives, and the own special hellishness reserved for being the one who had no idea it was coming. I went through that myself about 7 years ago - though as soon as I heard the "I can't do this" business I immediately was like, "Um, YOU can't do this? I think I am the one who can't do this," so even though I didn't see it coming, I was able immediately to see that it was the only possible thing for me to do (through rage and tears and grief and whatever). My friend's different. She... well, she's not cold and dead inside. Not that I'm really cold and dead inside, but I do shut down pretty quickly when crossed. My friend... she still believes in love and flowers and stuff, and so this is like a nightmare from which she wants to wake up because "this can't be happening." And she thinks that there's something wrong with her - that she caused this. (My theory on ends of relationships is that both people - no matter what the circumstances - are the cause and that there are no victims - only blame enough for everybody. As I write that out it seems kind of a hard core way to think, but it's how I think. So it's not that I don't blame myself when things don't work out - I do - but I never fail to blame the other person, too. And, dude, the person who decides - after three years of living together and after talking about getting married and having kids and all the rest of the shit that people talk about - that it's over probably holds some responsibility for the end of the relationship. Just saying.

But so I hate break-ups. Even when they're not mine. Maybe this is why I like a fake relationship. If it's not real you can't really break up. I realize that's emotionally immature and blah blah blah, but I have been through too many break-ups and I don't want any more. So really the only other solution available to me - besides fake relationships, I mean - would be some sort of hard-core-no-divorce-possible sort of marriage, but I feel like that would require me moving halfway around the world to a third world country where divorce wasn't legal, and that would be a big hassle.

But anyway, things are gloomy here as I try to comfort my friend, and as I silently curse the person who did this to her.

In Which I Make a Lot of Resolutions

2010-07-19T07:51:00.003-04:00

I feel like I've wasted my summer. This is a stupid way to feel, for I've actually done a great deal. Nevertheless, I'm in (or at least entering into) the dark place where I feel like unless I get my act together that I will look back over this time and feel like it was wasted.

Like I said, though, I'm actually not being fair to myself. I've accomplished a LOT of research for Housewives and Hussies. I've been amassing a bibliography and detailed notes (I started counting but then lost interest in that - I'd say that since summer began I've probably been through somewhere around 30-40 books, which means that my archive for the project in terms of book-length things on which to draw is probably at around a hundred, and while it's true I've got more to do, it's also true that I'm nearly at the point where I should really begin writing, because that number of sources is not at all including book articles or journal articles or reviews or any other non-monograph type sources, nor is it including primary source material). I've also got about 5 pages of notes that are putting the shape of the project on paper (which I know doesn't sound like a lot, but those are some important pages).

Anyway, and then of course in addition to all that I moved into a new house, wrote and presented a conference paper, reviewed an article for a journal, spent a week doing home improvements with my mother, visited my hometown, threw my first dinner party, and who the heck knows what else. In other words, I must stop beating myself up for not being productive. I'm a productive lady.

Of course, I'd feel a lot MORE productive if I were actually accomplishing tangible goals - i.e., finished with the r and r I've had hanging over my head for an age, or producing actual draft pages of Housewives and Hussies. The problem as I see it is that I keep finding excuses not to write. One of those excuses is another thing that I need to do that I haven't been able to motivate myself to do - which is planning for the conference that I'm hosting next spring and dealing with other stuff related to the group for which I'm hosting it.

So. Today. Today is the day that I'm going to get a TON of things accomplished for that conference stuff. In addition, I'm going to accomplish a lot for that other group. I also need to run some errands (return some things to M@cy's, go use a gift card, bank, library). And I have to make myself do this stuff because if I can make myself do this stuff, then I won't have excuses not to do the writing stuff that I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to do.

And I actually have a real post upcoming about Housewives and Hussies in which I reveal that I'm a snob and that in spite of the fact that I know it's interesting, I have no desire to write a book that examines popular television commercials or sit coms in order to provide context for the high-brow television that I find most compelling. I actually think that there is something special about the Cable Series As Art Form, and in spite of people's desires for me to be a new historicist, I am not a new historicist. (And, this whole belief in the specialness of one thing as opposed to another pretty much means that I'm a liberal humanist disguised as a postmodern sort of person, but I'm going to pretend that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.) Oh, and that's another thing. While it may seem like I'm still in the very fuzzy stages of this project, I'm actually not. I'm talking about the project fuzzily still, but in fact I am pretty set on where it's heading. I see the shape of it very clearly, and I see how the chapters build together. I have an outline that is probably sick in its level of detail. In other words, don't trust me when I say that I'm not sure where I'm going yet. I'm actually pretty freaking sure, but I'm not ready to tell people yet so I pretend I don't know. This is a trick of obfuscation that I learned in grad school - to pretend that one's ideas are "fuzzy" when really they are just "private." It sort of makes me sick doing that, but old habits die hard.

A Post about Research

2010-07-17T14:40:00.002-04:00

Ok, so the Next Book. I feel like I need to give it a title or something so that I can post about it in a way that is vague but at least entertaining, as opposed to posting about it in a way that is vague and boring. Or maybe I should just pretend it's a book about something that it's not about and translate my research ramblings into that fake book project? I know, I know: why not just write about what I'm actually working on? Well, because a) I'm a paranoid freak and b) because there surely are like 3 people in the world who don't know who I am, and I wouldn't want to interfere with their blissful ignorance.

Thinking. I'm thinking.

Ok, so for my purposes here, my next book is going to be titled Housewives and Hussies and it's going to explore representations of women in their home environments in, say, television shows and movies throughout the 20th century. Yes. That's what I'm going to say I'm doing. It is not, in fact, what my next book is, which is sort of unfortunate because I totally feel like I would enjoy reading a book with that title and topic. Ah well. I will write about my fake book here in order to write about what's going on with my real book, which, of course, is not a book but just a jumble of ideas, really.

Anyway, I've been reading. Reading a lot. And can I just say that the experience of doing the research for this is radically different from when I did my diss research. Now, part of that is just technology. It is so. much. easier. to get one's hands on articles and books now than it was 10 years ago, and I'm saying that even though I had access to what is likely the best consortium of academic libraries in the country when I was in grad school. So I'm finding that my research is much more wide-ranging and much more... promiscuous? I think that's the best word to describe it. I'm sort of going wherever my fancy takes me without worrying about consequences.

I'm sure that two things do contribute to that sense of freedom: 1) the fact that I've already got a job and I'm not under the kind of pressure that I was under when dissertating or when taking the manuscript from dissertation to book; 2) tenure, and tenure at a non-research sort of place. It seriously doesn't matter whether I write this book, and with having tenure, I really can just have a good time with this project - it doesn't need to be "serious" in the same way that I felt like my dissertation had to. So, maybe that means I've become a lazy scholar? Eh, I've always been a lazy scholar - now I just get to embrace it :)

But so anyway, here's the thing with Housewives and Hussies, as a project. I feel very certain that this is a book that needs to be written. And apparently I'm on the cusp of something "hot" with the topic, because all over the place there are these books and articles that are adjacent to what I'm thinking about, or that have a sentence or two that gestures toward what I'm thinking about, but nobody ever quite gets to where I'm trying to go. On the one hand, I feel like this is good sign... that I'm on some sort of a right track. But then on the other, when I'm feeling less than confident about myself and the project and whatever, I feel like maybe the reason nobody ever gets where I'm trying to go is because I'm a loser who has stupid ideas. Like that the reason nobody wants to think about what I'm thinking about is because I'm thinking about stuff that is passe or because I'm thinking about stuff that is just boring.

I don't know. Anyway, so that's what I'm doing. I'm reading, and feeling like I'm really onto something except for when I feel like I'm a boring idiot who doesn't have original ideas. But then I figure that I can't really be a boring idiot who doesn't have original ideas, because, well, I'm just not any of those things. I am not boring, and I'm not an idiot, and I am totally original in the way I think. I mean, really now.

But so, I suppose I'm going to get back to it. And the next time I post I'll try to be more specific about some of what I'm doing - in terms of the Fake Book that I'm not writing.

[Aside: Do you notice that I seem to have a certain attraction to thinking of things as "fake"? I really do. I mean, fake boyfriends, fake books, where will it all end? And why is the thought of something being fake so comforting to me? Because seriously: I like it. It's like all is right with the world when things are fake. No lie. I think it might have something to do with commitmentphobia....]

Closeness vs. Helicoptering: Some Thoughts

2010-07-16T19:32:00.003-04:00

Historiann wrote a post today - which also directs us all to a column over at Inside Higher Ed - about helicopter parents, and while I left a couple of comments over there, I find I have some more to say that's tangential and I thought I'd write about it over here.

I think that it is true that such conversations can devolve into a discussion of how "back when I was your age my parents left me to survive in the woods with no shoes!" or, well, perhaps not quite that, but it is possible that conversations about this go in that direction. And either it ends up being derisive of "those kids today" - who are immature, illiterate, dependent, and in all ways inferior to the mythical students of days gone by - or derisive of "those helicopter parents" - who can't allow their children to grow into adults, who smother, who interfere, etc.

I suppose the first thing that I want to say is that I don't want any conversation that happens here to devolve in those ways. And I also want to say that I don't believe that the comment thread over at Historiann's devolves that way, which is why it's been an interesting conversation to read.

But here's the thing. I think it's worth it to make a distinction between parents who are involved and engaged in their children's lives vs. parents who helicopter. I do think that there's a difference. Because, for example, I still talk to my mom at least once a week, and I'm 35 years old. Since leaving home, I have always talked to my mom at least weekly. That was the rule. In fact, when I've missed our regular weekly phone date without warning her in advance, she will call me over and over again to complain that I am not doing my duty as a daughter. (This is joking, but at the same time, there's always some truth behind joking, isn't there?)

But so anyway, I don't think that when people wonder about helicopter parents, or criticize the tendency to helicopter, that doing so necessarily means a rejection of closeness - or even friendship - between parents and children. I think instead it's a rejection of certain behaviors that effectively cripple a child's ability to function as an independent agent.

So, for example, it's great if a child wants to share information with her parents about the classes that she's taking and how she likes her professors or whatever. Maybe she even wants to show her parents things that she's done for her classes. That's all to the good, I'd say, in that it means that the child has emotional support in her academic endeavors. But what crosses a line is when the parent is controlling a student's relationship to her education - so, for example, insisting that a child pursue a particular major regardless of the student's talents, or telling the student what courses she should take, even though the parent may not be in the best position to understand the requirements for graduation or the difficulty level of the various classes he or she is mandating. (Those are the two examples that I have the most familiarity with as a college professor; my High School Best Friend, who teaches high school, has many more harrowing tales of parental helicoptering, most of which involve parents who encourage their children to act out against the teacher, who do their child's work for them, who try to force grade changes, who insist on meetings with higher-ups to try to destroy the teacher's career because their little darling should only get positive feedback and not constructive criticism - and yes, that last one was a recent thing that my HSBF had to deal with in a series of meetings and emails and whatever.)

Anyway, I guess what I think is this: I think that children really need their parents to be supportive of their educations. Yes, they can survive without that support, but students do better if they know that their parents are there for them when the going gets rough academically. But I think that by the time a student gets to college - and, really, I'd even say high school - "support" does not mean intervening in their academic lives for them. It means listening to your child - even helping your child to strategize about how he or she might handle what's happening independently - but it doesn't mean looking over their assignments or finding the information for them about how to accomplish a/b/c. I think that constant intervention on the part of the parent ultimately gets in the way of the parent being able to be an effective source of support for the child - because once the parent is intervening, it becomes about the parent, and not about the child, if that makes sense.

And I think the best example that I can think of where a parent of a student-type person supports effectively - although in the 21st century way of being very, very available to one's child - is when I think about BES and her parents. My dinner party the other night? It was BES, Mr. and Mrs. BES, and Mentor Colleague. See, BES does socialize with her parents, and they know the people in her life, and they are very involved in her life. But. When I was giving BES hell during her senior thesis, they were not calling me on the phone. They were not calling my chair, or the dean, or whomever, trying to make me stop hurting BES's feelings. While they were very supportive of BES, they also wanted her to live on her own, and they downsized into a 2 BR condo when she was in college. Yes, she can stay there every now and again, but it's not her childhood home and she can't just live with them. They were there for her emotionally during the process of applying to grad school, but they deferred to me and Mentor Colleague when it came to the actual nuts and bolts advice about how she should proceed, even when BES was freaking out.

Do you know why BES and her parents can be as close as they are (I think)? It's because they're not trying to live her life for her. Now, they are a heck of a lot more involved in her life than my parents were. And yes, she sometimes finds that smothering. But at the end of the day, they don't cross the line. Because they understand that their job is to support her into becoming an adult - not to manage her growth into adulthood, if that makes sense.

Now, can I imagine having had a dinner party with two of my former professors and my parents? No. I cannot imagine that. For a lot of reasons. But mainly because as close as I am to my parents, we don't socialize like friends. So in that way I'm envious of BES, that she does have that relationship with her parents. On the other hand, though, I'm not jealous, because I never feel smothered by my parents, and I never feel like they're in my business, and she does, a lot of the time. I guess the point is, while I have a very different experience from hers with my parents vs. the one she has with her parents, it's still all good. I'd never call her parents helicopters - I'd just call them loving. And that's what my parents are, too.

The point isn't that parents shouldn't be involved in the lives of their children. The point is that "involvement" doesn't mean "control." There's no one right way to parent. Of course not. But there are things that I think all teachers would say were crossing the line, in terms of how students develop academically and into adulthood. And so I think it might make sense for parents - whether they themselves are academically inclined (for there are certainly academics who end up helicoptering) or not - to pay attention to those complaints. Not because their identity as parents is being attacked, but because listening might help them to be closer to their kids.

A Roaring Success

2010-07-15T01:23:00.002-04:00

My first dinner party is done. The food was lovely, the conversation was excellent, the laughter was consistent, and the happiness was universal.

The dishes are not done, and I will admit that this is one of those times that I wish I had a spouse-type-person who did the dishes after I cheffed up all the food, but the dishes will be done on the morrow.

I am an excellent cook and an excellent hostess! Huzzah!

(Also, wine is lovely.)

T-3 Hours and 45 minutes

2010-07-14T15:12:00.002-04:00

Preparations are moving along well, but do any of you all ever do that thing where you lose interest in preparations as you prepare, and so then you decide to take a break to write a blog post and you think to yourself that perhaps you don't need to finish up with things like making hummus because "it will only take a minute!" even though you know that you have a list of about 10 things that will only take a minute, so you know that what will happen is that you'll waste like 2 hours and then have to run around like a chicken with your head cut off right before the guests arrive?

I have done this nearly every time I have ever invited anyone over and have cooked for them. I am doing this now. Well, not really, because at least I know I'm doing it so I'm not going to allow myself to waste two hours right now, as much as I may want to do so.

So, what must I finish before my guests arrive at 7?

Hummus.
Slice cucumbers and prep asparagus.
Find baking dish so that I can actually make the chicken when it's time.
Sweep the floors downstairs. (I should also mop the kitchen floor, but realistically, am I really going to do that? No. I'm not.)
Straighten my bedroom, stash a bunch of unfolded laundry in closets, and make beds.
Clean toilet.
Remove crap from coffee and end-table.
Dishes.**
Shower.

Quite frankly, once I'm done with all of that, I fully intend to have a glass of wine whether my guests have arrived yet or not.

**90% of the time it is no big deal that I don't have a dishwasher, but I do wish that I had one today.

T-8 Hours

2010-07-14T10:21:00.002-04:00

As you all might imagine, I've got a good deal to do today, what with my First Ever Dinner Party in my New House happening this evening. My activities will be divided between doing stuff around the house (straightening up, hanging some pictures, etc.) and getting all food stuff prepared so that I don't need to be doing active cooking when the guests are here.

Tonight will be really fun, of this I am certain, so that takes much anxiety out of the whole event.

In other news, my pre-birthday ruminating has begun. It always tends to take about a month, and I think it hits me somewhat hard because my birthday basically coincides with the academic year, so it ends up being this time of massive reflection and brooding.... bah. Anyway. Suffice it to say for now that I think my upcoming 36th birthday is hitting me harder than my 35th birthday did, and that something about this past weekend... and really about my summer overall... is making me feel like perhaps my life is not going in the direction that I would prefer. Grumble.

Ok, enough of that for now. I think it's time for me to get going with some things around the house.

Note to Self: I'm Too Old for This Shit

2010-07-12T14:56:00.003-04:00

So, I'm back from what was a very fun (if not terribly restful) trip to my Hometown. My cousin's wedding was... well, it was many things.

The wedding itself was fantastic. My cousin and her new hubby were married in a gorgeous church (the same one my parents were married in, incidentally), and lots of people attended the ceremony. Very nice indeed.
I ended up taking my friend J. with me to the reception, since the person who had been supposed to go with me (ahem) bailed on the plans. I figured since I'd already rsvp'd for two I'd bring J. along. So I went to the ceremony by myself, and then I went home and glammed up for the reception, picked up J. and we were off.
We went to the hotel, checked in, and then got the shuttle to the reception place. We took the shuttle with a crew of 20something friends of the groom, all of whom had begun drinking right after the ceremony ended approximately 2 1/2 hours before. J. and I, stupidly, felt very smug about the fact that "pre-drinking" is no longer an activity in which we engage. We are sensible ladies who know better. Indeed.
We got to the reception and we were seated with my aunts and uncle, and we both, sensibly, were drinking wine and beer, respectively. We were not going to be an annihilated mess. Oh no we were not.
Dinner, nice conversation, toasts, etc. And then...
J. and I are not sensible ladies. Gin. 20somethings. Many of whom thought we were charming, and many of whom were really angry that their dates thought we were charming. All of the 20somethings who don't hate us insist on calling me Dr. Crazy, in spite of my protests. Things begin to get fuzzy.
Dancing with my aunts and my cousins. More gin.
Shots. I'm not sure how many, though I do know that I became a ring-leader of sorts as the night went on.... because I'm clearly not a sensible lady.
Shuttle back to the hotel, this time with family. My aunts inform me that the party is not yet over and we are to change and then meet back at the hotel bar for continued merry-making.
Hotel bar. I lose J. (More on this later.) A lengthy conversation with a 20something about Bob Seger and the relative merits of "Night Moves" vs. "Against the Wind." Jack and Coke(s)?
I believe I was at the bar until last call, but at this point, it's very difficult to know. I decide I should try to find J. But I have no idea where she is, so I teeter on up to a hotel room where we were told by 20somethings that the party would continue. Bud Light.
General craziness ensues.
I somehow find my way back to J.'s and my room, somehow manage to enter said room, and pass out. No idea where J. is.
We awaken at 7 AM, very confused about a great many things. Apparently I did let J. into the room, though, around 4:30? We aren't entirely sure. We decide we must immediately flee the premises and think very carefully about our seeming inability to make sensible choices and to act like grown ass women.
Where had J. been during the Lost Hours? Um, apparently making out with a 20something in the backseat of a car. She has no idea how she ended up getting back to the room, though she does remember me letting her in.

I really do not know what to say about the above. Other than it was one hell of a night, and that I really should know better :)

Much to Do, Much to Do

2010-07-09T09:22:00.003-04:00

So I'm heading to Hometown for the weekend, and I have a bunch of stuff to do (small, stupid stuff) before I can get on the road. I'm sort of excited for the visit, but I also am not excited because I wish I didn't have to leave my house. I love my house. This will be my first overnight trip away from my house. This makes me irritable.

On the other hand, something I love about my house is having my very own washer and dryer, so right now I'm doing laundry and I was able to put that off until the last minute. There are so many things that are good about not living in an apartment, but seriously: having my own personal washer and dryer is tops among them.

But so anyway, I will be off until the beginning of next week, visiting family, whooping it up at my cousin's wedding, etc.

In Which My Mom Reveals Herself to Be a Balls-Out Feminist

2010-07-07T20:36:00.002-04:00

Ok, so my mom.

She has a high school diploma. She thinks of herself as a "traditional" woman, and she is in no way some sort of radical. But Crazy did get her sense of righteous indignation from somewhere, and it probably was from her (or from her mom, my grandma, filtered through her).

So my mom is an insurance agent. She works for a small company. Last week, the "Office Cheerleader" held an ice cream social, on a day when my mom was the only one working in her three-person department. (Her boss and her peer were both on vacation, screwing my mother over, as they like to do.) The social was ultimately a ruse used to get the workers in front of the "Office Cheerleader" (from this point OC) so that she could roll out a Whole New Awesome Plan for kitchen-cleaning duties.

In the past, there was a rotation, wherein somebody would be "Kitchen Queen" or "Kitchen King" for the week. Apparently, this didn't go so well, because people kept getting pissed off when they would get chastised for not doing things as the OC wanted, and so they'd drop out. Some people around the office (not my mom) would refer to the person on Kitchen Duty as the Kitchen Wench, and that hurt the OC's feelings. She wanted people to "respect" the person who did kitchen clean-up. Anyhoodle.

So last week they have this social, and my mom throws herself into the "volunteer" hat (although she felt totally coerced into volunteering) and then left the "social" early because she was the only person in her department in the office that day. Time passes, and the OC shows up at my mother's desk, and dumps on top of her work the following: an apron, rubber gloves, a rolling pin. My mom is apparently the "Kitchen Diva." My mom, well, she was none too pleased. She was trying to do the job that she was hired to do, and this person dumped the paraphernalia of a freaking cliche of a housewife on her desk, on top of the work my mom was doing. My mom was all, "Um, this is totally offensive. What are you doing?" And OC was all, "I'm a dummy and I think I'm totally charming!" And then my mom repeated that she was offended about a million times, with the woman refusing to acknowledge that she was totally offensive, and then my mom said, "Um, I work here! What are you trying to do? Put women back in the 1950s?" At which point the OC was chastised and backed away.

In the meantime, men in the office were joking with one another "Hey, Joe, where's your apron?" or, "Hey, you going to be the diva, dude?"

My mom called me after this all happened, and I was, as you might imagine, appalled. Needless to say, no men had "volunteered" for the "Kitchen Diva" role, because clearly this whole bullshit enterprise is gendered and fucked up. (And, if we want to go further, the only dudes who are "divas" are clearly gay as the day is long, so this is not only gender harassment but harassment based on sexuality. Though perhaps I am a humorless bitch.) I suggested that my mom should contact HR (not located in Hometown - located in the HQ of the company) so that she would get her side of it out on the table first. I said that she should be as objective as possible, but that she should use the phrase "hostile work environment" at some point. My mom hesitated, and thought she should just let it blow over. I said, hey, it's up to you, but maybe write it all out just in case. She did write out the facts of her version of events - without tangents or emotions but with the phrase "hostile work environment" - just in case. Because she listens to her legalistic daughter :)

So, yesterday. Everybody's back after the holiday. The OC sends this fucked up email to my mother (ostensibly) which explains herself and the apron business (though in a way that would get a freshmen comp student a D, complete with circular logic and a dictionary.com definition of "wench" - a word my mother never used - and in a way that totally revealed the utter and total gender inequity of the whole thing to anybody with even half of a brain). But here's the thing. My mom's boss is still out on vacation, and when she's out on vacation, she has my mom read her email. OC bcc'd my mom's boss on that fucked up email. And so my mom saw that had happened. So my mom called me, and I advised her in this way:

Look, mom, this woman is trying to get out in front of you and to discredit you. You MUST contact HR, and you must apprise them both of the email that she sent to you (and to who knows else) as well as of what actually happened. You MUST be as objective as possible - no tangents, no axes to grind - and you MUST stand up for yourself. You are already fucked, here. The best you can do for yourself now is damage control and to make them question this woman. If you wait, you will be totally screwed.

(And I did also advise her that she should start looking in earnest for another job, because clearly things are not cool in this place.)

SO. She did what I said! Huzzah! And at 10AM she got a call from the HR person at the main office, and the first thing he said was, "Are you OK, Crazy's Mom?" My mom was confused by this, and she thought he was thinking her feelings were hurt. I explained that what that really meant was, "Um, you haven't contacted a lawyer, right?" My mom doesn't understand the power of the phrase "hostile work environment."

Anyhoodle, so they had a conversation, and it was fine, and she said not much more than what she wrote, and as the conversation ended when he asked her if she had anything else to add and she said no, he said, "Well, you only fight the battles you can win."

She asked me what I thought of that. What I think is that he was saying, "um, yeah. That was fucked up."

And he said she'd get an answer on the situation by week's end.

In the meantime, OC apparently was crying in her office today because Crazy's Mom is a Mean Lady! Waaaah!

1) My mom would never call herself a feminst.
2) My mom would never say that she could do a good job of advocating for herself in writing. She thinks she's "average."

Here's the thing. My mom is so a feminist. And my mom is so a good writer - is totally where I get my good writing from. And my mom made me SO PROUD in this situation. Though now she needs to look for another job along with keeping her head down so that she doesn't blow up and do something stupid, because, dude, my mom can be a hot-head. Clearly she needs to get out of this company, and the longer she stays the greater the risk that they'll fire her ass.

All of that said? I've never been prouder of my mom. She fucking rules. Apron and rubber gloves, my ASS!

RBOC: Blech

2010-07-07T10:07:00.002-04:00

Are you all aware of how much of the summer has passed? Because I am now painfully aware of this, and also aware of the fact that between now and August I will be out of town for 4 days, having guests two other weekends, and entertaining in between. When am I supposed to be doing all of my work? GAAAHHH.
I watched two movies yesterday, both of which I recommend. 1) An Education, which is just the most awesome, gorgeous movie, and 2) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is, I think, a quite good adaptation of the book (though I was disappointed to see that they eliminated one of the funniest parts of the book/series, which is that when middle-aged Mikael Blomkvist enters a room every woman can't help herself and propositions him and then they have sex as if it's about as big of a deal as having a cup of coffee together).
You might wonder why I was watching movies instead of working? Um, well, I'm kind of in denial.
I've actually been getting lots of good thinking done, and I have been reading, and I intend to spend today reading more - and hopefully I'll have some things to write down as well. I'm just not being as focused as I always imagine I'd like to be (but very rarely am).
I'm really looking forward to going to Hometown for my cousin's wedding, even though it turns out that the person whom I was supposed to take with me is not coming after all. (Long story. Well, not really. The short version is that some people do not honor their commitments and they are so selfish that they don't see that this would perhaps be hurtful to other people. And then after they do realize they've been hurtful to other people, they self-absorbedly feel sorry for themselves for doing everything wrong. What. Ever.) But anyway, aside from that parenthetical aside, I'm perhaps even more happy that my plans have changed because my friend J. is going to go to the wedding with me instead, and that will be more fun for me anyway.
I really need to do some things around the house, but then I also really need to read. And then I would really like to lounge around like a lady of leisure. Perhaps I can do some reading that I don't need to pay close attention to, and then I can have stupid television on in the background? Indeed. I think that sounds like a perfect happy medium.

Is Excited!

2010-07-06T14:11:00.003-04:00

I will be throwing my first dinner party in my house next week! Well, I'm a little nervous about this as well as being excited. I think it's all of the food television I watch, and most notably Top Chef. It may be the case that my expectations for a meal are a little out of proportion with my resources and abilities.

And then also it's summer. The hottest summer ever, it feels like. And so. What to make what to make? And then there's the difficulty of having a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian people.

You see.

But so anyway, I've decided that when people arrive I'm going to have nice olives and hummus and pita and Lebanese stuffed grape leaves (because who doesn't like Lebanese food when it's hot?) Then we'll start with a cabbage and beet salad, and then the main course will be couscous and herb roasted chicken and green beans (or maybe asparagus instead... I really love asparagus..._) and squash gratin. I think that will be lovely. And I'm not responsible for dessert, which I have to say is totally awesome, because a girl can't do everything, and really the only dessert I make is pie, and who wants to bake a pie when it's this hot? The only thing that is a challenge will be the stuffed grape leaves, but I can make those a day ahead, so that's good.

But so now I'm feeling like I really need to buy furniture for my porch. And for my deck, but at least for my porch. And I really need to buy a mirror to hang over the mantle and other wall-hanging type things.

It's such a pain in the ass being house-proud and yet not entirely settled in one's house.

I wish somebody would cook this meal I've planned for me right now. I've been living on hummus, pita chips, and twizzlers because it's just too hot to organize actual food for myself. Maybe tonight I'll make myself actual dinner? We'll see....

Thing #473 That's Awesome About My House

2010-07-04T00:02:00.002-04:00

Fireworks, yall. I see my town's fireworks as if they were made for me from my front lawn. No need to deal with crowds. I have a front row seat for freaking rock and roll fireworks. And, apparently, my neighbors across the street and 2 doors down spend thousands of dollars on illegal private-style fireworks, too, so tonight I was treated to approx. 2 hours of stellar fireworks, all without having to leave the comfort of my own porch/yard.

I love the 4th of July. I love not having to deal with humanity on the 4th of July. Next year I'm totally having a party on the 4th of July.

A Simpler Time and Place

2010-07-03T11:46:00.002-04:00

Ok, so we all know my house is sweet, but I haven't talked much about my neighborhood. Children still wander the streets unaccompanied by parents here. Like they walk to their friends' houses and ride bikes and go swimming and stuff sans parents. People know their neighbors. They talk to them. It's like freaking Mayberry or that town without dancing in Footloose, only, of course, we can dance here. But so, I'm trapped in my house for the duration of the annual parade in celebration of the Fourth. See, I live on a dead-end street, and the only way out is down Name of Town Avenue, and that is now the land of people throwing candy from slowly moving vehicles, horses that stop every few feet for little children to pet them, and people loudly blaring music from 1984. (R-O-C-K in the USA, which made sense, and then Thriller, which didn't. Oh, and I guess there's also been some Christian Rock and some 1960s Motown, too.) And seriously, this is an affair for all ages of the people who live here, from tiny babies through oldsters. People are transporting their children in wagons. I think my neighbors actually went out to the main street to watch the parade and just left their house open.

It hadn't occurred to me that places like this still existed, really. I know I hadn't paid much attention before buying my little house. But it's really sort of awesome that this place seems to have held off some of the perils of the 21st century. I like living in a place where kids roam free. I like living in a place where the whole community comes out and makes a crappy parade regardless of age or lifestyle or whatever. And I like that I somehow get this even though I live like 10 minutes from a city.

Nevertheless, I do feel a bit like I'm in some sort of bizarro world that you see in a movie and that doesn't really exist.

Tales from the Mall, and Whatever Else Pops into My Head

2010-07-02T09:30:00.002-04:00

I have a really hard time not titling things. Like, it really upsets me not to do it. Ah well. It was a worthy experiment.

So, yesterday I did absolutely no - and when I say no, I mean NO - work. I mean no reading, no writing, no thinking, no nothing. Instead, the day began with paying bills. Once that was done, I checked my email and learned that apparently my university will not pay for an employee's meals for a conference if that employee does not stay overnight at the conference. Apparently I was to have fasted between 6:30 AM and 11:30 PM? Or I was to have stayed overnight and cost my university more money? Or I was to have lied about staying overnight at a friend's house, sort of like being in high school? Between them shorting me by $30 on my travel reimbursement and the nonsense of having to contact like 4 different offices to get my address changed because apparently changing it within our brand new fancy computer program doesn't actually do anything, I really am hating my university right now. You'd think I'd hate it less since I'm on leave until January, but no. I actually hate it more. Hate.

So anyway, with all of that done, I then went to Home Depot (which, seriously, if things don't go my way and I end up going to hell when I die, hell is either Home Depot or Lowes. I hate those freaking places.) in order to pay for the new door that I'm getting installed in the basement. Now, I'm annoyed to have to buy a door - do you guys know how expensive doors are? - but actually it's costing less than I'd anticipated (score) and I will be very happy not to have a rotted out door jam and to have rain pour through the space between the door jam and the bottom of the door every time it rains. Indeed, they're going to fix the concrete and everything, and there shall be no more rainwater coming in under the door! Huzzah! And no bugs coming in under the door! No who knows what else being able to come in under the door!

Well. After I got that taken care of, I thought to myself, "Self, you know it's super-duper sale time at many stores beginning today because of the 4th of July weekend. You should go to some of those stores!"

Now, this was sort of a weird thing for me to do. I haven't done major shopping in, god, like 2 years? I mean, I was busy not spending money because I was saving for the house. I mean, sure, I bought a sweater here, a top there, but I really haven't spent like a full day shopping. Well, until yesterday. Ostensibly I decided to do this because I thought that I should look for a dress for my cousin's wedding next week. (A wedding for which I am excited but which has an accompanying thing that has me really pissed off, but I won't get into that here.... Suffice it to say that it sucks being the only unpartnered cousin -and seriously: the ONLY unpartnered one - when you're 7 years older than the closest-in-age-to-you of the 15 cousins. A PhD is a great and wonderful thing, but it makes a really, really shitty date for a wedding.) I didn't find a dress (everything I tried on was just sort of lame, and I felt like I shouldn't buy something sort of lame when I could wear something less lame that I might have in my closet), but I did go on a spree. A spree of shopping awesomeness. What did I buy, you might ask? and what were my righteous deals? Well, here are the highlights (though there were some less exciting purchases thrown in as well).

A Michael Kors top (really a glorified t-shirt) - Orig. $60; I paid $7
Two pairs of Tommy Hilfiger capris (one denim, one olive green cotton) - Orig. $80/$60; I paid $23/each
A Wacoal bra - Orig. $60; I paid $10
A pair of Born sandals - Orig. $95; I paid $23 (Oh, and I also got a pair of flats and a black gladiator-style sandal, too, and then these AWESOME heels for the wedding.)

So yes, I shopped for like 6 hours. It was exhausting, as you might imagine. Today I need to do some stuff around the house, and I need to go to campus (library) and to the grocery store because there's a parade that will go by my house tomorrow morning, so I won't be able to get out for supplies for a fairly long span of time. So, that's the latest here. Now I'm going to go continue drinking my coffee and try to find things to read on the internet or watch TV or something.

2010-07-01T08:16:00.002-04:00

You know what? I'm just not going to title posts anymore if I don't have a title that comes readily to mind. Because the whole thing about writing here is really about routine right now and not about me actually having anything of note to say. After taking it easy yesterday, the wrist feels basically fine (still a little stiff, but not painful), and so I've learned my lesson and I will not do anymore marathon days where I write for 8 straight hours. 1) Not good for the hand and 2) not, ultimately, good for the brain. See, this is the thing: although when I get into that sort of a zone I want to work until I drop, that ultimately burns me out. I have 6 months of this to go, and if I allow myself to get burnt out, I won't - although it seems counter-intuitive - accomplish as much as if I work more methodically. Slow and steady wins the race. But wow, how boring that is! Ah well. I am boring.

So, I've been rereading a novel that I needed to reread, a novel that I find supremely irritating even if it is important to my project, and today I have to run around and take care of some shopping things (finalize the stuff for my new basement door; shop for a dress for my cousin's wedding) and pay bills. For now, though, more coffee, and easing into the day.

Ouch.

2010-06-30T08:36:00.002-04:00

Good morning, readers. So, in case you were wondering, the problem with doing as much long-hand writing as I do on the front end of a project - particularly when I'm in the nutso place where I'm over-doing it, as I have been in the past couple of days, is that it hurts. Well, and then there is the tingling and the hand weakness, too, but the hurting is the one that really gets me down. Now, you might say, but why don't you type your notes instead, you dummy? Well, the fact of the matter is that while my left hand/wrist is not as grievously afflicted as my right, I have the same symptoms in both hands when I type for long stretches of time. There is no escaping the carpal tunnel. And so, I'm an old lady who has to bust out the wrist splint (or splints, if I'm experiencing the symptoms in both hands) and pop some @dvil or @leve and then I need to take it easy so as not to be thoroughly miserable forever. I know that someday I'll end up having to have stupid hand surgery unless I stop writing all together. I just hope that day is a long way away, and thus the managing the syndrome with the splints and the mandatory rest, etc.

So, today I'm not allowed to do much typing or long-hand note-taking. Instead, I'm going to wear my stupid splint (just typing right now is making my hand/wrist hurt again) and spend the day reading (still for NB, but things that I don't need to take copious notes on either in hand-written or typed form - things that are more under-line-y) I also may do some chores around the house and pay bills.

In other news, I actually wrote a couple of pages single-spaced (typed) yesterday, which are pinning down my argument sorts of pages. I'm feeling pretty psyched about my progress.

Thoughts and Stuff

2010-06-29T10:35:00.003-04:00

I feel like my titles for posts suck lately. This is partly because I'm not really doing posts with clearly defined topics lately - all of my "clearly defined topic" mojo is being directed at NB.

The thing I've been thinking about over the past couple of days is how doing a major project like this intersects with the other parts of one's life. Heck - even non-major projects, like journal articles, do for me tend to intersect with (or complicate?) the other parts of my life. For me, there isn't a whole lot of separation between the things I'm thinking about in research and the ups and downs of my personal/emotional life, to be more specific. And when I think over sort of "crucial moments" in my intellectual life, they do tend to parallel big shifts in my emotional life....

I don't know whether that's good, bad, or neutral. I would tend to think it's bad a lot of the time - that doing major thinking fucks with my head and then it fucks with my relationships with people by extension. But or, really, it could be good-ish, in that maybe if major thinking can fuck something in my life up, that something probably shouldn't be central in my life? Probably it's all neutral, a wash.

But I do often find myself wishing pretty frequently that I were a different sort of person and that I didn't take the thinking/research stuff so personally. Wishing that I just viewed it as one more part of the job and not as this life-changing thing that touches every other part of my life, whether I want it to or not. I'm trying really hard in this go-around to be honest about this with people in my life, and to try to be honest with myself when I start acting like an asshole about what the reasons for that really are. I'm trying really hard not to use the people in my life to work out my intellectual angst. It's not easy, though. My impulse is to deflect any intellectual angst onto the people in my life, and seriously, there are very few people in my life who have been able to forgive me for that or who have been able to stand up to the pressure of it (and rightly so, quite frankly).

But anyway, so it's a weird time for me. I'm trying to actually use what I've learned over the past ten years - not only in terms of framing the project but in terms of framing my life that surrounds the project - and you know what? That's not actually fun. Of course, it's not fun being a crazy mess for years, either, so if I can avoid the whole "crazy mess" thing by doing what I'm doing, then that's got to be a good thing. Still, though, it's a pain in the ass.

Ok, now it's time to try to plow through a bunch of library books so that I can return them when I go to pick up the mountain of ILL books I've got waiting for me at the circulation desk.

Research Breakthrough

2010-06-27T15:24:00.003-04:00

So, I don't actually keep in touch with my dissertation adviser. I mean, I send him the obligatory annual check-in email with updates, but he totally doesn't respond and makes absolutely no effort to maintain a relationship with me. He's never come to a paper I've given when I've given a paper at a place where he's been, and he basically ignores me unless I'm right in front of his face. He was a very good dissertation adviser - don't get me wrong - and without his guidance I surely would not have become the scholar that I am today or gotten a job, but I think I'm finally willing to admit that he has had absolutely no role in my intellectual or scholarly development since 2003. I mean, sure, he has written letters of reference for me when I've requested them - he has not failed to do what he is required to do for me - but that's about the extent of it.

For a long time, I felt like that was a failing on my part. That somehow I had done something wrong or that I didn't build that relationship the way that I should have done. (I think a lot of that had to do with daddy issues being replicated in the dissertation adviser/me relationship - my feelings that I was responsible for the relationship, that if we weren't close - or even in regular contact - that it was because I sucked or didn't fulfill my obligations.) And I also wondered whether I would just disappear into obscurity because I was so cleanly and clearly cut off once my dissertation was defended and filed. I mean, what happens to people whose dissertation advisers forget they exist the moment that they've finished the dissertation? That's a bad thing, right?

You know what? In my case, it has not been a bad thing at all. In fact, I think it's been a great thing. Because you know why? I somehow have ended up with all of these awesome mentors - including people whom I totally admired and thought were rockstars and who I never thought I'd be, like, friends with - who do things like encourage me and recommend that I look at certain books and who do all the mentory things that my dissertation adviser does not do.

I've begun reading a book that I never would have read - or maybe I would, but I don't know how I would have gotten to it given the other sorts of stuff I've been reading - that Eminent Awesome Wonderful Fun Mentor suggested when I saw her at a recent conference. I'm not entirely sure how she knew, after listening to me talk for only 2 minutes about NB, but this book? It is so freaking important to what I'm trying to say! It is like the missing link! And it's not an obvious link - it's a sort of weird connection to make, if that makes sense - but it's exactly the way for me to get from point A to point B in my overall argument - something I hadn't known how I'd manage.

So I just wanted to blurt that out because my world is rocked to the point that I had to stop and take a breath before continuing onward with the book.

On Research, On Writing

2010-06-27T10:36:00.004-04:00

So, yesterday I had to go pick up my shortened curtains for the dining room (which look great, btw) at the place by school, so I also took the opportunity to go to the library and to check out a great many books for NB. (Note to student workers at the circulation desk: yes, I really am checking out all of those books, and I'm sick of your attitude that there is something wrong with that or that my doing so is a burden to you. Do your job and stop with the unsolicited commentary and/or pissy looks. Thank you.)

And then, shockingly enough, I did some reading and note-taking. What was sort of neat about this is that it allowed me to realize that I actually had done a lot of reading this spring before the house madness really took off, and also it allowed me to realize that I'm really into working on my project in earnest. It also got me thinking, though, about my process and why I do this stuff the way I do.

Because here's the thing: I do a LOT of long-hand note-taking. The dissertation/book cured me of actually writing entire manuscripts longhand, but a lot of the writing/transcribing that I do in these early stages is done sans computer. At later stages, I also edit long-hand. Here, for example, is my binder for NB. This is where I'm keeping all of my notes for critical books and some theory.

Yes, this is my low-tech way of beginning a project. You may wonder why this is how I do it. I sort of wonder, too. I know one piece of it is that when I type I can transcribe whole passages without actually reading them, so I miss a crucial step in thinking if I don't write out the notes long-hand. Also, because it takes more effort to write things out long-hand, I tend to edit my notes down to what I really might use rather than to try to transcribe everything that is marginally interesting. In other words, doing my notes this way slows me down and focuses me, and also it gives me an ownership over the texts with which I'm working that typing doesn't give me. Or so I think. It may also just be that I'm afraid to do it a different way. What if it didn't work?

So yesterday I worked for about 3 hours (not counting the time I spent in the library), and it was good. I am feeling a bit out of sorts about my project conceptually because it seems like every source I encounter - even the ones that seem like they would be foundational to what I want to think about - gets a crucial thing (or what I think is a crucial thing) totally wrong. But when you encounter that over and over again, you start wondering whether it's not everybody else that's wrong but rather you who is totally off your rocker. Ah, well, I guess I just need to keep plugging away and see where the reading/writing takes me.

And then I was talking with a friend last night and I realized that I don't even know why I'm doing this project really. Or, I do: it's because I really want to think about this stuff. But seriously: why attempt to write another book? Why is that the way that I need to think about this stuff? Why am I compelled to do such a project when, in the grand scheme of things, it promises to be a lot of work for not much reward? Am I a masochist? Something else? What is it that motivates me to do this sort of thing?

Anyway, I know I haven't really written a cohesive post here. I'm just sort of writing whatever pops into my head. But that's the latest. Now I'm going to go eat something and do some house-stuff and then maybe do a little more reading before Naomi comes over tonight for drinks and catching up and reminiscing, etc.

Ok, So I'm Not Working Again...

2010-06-25T11:55:00.002-04:00

But I don't actually feel badly about it. See, I'm waiting for a guy to come and measure my basement door so that I can get a new door put in, since the one I've got is ridiculous (as in, you can see the sunlight coming through where there should be a door jamb. It's really dumb to try to work when you know you're going to be interrupted, so I am cutting myself some slack.

I've also remembered some important things about me and summer and work. Like, for example, nearly every summer when I've had major research productivity, I haven't really begun in earnest until the end of June. It always takes me a few weeks to settle into the summer, and also, I think I do need the pressure of feeling like I don't have the whole summer stretching out before me. I've also remembered that even though I'm not technically "working" during this time, I have been doing a boatload of thinking, which means that when I sit down to work I do have a sense of where I need to go. And also, the hatred of the time I'm spending watching TV and not accomplishing anything? All part of the process.

But now on to the next topic. I wanted to address the many suggestions I've gotten that I should sit down with a good book and relax, read a novel, etc. A lot of these suggestions have come from people outside of English, so I want to talk a little bit about how my field affects my reading habits. This is not true for all people in English, but I think it's true for many of us, esp. if we study fairly contemporary stuff and/or teach across a wide range of fields.

I cannot read literature for pleasure. Not if I'm working on a project, whether that's developing a new course or a new research project. See, what you folks think of as "fun" reading? Yeah, um, that's totally my job. And if I read something that's somewhat decent that is fiction, I feel massive amounts of guilt for not reading the stuff that I "should" be reading. And then, if I read the kind of stuff that I can read for pleasure - crappy chick lit, gruesome thrillers, etc. - I then feel like I'm a loser who is totally an intellectual zombie because everybody else takes the opportunity to read things that enrich their soul or something when they've got time to read.

The only kind of reading I can really do for pleasure without hating myself is non-fiction stuff. I'm in the middle of Heat now, as I mentioned, and I'm also in the middle of this book. This is good bedtime reading, but I can't get too terribly involved in this sort of reading, not to the point where I can while away a whole day doing it.

Ok. Think of it this way. Let's say you're a historian, and when you have been obsessing about work, everybody recommends to you that you read things like John Adams by David McCullough to unwind. Or, barring that, that you watch PBS historical documentaries. Or let's say "hey! go to some archives just for fun!" Now, don't get me wrong, you love history, but is that really going to take your mind off the work you're not doing? Not likely.

See, that's the dirty secret of going to graduate school to study what you love. It means that it's no longer a source of relaxation when you're feeling stressed out. This is not to say that it's not a source of pleasure - of course it is - or that you don't enjoy it - you do - but when I read a Margaret Atwood or A.S. Byatt novel, I take notes, people. It's work - not relaxation - even if it might be fun.

Again, I don't think that this is necessarily a problem for all people in my field. I know that my Medievalist and Early Modern friends read things for fun all the time that would count as literature. Also people who focus primarily on poetry or drama. But when I talk to people who do what I do, I find that many of us have the problem that I'm describing.

Ok, off to go do some stuff around the house while I wait for the door measurement guy.

Has Plan for Getting Out of House During Sabbatical!

2010-06-24T18:10:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I remembered a thing that is awesome about my house today, and that solves my coffee shop problem (as I'd begun to think of it). My house is just across the street from the bus that takes you into the "downtown" of the city near where I live. That area has many things that are awesome:

Beautiful public library, which actually has a decent amount of academic stuff.
Coffee shops.
Ginormous used bookstore.
Cool places to go for lunch.
Etc.

I hadn't thought of this as a sabbatical option because downtown is a pain to get to if you don't happen to be near to the one bus line that takes you there, which my old place wasn't. Obviously I wouldn't want to deal with the traffic that goes with driving there, nor would I want to pay to park. So this is the perfect option: 2 or 3 days per week I will take the bus downtown and Think Deep Thoughts and make a day of it. 'Tis perfect!

Now with that settled, I think I will go and continue reading Heat, which I bought at the Ginormous Used Bookstore this afternoon, instead of reading stuff for research, though I also did snatch up two awesome academic books for a song, too, but who wants to read those?

Navel-Gazing, Whining, Etc.

2010-06-23T20:22:00.003-04:00

You may want to click away to another blog if you can't stomach the self-pity and complaints, because that's what this post is going to be about. And yes, I realize I'm insufferable and I should shut up, etc., so nobody needs to tell me that either. My thought is this: either I write my way out of this funk in this space, or I'm going to end up abandoning this space for the term of my sabbatical, and if I do that I don't know that I'll know how to come back, or that I'll want to come back.

So. What's my problem? Well, I'm all moved into my house, and that means that I probably need to start working on the things that I'm being paid to work on this summer. But I feel...

Ok, how do I explain this? My problem, when it comes to writing, is not that I think I'm a fraud or an impostor or those typical things. I generally have faith in my ideas, and I'm generally a person who has great ideas. (I know, I hate myself as I'm writing this, too. But really, that is a thing about me.) My problem, instead, is that I'll have this idea - this great idea. And I can see how it's supposed to be executed totally clearly in my head. I can see all the pieces of it, and I can see how awesome the thing could end up being. All good, right? But the problem is that there is (as you might imagine) a disconnect between the vision and my abilities to execute the vision.

Now, to be fair, nobody could actually execute the vision. That's the reason why it's important for me to actually get my hands dirty and to start working rather than to be all focused on the vision. But the problem with the fact that I haven't really been consistently thinking about anything other than home ownership since March is that I've spent approx. 3 months in the "vision place" and so now I'm.... Well, I'm whining instead of getting to work. So it's not fraudulence that paralyzes me... it's delusions of grandeur. At least that's what I've come up with after a few days of sulking.

But so this is the problem, I think, that goes along with the above. I think that because I've been reading people talking about their research progress over the summer (or progress with teaching or whatever) I've somehow stopped thinking of my sabbatical project as fun and I've started thinking of it as work and as somehow in competition with other people, as opposed to me just having the awesome opportunity to spend months trying to answer really neat questions. I need to believe that this is not work. And I know that's crazy, but that's how it was with my dissertation, and then the book manuscript.... This was how it was for me with my math homework in 3rd grade. If I think it's "work" then I suddenly can't do it.

Anyway, I'm going to try to do at least a little tomorrow and see where that leads me.

Other things that are bothering me:

My favorite coffee shop just went out of business in May.
Everybody is fucking getting married or getting engaged or having motherfucking babies and I am a desperate spinster with two cats and a fake relationship with a person whom I don't see.
I feel stressed out by the programs in my DVR queue, and I think this is making me watch a lot more TV than I normally would.
It is hot - too hot to breathe - every motherfucking day. 90+ degrees and always humid and miserable.
[insert any other complaint here - I'm sure I've got more, but I'm tired of ranting.]

Is Summer Over or Just Beginning?

2010-06-22T13:23:00.003-04:00

Lots of people are posting about the work they're trying to get accomplished over the summer, and I'm too lazy to link but head on over to Notorious Ph.D.'s, Historiann's, Bardiac's, Maude's, and I'm sure other places I'm forgetting if you want to read what I'm reading.

But so anyway, my house is now mostly together (I still have a few things to sort out in the Nook - and yes, I'll show you pictures when I'm done) and so on the one hand I'm feeling sort of like it's been forever since I did any intellectual work, like I've spent (wasted?) the whole summer moving, but on the other hand summer only technically began a day ago, and so really summer is only just beginning. I suppose I just feel a bit out of it - I don't have a routine, and I don't really have a plan.

Today, however, I did read an essay for a journal which was in many ways terrible but which maybe with a HUGE amount of revision could not be terrible, so that was positive and a step toward finding my research mojo again. Tomorrow, I'm finally going to do the revisions that I've been sitting on for nearly a year, revisions for an article that is accepted for publication pending those revisions. Maybe I'll go to the library, too. I like the library. And then? Well, and then I'll need to begin writing the NB. My plan is to get myself into a routine of trying to put something on paper for 3 hours a day. If I do that for a couple of weeks, I should then be in a position to see where I am and to start getting more solid in terms of a plan for moving forward. I actually am pretty excited about all of the above, but I also feel sort of like, "Ew! I just want to lounge around! It's still summer! Wah!"

So anyway, that's the state of things in the House of Crazy.

After, Part III

2010-06-21T19:03:00.006-04:00

I know you're wondering what the bedrooms are looking like. Or if you're not, please go read a blog that has real content :)
First, the spare room:

The only change in here is actually that I switched out the red curtains (which I felt were a) like a brothel and b) too limiting) for the cream ones that had been in the living room. It's a nice change.

My bedroom (which used to be the peach/orange room that threatened to blind any and all who slept there):

Isn't it most soothing and awesome? I feel that it is. My apologies for the crappy lighting in the pictures - I'm still using the camera phone as opposed to the real camera.

Enough for now. I've been thinking about writing a real post, but I don't know if I really have the energy for that right now.

Should Accomplish More But....

2010-06-19T15:57:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I'm slowly but surely making headway in doing those last piddly tasks that will make me completely and totally unpacked. Today I went to the bank, took care of getting my mortgage payment automatically deducted from my bank account, canceled the hotel reservation for the conference that I won't be attending, had a phone date with my aunt, organized and put away everything that's to be stored in the drop-lid desk in the living room, put away the ceramic Christmas tree in the front hall closet where it belongs as opposed to storing the box in the middle of the living room floor, took some stuff that belonged in the basement down there, added more things to my to-do list....

In other words, things move forward apace. But I still have lots more to do, and I'm feeling less than motivated. My goal is to get totally done with the downstairs today, but I have totally stalled. Unpacking is boring. At the same time, I really want to be unpacked so that I can start actually doing the research that I'm supposed to be doing this summer, which I don't feel like I can do until I get the unpacking done.

I'll post some more pics once I get some more of this crap out of here. Maybe I'll have a snack and that will motivate me further? Or maybe I'll just call it a day even though I totally shouldn't?

Gah. I don't know.

After, Part II

2010-06-18T14:20:00.002-04:00

So one thing that I accomplished while my mom was here was to buy a chair and ottoman for the living room. A certain spoiled kitty-cat, as of 5 minutes after delivery, made it quite clear who would relax most often on this brand new furniture.

Loyalty, Commitment, or Whatever

2010-06-17T22:58:00.002-04:00

Historiann asked in this post, "Do we really owe our institutions loyalty?" I'm about to write here isn't a direct response to Historiann, but I do think that it's a relevant tangent.

See, I got an email from the president of my institution within recent days asking me to give money to my institution. My institution that hasn't given a cost of living raise for the past two years. Ummm.*

This is what I think about loyalty. I think loyalty is a two-way street. I think that loyalty means a two-way commitment. I do not think that "loyalty" means me investing in an institution that treats its employees like they aren't worth shit.

I tend to be quite a loyal person. Loyal in the way of a trusty dog. (Shout out to Roxie's World!) But you know what? A dog that you don't feed properly and that you don't exercise and that you don't let in the house isn't exactly going to win the Westminster Dog Show. Nor is that dog necessarily going to do tricks when guests come over. And that dog certainly isn't going to give you money out of her paycheck when you don't give her a basic cost of living adjustment.

Fact: My institution struggles to meet the baseline for salary with CUPA. There are serious problems with salary compression, and (I'd argue) serious problems with equity for anybody who's not white and male.

Fact: At my institution, faculty have to pay to park, and they pay approx. 3x what students pay. We are not in an urban area, and there is no street parking option and there is virtually no public transportation option. In other words, my salary is approx. $300/year less because I can't actually come to work without paying for parking.

Fact: Faculty morale at my institution is at an all-time low, maybe because we don't get raises, because of the parking thing, and because of the hefty chunk that health care costs take from one's salary.

Now, there will be some commenters who will say, "what about a union? you silly people!" And you know what? My state doesn't negotiate with unions. The whole "union" thing? A non-starter here.

So here's what I think about "loyalty." I think that "loyalty" is a very nice concept that assumes that employees are fairly and well compensated. I think that "loyalty" - from faculty to institution - depends on faculty feeling like they are valued, and it depends on resources for faculty to do the jobs that they are hired to do.

And I think that administrators who "encourage" faculty to donate money from their paychecks to the institution that fails to compensate them adequately and that fails to support the performance that it requires of them are tone-deaf in the extreme. You want my loyalty? You want my motherfucking money? Well. Then you might need to give me some things that I need in return. It's not up to me to subsidize my employer. In fact, it's my employer's job to pay me for the very real and specialized and expert work that I do. So, no, I won't be giving money to my university. The fact of the matter is, I don't have it to give since there are no raises.

* And yes, I'm lucky because we haven't had furloughs or actual pay cuts.

Grin

2010-06-16T18:06:00.002-04:00

As teachers, we don't always know whether we're reaching our students, or we don't get the chance to see how what we teach them remains part of who they become. But I've been tickled pink all day today because former students have been posting status updates and sending me emails, all about a book that I teach only every four years and a book that really does hurt their feelings for eight full weeks. And you know what? That's pretty rad.

Happy Bloomsday, one and all.

After, Part 1

2010-06-15T12:22:00.006-04:00

The "after" will be a multi-part series that will extend between now and at least Friday. See, I can only show you some of the after right now because other parts are in various stages of completion. So, for example, Friday I'll get the chair and ottoman for the living room that will make the furnishings for that room complete-ish, so I'm not done showing you the living room yet. And I need to organize my closet so that I can figure out where the dresser goes, etc., so my bedroom is not yet ready for public viewing. And the Nook... well, it's very, very close, but not quite, because of a minor setback involving needing to get rid of my old desk and then needing to assemble a really crappy desk to replace it (but, even though it's crappy, it was only 40 bucks, and I needed for it not to be expensive, so there we are).

Anyhoodle, I know the suspense is killing you, so here are some pictures to tide you over.

This is the living room as it now looks. As you see, I bought new curtains to warm the room up a bit, and I also put shades up on the front windows, mainly because with no shades my across-the-street neighbors, who really like to sit out in front of their house (they have no porch - they just have chairs plopped out in front, and they sit there most nights, and often past dark), can see right into my living room if I don't close the curtains. Now, closing the curtains is all well and good, but if it's not a gajillion degrees, and if you want to have windows open, guess what? That means that closing the curtains is stupid. And if you don't close the curtains, then the whole neighborhood can see straight through your house. Uncool. And thus, shades. As for the curtains, you can't really see how great they are with this stupid camera phone picture - they are a golden sort of color, and they have a leaf texture that is really pretty when the sunlight shines through.

Ok, so now, the next picture is of the Dining Room, which seriously took like 3 days to complete. That wallpaper. The filthy walls. The ceiling which we totally think had never been repainted for at least 20 years. HIDEOUS. So here's the room now:

You will notice that the walls are pretty bare and I don't have a ton of furniture in the room. I do intend to decorate as time moves forward, but I'm going to take my time. I'll post a few more pics of this room once I get the third bookshelf downstairs to stick along the wall that you can't see, and once I get the curtains for the window seat put up (I need to take them to get cut down and hemmed, but the rod is up so once that's done, up they go). Oh, and the curtains. The former owner didn't have real curtains in this room. On the one hand, cool, lots of light, and the windows are pretty. On the other hand, total glare from the windows at nighttime, and if you actually eat in the dining room you feel like the next door neighbors can watch you eat. (Our houses are separated by only a driveway. I do not live in the country or something.) And so, I'm putting up real curtains so that I at least have the option to close them. I mean, seriously. Anyway, though, I'm really, really happy with the green that I chose, both because it looks nice with the color of the living room walls and with the kitchen (which is a sort of buttery yellow), and because I really think that it makes the woodwork look gorgeous.

So anyway, I do believe that's enough for now. I have things to accomplish, like spraying feliway in my stupid nook because the Man-Kitty just said no to a) home improvements and b) my mother's insane whirling-dervish-style approach to said improvements (which I'll tell you all about once I get over the trauma of experiencing them for a week), and he expressed his dominance and EXTREME displeasure by marking his territory with urine. (And by humping Mr. Stripey, because when the going gets tough, the Man-Kitty apparently needs to show who's boss. And yes, apparently it's normal for neutered cats to do these things.) I hate the chaos of moving, but not as much as the Man-Kitty does. I know all of the above was too much information, but let's just say that it added to what was already a slightly stressful week with my mother.

(In case you were wondering, Mr. Stripey remains unflappable and happy as can be.)

Before Pictures

2010-06-15T09:11:00.003-04:00

This is what my house looked like when I decided to buy it (pictures from when the old owner had it). Once my mom leaves today, I shall take some pics of what things look like after our handiwork of the week.

Hallelujah

2010-06-07T15:30:00.006-04:00

So. I was one of the lucky people for whom blogger didn't work for much of the day today, and lemme tell ya - I was not pleased! I was going to write a post about something or other, but I forget what now because I had to unpack instead of blogging!

I'm in pretty good shape on the unpacking, if I do say so myself. I've got 1 box to deal with in the living room, and about 4 boxes to deal with in the dining room. Other than that, I need to unpack and organize clothes, but I'm not terribly worried about doing that before my mom arrives Wednesday for a week.

I know you've all been dying for pics... I'll post some house pictures once my mom and I finish our Week of Nesting. In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy some pics of the kitties. Problematically, however, the camera remains packed somewhere, so all I've got are crappy camera phone pictures. You all will have to make do with those.

So, first, you may wonder how they felt about packing up the only home they'd ever known. Here are some pre-move pictures.
As you might notice, the Man-Kitty appeared to be on board with the move in the beginning. Indeed, he was all ready to be packed up with some books. In contrast, Mr. Stripey remained somewhat suspicious, and spent his time perched and watching the proceedings like a hawk.

On the other end of the move, however, the Man-Kitty was much less enthusiastic. He's just not good with change. It exhausts him.

In contrast, Mr. Stripey found himself energized and ecstatic on the other side. Here is a picture of him torturing a half-dead dragon-fly:
So, yay that blogger works for me again. Boo that I am now to preoccupied with other things to do a real post. Yay that I have gotten around to posting some kitty pics, but boo that I have yet to locate my real camera. I suppose that's all for now :)

Conference Burn-Out

2010-06-03T10:27:00.002-04:00

So, around this exact time of year 14 years ago, I attended my first academic conference. I had just graduated with my B.A., and my undergraduate thesis adviser had encouraged me to submit an abstract, and I was nervous and excited and feeling totally like a fraud. Oddly enough, I presented on a novel that I subsequently abandoned for 14 years, and now I'm presenting on that same novel at this upcoming conference of mine.

But so anyway. That first conference experience was exhilarating. I was interested in every paper and wanted to go to every panel and I was bursting with new ideas and I felt so... I guess I just felt like, "Oh, these are my people. All of these people here are passionate about the same things about which I'm passionate. Here is where you get to talk about these things about which you care so much and the people to whom you talk won't glaze over and change the subject. This is the place I've been looking for."

I am no longer that exhilarated, excited girl. That's what I've been realizing over the past month or so at least, but really, it's been coming on for much longer than that. Do you know the last time I went to a conference and attended all or nearly all of the panels? I seriously think that it was 2004 or 2005. Do you know the last time I felt like my mind was blown by a conference (not just one talk or one panel, but the whole conference)? Me neither. (Actually, that's when I stopped going to panels at conferences, I think: when my mind stopped being blown by going to them.)

So what has changed? Because I would like to get some of that exhilaration and excitement back.

One thing is that I haven't had time for the past 7 years to really sit with any idea for a long period of time before presenting it at a conference. And while I do think that it's valuable to present new work at conferences, I also think that my brain hasn't recharged since before I got on the tenure-track, and that's a bad thing.
At a certain point, you feel like you've heard every paper before. I found myself perusing programs for a couple of conferences that I'm not attending this summer, and I found myself... well, I didn't care that I wasn't attending because nothing sounded new. And this conference at which I'm giving my paper - I sort of felt the same way as I looked over that program. This is not because people aren't doing interesting things, I don't think. I think it's me.
But also, too, familiarity breeds contempt. With professionalization and embeddedness in one's field, one starts seeing the same faces over and over again. And once you get to know these people - and really, at a certain point you can't help but know these people - you also get a sense of what they are likely to present at a conference. And so at a certain point, you read over a conference program and instead of it being like this tome of sparkly shiny new things it's more like an alumni bulletin that talks about what people are doing lately. You think to yourself, "Oh, so X is still working on the trauma book," or "Y must have finished with the transnational project and is moving on to this new thing that she was talking about as a tangent three conferences ago." Now, this is great, that you know the people and that you can follow their careers in that way. But it sort of takes the luster off of actually going to listen to a conference paper.
Conferences become work, and as work they are as much about meeting with people as they are about attending as an audience member. One of the reasons that I no longer get to go to panels is because I always have to find blocks of time to meet with people. All of this is important to do, and often it's even just plain fun. For one thing, these people are my friends. Of course I want to see them. But also, these are important professional connections. These are the people who recommend one for things and who endorse one's work. These are people who introduce you to other people. At this point in one's career, one probably should be doing all of this meeting and greeting and rubbing of elbows. But I don't get the same charge out of doing that stuff.
Speaking of meeting with people and knowing people, I think that I have met all of the fancy people I have ever really wanted to meet in my narrow specialization, and a lot of people who I never cared about meeting but who are fancy, too. Maybe I need to start working on some new stuff so I can find some new celebrities and heroes?

So, here's the thing. I think sabbatical is going to be good for this problem. I think that the deep thinking and time that sabbatical is going to give me is going to energize me in ways that make me excited not only about my ideas but also about listening to what other people are working on. I also think that going to some new conferences - ones that are far afield from what I typically attend - will help, and BFF and I are hatching a plan to maybe go to a Brand Spanking New conference next year, which I think will be a good thing.

But you know, maybe I'll never get that former excitement back. The reality is that I'm part of this world now, and I'm a fixture. I know people. I have responsibilities and obligations. A conference isn't like vacation - which it was when I attended my first one. It's work. And maybe some time off will make it less like work - or at least less like drudgery - but I don't really think I can recapture how I used to feel about conferences. That makes me kind of sad.

90% Done, And I Don't Think It's Half Bad, Actually....

2010-06-02T22:34:00.003-04:00

So. Here's the thing about writing. It's a thing that I always tell my students when I need to talk them off the ledge, but I conveniently forget it when I myself am on the edge. The only way for a paper to get written is for you to write it. Oh, and also, the only way for you to refine your ideas and to clarify your argument and what you think is to write it all down. Because the kind of thinking that you can do in writing is far more substantial than the kind of thinking that you can do that is confined to your own brain. When you write, you learn what you think - even if you didn't know that you thought it. I know this, but I apparently need to relearn it periodically.

I'd write more, but I'm tapped out.

Procrastination, Self-Loathing, Crunch Time

2010-06-02T08:57:00.003-04:00

I know. You're all waiting desperately for house pictures. I promise that some will come soon, but now is not the time. Now is not the time because I have to present a conference paper in a couple of days, and do you know how many words of said conference paper are written? Take a wild guess. Dingdingding! Exactamundo! The answer is ZERO!

It's not really fair for me to label what's happened here procrastination, though. I've been working on the research for the paper since probably February or March, and I've been thinking about the argument and stuff steadily over the past couple of weeks. The problem is, nothing is written. It's when I end up in predicaments like this that I feel all impostor-y and fraudulent, which then makes me think I suck, which then makes me incapable of doing the writing, which is a real problem.

So. Enough of all that. I must find my confidence to get this freaking thing done. And once it's done, I can unpack some more things. And once I give the paper, I can unpack the rest of my house, which will then mean that I can get into a routine and really embark on the summer's research plans. Which of course is all I want to do in the first place, and this conference paper actually contributes to those research plans so I should embrace it rather than being stuck.

Totally.

(Note: I believe none of the pep-talk-y stuff at the end, but a girl has to try.)

Hello! I'm Still Alive! (RBOC)

2010-05-30T22:19:00.002-04:00

Awesome: "Don't Stop Believing" just came on my direct TV 80s music channel. I love Journey. Seriously. Suck it.
Ooh, and even cooler: "Fire and Ice" by Pat Benatar. I HEART Pat Benatar.
A last word on the spousal hire thing: I'm done with talking about it. Why? Because the whole thing made me feel like I wanted to take a sabbatical from blogging, which I don't actually want to do. And also because the whole spousal hiring thing was NEVER my point. If you thought it was, you don't know how to read. And yes, that's a bitchy thing to say, but that's exactly what I think.
In other news, I'm totally moved out of the Shitbox Apartment, which I called home for 7 years. The keys are returned, much stuff is donated, and the stuff I want is in my house (or, well, mostly - there's a bunch of shit in my car that I just don't have the energy for right now).
In addition, I got a delivery of My Awesome New Bed Which Feels Like a Cloud To Sleep On, as well as my awesome desk for the living room, and a chest of drawers, yesterday. All of this made me realize that my new house is for real and for true like twice the size of my stupid apartment, in spite of the fact that it is technically the same number of rooms. I LOVE my HOUSE!
You know who else loves my house? Man-Kitty and Mr. Stripey. Pictures (of both the house, and of the kittehs in the house) will be forthcoming.

Heteronormativity: Not Just for Straight People!

2010-05-25T22:04:00.004-04:00

This post might also be titled, "Patriarchy: Not Just for Teh Menz!"

I've been thinking about this post for most of today. I wondered whether I should write it. I thought to myself, "Self, if you write this post, you're probably going to end up in the middle of a shitstorm when that's not your intention." I thought to myself, "Self, seriously? You need to unpack! You've got other things that are so much more important to you right now!" But. It's still on my mind, and so I'm posting.

Let me back up a bit. In a class that I teach that relates to issues surrounding sexuality and its representation, I spend the first few class periods dealing with definitions. Some of the definitions are necessary because of the essays I have them read at the beginning (words like "onanism" and "ontology," but also things I'm shocked they're not familiar with, like "vanilla" and "queer" and "sadomasochism"). But we also deal with other things. Like the difference between "transgender/transexual" and "transvestite," for example, or the difference between "sex," "gender," and "sexuality." And finally, I make sure to define for my students the terms "heteronormativity" and "patriarchy."

Those last two are especially important, even if students have taken courses in women's and gender studies previously. A lot of them come in thinking that "heteronormativity" means "heterosexism" and that "patriarchy" means "misogyny." In other words, that the perpetrators of heteronormativity are straight, conservative people, and that the perpetrators of patriarchy are woman-hating men. I spend time on these definitions because I want to make it clear that some "evil other" is not the source of either heteronormativity or patriarchy, but rather that both of these things are something in which all of us participate and in which all of us are complicit. And yes, I really do believe that. I really don't believe that anybody alive today could claim that they are outside of heteronormativity or patriarchy. I think people can legitimately claim to resist those things, but resistance isn't the same thing as being outside of those things or beyond them. In other words, even if we don't embrace homophobia as a worldview, even if we are feminists, we still participate in heteronormativity and patriarchy. There is no outside of power. (Insert Foucault Here.)

So ok, let's start with very basic definitions for heteronormativity and patriarchy. Both of these terms are inclusive: one can be heteronormative and identify as queer; one can participate in patriarchy and identify as feminist. Again, this is not to say that individuals might not tactically resist heteronormativity and patriarchy - they might and they do. BUT. We cannot (I don't think) deny that resistance to those structures does not equal their eradication, nor can we pretend that those structures don't inform our experience of the world.

Thus, I might identify as GLBTQ, and yet I may still participate in an economy of heteronormative privilege. I might be a woman who nevertheless participates in patriarchy.

This all makes sense, right? I mean, we all have the best intentions, but we live in the world in which we live.

But so. Let's return to the issue of "spousal hires." Or let's even expand it to "partner hires" (in other words, we're not requiring legal marriage for the perk.)

What does a partner/spousal hire include?

Monogamy
Commitment to the partner who is "really" hired, at least at the time of hire, for life
"Commitment" to partner that apparently without dissonance translates into commitment to institution and its surrounding community, as if a lone person couldn't commit to the institution and surrounding community in the way, forever

Item the first:I know a lot of people who've cheated on their spouses, or who have been cheated on. In what fucked up universe do we think that academia is somehow exempt from extramarital sex, and all of the fucked-up-ness this might entail? Enough to hire people on for life on the basis of the fact that they got married?

Item the second: Um, academics, even those who don't cheat, get divorced too. The effects within a department, if two tenured people get divorced? AWFUL.

Item the third: Just because a spousal hire works out it does not mean that one or both partners will actually commit to the institution or the place. Lots of times they will suck it up (without grace) in order to remain together in the same place, but this doesn't necessarily equal commitment to the institution or the place. Lots of the time, it might just mean commitment to getting two salaries and to live together. Neither spouse will look for another job because "we'll never find another place that will hire both of us." Which sticks a department for 30 years with people two people who aren't into the job, or the place, or the students, but who are willing to put up with all those in order to be together. AWESOME.

Here's the thing: saying that "oh, but at my shop we offer 'spousal hires' to same-sex partners" makes it no less discriminatory. Ultimately, spousal hires, or partner hires, work within a heteronormative economy of privilege, in which we offer institutional endorsement to those employees who are in monogamous, committed, socially sanctioned relationships, and we give those people benefits that we don't give to other employees. Now, you might say, "those other employees don't have people who are as super-special to them as my partner and so they lose nothing!"

I also know some readers will say, "but this lets women into the profession!"

Here's what I say to that. It does. But it, at least in my world and at my institution, lets them in as second-class citizens. It sets up a two-tier system of professorship, which weakens the faculty as a whole, in terms of shared governance. It means that "feminized" departments (like Women's Studies at my institution, which has not a single tenure line ever but which has housed many a spousal hire in its day to serve now defunct general education requirements) are cut more than others when budget cuts come down the pike. It means that women in those "second-class" departments, whether spousal hires or not, are treated like they're not "real" professors. Even if they published a motherfucking book before tenure with a 4/4 load.

Here's the thing. Hiring legal opposite-sex spouses to ease their burdens or hiring same-sex partners - it's ALL heteronormative. And it all SERVES patriarchy. I'm not saying that there aren't ways in which I could approve of these practices - there are. But let's not kid ourselves that anything in this arena is somehow outside of heteronormativity or patriarchy, or that it doesn't exclude people who are not in monogamous, long-term, committed sexual relationships. And if we don't kid ourselves about those things, how can we talk about such practices as liberating or supporting women as a group? I don't think that we can. I think any claims to such provisions as supporting women are revealed, if we really think about them, as reinforcing the systematic dominance and subjugation of women. But maybe that's just me.

**Note: In saying this, I'm not saying that marriage/partnership with another person is bad, nor am I saying that I don't understand why people take the opportunities/advantages presented to them. I'm ONLY saying that we need to recognize certain kinds of privilege that exclude other people, and, in this case, women as a class.

All Packing/Unpacking All The Time

2010-05-25T09:01:00.003-04:00

I feel like I haven't had an idea in like 2 months with all of this moving stuff. I mean, I guess I have, but you know what I mean. And while I'd like to write something of some sort of intellectual or academic interest, all I really have to write about is packing/unpacking.

Why packing, you ask? Well, because I've still got some odds/ends at the old place that need to make their way to the new place between now and the end of the month (the plan is to go over every day and grab a few boxes - should be done by Friday). Unpacking I should think would be obvious, but it's in some ways the most frustrating thing because since I'm waiting on furniture deliveries and need to do some painting, I feel like I can't unpack. This is actually pretty stupid, because there are loads of things that I can totally unpack, but I'm having trouble figuring out where things go.... You see.

The kitchen is nearly totally unpacked and organized, however, and I'm very happy with that. Today I think I'm going to tackle the bathroom (well, what I can tackle in there.... I really need to buy some sort of cabinet for bathroom storage, but until that happens, I'll only sort of unpack in there). And then, I suppose I can begin with the books.

See how boring I am? Oh, though I suppose I also have begun to think in earnest about my conference paper, which I plan to draft over the weekend.

All right. I guess that's all because I'm even boring to myself.

Random Bullets of Moving and Whatnot

2010-05-24T14:19:00.002-04:00

So I'm living in my new house, but I'm still not entirely out of the apartment. The Salvation Army came today to take a bunch of stuff, but somehow I still have some things that need to be moved over here and some things that need to be thrown away. I got a lot accomplished this morning, but I could not make myself stay there after the SA guys came. I suppose it's a good thing that I've got a full week before I absolutely have to be out of the apartment.
You may wonder how the kitties handled the move. Well. The Man-Kitty is a sensitive soul who finds any sort of upheaval very disturbing, so upon being brought to the new house, he proceeded to yowl for approximately 45 minutes as if in some sort of horrible agony, and refused to come out in the open but instead hid first behind boxes and then in the front hall closet. Mr. Stripey seemed to feel better about the change of scenery, but did face a difficulty in that he had no clue how to use stairs and so I had to try to model stair-climbing for him. So anyway, at one point he was trapped in the basement mewing, and Man-Kitty was hiding on the first floor and yowling, and I really was deeply concerned that we would never be at peace again. After a bit, though, Mr. Stripey was totally chilled out and back to normal, and the Man-Kitty is now mostly his usual self, though remains a bit skittish.
I got new upgraded internet access so now everything is wicked fast! Huzzah!
I also now have a DVR, and I feel like on the one hand it's a very cool thing to have but on the other hand it seems a little overrated? We'll see.
I bought much new furniture on Saturday (new headboard/footboard, new mattress/boxspring, new drop-lid desk for living room, new chest of drawers) and have also bought a lot of new house-holdy items (sheets, towels, closet organizers, coffee pot, microwave) and so on the one hand I'm feeling like a shop-a-holic who is irresponsible but on the other hand I'm really excited for my house to be put together for once and for all.
I have to give a conference paper in just under two weeks. Ummm....

Um? and Argh! and Yay and Ugh

2010-05-21T12:29:00.005-04:00

1. I find it really weird when I read about myself as being part of a dust-up or controversial conversation of some kind when I had no idea that I was participating in (or starting) some sort of controversy.
2. I find it really fucking irritating that when Woman A disagrees with Woman B, Woman B feels comfortable characterizing that completely legitimate disagreement as "hatred" and being anti-feminist. Part of what feminism allows women to do is to have their own ideas that might not be identical to other people's. Further, feminism means that women have the authority to have perspectives that don't have to match with other women's perspectives and to talk about those things in public. Expressing disagreement or anger isn't anti-feminist. So I'm really over the public hand-wringing about how women who disagree or express anger (against things that other women are for- oh no!) aren't in solidarity with feminism. Not only is that intellectually weak, it really shows a failure to engage with people who disagree with one's own position.
3. I live in a house. I have one kitten in a window-seat and another kitten next to me on the couch. All kittens are intrigued by the sounds of rain outside and the gorgeous views of this rain that are available to them. My house rules.
4. Ouch. Moving is physically and emotionally exhausting. Don't do it if you don't have to. More on the move in another post - I'm too traumatized right now.

Hell.

2010-05-20T07:08:00.003-04:00

So, I was exhausted from the packing last night, so have some final packing things to achieve this morning. (By the way, after two glasses of wine I switched back to diet coke and actually accomplished a great deal. That's why there were no further posts last night - I packed and then I collapsed.) The movers won't be here for a minimum of 4 hours, so the situation is not at all dire, but I do need to get my ass in gear.

Left to do:

Finish packing kitchen.
Finish packing remainder of bedroom (like 2 boxes).
Move shelves and desk from 2nd bedroom into living room, so that second bedroom can become the land of kittens and things that will go to Salvation Army, as well as of things that I'll discard after the move (I decided that the house was not on fire to take all of my old notebooks from grad school and before to the dumpster before the movers came).

Surely 4 hours is enough time in which to get those things done. Surely.

(All I want to do is to go back to bed.)

Packing Update #2

2010-05-19T18:46:00.003-04:00

Since last I reported, I have

Talked to my mom on the phone.
Talked to A. on the phone.
Texted with BES (who will call when she's done with dinner).
Talked to Medusa on the phone.

In addition to all of the phone talking, I have:

Had a glass of wine. (expect updates to become slurred as the evening progresses)
Cleaned off TV and TV stand.
Unplugged and put in a safe place the lamp from the one end table.
Removed and cleaned tiles from the top of my coffee and end tables and boxed them.
Thrown a bunch of piddly shit into a basket, which I suspect will end up either in a box or in the back of my Awesome Hatchback of Moving Goodness.
Moved coffee and end tables to less central locations, so that I can commence with some vacuuming.

Once I have finished with the vacuuming, on the agenda is to pack my nightstand (books, random crap), and all remaining clothes/linens, at which point the bedroom/bathroom will be totally done (linens are in the bathroom) will be done.

Onward, ho!

(Teehee.)

Packing Update #1

2010-05-19T15:58:00.002-04:00

Because at this particular moment, I need to take a break after each box is completed. Expect more of these to follow.

I have nearly finished packing the kitchen. Well, I'm about 2/3 done, really. But I see that I'm getting closer.

Now it's time to take some more trash out to the dumpster, and then to take some more small things over to the house. And then I shall return to continue with the Great Packing Extravaganza of 2010!

I Think I Can, I Think I Can....

2010-05-19T14:36:00.002-04:00

I can't even talk about the state of the packing. The good news is that I do not have nearly as much squirreled away in hiding places. The bad news is that my house looks like the definition of chaos and I can't even tell whether I'm making progress anymore. I think it's time to call in reinforcements.

Gender, Equity, Mobility

2010-05-18T10:29:00.002-04:00

Yes, I need to continue packing. But before I do, I wanted to write a post.

Last week, the Chronicle published this piece about spousal hiring. And Bitch PhD wrote this, discussing her situation, having left a tenure-track position and now having "'mommy' [be] where most of my identity lies these days." And then Profgrrrrl writes about the practice of spousal hiring in response to the Chronicle article and her upcoming transition out of a commuter marriage and into a dual-academic couple working at the same institution. And then Historiann posted this in response to this post over at Female Science Professor.

Let me state some things up front, just so nobody gets the wrong idea:

I'm not totally against spousal hiring.
I do think that the structures of academia are inherently patriarchal, and that those structures systemically do benefit men and not women.
I do believe that women academics should be compensated equitably with their male peers, based on job performance.

In other words, I'm not actually in disagreement with any of the posts to which I'm linking.

But.

Something is sticking in my craw about these posts and about some of the comments that they've generated. I'm trying to figure out how to write about the discomfort that I've been feeling in a way that is systematic and that brings it all together, but I'm not sure if that's possible. Hmm. Ok, I think I'll give up on that and just write about each piece of the puzzle individually, and then maybe after doing that I'll come to some sort of general conclusion where it all comes together? Or maybe I'll just leave you with all the pieces. We'll see.

Spousal Hiring

As I noted above, I am not unwaveringly against this practice. That said, I think the thing that bothers me when we talk about "spousal hires" is that the conversation often leaves out discussions about how "accommodations for spouses" are made at poor, non-research institutions. At elite institutions (like Johns Hopkins or Princeton, where the Chronicle author is writing from), or at major research universities, the practice of spousal hiring, or "opportunity hires," strikes me as a reasonable practice. Typically it is true in these contexts that individual departments don't lose a line when they make these hires, and typically it does seem to be the case that the "opportunity hire" is a candidate that is excellent and which the department would be lucky to have. (Note: I'm just talking about faculty spousal hires here.)

When we get to an institution like mine, though, my sense is that the issue becomes much murkier. The murkiness comes from the fact that my institution does not have a history of making "opportunity hires," whether they are spouses or just people who would come and raise the profile of the institution. Instead, any such hiring has historically been done in a back-door fashion. So, for example, let's say that we made Candidate A an offer. Candidate A, whether male or female, had a spouse who is an academic. (Note that I say spouse here. This is crucial. We are not talking about partners - we are talking about legally married people.) Historically, if we really wanted the candidate, the chair might agree to "find something" for the spouse, and that "something" would be something off the tenure track. Then, once some time passed, a hiring line would open up in the department. An ad would be written to fit the trailing spouse, as long as the couple had played nicely and sucked up to the right people. And then, under the auspices of an open search, the trailing spouse would be hired into a tenure-track position, regardless of the coverage needs of the department and regardless of the quality of other candidates being interviewed for the position. (Note: I am putting all of this in the past tense because I feel like the days of such practices in my department are likely behind us given the current make-up of my department and the ways in which the university is changing, but this is the way "spousal hiring" worked in the past.)

So I guess what I'm saying is that in my context my problem with spousal hiring is as much a problem with "inside candidate hiring" as it is anything else. And, looking at the history of my department, I don't see where either practice has worked to benefit women (either as a group or as individuals).

On Working in a Department with Colleagues Who Are Married to One Another and Who Have Children

The proponents of spousal hiring often talk about spousal hiring as a way of promoting gender equity in the workplace, and of supporting women's prospects in academe more specifically. The logic of this, as far as I can tell involves the following suppositions: a) women are more likely to give up an academic career in the service of family, so hiring spouses makes more opportunities for women in the profession; b) women, who typically serve as primary caregivers for children, benefit from not being put into the position of having to live apart from their partners, i.e., if we make sure that both parents are in the same location, then the work of parenting can be shared more equitably, which is good for women.

I get the logic. But how I've seen this play out on the ground is a whole lot uglier. In my experience, the patriarchal constraints of marriage and child-rearing can be reinforced by the practice of having both spouses employed in the same department (and this is whether the initial trailing spouse was the female half of the marriage or the male half). So. Let's think about what the situation would have been if both partners hadn't been hired and granted tenure. According to the logic above, the woman would have felt compelled to abandon her career in order to follow her husband, and then the husband would have the benefit of her uncompensated labor and would be able to outperform his female colleagues, while his wife would have given up her own career ambitions in the service of her husband. Bad. Patriarchy. I get that. But. What I've seen happen when both spouses are hired is not that you get two great colleagues. Rather, you get one colleague for the price of two. Only one colleague will be present at any given meeting. The Parent-Colleagues expect that their teaching schedules will be organized so that neither is on campus at the same time. The Parent-Colleagues form a voting block, and one speaks for the other. And, since research isn't a high priority at our institution, one of them doesn't actually do any research post-tenure, and instead cruises along at the associate level getting paid a full-time, tenured salary, while performing all of the duties of a stay-at-home parent. Who makes up for the work that this person doesn't do? A lot of times that falls to women colleagues without children. So, this "feminist solution" that keeps families together has the potential at an institution like mine to reinforce an inequitable division of labor in the home and to exacerbate in inequitable division of labor in the workplace.

And Then There's the Issue of Equitable Pay

So now I'm turning to FSP's original post about her salary situation, and then to Historiann's post about it. In this profession, the reality for both women and men is that raises/resources are scarce, particularly once one achieves tenure. Salary compression sucks. Compounding that suckitude is the fact that women face barriers to negotiating salary at the time of hiring, which puts them behind before they even start. I'm not disputing any of that. Actually, I'll go even further. It's also the case that women are often not given commensurate rewards for performance while on the job, or incentives commensurate with those given to male colleagues to perform at higher levels.

I think the thing that gets me, however, about the conversations about salary is that the playing field within the profession - which demands that one, whether male or female, either get a new job, get an offer that your current institution will counter in order to keep you, or to move into administration - disadvantages women (as a group) more than it disadvantages men (as a group). Here are some reasons why this bugs me: 1) it seems to assume that all women in the profession are place-bound, married mommies (and that being a married mommy means that one is place-bound) or have a strong desire to become place-bound, married mommies, and that the status quo in terms of how to get a raise is an obstacle to women's one true vocation in life - wifehood and motherhood; 2) it assumes that all men, even if they have children or are married, are free and mobile and that they can just pick up and move without a second thought; 3) it assumes that all single and/or childless folks have no commitment to place or reasons for not wanting to uproot themselves in terms of location or job. The fact is, place-bounded-ness is a problem in this profession whether one is male/female, gay/straight, parenting/child-free, old/young, tenured/untenured/unemployed, married/unmarried. This is not some dirty secret that is hidden from people until after they get tenure. When you choose the profession, this is one of the things that you choose.

This is not to say that salary inequity is excusable or that we shouldn't fight against it. I think that we should. But in terms of negotiating strategies, saying something along the lines of "colleague X makes more than I do and it's not fair" is not a great one. Now, if one can look at the salary data for women vs. men across an entire department or institution and show that there is across-the-board inequity, that's a different thing. Or if one can demonstrate one's market value beyond the institution, and then use that to leverage for a raise, that's also another thing. But to say, "I'm a woman and so for that reason I can't go on the market or move or go into administration, but I want a higher salary because Joe Blow has one?" Yeah, if I were a person doling out raises, I don't think I'd find that too compelling an argument. And the reality of the profession is that nobody - male or female - can walk into an administrator's office and say, "I did really amazing work this year and I deserve a $10K raise" and expect anything but laughter. I don't know how it works at your shop or in your discipline, but at/in mine, when there are raises (which there aren't now), it's done by percentage, and the difference between people who get the baseline and the people who get a bit more for merit is negligible. And with promotion, the bump is a set percentage - no room for negotiating there.

Let me make this clear: I believe in equal pay for equal work. Without a doubt. Individually, I'm a victim of salary compression, and I just bought a house and am in the most glutted of all glutted fields and probably will never be competitive for another job again, so I'm not going anywhere anytime soon and I'm never going to see some huge jump in salary. I'm place-bound, and at least for the moment I have no desire to move into administration. But none of those things relate to my biological sex or to the constraints of gender. This is not about systemic inequity, at least in my case. It's just one of the (many) opportunity costs of pursing an academic career.

Conclusion?

Having written all of this out, I'm not sure what to say in conclusion. I know that the personal is political, and I realize that all of these broader issues relate back to individual women's lives, and thus are feminist issues. And let me state again that I'm not actually "against" any of the posts to which I linked or to the issues that they raise. But I do get frustrated when I feel like when we talk about "women's issues" we're really talking about "issues for women who either are now or who will most certainly become married and/or mothers." And I get frustrated when we talk about "issues in the profession" but we're really talking about "issues at research institutions that are well-funded." I'm not saying that we should substitute my individual situation (unmarried, childless, at a regional, public, primarily teaching institution) for "the situation of all women" or that such a substitution would be preferable or good in any way. I am just looking for a little more complexity when we talk about "women's issues in the profession."

Packing (Just Skip This. Seriously. I Know It's Boring.)

2010-05-16T10:24:00.002-04:00

So I've packed one box so far today. A box full of bathroom stuff. Blah. I figure I'll pack another box of bathroom stuff and then I'll be done with everything I can pack in the bathroom. While I did manage to get my bedroom closet totally emptied out yesterday, I do still have more bedroom packing to do. I lack enthusiasm. Sigh.

I feel like the unpacking will be easier and less irritating than the packing, but I think that's a lie I'm telling myself in order to motivate me to pack.

Ok, guess I should go pack another box. Then maybe I'll take a nap (even though that would not be a wise decision).

Clothes, Purging, Moving

2010-05-15T17:26:00.005-04:00

I have more clothes than any one person reasonably needs. This is what today's packing adventure has demonstrated to me in no uncertain terms. I've amassed two huge hefty bags that will be donated, and I suspect that before the night is through I'll fill 1-2 more. Lest you think that I never get rid of anything, I donated a bunch of clothes last year. One of the things about not moving for 7 years, though, is that I've kept a lot of clothes for a lot longer than I should have done.

But you know what? I'm still keeping clothes I wear only infrequently. Example: I own five suits. I only wear these suits at MLA, and then, only if I'm presenting or if I'm on the market. It seems stupid to get rid of them because suits are expensive and the ones that I have are pretty boring and basic and have yet to go out of style. And they do all fit (well, ish. two are slightly smaller, three are slightly bigger, so depending on my weight at any given MLA, I always have two suits that fit that are appropriate for fall/winter/spring weather). But I don't wear them with any sort of regularity. I similarly have like 5 or 6 dresses that I only break out for special occasions, some of which don't actually fit, but I can't seem to bring myself to get rid of the ones that don't fit, even. And then there are the Clothes of Boyfriends Past, a collection that I started in the last century, and that I've had squirreled away in my closet for I'm not sure what reason. (I am tossing all of these this go-around... well, or mostly all. I don't know how I could bring myself to get rid of this one tie-dyed t-shirt or this other really warm sweatshirt....) And then I have this long-sleeved sort-of-sweatshirty thing that I got for my 15th birthday with which I can't bear to part.....

But I am making some headway in getting rid of a lot. Even though it hurts my feelings to let some of these things go. Like, for example, I've already put in the "donate" pile 4 pairs of jeans. I never get rid of jeans. I mean, they're jeans. But I keep buying more, and I stop wearing certain pairs when I do, so seriously, I should get rid of them, right? I think I'm going to limit myself to keeping 5 pairs total. If I do that, then I will need to purge like 8 more pairs of jeans, some of which date back to the early '90s and that I haven't worn since the late '90s. I'm also doing a major t-shirt purge. Because you know what? I have all of these t-shirts (some of them "nice" ones to wear with skirts or slacks, and others "scummy" ones that are reserved for working out or sleeping or lounging around the house). And you know, of those nice ones, there are ones I've not worn in years because when I bought them shirts were cut shorter, and now they look totally out of style and weird, even though they're in just fine condition. Same thing goes for a number of my ribbed turtlenecks. I don't wear them because they look stupid, but they're "still good" so I've hung on to them for long past their fashion expiration date.

I really wish that Stacy and Clinton would come to my house tonight and just throw everything in a big trash can and then give me $5K to spend on a whole new wardrobe. Because seriously? That would at least make the purging more fun.

And you know, I could take this moment to vow that I will never allow myself to get into this predicament again. But I won't. Because I think such a vow would set me up to feel like a big fat failure. Two ginormous walk-in-closets in my new house make it almost a certainty that I will, again, be in this position.

However. If I can just get rid of a ton before moving, I should have at least another 7 years before I'm in this predicament again, and who's to say that I might not improve? I mean, I'm getting rid of most of the Clothes of Boyfriends Past! That has to be a sign of a turning point! I mean, I've got t-shirts that I've hung on to for nearly 20 years! And I'm finally ready to be done with them! This is a good sign!

So. Tonight I shall finish with the bedroom. This is my goal. And then, tomorrow, I'll take some more stuff over to the house (more shoes, some more laundry baskets filled with blankets and towels and things, some closet organizer things, some things that might easily be broken by movers, etc. - and by the way, I love my tiny little hatch-back car with all of its spacious seat-folded-down goodness!) and then I will get everything out of the second bedroom that will be moved (book-shelves, crates of old journals, all of my research files, etc.) and transfer in all of the things that will be donated and then pack up all but the most essential things in the bathroom. That will then leave Monday for any remaining items in the living and dining room, and to begin on the kitchen, if possible. Then Tuesday I will finish the kitchen. (Sometime between Monday and Tuesday I will need to be over at the house so that the guy can come clean/stretch the carpet upstairs, so that is where things will depend in terms of when I embark on the kitchen in earnest and when I complete it). Assuming that all of that goes according to plan, Wednesday will be a "free" day where I can finish up packing odds and ends, finish cleaning stuff around the new place, etc. And then, Thursday morning I can continue doing odds and ends sorts of things, and then Thursday afternoon I move!!!!!!

While I am not at all excited about packing, I am very, very excited to be at the point at which I will have already moved into my house.

Packing is for Losers

2010-05-15T16:12:00.003-04:00

And no, I'm not cleaning that refrigerator today, nor am I mopping any floors, because seriously? It's a lot more important that I begin drinking wine in order to make this packing less painful.

In other news, I met some neighbors today, and I have secured a person to mow my lawn for me for a completely reasonable price.

Ok. Off to take some crap over to the house, and then to go buy myself some wine, and then home for Packing - Round Two.

On Today's Agenda

2010-05-15T10:38:00.002-04:00

Ok, it's crunch time. I am moving in less than a week, and it occurs to me that I am so far from being packed that it's ridiculous. So. On today's agenda:

Pack the books in the bedroom.
Pack all unnecessary clothes and all linens.
Pack all unnecessary shoes/boots.
Organize all bedroom-related items to be donated or pitched.
Go over to the house, do a load of laundry.
While doing laundry, clean refrigerator, stove, and sweep and mop kitchen floor.
Do touch-ups on Nook as necessary, and clean up painting mess.

Yes, this is an ambitious list, but it shall be completed! It shall! (Because time is of the essence and I need to get at least one room done in order to feel like I can be ready to move by Thursday.

Growing Up

2010-05-13T18:34:00.003-04:00

There are lots of great things about pursuing an academic life - about going to graduate school and then becoming first a tenure-track and then tenured professor. Not among those things is the fact that pursuing an academic life can actively get in the way of one growing the fuck up.

I spent most of my morning "taking care of business." This involved 1) setting up phone, internet and cable for the new house, 2) setting up the discontinuation of service with my current cable company, 3) calling about getting my carpet in the upstairs stretched, 4) setting up an appointment with an accountant regarding tax stuff. Upon completion of these tasks, I thought to myself, "Self, you're actually doing grown-up freaking things. How totally weird." (Of course, BFF noted that I'm not really a grown-up because I have neither written a will nor contracted hemorrhoids, and those are the markers of truly being an adult. I say, if hemorrhoids are required for true adulthood, I hope never to be an adult.)

Actually, that's been something I've thought to myself throughout the home-buying process. That suddenly I'm actually a grown-up person, when really for most of my 35 years on this planet I haven't been.

One of the things that resulted from my choice to pursue an MA and PhD and then tenure-track employment back-to-back (though obviously the t-t gig was partly luck and not totally "choice") was that I made choices (sometimes conscious and sometimes not so much) that kept me from growing up. In order to achieve my academic goals, I postponed or avoided things that might tie me down or root me in ways that would be difficult to change. The reality of this profession is that we need to stay mobile in ways that are often contrary to embracing adult responsibilities and adult roles. It strikes me, now that I'm finally putting down roots through the buying of a house, that I'm also finally becoming an actual adult.

One of the prices I paid (and I'm not saying that all people in academic careers pay this particular price - just that it was the price that my academic career exacted in my own life) in order to excel in this profession was to avoid the sort of milestones that typically signal that a person has grown up. I didn't marry. I didn't have children. I didn't buy a house. I didn't take vacations - like real vacations paid for out of my own hard-earned money, as opposed to those subsidized by piggybacking them onto a conference or by my parents. I didn't work at a real "career" until I was 28. Even once I did work at a real "career", I kept myself mobile in order to have the potential to change jobs. The reality is this is not a "normal" trajectory for growing up. Most people grow up by the time they're in their mid-to-late-20s, via one or more of those markers. And growing up means things like putting down roots: being place-bound, being bound to other people who are not hundreds and thousands of miles away.

Again, I'm not saying that my experience here is identical to the experience of all people who pursue academic careers. Lots of people get married, have children, take vacations, work in real careers, buy houses, before they go to grad school, get tenure-track jobs, or achieve tenure. Or they do so during that time. But I didn't. I couldn't. Not if I wanted to be a professor, not in my particular situation.

So here I am, at 35, growing up, when many of my friends already accomplished that 10 years ago or more. (Seriously, by the markers I've noted, I have friends from elementary school who were grown up 20+ years ago.) And it's a weird and daunting thing to do, after having lived for so many years avoiding attachments, responsibilities, and obligations - avoiding, totally, growing up. After so many years of knowing that "growing up" could be a significant hindrance rather than an accomplishment. It's a weird thing to do to put my growing up ahead of the job, or ahead of the profession. It's a weird thing to think that doing these things isn't, in some weird way, breaking the rules.

Getting to hang with my former student today, let's call her E., and befriending BES... through those friendships I see the ways in which I've stunted certain kinds of growth in myself in the service of academia. And while I try to counsel them in ways that show them that they shouldn't do what I did, I do kind of feel like I'm in no position to advise them, since I'm only becoming a motherfucking grown-up like right now.

That said, there's something kind of cool about growing up and knowing that this is what I'm doing. There's something cool about growing up consciously, rather than having it happen without me realizing it. It's nice to be able to experience all of this now, knowing that I'm not just doing the "done thing" but rather that I'm making choices and decisions and things that are making it happen.

That said? One probably would be better served by growing up a hell of a lot earlier than at 35 years old.

Loves Hanging with Former Students Who are Now Friends :)

2010-05-13T17:35:00.002-04:00

So, I didn't go over to the house today. I had the best intentions, but I had a lunch date with a former student which turned into an afternoon of catching up. Totally worth the time away from packing/cleaning/painting. Yes, this means I'll need to be highly productive tomorrow and in the coming days to catch up, but whatever. It will all get done.

At any rate, my lunch date was with my student who, before BES, was my One True Awesome Student. She had gone on to a great MA program after graduating with her BA, and she did very well and then, smart cookie that she is, she chose not to go on for the PhD immediately but rather to get a good job doing Other Thing about Which She is Passionate, and she is doing so incredibly well. In the time since I last saw her - which is like 4 years now, I think - she's totally come into her own. She's come out to her parents, she's thriving at her job, she's just... awesome. And it was so totally great to get to catch up and to learn about her life and who she's become. You know, one of the things that I love about my job is that my students stop being my students. At a certain point, a transition happens where they just are these awesome people I know, and who I really like and enjoy hanging out with. That transition takes some time, and it's always a little weird at first, and obviously it doesn't happen with every student, but when it happens, it's totally great. And you know, the fact that such transitions are possible is really wonderful - and it shows me that even teaching at a large regional university I really do develop strong connections with students that I teach. I know that's not true for every student, or every instructor, at my institution, but it's so awesome to know that it's possible.

In other awesome news, the panel that I proposed for MLA was accepted! It was proposed as one of the allied organization non-guaranteed panels, and I have to say, I'm really stoked that we didn't get rejected.

I've actually got a substantive post brewing about an actual topic, but I wanted to bask for a moment in the awesomeness of today before embarking on that enterprise. Not sure when that actual topic will turn into a post, but soon. I'm mulling.

In Which I Cut Myself Some Slack

2010-05-12T18:17:00.002-04:00

I accomplished VERY little today. By "very little" I mean I made a list and packed two boxes. You know what? Sometimes you need a break, and the thing to remember with moving is that, like grading at the end of the semester, moving day will happen and somehow I will get everything done by the time that day comes.

But so anyway, I'm boring. I thought about all the stuff I wasn't accomplishing, and I took a nap. Ah well. Maybe I'll get a few more boxes packed tonight and then I will feel less like a slacker.

Officially, and Totally, DONE

2010-05-11T17:52:00.002-04:00

I submitted my grades, I attended the final meeting on a last-minute committee assignment, I cleaned out my mailbox, and I put a sign on my office door that reads "Dr. Crazy is on sabbatical until January of 2011. If you need assistance, please go to the English Department Office." I have updated the outgoing message on my university email similarly, including a caution to people who email me that they may need to wait up to a week for a response to any email that they might send me. Let the Wild Rumpus Begin! Sabbatical is HERE!

Well, I suppose it's more accurate to say that my summer fellowship is here, and it will be followed by my semester of sabbatical. Seems like splitting hairs to say that, though.

Today, I continued with the Painting of the Nook (of ideas? of motherfucking Jameson? Of Ideas and Delicious Whiskey? That last one sounds absolutely delightful, although it is true that ideas had while drinking whiskey are often quite disappointing when viewed in the sober, bright light of day....) and I went to a 2-hour-long meeting, still somewhat paint-spattered, but at least I did change out of the clothes in which I painted. Because Comrade Physioprof lacks patience, I will reveal that the color of the walls is "dusty plum" - and I'm really loving it and I feel like it's going to be utterly fantastic (though I am sad that I was advised to buy what still seems to be an excessive amount of this paint color, for I cannot have the rainbow bright house of colors, as it would make me sad; ah, well, you live and you learn). In other news, I'm fairly certain that I shall paint my dining room a color called "California Roll," and I'm still undecided on what color I shall paint the room that will ultimately become my bedroom. I'm leaning toward a color called "June Morning," even though I'd thought I'd want a color called "Sea-Salt Blue." It turns out that Sea Salt Blue really reminds me of toothpaste. I'm taking the painting of the Nook slowly, as I've had other things I've had to accomplish as well and it's not like the house is on fire for me to paint the room in one day. Tomorrow, I'm going to spend most of the day packing, but I also plan to finish up with the parts of the Nook that require a ladder and I'll do the windows and ledge thingie (you'll understand this when I post pictures once the room is all finally done), and then Thursday afternoon, I'll do a second coat on the entire room, and then it will be finished.

Also on Thursday I'll clean the bathroom and the kitchen except for the fridge (in the morning), and then I'll go have lunch with Fantastic Former Student. (This is my first student whom I loved and mentored in a real way, before BES. This student went to a top-25 MA program, but then chose, against her grad school mentors' advice, not to go on directly to the PhD and instead to go and coach a college softball team, which I think was a fantastic choice for her. Actually, I feel like one of my greatest accomplishments as a mentor of her was making her feel like it was totally ok to make that choice, and not to go on to the PhD. And she's totally happy and great, and I'm so excited to see her, for while we've kept consistently in touch, I haven't seen her since she graduated! And I love where we're going to lunch! Yay!)

Anyway, though, while Thursday will be dominated by the new house, tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be dominated by packing. Though tomorrow I also need to call on some things (accountant, making sure all of the phone, cable, lawn care stuff is set, as well as to cancel on my July conference). My goal is to get nearly the entire shebang packed by Sunday, so that I can do more cleaning (the fridge, mopping the floors downstairs) and preparing stuff (getting somebody in to restretch and clean the carpets before I've moved in, primarily) early next week before I MOVE on Thursday. Can I tell you how excited I am to move? There are no words.

But so then I'll move next week, and do what necessary unpacking I have to do, and then I shall begin working in earnest on the conference paper that is looming in the ever-nearer future. Once that's done, my mom's coming for a week to help me paint two rooms, to help me with shopping stuff, and just to spend some quality time. Once THAT is done, I can begin working on research in earnest for a few weeks, and then in the second week of July my cousin is getting married so I'll go to Hometown for that. But wait. There's more to that than it seems. I think that FB is going to go to the wedding with me. Like he'll come see me for a couple of days here, then we'll drive together to Hometown and I'll show him the sights and introduce him to my parents and stuff, and we'll go to the wedding, where he'll meet my entire extended family on my dad's side, which is pretty crazy as there are a lot of them but not really crazy as it will be fun and low pressure because he will so not be interesting compared with the event itself, and then come back here. Is this a good idea? Dunno. But whatever. He's been hanging around for 3 years and he should meet some people. I'm more excited about him seeing my new house than about introducing him around, though :)

Anyway, once all of THAT is over - say, in mid-July - I'll REALLY be in research mode, and I'm really looking forward to that. I've been lining up a writing group with some of my colleagues that will begin then, and I'll be completely free to focus on the Next Book, about which I'm excited but on which I've not really been able to focus with all of the real-life things that I've had going on.

So on top of all of this, I want to write something about Dean Dad's post today, but I can't get it up to give it its own post. So. Suffice it to say that I think that I think of thinking of certain subjects as "serious" vs. others as "frills" is, at its heart, anti-intellectual. Now, this is not to say that we will all excel in all areas, or that we all should. Rather, I think that it makes sense to realize that all subjects - all disciplines - are valuable and important to becoming a well-rounded person. No, I never really loved science in the way that some people I know love science. But that doesn't mean science was a "frill" I could do without. The idea that subjects at which we don't excel or in which we aren't innately interested are in some way a "waste of time" is totally one that comes out of a business model for education, in which the only subjects that matter have a clear connection to a narrowly defined career path (and, at an institutional level, the ones that make money, through enrolling students pursuing those narrowly defined career paths). I think the job of professors is to show students who come in resistant that even that thing that they think is a "frill" or a "waste of time" is meaningful and "serious." I think finding a subject "boring" or "hard" is more about a lack of engagement than it is about anything else. (Note: I found some subjects boring (calculus) and hard (physics). But I blame myself for that, and maybe even the teachers that I had for that, but not the subject itself.) I think when educators (administrators or faculty) start talking in terms of "serious" subjects vs. "frills," as if these are actual categories that we've totally given up on what education is supposed to be about, which, at least for me, is learning even when learning is uncomfortable. Note: I taught a general education course in literature this term to students who were primarily outside of majors anywhere near to English. The vast majority of these students communicated to me that they came into the course "not liking" reading or thinking that they "sucked at English" or thinking that "literature was boring." You know what they came out saying? They came out saying WOW! I never knew that literature could be so cool, or that I could analyze it, or that many interpretations were allowed - and indeed encouraged! I would be shocked if any of these students became English majors. That's not the point. The point is that they learned that something they thought was lame can actually, for them, be something that is enjoyable and cool. Is that a "frill"? Something that isn't important, or a serious moment in their intellectual development? Even if it doesn't lead to a job? Really?

I guess you can imagine how I'd answer those questions.

But so anyway. SABBATICAL!!!!! THE AWESOMENESS OF NEARLY NINE MONTHS OF TIME FOR THINKING AND HOMEMAKING AND WRITING AND NOT BEING AVAILABLE FOR CONTENTIOUS COMMITTEES OR "IMPORTANT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES"?!?!?!

I'm a lucky, lucky lady. And I am so excited about what these months hold in store.

Productivity is Really Exhausting.

2010-05-10T20:26:00.002-04:00

Accomplished today:

Bought cleaning supplies and some other odds and ends to keep me busy at the house.
Waited around for hours for the gas company to come and read the meter.
While waiting, graded finals and tabulated final grades for two of three classes. Also, wiped down baseboards and window sills, cleaned windows in dining room and living room. (For those keeping score, that was 9 windows plus the glass front door, and yes, that was only two rooms of my house.)
After the gas company showed up, I then came back to the apartment to grade my 3rd class and to post all final grades. Aside from one straggler, I am DONE with grading until January of 2011!
I then went to Lowes, where I bought things for painting. I fear that the old man at the paint counter sold me a gallon more of one color of paint than I needed, and in addition, the guy who mixed up my paint samples for other rooms gave me two of one sample and failed to give me another sample I'd requested. Whatever the case, it's all fine, because I really like the one color so didn't really need the sample that was forgotten anyway, and, well, it sucks to have a gallon of paint that one doesn't need, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it or find somebody else who wants it or something.
Oh, and I've begun the project of painting the Nook. I got about 1/3 of the way done, and then decided I was tired and would continue tomorrow. I feel like there might be some rule about not doing that, but if there is, don't tell me about it. Was just too exhausted to continue on.

So all in all, a very busy day. Tomorrow I've got a meeting at school, and then I'm DONE with my semester! D-O-N-E. The time of my summer fellowship will officially have begun, and then, in Fall, sabbatical. I just have to make sure that I get all major crap that *I'm* doing with the house done in the next month or so, so that I can focus on other things. (I'm not saying all things that will be done on the house will be done in 1 month, but I'm saving the things that I'll hire other people to do for me for after that time.)

Oh, and you know what? I am so not used to living in a house with stairs! I think I'm partly so exhausted just because I went up and down so many times!

Ah, Home Sweet Home!

2010-05-09T17:58:00.002-04:00

Well, actually, I'm writing this not from my house but from my stupid apartment. My house is empty and doesn't have internet yet. But that's right, it's EMPTY! I went over as soon as I heard, and it is fantastic and everything is as it should be. I do plan to spend a day cleaning before moving in, for while the refrigerator was emptied out, it was NOT cleaned, and the kitchen and bathroom floors seem like they weren't mopped, and I noticed some dust and stuff on window-sills... you know, I'm filthy in my own life, but I cannot stand the thought of moving into somebody else's filth. When I looked at the refrigerator, all I could think of was that episode of John and Kate Plus Eight when they moved into their "forever home" which turned out to be more like a "six months and then we'll have a very messy divorce home" and Kate scrubbing out the refrigerator for hours like a maniac.

In other news, I packed a couple more boxes of books today (and I still have more to pack - I'll be shocked if I don't have somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 full boxes of books), and I avoided grading. I think that grading will be my task for the day tomorrow (other than calling on a few different things - like to transfer the garbage pick-up into my name, for not only do I live in a place with weird things regarding transfer of property, it is also a (former?) mafia stronghold where "sanitation" and "waste removal" are handled by a private company and not by the city. Once the grading is done, I can devote myself to Project Move.

In other news, I think that I have decided - at least I'm about 90% of the way to this decision - that I'm going to bail on my July conference. I'm not going to get any money from my department to go, it's happening all the way across the country, it falls at an AWFUL time (it ends the day before my cousin's wedding), and you know, I just don't really want to go anymore. I feel badly about backing out, but at the same time, you know, I'm doing another conference already this summer, and maybe I need to focus on things on the home front more than I need to focus on going to conferences right now.

So. Tomorrow: Grading, as well as taking a few more things over to the house and maybe mopping some floors. Oh, and calling on bunches of things that are house-related. And then Tuesday, final meeting of last-minute search committee and more house-related stuff. Wednesday through Friday, PACKING. And then we'll see where I am.

It's all happening! It is, it is!

In Which I Must Grade, and In Which I STILL Haven't Gotten into MY House

2010-05-09T10:09:00.002-04:00

The last part first. The seller still isn't out. She was supposed to be out yesterday, but as we all know, moving takes longer than one thinks it takes. You might say, "Um, what the hell, Crazy? How can this person not be out even after your close without some sort of agreement?" Well, what I've learned is that this is "normal" (and totally legal) in this area and that there's actually nothing to be done about it other than to suck it up. Annoying. I'll say this: the next time I buy a house, I totally am going to ask that we write into the offer that the person be out by the closing, because this waiting around is no fun at all.

That said, she's mostly out and SHOULD be out by today. I went over there yesterday unannounced and chatted with her for about 10 minutes to get a sense of where she was with the moving, and while I was nice, I do think it was good that I went over and didn't just call her on the phone. She's supposed to call me when she's totally out of the house, but I intend to go over late this afternoon again if I haven't heard from her. I mean, I may have to put up with this, but I don't have to make it comfortable for her.

At any rate, what I should do in the meantime is finish up with my grading for the semester, which shouldn't actually take that long if I just set my mind to doing it. It's not really what I want to do with my day today, but I know that if I get it done, I'll ultimately feel very happy and like it's not hanging over me.

So that's the latest. Perhaps another real post later.

WOOHOO!

2010-05-07T18:01:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I'm feeling less whiny and bitchy and so now I can really embrace writing a positive post about my life.

What's awesome in my life?

I'm a tenured professor at a job that I (mostly) love.
I have administered my last final, and thus I'm not going to be in a classroom again until January of 2011, bitchez!
Speaking of the previous, I have a summer fellowship, which means that I will not be teaching this summer and yet I will also receive ~$3500 after taxes on top of my regular salary after taxes in my very next paycheck, and also I have a freaking sabbatical for the fall, which means that I will get paid not to be in the classroom (see above) and not to be on any motherfucking soul-sucking committees, until January of 2011, bitchez!
As of May 20, I will live in my own freaking awesome little fantastic house! A house on which I got a very good deal, which does not require me to share walls with any other people! A house with an upstairs and a downstairs and a basement! A house with a Nook of Ideas and a HUGE freaking bathroom! A house that now has a porch that will survive the apocalypse, given the repair that the FHA inspector insisted upon!
Because I bought said house, I will also get $8K from the government! Just for buying a house that I wanted to buy and was ready to buy anyway! $8k! And in addition, I will no longer be edging ever closer to having to pay mother fucking taxes at income tax time! And even beyond that, my mortgage (minus taxes, insurance, etc.) is only $84 more a month than the rent that I currently pay! (And yes, I realize that taxes, insurance, etc. add up to more, but the point is, I am a very smart lady who bought a house that she could afford! Huzzah!)
Tomorrow is graduation! Graduation! Where I will get to watch students whom I love walk and we will celebrate not only their accomplishments but also my own accomplishments as a teacher of them! Wearing my awesome, awesome regalia! (Regalia that now is only costing $85 per wear, and the cost of which will continue to reduce the more years I wear it! Three cheers for Mom and G. buying my regalia as my PhD graduation gift! Especially since it's, in my humble opinion, the prettiest of all the regalia of all of the professors who go to graduation, for most of my colleagues have lame black robes and my robes are a gorgeous sky blue!)

In other words, my life fucking rocks.

I have to say, I really enjoyed my closing. I felt so empowered and so amazed that I've gotten myself to the point where I could embark on the adventure of home ownership. Remember, just 2-3 years ago, I was near 20K in credit card debt (which lingered from grad school and before and after) and this would in no way have been a possibility for me to do if I hadn't paid off that debt. Also, and this was something that I hadn't expected, I loved that this was something that I did by myself and for myself - that I didn't wait to be partnered up to buy my first house. I had never thought I'd buy my own house - I'd always thought I'd do it with somebody else. I never had home ownership as a personal goal of my own. The fact that I could do this on my own, that I did do this on my own, well, I'm astonished by that. And you know what? It feels totally freaking amazing! As much as I've wished throughout this process that I had a person with whom to share the stress of the process and the burden of the financial risk, I love that I am totally on my own in this! It's MY house not OUR house, and that freaking rules. (Well, I guess it's "our" house if we consider the Man-Kitty and Mr. Stripey, but seriously, they don't help with the bills or with the upkeep, so I think I get to call this "my" house even if they are my roommates for life - their lives, not mine, hopefully!)

So. Some things that I've learned throughout the process.

I think that it was a really good thing that I waited to buy a house until I felt very ready to take it on. Yes, I lived in an apartment I didn't (don't) love for 7 years. But it gave me time to get to know the area in which I live, to know where I'd like to buy and to know what mattered to me in an area in which I would buy.
As much stress as this process involved, it was made a whole lot less stressful because I waited until I had tenure to do it. I had a really amazing mentor in grad school who counseled me that waiting until tenure to buy was the smartest way to go. At the time, I thought that didn't necessarily apply if one ended up in a non-high-cost-of-living place (and I don't live in a high-cost-of-living-place). But I'm really and truly glad that I didn't buy until I had tenure. a) I am glad that I felt totally and completely free before tenure to apply for jobs without having to worry about selling a house and b) I am very glad that when I decided to buy a house that I could feel secure in my ability to pay the mortgage - even if I never got another raise between now and the end of time. (This is not to say that one's salary in academia might not go down, what with the trend toward furloughs, but this is also why I bought below what a bank might say I "could" afford - even if I were furloughed, I could manage, even if it meant some more strict budgeting.)
I've learned that patience really is a virtue, and that it really makes sense not to freak out over snags in the process, in that there are inevitably going to be snags in the process. And while I've definitely had some freak-outs, it was good to learn that "freaking out" wasn't actually going to fix anything. I'm not a patient person, naturally, but I have learned (at least some) patience through this process. I've also realized that I'm a smart negotiator and that I have the tools to deal with things that come up at the last minute, even though none of us want to deal with those things that do come up at the last minute.

So. I don't think I've been so proud of myself, well, ever. And I think part of why I feel so proud of myself is that I did do this on my own. Obviously I've had the support of my parents, and I don't want to diminish that, but I really made this happen for myself. And that feels motherfucking awesome.

You might say, "what, Crazy? You didn't feel this proud of yourself when you got your PhD?" You know, I don't think I did. I think I felt like I wouldn't have achieved that without my adviser, without the professors I had during coursework, without the "luck" of securing a t-t job in an abysmal market. This? I feel like no luck was involved, like no legs up were given through mentorship. I feel like I did this totally myself. And that feels amazing.

So, sure, it sucks that I have to wait a day until I can go wander through my house and be all, MY house! MINE! But seriously? This was like the best day ever.

In Which Crazy Owns a House!!!!

2010-05-07T16:36:00.004-04:00

Which is very exciting.

Except I'm kind of annoyed. The seller still isn't freaking moved out. So I have yet to go into the damned house that I just signed away my life for. Sort of an anti-climax given the fact that I made the offer on the house a full two months ago.

I know, I know. I'm being kind of a baby. She couldn't get into her apartment until today, and she couldn't get people to move her crap until tomorrow. And her life sucks, because she just lost her house. So I am trying to be compassionate. But it sucks!!!!! I want that bitch out of my house!!!!! MY house!!!!! NOT her house anymore!!!! Waaanh!

I want her OUT.

And I also want for her not to be such a dummy that she couldn't even figure out that she needed to be home (or to leave a door open) in order to get the meter read so that the utilities could transfer, and so now I'm dealing with the hassle of dealing with the gas/electric company and rescheduling and blah.

But, clearly she is a dummy or she wouldn't have mortgaged her life away only to lose her house. So. Whatever. All of this will be over soon, and I will change the locks and make that little sweet house MY home. And tonight I'm going to drink wine and pack. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the evening, but still, at least it's for real happening and all the things have been signed and all is done that can be done for now.

Perhaps more later, when perhaps I'll stop being a whiny little bitch and start being as positive as I really do feel deep down.

On NOT Taking Time Off between Undergrad and Grad School

2010-05-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to write this post for days, but it's been a struggle. Because, as Tenured Radical's offering over at her place suggested a few days ago, and as many who commented agreed, there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking time off between undergrad and grad school and, in fact, doing so is more often than not a very good idea.

Let me first note that what I'm about to write isn't advice against taking time off. If one has the ways and means and desire to do so, then I do really believe that a gap between undergrad and grad school can be a really positive thing. I certainly don't believe that it's a bad idea. All I'm trying to do over here is to explain why taking time off might not necessarily be what all students would choose, or something that all students would see a clear benefit with no drawbacks from doing. So, let me state this clearly and for the record: it can be a really good thing for a lot of good reasons to take time off between undergrad and grad school.

As I and a few other commenters noted, though, this "take a few years off to find out who you are and to decide if grad school is really what you want" advice has the potential to alienate students from working-class/minority backgrounds and it assumes a couple of things: a) a certain kind of homogeneous experience at the undergrad level for students who would be in the group that would pursue graduate school, and b) (and this is what I've been having such a hard time articulating which is why I haven't been able to get this post written) a certain kind of worldview in which education itself is understood as a good and in which individuals with the ambition and the talent are entitled to leave full-time work to pursue it.

I did not take time off between undergrad and grad school. I graduated from undergrad at 21, I earned my MA at 22, and I earned my PhD at 28. I got a tenure-track job in English in my first year on the market, while ABD, at 28, and I was 34 when I learned that I got a positive tenure decision. In other words, my feeling that it's not totally and unequivocally necessary to "take time away from school" in order to work at a "regular job" in order to have "greater likelihood of success" at getting into graduate school, doing well once admitted into graduate school, or getting a job after grad school, is heavily influenced by my own trajectory in my own career. And I'm fully and freely willing to admit that if things hadn't worked out so neatly for me that I might feel differently. And I also know that there was a good amount of luck involved in things working out as they did for me, so let me make it clear that I do NOT talk up my experience when I advise my own students about graduate school.

So why didn't I consider taking time off in between graduate school and undergrad? At the time, I had expressed reasons that looking back weren't terribly valid. I didn't want to go into repayment on my loans from undergrad (which were not extensive - less than 10K); I knew that grad school would be a huge commitment of time and emotional energy on my part, and I did not want for that to be my life into my 30s or beyond. Those were the major ones. And knowing now what I didn't know then, those were not terribly compelling reasons. But, what I also said a lot, at the time and after, was that I knew that if I took time in between that I'd never have gone to grad school, although I never really examined what I meant when I said that. I think in trying to formulate this post, though, that this was the biggest of all my reasons, and I think it was actually a good one.

If I'd taken time off, why am I so sure that I'd not have thought grad school was an option later on? Let me present some reasons in no particular order:

I was very much raised to believe that once one is working full time that doing so is a life sentence and that if you are "lucky enough to have a job" that the only good reason to quit it is because you got another job that pays as much or more than the one you're quitting. Being "out of work" was a bad thing, and even not working full-time and being self-supporting was a bad thing, and being those things would mean that you were lazy, irresponsible, selfish, or a drain on other people (in your family, if not on society as a whole). I have aunts and uncles and cousins who've failed to hold down jobs, who've been on public assistance, who've been homeless. Their situations caused stress in my family, and there was very little compassion about the plight of these people. It was always very clear to me that once I started working full time that if I for whatever reason "stopped out" of full-time work that nobody would think this was positive. And if I did that after having earned a college degree it would actually be even worse - why go to college if you're going to be a deadbeat who doesn't work? (I should note that my mother has always worked, and both of my grandmothers worked. Not for "extras" but to make sure that the utilities didn't get turned off. So the idea of "staying home with kids" didn't even occur to me as something that a person would do and that counted as work. Work was what one did for money, and not working was a failing.)
School was never presented to me as something that counted as work, although I was expected to work hard in order to do well at school. In other words, quitting a job to pursue school would have been akin to quitting a job to be a bum. School was something that would increase one's opportunities in the world of work, but it did not count as a replacement for work.
I've worked pretty steadily from the summer that I was 15. I can tell you two times when I did not hold down a paying job: 1) in my final semester of college, 2) during the summer that I wrote the bulk of my dissertation. And aside from those jobs that worked in high school (working at an ice cream place and a frozen yogurt place) all of the jobs that I held down are ones that used my skill set from my undergraduate years, so if I'd gotten a job after I got my B.A., I would not have landed a job in an unfamiliar work environment. I knew what it was to work in an office, to do editing work, to write for publication (newspapers and newsletters), to run a continuing ed program for senior citizens and to develop the advertising materials for it and to write the program handbook for that program, and to tutor. I knew what it was to come home after work and to feel totally intellectually dead inside, and I knew what it was to earn a regular paycheck and to pay bills. I suppose all of this is to say, I could see very clearly that if I went into that world after my B.A., I understood how difficult it would be to leave it.
The only real support I had in terms of continuing my education came from people with whom I came into contact at college (and at my crappy regional university, that was mostly professors: not very many of my peers had grad school (or professional programs) on their radar as a possibility). I remember when I decided to change my major to English as an undergrad, and confessing that I wanted to do that to my mom. It was a lengthy conversation that involved a lot of crying and yelling. On both sides. I think about what it would have been like to leave the place where I had any sort of support, guidance, and encouragement about the study of literature, to return to my hometown to get a real job (and an apartment: my mom would never have let me continue living with her rent-free so that I could pay off loans and do things like study for the GRE and write exemplary statements of purpose and writing samples), and I really don't think that I could have kept the idea of graduate school alive in my head for 3 years under the pressures of those conditions, and without the support of people who "got it." You might say that I could have kept in touch with former profs, but coming from the crap regional place I went to (and now teaching at a crap regional place) I can tell you that I don't think maintaining those sorts of relationships is something realistic to expect. (Although I do try to do this with my own students, most of them disappear after graduation for exactly the reasons I'm outlining.) When you teach at a place like that, and when a student leaves to go "live their lives" for a while, it's commonly assumed that the student is not serious, or that their "real life" will get in the way.
I look at the women I grew up with, and at some students I've taught, and I think that the whole "real life will get in the way" concern is one that can't be ignored. You know what happens when girls from backgrounds like mine stop out? They get pregnant. Or, if not that, they get boyfriends/husbands who are place-bound and who don't support their ambitions to go on. Of course there are exceptions to this, but those exceptions are rare. If I had gone to live and work in my hometown for 2 or 3 years, I'm pretty certain that I would have ended up in a bad marriage with First Love, just because there would have been a whole lot more support for me to do that than to go to graduate school. And I think by the time we fell apart, I would have been place-bound. And you know what? Worse than not taking time off in terms of one's potential for success in this profession is becoming place-bound.

But so anyway, none of this is to say that taking time in between undergrad and grad school is a bad idea. I think it can really be beneficial. I just am sympathetic to students (the students I teach, the student I was) who feel like doing that means that they will never get to pursue the thing that they want to pursue and that they'd be really great at doing if only they could get the chance to do it. I suppose that people could say that those students (the students I teach, the student I was) are just clueless about what the possibilities are, that taking time off wouldn't hurt them and could only help.

But you know, this is the thing: these students are clueless. I certainly was. And the only place I was ever going to get a clue that I didn't have to settle for a job that paid the bills was in an academic context. I certainly have never heard that from anyone in my family (my mom is the only one of her siblings - 10 of them total - who graduated from high school; my Awesome Aunt is the only one in my father's family (7 kids there) to graduate from college - the local university, and she went part-time while working full-time with no family support in order to do it) or even from any of my friends from growing up.

Here's the thing: if you come from a background where "education" means that you get a piece of paper to get a job, if you come from a background where thinking is set up as opposed to "real life" and "what really matters," if you come from a background where the "done thing" rarely involves a B.A. let alone an M.A. or a Ph.D. - sometimes those three years off can mean that you never pursue the thing that you want most and that you'd be best at and most happy doing. Now, you might say that those students don't "really want it" if they can't stand up to those pressures. But I think a person who said that would be willfully looking away from the real difference between a student like the one that I was or the ones that I teach and students who have a great many more resources (emotional, financial) and a great deal more privilege, in terms of their ability to negotiate academic conventions and culture.

Two Unrelated Items

2010-05-03T11:57:00.003-04:00

1. First, blogging the lost: Where, oh where, are the two books that are now overdue that I'd checked out through ILL? Did I return them? Did I take them to my office? Are they in a bag somewhere?

2. I am sick of when people, in a conversation about the crappy job situation in the humanities or reasons not to go to grad school in the humanities, trot out the "you know, that dummy who majored in English could have become a plumber/HVAC guy/mechanic/ etc. and would be making twice as much money blah blah blah" line. People either say this when they are anti-humanities (why wouldn't you get a degree in something that has value?) or when they are pro-humanities (why don't people value English professors as much as they value people who unclog toilets?! What is this world coming to?!). Why does this bug me? Well, first and foremost because I grew up knowing a lot of dudes in trades or unionized jobs (and we are talking about dudes here for the most part because all of these are highly masculinized professions) and the reality is that those people work really hard at those jobs in order to send their kids to college so their kids will not have to work in those sorts of jobs. If those jobs are so great, then why would people in them not want those jobs for their children? Second, it bugs me because it totally romanticizes these sort of trades as if there is no unemployment, no being laid off, no inequality, etc. My friend A.'s boyfriend is a pipe-fitter. In a union. Guess what, people? He just got a job after over a year of being unemployed. And because of his being in the union, he could not just go out and find a non-union job unless he wanted to give up all of his time clocked in the union, etc. I could tell you similar stories about my dad, my uncles, my grandfather - all guys in union sorts of jobs, in trade sorts of jobs, with no higher education. So you know what? The next time anybody trots out that example, I am, I warn you now, totally going to go ballistic on that person. I hereby declare that I think this is stupid and anti-intellectual rhetoric and that academics who resort to it should be ashamed of themselves.

My Mom, Hilarious and Ungrateful :)

2010-05-02T11:23:00.002-04:00

"I don't know what's wrong with Betty [younger sister of my mom]. You know her. She always buys me these crappy figurines that are like an angel or something with some slogan like 'sisters are friends forever.' Gag. It makes me want to stab myself in the eye! Why can't she get me a present that is good for something? I mean, what am I supposed to do with this stupid thing? Display it? I think the bag she put it in cost more than that dumb angel."

Yes, this is a direct quote.

The Mother-Daughter Relationship from An Adult Daughter's Persective

2010-05-01T10:28:00.003-04:00

Thanks to various voices across the blogosphere, I've been thinking about the relationship of mothers to daughters a good amount this week, but I'm compelled to post something less because of those conversations than because today is my mom's birthday. And you know, mother's day is coming up, too, so the timing seems to be right.

But so yes, my mom is 56 years old today. (For those of you keeping track, yes, that means she was just 20 when she had me, 19 when she got pregnant. No, that pregnancy wasn't planned and yes, my parents had a shot-gun wedding.) Now you might think that because I've got such a young mom that our relationship would be more friend-like than mother-daughter-like. I mean, you've heard the narratives about young mothers and their daughters, which usually are something like, "it was like we grew up together" or "my mom is my best friend because she was so young when she had me."

But you'd be seriously mistaken if you thought that. Yes, now that I'm an adult, I do have a friendship with my mom, but it's unlike any other friendship I've got. I would not call my mom my "best friend." I'd call her my mother. She's one of a kind and in her own category. I've got "best friends" but my my mom is not who I call when I want a "best friend" sort of conversation. My mom is who I call when I need a mother. That's how both of us like it. The fact that she's my mom totally comes before any friendship we have developed. Which means that there are things I don't tell her, or don't tell her in their entirety, and there are things that she doesn't tell me. We don't hang out or go out together in the way that I would with my actual friends. (Which is not to say that we don't spend time together or do things together, but the shape that takes is a mother-daughter shape.) She has Opinions. She makes those Opinions very clear. She is bossy. She is protective. She's sometimes overbearing and nosy, in a way that I wouldn't accept if she were not my mother. I don't say all of this to indicate that we're not close. We're tremendously close. But not in a way in which we "honor the friendship that we have" if you get my drift. Her philosophy of motherhood, if I give myself license to describe it, would not include the word "honor" at all. Instead, it would include words like "raise" or "teach" or "discipline" or "encourage" or "sacrifice," but not "honor."

I suppose one could say that we have a "special bond" or something, but I've always felt a little... I don't know... resistant to the discourses about the "special bond" between mothers and daughters, mainly because my relationship with my mom doesn't actually feel like how that "special bond" is usually described. (At least not to me. You'd have to ask my mom whether those accurately reflect her experience, though I bet if she were here to speak for herself she'd say something along the lines of, "um, all that stuff about mothers and daughters is 'shit-sweet' and isn't real life.") The dominant discourses about mothers and daughters tend to feel very greeting-card and pretend to me, and don't really talk about my relationship with my mother in a way that resonates.

So here's just one example of what it's like with me and my mom. I was awakened by the phone ringing at 8:30 this morning, and it was my mom. The first words out of her mouth were, "I've been waiting for you to call me to tell me happy birthday! Why haven't you called me yet?!?" And then I said, kind of groggily and bitchily, "I'm not even AWAKE yet! You need to hold your horses!" And then we laughed, got off the phone so I could go make coffee, and I called her back. Not exactly a Hallmark moment, but that's what we're like with each other. And no, I didn't even send her a card (because I'm a jerk), but she doesn't hold that sort of jerkiness against me, because she's my mom, and not my friend. (But, to be fair, my friends don't hold that jerkiness against me either. I'm a lot of great things, but thoughtful in the way of sending greeting cards is not one of them.)

But so anyway, what does all of this have to do with the two posts to which I linked? Well, I think the first thing is that I don't think that my mom was ever terribly thoughtful about what it meant for her to be "a mother" in the way of things like, "can I be friends with someone who doesn't like my kid?" This is not to say that she didn't think about what it meant for her to be my mother, or that her identity isn't really powerfully shaped by having become a mother at 20 years old. But I think that she just sort of saw me as part of the package that came with her, and so whether or not people "liked" me they would have to deal with me. I'm not sure it ever occurred to her that it mattered whether people liked me or not (or that it ever occurred to her that it mattered whether I liked or disliked a particular grown-up). As a corollary to that, she (and my dad, when I was little) expected me to suck it up and to behave appropriately in whatever context they dropped me into. It was a two-way street: people had to deal with me, but also I (as a kid) had to deal with people. And I was put into a lot of situations that weren't necessarily "kid-friendly" in the way that I think my friends with kids now would describe "kid-friendly" environments. I was often the only kid present at grown-up parties, my father took me to the bar with him after his softball games, I remember my mom hanging out with people who didn't have kids and I was expected to keep myself busy and not to interrupt them, etc. And if I didn't behave appropriately for the situation, that was on me - not on other people for not making allowances for the fact that I was a kid. (This is not to say that I was expected to be a 'little grown-up' or something at all times - totally not the case - but when I had to be in grown-up environments, I was expected to behave accordingly.)

Now, I think some might say that my parents' expectations for me to deal in these non-kid-friendly environments were somehow unfair to me, but you know, I didn't know that it could or should be different, so I rolled with it. And if I had a melt-down, they took me out of the situation so I could calm down. It really wasn't some big philosophical thing, from what I recall. Now, of course, it was also the 1970s and early 80s, and it was much more normal for parents to just send a kid off to play unsupervised, or to expect a kid to be able to handle more things independently. I mean, I walked to school without adult supervision from about 7 or 8 years old on (though we knew both crossing guards, and it was only a few blocks to my school), and I was a latch-key kid from about 9 or 10 years old on. I babysat from the time I was 12 or 13 (so yes, me alone in a house with a kid or two under the age of 7). If "play dates" had been invented, I don't think that my mom was aware that they existed. Playing was something that you did because you were a kid and the adults wanted you out of their hair. I doubt that these would be typical childhood experiences for most kids today, but I don't think they were negative, at least in my experience.

But anyway, I think one result of this is that my mom's parenting style was such that it was in some ways more authoritarian than what many people I know with kids today might find palatable. She was the grown-up and was in charge, and I was the kid and I had to mind her. This didn't mean that she didn't encourage me to be creative, to have my own ideas, or to have my own feelings. She did. But she encouraged those things in a context in which it was always understood that I was the kid and I didn't get to run the show.

And so this is the thing: the power relationship between me and my mom was always explicit. She had the power. As I matured, I then acquired power, until now we've reached a point where most of the time she realizes that I'm in charge of my own life and that I don't have to do things her way. And the road toward that hasn't always been smooth, but she gave me the tools to challenge her, so that's ok. So now we both have the power, but that certainly wasn't the case when I was little. Basically, and I think that my mom would agree with my description here, her job was to raise me until I had the skills to make decisions and to function independently, and that meant that a lot of times when I was little she didn't think of me as an autonomous person with agency. She thought of me as her responsibility. As I grew up, I became an autonomous person with agency. And now she gets to enjoy the person I've become.

But so this is the interesting thing about Bardiac's post about the mother-daughter bond, which she concludes with the following:

"but mostly there was a romantic sense that of course the mother knew best and should tell the daughter what is what. And suddenly, that sounded lined up with patriarchy in strong ways: women's limited authority comes in having power over children, and lasting power over daughters, and so the patriarchy will support their exercise of that limited authority. And if we romanticize that power relationship, then it can be enjoyed, at least by one, and the other voice can be silenced. And it can't easily be questioned or critiqued."

When I think about my relationship with my mom, I think it's true that she was very much the subject with the power when I was little. But I think what's great about my relationship with my mom is that she never wanted "lasting power over" me as her daughter. She never romanticized our "mother-daughter bond" as this special, irrevocable, everlasting thing - maybe because of her own relationship with her mother, who had five daughters, maybe because I was unplanned and she didn't have much time to construct an ideal of perfect motherhood on which to base her mothering efforts, maybe because she really looked forward to being unburdened of the responsibility of me so that she could get to focus on her own life for really the first time in her adult life, or maybe just because my mom just doesn't tend toward romanticizing much of anything and isn't terribly introspective.

My mom isn't the sort of person who says, "you'd understand if you were a mother." She's said more than once that she doesn't think that the fact that she's a mother makes her any more capable of "understanding" anything than anybody else, because, as she says, she only knows what it was like to be my mother, and also, that she knows a lot of mothers who don't have a clue about much of anything. While she's incredibly proud of my accomplishments, and while she is very proud of the work that she did in raising me, she doesn't take total credit for the person I've become. She doesn't say things like, "Crazy's the best thing I've ever done." She likes that I am independent - not only in my everyday life but also in terms of my relationship with her (even though that independence does sometimes cause conflicts between the two of us). She likes that I don't call her for every little thing, and she likes that I am confident enough to make decisions and choices on my own without her input, or even the input of anybody else. Yes, I'm her daughter, and she loves me as her daughter. I think that's been true since the day I was born. But the way I feel now is that in addition to loving me as her daughter, she also loves me as a unique and separate person from that relationship. I know that's how I feel about her, now. Sure, I love her as my mother first and foremost. But I also love her because she's funny and smart and honest and silly and, yes, even because she can be a bit sharp-tongued and bitchy. I think we both love each other now as "whole people," and I kind of think that's possible both because she explicitly and consciously wielded the power when I was a kid and because she explicitly and consciously relinquished that power (even when I didn't want her to do so, sometimes) once she knew I was able to operate under my own steam.

So happy birthday to my mom. She may not be perfect, she may not be exemplary of ideal motherhood, she may not have mothered the way that any of you would choose to mother your own children. But I think she, as my mother but also as a person separate from her status as my mother, is exceptional.

Crisis Resolved

2010-04-30T14:20:00.001-04:00

All is going to be ok with the house and closing will move forward as planned. Um, except I've got an ass-ton of grading, am on a search committee, and haven't really been packing for like the past week. I'd better get on that.... (Am not moving right at the close, but still, if the plan is to move before the end of May, I'd better get on this whole packing thing.)

House Drama

2010-04-29T18:37:00.002-04:00

So. As we all know, I'm buying a house. Or, well, trying to.

The house was being sold as a short sale, so the process has been a bit more... unconventional... than it otherwise might have been. A) It meant that the time between when I submitted my offer and when it was accepted was extended (though not as much as it might have been, from all reports from others who have bought short-sales or foreclosures). B) It meant that there was basically no room for negotiation after the home inspection, since I was already getting a "great deal" on this house.

Now, I knew what I was getting into with the above, and all of that was fine. Sure a few things came up in the home/pest inspection, but nothing major or that would stop me from buying the house for the price that I offered. I mean, I'm getting a "great deal" and so it all balances out.
But I'm also buying this house with an FHA loan, which means that FHA does their own inspection at the time of appraisal, which can bring up other issues that won't come up in a home inspection. The house appraised just fine, so that hurdle was jumped. But. Something did come up (a structural thing) in their inspection. It's not a huge deal, and, as my realtor has been constantly reminding me, wouldn't have even registered with a conventional loan. But I'm not going with a conventional loan. Why? Because I don't have fucking 30K just hanging out in a savings account. I mean, I'm the sort of person that the FHA loans were MADE to help out. But just because it wouldn't have registered with conventional financing doesn't mean that this isn't an actual issue with the house, either. And it's an actual issue that's going to cost like $1,500 to fix, and the loan is contingent upon this $1500 fix happening.

Now, if this were not a short-sale, I would go back to the seller and say, "Um, this is on you to fix, homeslice. And before the date of the close." But of course, it is a short-sale, and my seller is broke as a joke. The seller is not going to fix this problem prior to next Friday. Now, I'm not going to fix a house I don't own prior to next Friday, either. The solution available from the bank is that I put 1.5 x the cost of the fix (according to an estimate I submit) into escrow, and then once it has been fixed, I get that money back. But I have to do that at the date of the close. So all of a sudden, I am supposed to come up with like $2,300 by next Friday that I hadn't thought I'd need to lay out this month. (I have it, and I could do it, but you know what? $2,300 out of my pocket at close that I'd not expected to pay, with only a week's notice? Fuck. Off.) Sure, I'd get that money back ultimately, but still: fuck. off.

So my only recourse at this point, or at least the only obvious one, would be to go back to the banks involved and trying to get them to cough up the cash, whether by getting them to stick the money in the escrow account or by getting them to take it off the asking price. Which a) they may not do and b) could take weeks even to find out what their decision about doing it would be, thus making whole lots of people unhappy about the delay in closing: my realtor, my realtor's husband (who is the realtor for the seller), the seller, my bank that's doing the mortgage, and the banks who hold the mortgages on the house currently.

But you know who wouldn't care all that much about the delay in closing? Me. I am the person who has the least to lose if the closing is delayed. Sure, it would be annoying, and it would screw up my plans, but it's not like I'm going to be homeless if I have to wait a month to hear about this. Also, it pays for me to wait it out: I can't find another house and have a signed contract by the deadline to get the 8K tax credit, but I can wait it out on this house and still get the 8K tax credit, even though it would piss everybody else off.

Further, I think that it would be stupid for me to just eat the cost of this repair, as seriously: this is an actual structural issue with the house, however much it's not a big deal. It's not my fault that this came up as an issue - I don't even own this house yet. Dude, I can twiddle my thumbs for the next six weeks, and even still buy this house, and it wouldn't hurt me at all. In fact, it could even help me. I'm the strongest player in the mix here.

That said, I, too, would love for all of this to go away. So I presented a compromise option to my realtor to then relay to the seller tonight. It's basically a 50-50 proposition, that would allow for us to close on a week from tomorrow. Now, the seller (as of later tonight) can't do what I proposed, but she's working on a version of what I proposed that I could accept. BUT, what I made very clear is that unless it all works out according to my satisfaction, I shall SO wait on the banks for an answer. Because you know why? It hurts me not at all if I do so.

My realtor gets that, I get that, and I think my realtor has communicated to the seller how I feel about all of this. In other words, depending, I may well own a house a week from tomorrow. Or I may not. It's very hard to know. All I know is that where I am with this right now? LAME. And I am not going to eat the cost of this repair in its entirety just to grease the wheels of this process. NOT my responsibility to do that. NOT. At. All.

In Which Crazy Says No

2010-04-28T21:29:00.003-04:00

As you might have gathered if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, if I care about something, I regularly say "yes," even if saying "yes" is not the most advantageous thing that I can do in terms of protecting my time and productivity and well-being. For example, I recently said "yes" to serving on an internal search committee, even though it's the end of the semester and I'm fucking overwhelmed with personal life stuff. But the position is an important one, and I felt like it was important that I serve when my dean asked. (It's not just that he's a dean that inspired me here - it's that when this particular individual who happens to be my dean asks, I am strongly persuaded.) Anyhoodle.

Today, I said no. Not "I'll need some time to think it over," not "Well, who else will I be working with?" not "Exactly what will this service involve?" and not even, "Well, here's what else I'm doing and I'm not sure that I'll be as able to devote myself to this 100% and I believe this task should really get 100% from me." (Note: all of these responses often end up with me doing the thing I've been asked to do.) Nope. This time Upper Administrator Whom I Like and Respect Very Much asked, in a very flattering way (and flattery typically does get people everywhere with me, which is why it's so difficult to say no to the particular person who is my dean), but I immediately was all, "Um, totally no dice! I prefer not to! Indeed! The Magic 8-Ball says, unequivocally, a hundred times no! No ifs, ands, or buts! Not today, and not tomorrow and not a year from now! No, sir!"

Now, let's not pretend that if I hadn't said yes to that other search committee that I wouldn't have felt incredibly compelled to say yes to the thing that was asked of me. Having said "yes" to that other thing gave me a completely legitimate and easy way out of saying "yes" to this other thing. But, can I just say how AWESOME it was just to say no? It was AMAZING! It was FANTASTIC!

I have to say, for as much as I do say yes to the various things that are asked of me, I truly love it when I am certain that no is the right answer. I had a similar experience around this time last year, with the immediate and clear feeling that no was right, and I have had absolutely no regrets about that, and I know I won't regret saying no to this either. Also, I feel absolutely no guilt about it, nor do I worry that saying no will reflect badly on me. This, I suppose, is the good thing about saying yes as much as I do. When I say "no," well, everybody knows that it's with good reason and they don't think I suck because I did so. In fact, even the people who've asked me usually think better of me for saying no. Saying no motherfucking rocks. I love it with a love that is pure and true.

In other news, things with the House progress, but there is an FHA-loan-related snag (which is only a snag because it's a short-sale and I can't really go back to the seller to get this thing rectified - nothing with the appraisal (which is done) or with me as a borrower). I'm choosing not to freak out about this right now, especially because I'm supposed to close in less than two weeks, but it is... annoying. I just want everything to be in place - I don't want snags. So, I'm thinking positively for the moment, and hoping that all goes according to plan, but I'm also exercising caution in terms of real and true excitement.

In still other news. Very Good Journal, which wants to publish something of mine pending some minor revisions, except I haven't had time to do them and so I'm lame, has asked me to peer-review something for them. I feel like this is the perfect time to say, "Um, I know I suck for not getting my own article to you sooner, but it is coming, and sure I'll review this essay for you." With this all in the hopper, I think I've decided not to write the pedagogical essay for a special issue that I'd considered submitting. Something's got to give somewhere.

As for the upcoming conference paper, that's going to be just fine. Now I'm stressing re: the conference paper after that moreso, just because I know I've got to knock that out pretty quickly after conference paper #1.

I cannot wait until July, when in theory the house shit will be resolved (barring some sort of fuck you last-minute pull-out by me), the two conferences will be done, and I will be able to settle into the time of summer fellowship and sabbatical. I also cannot wait until the semester is really and truly put to bed.

So that's the latest.

The Conference Paper, or The Emphasis in Some Disciplines on Reading Aloud

2010-04-26T11:00:00.001-04:00

I read the comment thread to this post over at Historiann's with interest, and the conversation turned to the convention in many humanities disciplines to "read" our papers, as opposed to "talking" them. (See also this post by Jonathan Rees.) I thought that it might be worthwhile to do a post that actually addresses that issue explicitly, because this is not the first time I've seen this conversation happen online, and it's a conversation that I've had frequently with real life colleagues outside of my discipline.

The conversation typically goes something like this.

Non-humanities person: "OMG! You actually read to each other?!?! WTF!?!?"

And then the humanities-type person responds with one of the following:

a.) "[mumble, mumble] um, yeah [mumble, mumble]"
b.) "I know! Isn't it outrageous! I am ashamed of the conventions of my discipline and I think it's all a bunch of old-fashioned hogwash!"
d.) "We do, and there are some benefits to it [and then the person enumerates the benefits]."
e.) "We like to rock it out old school in the way of monks! [hardy-har-har]"

So in order to move beyond the above responses (and I most frequently choose e, in case you were wondering), I want to talk a bit about why I think reading aloud is appropriate for the research that I present, and how the skill of reading aloud actually does translate into other parts of my professional life. (Because you know what? It totally does, contrary to what the haters of reading conference papers aloud say.)

Caveats:
1. I am not at all saying that reading aloud would be appropriate in all disciplines, or even that it is the most appropriate format for presenting all research in my own discipline.
2. I am not saying that sometimes listening to somebody read a paper doesn't suck.
3. I am not at all saying that a conference paper that is read should be written identically to something that one submits for publication.
4. Now, obviously, I'm coming from English, so my comments on the issue of reading conference papers is coming from that disciplinary perspective. I welcome my other humanities peeps to offer their insights in the comments about what their individual disciplines value and how that translates into what happens at conferences.

The Values and Substance of Scholarship in a Discipline

I think we need to begin by talking about what "research" means across and even within disciplines - what our primary motivations, our primary sources, and our methods are. Even within the broader discipline of English, there are times when it is less appropriate to read a paper, but this all depends on the primary motivations, sources, and methods that are being engaged. If one's research focuses on archival materials to which you are trying to introduce your audience, pedagogical research that engages some of the methodologies of social sciences fields, or research related to the field of rhetoric and composition that can also sometimes trend toward more social-science-y methods, then reading aloud for 15-20 minutes is not necessarily the best way to present the material. Why? Well, because the point of such a presentation is about introducing something to an audience that they've never seen before, and then "talking them through" the implications of this new discovery.

But.

Let's say one is doing scholarship in literary studies that is not archival or pedagogical in nature, as mine generally isn't. When I present at a conference, my "primary source" material is generally quite familiar to my audience - or if it's not, all it would take would be a quick trip to the bookstore or library for an audience member to rectify that. I am not presenting "data" that I myself (or I in conjunction with a team) has generated to prove or disprove a hypothesis, nor am I presenting a brand new text that no one has ever seen before, nor am I presenting some practical innovation (in terms of pedagogy or in terms of technology). I am not modeling something that I discovered through experimentation, nor am I attempting to offer visuals that exemplify a particular phenomenon.

What I am offering, instead, is an interpretation. The source material isn't new, and typically the audience will have at least passing familiarity with the source material that I engage (whether we're talking about the literature itself, the theory that I use to read the literature, or the critical conversation that influences my reading of the literature), and so all that really matters, at the end of the day, is my argument about all of the above, how I bring it all together.

And this, I think, is where reading as a presentation method becomes essential. What my audience values is the interpretation that I put forward and the precise and specific structure of argument and analysis that I engage in order to make legitimate that interpretation. They don't come to see my panel so that I can teach them about the literature or introduce them to something that they've never encountered before. Instead, they come to my panel so that they can perhaps find a new way of seeing something with which they are already quite familiar (whether that familiarity is with the approach I take to an unfamiliar-to-them text or whether that familiarity is with the text itself and not with the approach).

In other words, the "new knowledge" that I offer as a result of my research is more about combination or approach than about "discovery," if that makes sense. And with that being the case, precision is all, and reading offers a pathway toward that precision. Every single word in that 15-20 minutes that comes out of my mouth counts to my audience because my primary agenda is not to communicate information but rather to demonstrate how my mind got to my particular interpretation and to convince the audience that how my mind works can assist their own engagement with a literary text.

A Real Life Example
Once upon a time, I presented a paper of mine at MLA. This paper was on The Most Famous Book Ever by Author X, on a panel sponsored by the Author X Society. Every single person in the audience had likely read this Famous Book, as well as the attending scholarship on it, and most in the audience had published their own articles not only on MFBE but also on other works in Author X's oeuvre. If I had gotten up there and talked my way through the presentation, showing slides with evocative quotations from MFBE and conversationally described my understanding of the novel and the criticism of it, this would have contributed absolutely nothing to the 30-year-long critical conversation about the novel. Further, I think it would have irritated people who'd been working on the novel intensively. I mean, dude, they know the novel backwards and forwards, and they know the gist of the critical conversation because they started it and continue to participate in it. Most of them in the audience were there not because they gave a crap about my paper but rather because they just wanted to see their friends. My job was not to alert them to some new discovery I'd made about the novel, or to synthesize all of the conversations about it (that had already been done) but rather to offer a new interpretation that would make them sit up and take notice. A pretty daunting task, given the audience, right? And any missing step in my logic or analysis would have immediately given them permission to check out.

So imagine my surprise when I got an email from an editor (an Author X scholar from the early days of Author X scholarship) who was in the audience, asking me to submit a polished version of the paper for consideration for Very Good Journal. The email went something like this: "When I attended the panel, I really hadn't expected to hear anything new about MFBE, given the fact that I've worked on it for 30 years and written multiple books on it. I just wanted to see my old friends who would also be at the panel. But your paper made me see the book in a new way, and I'd really like it if you submitted a full-length version for VGJ to consider." (The email was actually a good deal longer than that, and went on a lot about how the editor really thought there was nothing new to be said about MFBE, and went on a lot less about my awesomeness than my redacted version above indicates.)

My point here is that in my scholarly world, since all that really matters is the interpretation and convincing an Audience Who Knows, extreme care in presentation really, really matters. I don't care how great of a talker one is (and I'm a pretty good talker, if I do say so myself), I don't believe that anyone can exercise that extreme care that my field requires in talking through a presentation. The time for talking through one's research is in the Q and A after the panel, or at the reception or cocktail party that evening. Not in the time allotted for one's formal presentation of research.

[Note: there are a lot of times when "talking through a presentation" is exactly what's called for even in terms of my own research - in the classroom, at an internal research colloquium to people outside of the field, etc. I'm not saying that this is a skill I don't need. Just that in my experience it's not the only skill I need.]

The Difference between a Written/Read Conference Presentation and Writing for Publication

All of the above being said, a conference presentation that one reads must be very, very different from writing that is of publishable quality, if it is to work effectively as a presentation. The conference paper is its own genre, and it needs to be treated as such. It's important to remember that your audience is "hearing" your paper - not seeing it on the page - and it's important to remember that, as Michael Berube reminded me once when I was whining about writing a conference paper on this blog, you only have time to fully develop maybe half of an idea in a conference paper.

An engaging conference paper that one reads, as far as I can tell, involves the following things:

A real attention to the specific audience whom one will address. Is the audience likely to be familiar with the literary text and author on which your paper focuses? If so, jettison most plot summary and extraneous background material about the author. Is the audience likely to be more general? If so, you've got to offer a good amount of sign-posting so that the audience doesn't get lost.
Clarity and simplicity in terms of use of language (both word choice and sentence construction) and the structure of argument. Since people don't have the paper in front of them, you can't expect them to remain engaged with the paper if it's weighed down with tons of jargon, convoluted sentence structure, or confusing organization of ideas.
Making sure that your paper doesn't feel "read" but rather that it feels "performed." Reading a conference paper should feel more like auditioning for a play than it should feel like being forced to read something aloud in class when you're in ninth grade. In other words, performing the paper requires animation and interaction with the audience (eye contact, pauses for effect or to allow the audience to react, and if one is comfortable a planned aside or two, and as one prepares to present the paper, one needs to allow time for those things to happen so that one doesn't go over time).
Understanding that your paper starts a conversation and that it's not a finished, polished nugget. One needs to leave room for questions, as well as to anticipate how one might address those questions should they come up. The audience should feel like they want to talk after listening to your paper, not like they can't wait to leave to go grab lunch or a coffee.

Reading Aloud as a Translatable Professional Skill

An argument that is often made against the reading of conference papers is that it is not a skill that we practice or need elsewhere in our professional lives. For example, we don't read off lectures in our courses, or we don't ever have cause to read aloud in the other work that is required of us professionally.

It is true that I don't read lectures to my students. Truth be told, I don't lecture all that much. My pedagogical style is more oriented around generating class discussion than around lecturing. However, just because I don't read off lectures to my students doesn't mean that I don't read aloud to my classes. I would venture to say that I read aloud in nearly every class period in which I teach. Because here's the thing: one of the primary ways of engaging with written texts is through listening - not just through seeing. On the one hand, this is the way that most of us first encounter literature - through "story time" in which grown-ups read to us. And I think that it's important to return to that initial pleasurable experience of being read to in the classroom. On the other hand, I think that listening to the literature is important because it forces us to slow down and to savor each word that is read, as opposed to just plowing through an assignment so that one is prepared for class. We can often "hear" things in literary texts that we miss when we read silently, and careful close reading depends on catching those nuances. And so yes, I will often read to my students in order to draw their attention to a pivotal passage or to start a conversation about form and style. Pausing to read aloud gives students time to think, and it gives them precise things about which to think, and it moves us beyond a discussion of plot into a deeper discussion of the many different facets of the literary text.

I've also had cause to read aloud outside of a classroom context. Most notably, one of my service tasks this year required that a working group of which I was a part put together a power point slide-show with a recorded voice-over. (There were other working groups with the same assignment.) I agreed to do the voice-over duties, in part because I was the only person in my working group who had the skills of writing something to read aloud and to read aloud in an engaging and performance-based way. At first, when I made the offer to handle this part of our work, the rest of my group was all, "OMG! You actually read to each other?!?! WTF!?!?" But at the end of the project, my group's offering was the only one that worked as a polished presentation, that didn't involve ums and ahs and weird pauses and shuffling of papers, that had a clear and easy-to-follow argument, and that really used the time we had to fill in as comprehensive and tight a way possible. (The voice-overs in the other working groups were handled by people outside the humanities who "talk" their conference presentations.) While the plan that we presented wasn't ultimately the one that was chosen, across the university my group was complimented on the presentation of our ideas, and I had a weirdly large number of people note their surprise that it was me who did the voice-over because, in contrast to my regular "talking" voice, I was in "presentation" mode, which apparently people hadn't realized was part of my professional repertoire.

So, To Conclude:

I think when we think about what presentation formats are appropriate, we really need to think about the following:

What is being presented.
The goals of the presentation.
The demands of the audience.

Reading a paper aloud isn't just some old-fashioned refusal to keep up with the times: sometimes it really is the best possible way to address the above needs. Further, "talking" a presentation isn't always more interesting, more engaging, or more advantageous for keeping an audience's attention or for presenting research. I'll admit, I get kind of bored with claims that the way my field does things is wrong or out-of-touch, claims that are most typically made by people outside of my field who have no clue about what "research" or the presentation of it means in my field. And I also get bored with people in my or other humanities fields who think that they are in some way superior if they choose to present in another format that doesn't involve reading aloud.

This isn't to say that people shouldn't have the freedom to experiment with different presentation formats - of course I think that they should - but rather to say that there is nothing inherently superior about rejecting one format in favor of another. I have attended excellent presentations in which the presenter did not read his/her paper, so I'm not arguing that it's always better to read rather than to present in another way. Reading is not superior to presenting in another way, necessarily, just as "talking" a presentation isn't. Sometimes, however, reading one's paper aloud is the best choice of format in a particular context, not because it is superior as a format but because, at the end of the day, I believe that the content of what we present should drive the presentation format that we choose.

No, Mom, My Sabbatical Will Not Be a Vacation

2010-04-25T22:26:00.003-04:00

I love my mom. After years of me explaining my job to her, she does pretty much get it. But. Today there was a minor... regression.

See, one of our biggest sources of conflict throughout the time that I was in graduate school is that she would expect that during summers, for example, I would be on "summer vacation" and would just have all of this time to journey back to hometown and to be paraded around to distant relatives who I don't even know, as well as to my actual family (like aunts and uncles and first cousins of mine on my mom's side and on G.'s side - and let's just note that my mom's one of ten and G. is one of 4 living siblings plus 2 who have died since coming to America, all of whom have/had at least three kids of their own and whose kids are now having kids of their own) and that if I took any time to, I don't know, see my friends (who, let's note for the record since I'm basically an only child my hometown friends are seriously like sisters to me), or to see (when he was alive) my father or my father's side of the family, then I was a jerk. Or if I couldn't come for an extended period of time in order to be paraded to her heart's desire, or come when beckoned, that I was also a jerk.

After the long slog of grad school, she finally did seem to get that this was perhaps an unrealistic expectation on her part. And she's been very cool about not putting those sorts of demands on me since I started on the tenure track.

But here we are, with my sabbatical near on the horizon. Let's note that I've got two conferences this summer, MLA in January, a conference to plan (which I'm hosting) for next summer, as well as substantial work on a draft of a book manuscript to accomplish between now and when I return to the classroom. Um, no, Mom, I will not "have all this time being on sabbatical" where you can expect me to devote days and days to seeing second and third cousins that I've met maybe twice in my life. Those people are not actually my family. I don't know them. And also, let me just say again, that sabbatical does not equal "having all this time."

And when I alerted her to this fact when she expressed this expectation on the phone today, oh yes, she accused me of being a jerk. GAAAHHHRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!

I have grown up slightly in that I didn't let the whole thing escalate into a fight, and I actually did offer her a compromise solution (if she really wants me to see these people, then she's just going to have to invite them over to our house so that I'm not trapped for like 5 hours at a pop while she visits and I sit there twiddling my thumbs, which was a challenge for her because she never has people over, but guess what: you can't expect that I'm going to devote 2-3 days to seeing people I don't know when the only times I'm planning to be in town between now and 2011 will be for two weddings of actual cousins of my own).

At any rate, the whole thing with your non-academic parent, who you think you've educated into understanding the requirements of your job, not understanding anything about your job or your life or your responsibilities? It never motherfucking ends. Sigh.

In Which the Freak-Out of the Last Post Has Subsided

2010-04-24T09:44:00.003-04:00

"It was an uncertain spring."

As I opened up Virginia Woolf's The Years yesterday, deciding to read rather than to pack or to grade, and when I read that sentence, I knew that the decision to read, to read carefully and with pen in hand, and to read this particular book, rather than to do all of those other things that I "must" do, was the right one.

The Years is a novel that I last read with care when I was an undergraduate working on my senior honors thesis. That was an uncertain spring. I was anticipating graduate school, and I didn't really know what that would be like or would come next for me in a broader sense. I was 21 years old, and the future stretched out before me like blank and uncharted territory. It was exciting, and it was terrifying. I saw change coming, but I had no idea what that change would look like or who I would become on the other side of it.

It's 14 years later, and it is another uncertain spring. Yes, there are some things in my life that are much more certain, now. With tenure comes certainty - at least about one's professional life. It's easy to forget when one is bound by that kind of certainty that change is still possible, and that when change is on the horizon, however bound by certainty one is in a particular part of one's life, it is still both exhilarating and scary.

The Years is a novel that's all about change - sweeping historical change, changeable weather, changes in relationships. It is a novel that refuses its reader comfort - every time someone almost says something really important, the narrative cuts away. It is a novel of gaps and of missing pieces. It refuses the reader easy pleasures. On the other hand, it's also a novel that is in many respects incredibly comforting in terms of how it works at the level of character development and exposition. It is a novel that for me evokes the presence of the past, even as it is a novel about how change happens in fits and starts, separating us from the past.

As I read throughout yesterday afternoon and into last night, I found myself marveling at the book's beauty, and also about how perfect a book it was for me to dive into at this particular moment. It's funny: I remember feeling the same way at 21, though for entirely different reasons. One of the things that has been somewhat challenging is reading the book with my annotations from that first careful reading (many fewer annotations, thank god, than I'm making now), annotations that remind me of how naive and undeveloped I still was then as a reader. But, if I'm being more generous, those annotations also remind me of how bright and fresh I was then, and that is kind of nice, too - like getting to see my student-self, and getting to think about the things that I would want to force my student-self to think about, knowing now what I didn't know then, which is sort of awesome. Since I will teach this novel for the first time next year, when I return from sabbatical, I think this is also a really valuable exercise, as my old marginalia gives me a map for thinking about how my students may encounter the novel when they read it for the first time.

Returning to this novel also reminded me of a detail of my intellectual and professional history that I haven't thought about in any sort of comprehensive way in a very long time. In the June of 1996, at the encouragement of my honors thesis adviser, I gave my first ever conference presentation, which just so happened to focus on this novel. In the weeks leading up to the conference, I was terrified. I mean, I had only just finished undergrad. I was terrified that I wasn't qualified to talk about literature in front of "real professors," terrified that all of the things that I had to say were stupid only I was too stupid to know how stupid they were, terrified that what I would present just wouldn't be good enough. Terrified that I was sort of a slacker and a lazy scholar and that in giving the presentation that I would be found out as just those things. Sound familiar? Um, yeah, I may be 14 years older and a tenured professor with a Ph.D. who has published a freaking book, but apparently I'm still the same person.

It's also worth noting that it was in that June of 1996 that I met VSIG for the first time, and he was interested and kind and totally didn't act like he thought I was a fraud, and since that first meeting, he's been a mentor and a friend.

It's also worth noting that the entire reason I thought to return to this book at all is because another mentor - one of the people whom I admire most in my field and who has been a huge help to me professionally with absolutely nothing in it for her - suggested that I do so when I started talking to her about my ideas for the Next Book at an MLA party this year. In other words, I'm not coming from out of left field with the ideas that I've got, and I'm not some novice who has no business having the ideas that she has. I'm on the right track.

And rereading yesterday, I found everything I needed right there in the book. I think I was so freaked out a couple of days ago partly because I was afraid that I wouldn't find what I needed - not only in terms of scholarship, but also just in terms of.... I don't know. Emotionally. That I wouldn't find the book that I remembered, or that I wouldn't find the self - my self - that I needed to find. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's the best way I know to try to articulate it. Because here's the thing: as much as I think that work reading is different from other kinds of reading, and while I think that has to be the case in order to move beyond initial reactions into deep and careful analysis, I also believe that unless I find the self that I need to find in the work stuff, that an intrinsic spark goes missing from anything I might ultimately write. It's the difference, if we want to think about it in undergraduate terms, between writing the obvious paper that will secure you a B+, with a minimum of mental stretching, and writing the risky paper that has the potential to get you an A+, even though attempting that will kick your ass and may end up not working out as planned. It's the difference between writing something that allows you to jump through a hoop and writing something about which you really care, about which you really believe you need to communicate to other people.

In that way for me, scholarship and teaching are linked. In both areas, what's exciting to me is the prospect that the way I see a work of literature has the potential to shape how other people see it. If I don't care - on a personal level - the work just feels empty and pointless - whether we're talking about scholarly work or work in the classroom.

But so anyway, I'm feeling a lot better. I'm feeling like even if that conference paper doesn't end up being as polished and tight as I'd like, that it will have substance. I'm feeling confident.

On a final note, you may notice that I'm not being as vague as usual about research stuff in this post. I think that this is in part about the transition into sabbatical - I mean, if I'm not going to write about research in a non-vague way over the next 9 months, what am I going to write about? 'Cause I know you all don't want to just read annoying whining to-do lists, though I'm sure there will be some of those, too.... - but I also think.... I don't know. It just feels like the right thing for right now.

In Which My Slackery Ways Catch Up with Me

2010-04-22T09:42:00.003-04:00

So you all know that I've got a conference coming up in the near-ish future. The paper that I will give is related to the Next Book, at least in theory. I say at least in theory because, well, let's just say that the paper is at this point only a vague idea inside of my brain.

But so anyway, the program for the conference is up online, and I took a gander at the schedule yesterday, and I'm a little... concerned. Somehow, I have been placed on a panel with Very Super-Important Guy. (I am not exaggerating his very super-importance: he literally is THE authority on the author whose work on which I'll present.) Now, VSIG and I are friendly, and I've known him since like 1996 (the only reason that this is important is that when I first met VSIG I didn't realize how very super-important he was, because I was clueless, and so only was intimidated after the fact because really he's incredibly nice and generous, which probably served me well, in the long run, but still). But it's one thing to be friendly with VSIG in a "let's chat and have a glass of wine at MLA" way, and entirely another to be on a freaking panel with him with work that does not yet even exist. And, beyond not wanting to embarrass myself in front of VSIG, his very super importantness means that a goodly number of OTHER very super important people will likely attend the panel, too, so there is a HUGE potential for me to make an utter and complete ass of myself.

I suppose the bright side of this is that I realized it all while I still have time to do something about it. There was another conference a few years ago where he showed up unexpectedly in the audience to hear the paper that I was presenting, and that was scary indeed, so at least in this scenario I'm forewarned. Of course, the dark underbelly of this situation, though, is that it's not like I can focus on this paper at all over the next month in the way that I really need to do because I'm motherfucking moving and school is ending and I'm on a search committee and I have no time to do anything other than crap this paper together.

So, readers, let this be a lesson to you. Don't write abstracts in January for vague and fuzzy ideas that you will then have to turn into super-polished work by June. It's very anxiety-producing.

Academic Blogospheres

2010-04-17T13:24:00.003-04:00

I should be packing and purging. But I'm taking a wee break. Since reading this post yesterday, I've been mulling, and while I'm not going to respond to what inspired her post, I do want to write, and to think through, something that Anastasia brings up. Specifically, this:

Blogging is a powerful forum for graduate students because our voices aren't moderated. In this forum, I am freed to speak to other academic folk as an equal and a colleague.

Except I see an increasing polarization of faculty and grad students. The grad students are "listening in" on faculty conversations in the blogosphere. The faculty bloggers sneer at graduate students who are just so naive.

Is it the economy? The shitty market? Is it an invasion of people who are equally prickly in real life? Or has our discourse evolved in a direction that lends itself to the reification in writing of the same damn dynamics of power that characterize my offline life in academia?

I feel pretty squarely put in my place by the way some of ya'll choose to write.

It's a shame, really, given that when I started blogging I wasn't even sure all the time if the blogs I read were by graduate students or faculty. I read them because they were honest and fresh and because the people who wrote them treated me like a person first and a graduate student second. We all blended together. And I really did feel like a respected member of the community and a junior colleague.

I love many of you with a love that is pure and true, but I no longer see the academic blogsophere as that kind of haven. I think maybe we killed it. But it was nice while it lasted.

I think it's worth thinking, first of all, about how the "academic blogosphere" came into being. I think that many of us who started blogging 5 or so years ago (OMG! I think I actually began blogging as Dr. Crazy, though not in this space, in 2004! Nearly 6 full years ago! That is INSANE!), were inspired to start because we felt, for whatever reason, like we didn't have a voice in whatever our context was. Invisible Adjunct's now defunct blog was a model for how powerful a medium blogging could be for speaking about academic culture and for developing community across experiences within academia. It's easy to look back on that time (and blog years are sort of like dog years - 6 years is seriously like a generation when we're talking about blogging) as one in which blogging as a genre was this fresh new thing, and to see blogging as creating a forum that allowed for the free exchange of ideas across hierarchies where everything was sweetness and light, but as I look back, I don't actually remember it being like that, or at least not entirely.

Back in the olden times of aught-four, major kerfuffles arose between various factions, as we all tried to determine what it meant to blog as academic people. There was a lot of friction between people who saw using a pseudonym as a crime against verifiable academic discourse and those who saw using a pseudonym as essential to protecting their real-life progress in the profession. I remember a major hullabaloo that occurred during my first months of blogging between child-free academic bloggers and ones who had children. There were deep divisions between those who saw blogging as a medium that was an extension of their professional scholarly lives (more "cooked" blogs, like Michael Berube's), and those who saw blogging as a medium in which we could weave the personal and the professional more seamlessly together (more "raw" blogs like mine).* And yes, there were even conflicts between graduate students who felt like people on the tenure track were "talking down" to them, or were not treating them like proper colleagues.

There were, in other words, even in those early days, controversies about who had authority and who didn't, and about what communities could or should develop through the medium of blogging. There were people who felt left out, and there were people who felt invited in. And some of those same controversies that I recall from the early days come back around every year or two, as people's positions change, whether those changes in position have to do with personal-life things (having children, changes in marital status, changes in location) or professional (finishing graduate school, getting a tenure-track job, getting tenure, leaving academia).

I also think that people's blogging identities have evolved as they've blogged for longer and longer, or at least I know mine has. Whereas early on I was constantly negotiating issues of authority and voice on the blog, those things now feel habitual, and I feel a lot less concern about self-presentation on my blog. (I do think this also goes along with my greater comfort in all of the kinds of writing that I do, even off-blog writing.) Whereas early on I paid a lot of attention to who was reading my blog, who was linking to my blog, and how many hits I was getting and where those hits were from, I just don't pay much attention to that now. (Seriously: I haven't looked at my stats in at least 6 months, if not longer.) I used to feel a lot more insecurity about revealing my "real life" identity to readers, or about being "found out." Now, I count among my real friends some people whom I "met" through my blog. I guess, if I want to put it succinctly, I've relaxed into my blog as just one more part of my life, and I don't agonize over the "space" that I've created or what it all "means," which I used to spend a lot of time doing.

On the other hand, though, as a corollary to all of the above, I do think that this space is much less of a free-for-all than it once was, in ways both positive and negative. Positively, I think there's a lot less conflict generated by my blog, and that has a lot to do with me learning when I should just shut up. (Not that I don't still make some mistakes in this regard, but those mistakes are a lot fewer and farther apart.) Negatively, there are hundreds of people who read or have read this blog who've never commented here, and likely at least some of them haven't done so because they don't feel welcome or they don't feel like they're part of the clique of those who do comment. While I don't exert a heavy hand in moderating most comment threads, and I don't have a moderation policy - I mean, seriously, if people post a comment, nine times out of ten it goes through without any sort of intervention or push-back by me, and that's even if the person is very critical - I do have comment moderation enabled for old posts and I don't allow anonymous comments, mainly to stop people from grinding their own axes in my space, from attacking my other commenters, or from contributing in unproductive ways (and also to keep the spam to a minimum). While I like that people leave comments, I'm also not interested in having the sort of blog where people get in snits with one another in comments. Does that shut down certain kinds of conversations? I'm sure that it does. But it also makes my life more pleasant, and it's my party, and the pleasantness of my life is more important than letting people duke it out with each other in comments to my posts. Because, dude, that is stressful, and it makes me feel yucky and like I don't want to post. So while I'm sometimes jealous of the spirited and lengthy comment threads that are a regular feature of other blogs, I'd rather not deal with managing such spirited and lengthy comment threads.

Another thing that I think about a fair amount is how comfortable (and probably set-in-my-ways) I've become in terms of my blog reading. I don't really go seeking out new blogs to read very much anymore, nor do I go out of my way to link to a range of other blogs in my posts. At any given time, I probably am a daily reader of about 5 or 6 blogs (though I have many more on my reader that I keep less steady track of), and most of those are blogs by people with whom I'm now friendly in real life. That's kind of lame, and kind of lazy. But the thing is, it's just not that important to me anymore to get new readers by linking to unfamiliar blogs or by commenting on unfamiliar blogs, and I've really been too busy to devote much time to thinking about blogging over the past couple of years - and reading around to find new blogs - blogs that will most likely go belly-up in 6 months or less - is time-consuming. This means that I'm rarely in a position where I'm going to encounter a blog by a person who doesn't leave comments here, or to a person who's new to blogging - not unless somebody else I read links to that person. And, let's be real: even if I encounter a new blog, that doesn't mean that the blog, even if I like it, immediately makes it to my "must read" list. Anyway. All of this is a long way of saying that I know I'm guilty of not really expanding the academic community that I've fostered in this space or of inviting new voices into it. That's not to say that new folks aren't welcome - it's just to say that I'm kind of an asshole who puts it on the newbies to introduce themselves and to make their presence known.

Finally, there is this issue of personal and professional growth. I think that this space has perhaps become less open to contributions from grad students or adjuncts, just for example, because the things that I'm driven to post about, while grad students or adjuncts may find them interesting, are less directly linked to their experience or to their primary concerns. Especially over the past year, I think a lot of my posts have trended toward talking about things that are central to my experience now that I have tenure, but that before tenure were things that barely registered as interesting to me, or at the very least didn't register as significant things I had to think about. I don't post about those things to leave people out, but if I post about them, they are going to leave people out - because the fact of the matter is that with tenure comes a vast amount of privilege, and if readers don't have that privilege, they are likely going to feel silenced. I mean, I do get that. While I might bitch and moan in this space about committee work and mentoring junior faculty and all of that, and while I think those are completely legitimate topics for me to cover, I also do know that if readers are not in tenure-track positions that they aren't going to have a lot to contribute to those conversations, or they will feel disenfranchised and like they have no place in contributing. The fact is, I don't know of a way around that.

Also, though, just as I've grown and changed personally and professionally, so, too, have my readers. People who were my grad student readers or adjunct readers are now in positions on the tenure-track themselves. People who, like me, were junior faculty sorts of readers have either left the profession or are now tenured faculty. These changes have made this community look a whole lot more homogeneous, but I'm not sure that's because it is, or because anybody - whether me or my readers - intends to silence anybody else. I think it's just in a lot of ways the nature of how these communities develop.

So what I wonder is, are there other academic blogospheres emerging - a new generation of academic bloggers, if you will - of which I'm just unaware? Or is tweeting the new blogging for that next generation of academics? Is it just that this particular community of academics is not the One True Online Academic Community? I'm inclined to think that this must be the case. Because actually, this blogging community never was the OTOAC - long before the academic blogosphere there were the Chronicle Forums.

But so anyway. Are you a lurker who reads Reassigned Time but who never comments? Well maybe it's time for you to de-lurk and to say hello. Are you a reader who feels like you're being silenced or like you're an outsider to the conversation? Maybe leave a comment to this post and talk about why, or about what you'd like me to post about that you would feel compelled to comment on. Or do you blog but I've never heard of your blog, and you'd like me to check out what you're writing? Tell me where to go read, and I'll get on it. In other words, the point isn't that the people who read and comment over here are some sort of elite group and there are no open slots for new people. And I could not care less whether people are grad students or adjuncts or tenure-track or tenured. It's not like there's some credential people need for me to think that they've got something interesting to say. It's just that most of the time I'm too distracted by other stuff to remember that sometimes you need to roll out the welcome mat in order for people to feel welcome.

*The "raw" and "cooked" terminology was Berube's, but what's funny is that I think as the years have rolled by that his blog has become more "raw" - especially when he writes about Jamie - and my blog has become more "cooked." In other words, it's not like these are fixed subject-positions in the blogging world.

Edited to add: In this post, I originally didn't link to the post over at Notorious Ph.D.'s or to its follow-up. I made that choice because I didn't really think that the section of Anastasia's post to which I wanted to respond had much to do with that original post, or anything that happened in the comments. In fact, in that post itself, Notorious Ph.D. very clearly stated what the rules for commenting would be: "ONE POST PER PERSON, AND KEEP IT BRIEF. Otherwise, people will just skip over it." When I read that direction, it appeared to me that she was trying to make sure that the comments remained a conversation and that no one person dominated or whatever. Perhaps others read it differently, they skimmed over that part of the post, or they just didn't think that she really meant it? But so when she stepped in to moderate, reminding people of the rules that were clearly outlined in the post, I didn't think that it was pulling rank or being a jerk or anything of the kind: I thought it was running her blog as she clearly stated to her readers that she would be running it at the outset. No controversy there as far as I was concerned, and really that all had nothing, as far as I could tell, to do with what I wanted to post about. But now a people have directed me to the original post over at Notorious's, or have referred to it in comments. So I feel like in the interest of keeping all people who read over here who don't read over there fully informed and contextualized that I should add the links to the end of this post.

Let me just note, though, that I think that my post is about issues much broader than one person's blog post or choice of how to moderate a discussion on her blog, or one person's negative reaction to those things. I'm trying to think more broadly about the communities that develop between academics online, across stages of career and across disciplines. And further, I'm trying to think about how those communities grow and change over time, and what the implications of that growth and change are. So this addendum is not meant to put me on one side or another in any specific debate. It's just to give my take on the broader issues in play, but I figured after the fact that it made sense to provide more context than I did originally.

Hoarding, Packing

2010-04-17T10:23:00.004-04:00

Ok, have any of you watched that show Hoarders? Because I've watched it a good amount, and I find it incredibly compelling, and I've been thinking about it a lot as I've begun packing.

Now, I'm not an actual hoarder. I don't go into a panic about getting rid of "my treasures" or "keepsakes," and when I sit down to actually get rid of stuff that we'd all consider garbage, I'm pretty good at just getting rid of it and not hanging onto it because "someday I might regret getting rid of that grocery list from 6 months ago" or whatever. But when you live in one place for approximately 7 years, or at least when I do, a certain amount of accumulation does occur. And a lot of what I've accumulated really has to go.

Now, on the one hand, I have a lot of stuff that many people would consider to be... unnecessary. In just thinking about books alone - I've packed 8 boxes, and I still probably have about 1/3 of my total collection of books to pack - many people would say, "but you're not going to reread those books! Get rid of them! Donate them to the library! Sell them to a used bookstore! Away with all the books!" I think, for example, that Cyndi the Realtor would be of that opinion - indeed, when I suggested that I was concerned about where my books would go when we looked at the house, and when I noted that not all of my books would fit in The Nook of Ideas, she asked, sincerely, "But do you really need to have all of your books out and accessible all the time?" Now, for a normal person, that was probably a reasonable question, but I am not a normal person. I am an English professor. Yes, it's important for me to keep and have accessible all of these books (though it is not necessary, or even desirable, for all books to be in the Nook). (I should note that I have not kept every book I've ever bought or acquired, and I've regularly weeded books out even while living here. If I hadn't done, I would probably have twice as many books. Seriously.)

And then there's the paper. PAPER. Different versions of drafts of scholarly stuff, printed out articles, research notes, etc. Now, last year I totally went through all of this and got rid of a ton of unnecessary stuff. But that still leaves me with a lot, a lot that I still "need." And no, I can't just start doing all of this electronically. I've done a lot more as time has passed on the computer (my entire process used to be hard copy - I mean, heck I used to write everything out longhand before ever sitting down at the computer!), but the way that I write very much involves paper because I can't think as deeply as I need to think and as slowly as I need to think without it. And so managing the paper is an issue.

And let's not even talk about the kitchen and my closet and etc.

But. With the thought of moving into my very own house, I am motivated. I DO NOT want to move all of this crap with me. And so. I am in the middle of One Great Massive Purge. Ideally, there will be no weeding out of shit once I've moved. Ideally, all of the weeding out shall occur now, on the front end, and unpacking after the move will only involve unpacking. As you might imagine, the One Great Massive Purge is quite a large undertaking.

On the other hand, though, it also is... how do I put it... really energizing. It's like with each decision not to pack something or not to move it with me I become less and less stressed out. Less burdened by stuff. And I'm finding the decisions about what not to move to be much easier than decisions to keep or to toss when I'm not. Moving is a huge motivator, maybe because I know that the more that I take with me the more work it will be for me on the other end.

Going along with all of this purging is also list-making about where things will go in the new house, as well as list-making about things I will buy for the new house. As much as I want a new couch, I've decided that I'm just going to get my current couch cleaned professionally and keep it for another couple of years, which will mean that I'll have the money to buy a nice comfy chair and ottoman. Also, instead of buying a brand new full sized vacuum cleaner, I'm instead going to get something like this one, since my vacuum cleaner right now works fine - it's just that it would be a pain to use for vacuuming the stairs. So the old vacuum will just live in the closet in the front bedroom, and the hand-held one will be the one I use for the stairs and the furniture. I've also decided that I'm going to go the yard sale/thrift store route for dressers for the bedrooms, as the reality is that these are not huge McMansion Style bedrooms, and they really can't support gigantic dressers like one typically sees in furniture stores. I'm going to wait on dealing with the dishwasher issue until I've been in the house for a few months, though I do want that taken care of before winter comes. I know, I know, in some ways it would be easier to do this before I move in, except I don't want to get myself in over my head with money stuff right off the bat, and given the fact that I've got a lot of trips and stuff between when I move in and mid-July, it just doesn't make sense to rush. Since I'll be on sabbatical and not teaching, not having a dishwasher for a few months is not going to be a major hardship. Similarly, I'm going to deal with the porch/deck furniture when sales on that stuff begin in July, both to save money and because I won't really be around a whole lot in the couple of months preceding.

There's more, but you get the picture. I'm finally thinking in an organized way about what I need, where things will go, what needs to be done immediately and what can wait a bit. All of this feels very good, and I am not freaking out in the way that I was just a week or two ago. I'm a lady with a plan.

But so anyway, I should get going with my tasks for today. I want to get a bit more packing and purging done, and then I need to do some grading.

In the Home Stretch - First Year with Tenure Nearly Done

2010-04-15T17:30:00.004-04:00

Not to pretend that I don't remain stressed out (for I do) but at the very least Major Committee has had its last meeting (with some fun and stupid contentious discussion that changed nothing to end the year on a high note!).

I feel like I probably pissed some people off with some of the things I said during the fun and stupid contentious discussion, but dude. Somebody needed to say those things, and what is tenure for if you can't just say the things that need to be said?

***

You know, I thought the above was all I was going to post, but it occurs to me that this is the perfect time to reflect on my first year with tenure.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

I think the dirty little secret about earning tenure is that doing so doesn't really change a whole lot about one's job, about one's status in one's department or institution, or about one's attitude. As one was before tenure, so too is one after tenure. In other words, if a person hates her life pre-tenure, she'll probably continue hating it after tenure, only with greater intensity and a greater license to complain aloud. If a person basically likes her life pre-tenure, she'll basically like her life after tenure, although there may be greater pressures in certain areas (ahem, service). Tenure is not some magical thing that changes the game entirely. Instead, it just means that you'll keep playing the game in perpetuity.

I think this is probably a lot like those studies that show that major life changes like winning the lottery or ending up in a wheel chair don't actually change people's lives that much ultimately. While they may experience an immediate burst of joy or an immediate slough of despond upon first receiving the news, and while that may linger for about a year, after that initial reaction, they basically revert to how they felt before the major life change.

This convinces me that it's really important not to hold out for tenure as some milestone that will change every single thing about one's life, because as far as I can tell from my experience and from the experience of those around me, it just doesn't work that way. Happily, I was pretty happy before tenure. I remain pretty happy. I think if I'd felt really miserable pre-tenure that tenure would not, ultimately, have released me from my misery.

Except Being a Faculty Member with Tenure Really Is Different, and Mostly (for Me) in a Good Way

So what is different about tenure? Well, pre-tenure I was very protected from controversial, contentious types of service. This was wise of my department, to protect me in this way, and it ultimately benefited me. But, here's the thing: those controversial service things? That's where real decisions get made, and that's where the work that you do has the most potential to make a significant impact on the direction of the department and institution. This is something that I think is particular to my personality, but I'd much rather be dealing with something controversial and contentious and have it mean something big at the end of the day than do what I perceive as "busy-work" style service. To be fair, what I would call "busy-work" style service others would call "enriching" or "positive." But at the end of the day, I'd much rather serve on a difficult university-wide committee than be in charge of planning events for students, to give just one example. Those "positive" things are nice and all, and I'm happy to give my support to them in order to lend a sense of occasion and importance, but I don't want to actually do all the leg-work that they involve, mainly because from my perspective they don't really mean much at the end of the day in terms of the future of the institution. Also, I hate the details of that kind of service. Not that there aren't details to the other kind, but those details contribute to a wide-ranging bigger picture, and I'm a much more "big-picture" sort of a girl than one who cares about enrichment and positivity. (Let me just say, though, that I love that I have colleagues who want to devote themselves to these other types of service, because I do like that they happen, and I do think that they are important to the unity of our department, to the university community, and to our students. I just don't want to have to do the work on the front end to make them happen. I feel like it's a waste of my talents, rightly or wrongly.)

And so now, this year, for the first time, I've been able to participate in those wide-ranging bigger picture things, and that has been really rewarding (though often maddening, too) for me. For the first time I have really felt like I have a voice that matters at my institution, and I've reveled in using that voice (even though I do worry, sometimes, that people feel like I'm a jerk, except that I sort of don't care, because the people who think I'm a jerk are people whom I think are stupid, and the people whom I respect seem to think that I'm grand). Doing the "difficult" service has given me a greater sense of investment in my department, my institution, and even in this place more generally, and I really do feel like I've accomplished great things, although obviously I made many compromises along the way (and I wasn't happy about all of those, but still, even if I wasn't, I feel like we're still in a better place than we were at the start of this academic year). It has, ultimately, felt really good to be in a position where I could speak up for things that I cared about, and even to compromise where necessary to make change happen. The freedom to stand up for what I believe in and even the freedom to let go at certain points even though I know some people wanted me not to do so has meant everything to me.

But Beyond the General Attitude and Service Stuff, What Does Tenure Mean to Me?

Tenure means not stressing over student evaluations. Not that I don't care how students perceive my courses - obviously I do - but that the evaluations themselves no longer have the power over me that they once did (even though I don't think I realized pre-tenure how much I was fishing for positive evaluations). Tenure means that I feel completely confident in my "research agenda" and that I'm not worried about how others will perceive it (though, again, I don't think I knew i was worried about this pre-tenure).

So the Long and the Short of It Is....

Tenure for me has felt very, very good. For the first time I feel like the mountains of service that I do actually mean something. (Because, seriously, I had a heavy pre-tenure service load - it's just that it was mostly service that I pretty much loathed and saw little value in, other than that it provided the service lines on my going-up-for-tenure cv.) For the first time I feel completely free to teach as I believe my courses need to be taught, without worrying about how the numbers on evaluations will rank me. For the first time I feel like I truly can do whatever strikes my fancy in terms of research, although obviously the research is going to matter very much in terms of my desire to go up for full. But I no longer need to worry about satisfying people who don't actually do very much research in the range of what I do, if that makes sense.

So tenure. One year in. I'm into it. Sure, there are annoying things, but because I was basically happy pre-tenure? Tenure is golden.

But at the end of the day....

And this is why I feel like those who think that tenure should be abolished are wrong. All tenure has done for me is to give me a greater commitment to my department and institution, a more honest commitment to my students, and a stronger commitment to innovation and originality in my research. In what way are any of those things bad for higher education? In what way are any of those things bad for my university or department? What we need is to give the privilege of tenure to more people, so that more people can feel that strong commitment to the institution and to students, so that more people can do research that really matters as more than just a line on the cv.

But what about the "dead wood," you say? What I say is that those folks were "dead wood" long before tenure. Don't give those people tenure. That's just fine. But tenure, as a concept or institution, isn't the problem, in that scenario. Those people are. And seriously? Those people were a problem before tenure, just as they will remain a problem after it. I'm not saying that we should as a rule deny a certain percentage of people tenure, or something like that. I'm saying that it's not like, in most cases, it's a surprise who becomes dead wood. Those people were dead wood before - we just have tenured them because we were afraid of losing the line.

Now, there are good reasons for being afraid of losing the line. It's because lines have been lost. This is where institutions need to step up and guarantee that if you don't grant tenure to a slacker that the line won't be lost. (I know, I'm an idealist. And I also know that this is unrealistic.) But if there's a problem with tenure, it's an institutional problem with how institutions regard what tenure means, and it's a problem with institutions not being committed to the programs that they advertise. It is not a problem with tenure itself, as a concept, ultimately.

At any rate, tenure. There should be more people eligible for it, not fewer. And earning it should be dependent upon performance, not on a department or college protecting a line. And if a person doesn't earn it, then the department or college should be able to deny that person without fear that the line will be lost. Period. Because, seriously, people who only do the basic requirements for tenure, doing the bare minimum and nothing more before tenure, are going to suck after tenure. You know what's funny? At my institution, people in business, and accounting, and computer science recognize this. Where it's not the case is in the Humanities and in the Social Sciences, those disciplines that most serve the general education of our entire student population. In those areas, we award tenure to people who are lackluster because we're afraid that the lines will be lost. Why? Well, because clearly if we don't "save the line," then the institution will just get adjuncts to teach those courses. How fucked up is that? How antithetical is that to the health of the institution and the university? Oh yeah, it isn't healthy. But it's possible, and so that's what is done. What a great plan for how to run things. What a great plan for demonstrating the value of general education for students.

I want people to be tenured in my department and college who are invested. Who do the work. Who think that the work matters. Because if they are those things before tenure they will likely remain those things. As so many of my colleagues have. But not all of them. The reality is that we'll tenure anybody who's hired into a tenure-track line, because we're so afraid of losing tenure lines that we exercise absolutely no judgment. That fear is what produces dead wood. Not tenure.

So yes, I love having tenure. And you know what? I think tenure has made me a better faculty member. I think that's also true for many of my colleagues. But that's only possible because I was already a strong pre-tenure faculty member. If I had just been biding my time until tenure because tenure would set me free? I would suck right now. Because, ultimately, tenure doesn't set you free. It just allows you to be more of the person that you were pre-tenure.

So those are my thoughts after my first year on the tenure-track. Tenure is good. But only for people who are really willing and excited about using it.

Stress Doesn't Even Cover It

2010-04-15T09:29:00.002-04:00

Sure, there's the house-buying. But actually, the actual buying of the house is sort of going along without me at this point, so that's just background worrying that something will go wrong even though nothing likely will do so sort of stress.

Then there's the moving stress, which is moving into high gear.

Then there's the research stress, because I have a couple of things that I will need to accomplish between now and June 15, in the midst of moving.

Then there's the end-of-semester stress with classes and grading.

Then there's the "I'm an idiot and I agreed to be on a search committee" stress (though it's not a national search, and they need for it to be taken care of in like the next couple of weeks, and I've been promised that it won't be very much work - and I don't think it will because I suspect no more than 3 people will apply for it - and it is very important, and it's very important that my department has some strong say in who gets picked)....

Um, yeah. There is a lot going on with me over the next few weeks. Now, I'm sure it'll be great when it's over, but for now?

Holy. Motherfucking. Hell.

Oh, and to top all of this off, a Certain Person on Campus (and you know every campus has one of these) is trying to force Major Committee on Which I Serve to reconsider an issue on which we voted at our last meeting. This probably will be nothing, but I really had considered skipping out on this meeting today, and now that is just an impossibility.

Forever Home

2010-04-13T22:39:00.003-04:00

When you adopt a pet, the language of that is often such that this adoption is characterized as you giving a pet a "forever home."

Now, obviously, when I committed to Man-Kitty and Mr. Stripey, I committed to those two fellows, for good or for bad (and sometimes it is, well, if not bad, annoying), but this whole "forever home" thing? Well, yes, surely these two fine boy-cats are life-partners of mine - I shall care for them for the span of their lives, and they shall serve as confidants and entertainment for me throughout that time. But have they - or have I - had a "forever home"? No. Because at the end of the day, we live in a crappy apartment that only serves the most basic of our needs, and that pleases none of us.

But in approximately 6 weeks' time, we shall live (barring any unfortunate incidents) be in a home that is so much closer to this idea of a "forever home" than any of us have ever experienced.

Yes. Today I did the mortgage stuff. This is really happening. Now, I realize that this likely will not be the last house that I ever buy, or the last house in which I ever live. But it will be my first home. I've never had a home, not as a grown-up lady. I have only ever lived in transitory spaces, and the same is true for my two fine cats (whether they knew that or not). But this house, should nothing go wrong, it will really be our house. And it will be so fantastic!

The things about which I am most excited include:

The Nook, which shall become the Nook of Ideas, which shall become the Nook of my Next Book.
The front porch, which is so amazing, and which will also be a place in which the next book is written and which will also be a place where my friends come to hang.
The basement, which will house my very own washer and dryer, which I won't need to have a card charged with money to use, and which will also be the place where litter boxes will reside (as opposed to in an actual living space, and nothing is grosser than litter in a bedroom, even if it's a bedroom that no one uses).
The awesomeness of kittens chasing each other around the entire downstairs, from kitchen through dining room and living room and then through the hallway and back to the kitchen, and then lounging on the window seat when they are tired. And also kittens wrestling on stairs. Stairs. Which they've never experienced other than when they went to my mom's house.
Having my sleeping space be on a different floor from my living space. Having my working space be on a different floor from my living space.
The potential for dinner parties and full-on parties that occurs with my fabulous dining room and the excellent deck and backyard. Who knew I wanted parties? Not me, but I so do.

I'm not going to lie. I still feel like this could still fall through, even though I know that feeling is irrational. But I still fear that something will go wrong. That said? My level of excitement? 99% Yes, there is a 1% margin of error, but barring that? This is happening.

And it is totally motherfucking amazing.

Blossoming Students (In Which I Totally Exploit the Gardening Metaphor That I Disparaged in the Last Post)

2010-04-12T21:28:00.004-04:00

BES has been accepted into a top-20 grad program for English Lit!!!!!! (Still waiting to hear on funding, though the DGS at Top 20 begged her not to accept her OTHER totally respectable offer with full funding - though that full funding does include teaching immediately upon arrival - until the April 15 deadline, as DGS thinks that full funding - and we're talking tuition remission plus stipend with no teaching responsibility for the first year - has a chance of coming through.)

Is this achievement mine? Hell no. Do I feel a HUGE sense of achievement that I've mentored a student of mine to such an accomplishment of her own? HELL YES.

So congratulate BES on her awesomeness in the comments. (She does read over here, and she'll find it grand that people think she's awesome.)

Bad Gardeners, Bad Mommies, Bad Teachers

2010-04-12T13:34:00.010-04:00

In my first year of graduate school, I took a semester-long course in the teaching of composition. This course was required for anybody who wanted to teach in the program, and it involved a mix of practical instruction (how to construct assignments, how to construct syllabi), shadowing of other instructors, working in the writing center, and theoretical readings. In other words, it was pretty comprehensive, as such courses go. (This was during my MA, by the way. I had a similar required 8-week-long "workshop" in my PhD program that expected nowhere near as much, and that contributed nowhere near as much to the teacher I've ultimately become.)

Anyway. In that semester-long course, one exercise has stuck with me after all of these (more than 10) years. First, we were asked to come up with a metaphor for the relationship between teacher and student. I don't recall whether we did this in groups or on our own, but whatever the case, the outcome was that the vast majority of students in the class talked about the role of a teacher being like that of a gardener - that we plant the seeds (course content), we tend the plants (feedback), we harvest the fruit/veggies (students demonstrate what they've learned through their grades on tests or papers). All in all, a pretty teacher-centered metaphor, right? Basically, we do all the work, and from our hard work, we get to enjoy delicious salads and good nutrition. In this metaphor, students are the objects that we do something to, and depending on what we do (fertilizer? weeding? individual conferences? multiple opportunities to practice the skills of the course?) students either grow or they die.

So once we all did that, however, the instructors of the course then had us do a variety of readings about student-centered learning. The main one that I recall was Paulo Freire's "The Banking Concept of Education," but I believe that there were a few others (maybe something from bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress? and then maybe something else that was more about data on what kinds of approaches work best in the comp classroom?). At any rate, the point of the exercise, and then the readings that followed, was to demonstrate that a theory of teaching in which the instructor holds all of the responsibility (and power) and students hold none is ultimately pretty much antithetical to what "education" is supposed to mean. (That's an oversimplification, but I do think it's the bottom line.) And so then, after discussing the readings, we were asked to do a follow-up exercise in which we tried to come up with a metaphor for the teacher/student relationship that wasn't all about the teacher - that wasn't about the green thumb who makes delicious vegetables happen.

I think it's an example of just how pervasive a "teacher-centered" approach to thinking about education is that I can't recall the follow-up metaphor at which I arrived. I do remember how difficult a time all of us had in coming up with student-centered metaphors for what happens in the classroom, though, and I have always thought about this exercise when I am tempted to take all of the credit or blame for what my students achieve or fail to achieve. At the end of the day, if I believe that what happens in the classroom is about me, I'm really doing my students a disservice.

This exercise came to mind today when I read Historiann's post about a newspaper column that at turns attacked tenure as protecting ineffective teachers and suggested that the path toward improving the education of students lies in more stringent evaluation of teachers.

Now, this is not going to be a post about tenure and its merits or problems, whether in P-12 education or in higher education. I believe in tenure. You may not, but let me repeat that tenure is not what this post is about. This post is, rather, about the idea that the path to improving student learning (or, at least, pass-rates on tests mandated by agencies external to the classroom) is to look not at actual, individual students but rather to look at teachers.

Now, this way of thinking about teaching is nothing new. It's been characteristic of the ways in which we have thought about public, P-12 education for at least the past 20 years when state-mandated testing for high school graduation gained traction as a practice across the country, and then later with the federal mandates of NCLB. These effects are now being felt in higher education with great urgency, with increasing demands of accrediting agencies for program-wide outcomes assessment data.

Let me pause for a moment to make something clear: I am not arguing that teacher's performance in the classroom should not be evaluated. I'm also not arguing that program-wide (or institution-wide) assessment is a bad thing, in and of itself. I am questioning, however, the idea that any such evaluation or assessment directly and uncomplicatedly will benefit any and all deficiencies in student learning.

Because, here's the thing. The only way that the above would directly and uncomplicatedly benefit any and all deficiencies that we perceive in student learning is if we believe that Freire's "banking concept of education" is, in fact, what education is. For Freire, the "banking concept" works like this: students are passive "banks" in which teachers deposit knowledge; at the end of term, teachers then "withdraw" the knowledge that they've deposited, and then they issue a statement (grade) for whether the "bank" gives back all of what was originally deposited. There is no critical thinking: knowledge is deposited by the teacher; students spit that knowledge back out, sort of like how an ATM spits money out when we make a withdrawal. When you go to the ATM, there is no potential for you to get back more money than is in the account; if you haven't been keeping track of your balance (or, if we stay with this metaphor, teaching effectively), you may get back less money than you thought was in there (subpar performance), or you may get a slip that says "insufficient funds" (a failing effort).

As an alternative to the "banking concept," Freire offers an alternative: the "problem-posing method" of education. Note the difference in terminology between "concept" (passive, object-oriented) and "method" (active, practice-oriented). The problem-posing method is about encouraging students to ask questions, to pursue original lines of inquiry, to challenge the instructor, to determine the shape of his/her own education (with the expertise of the instructor guiding that inquiry, of course). Now, if we think that the problem-posing method is potentially valuable, how can we "assess" its effectiveness? Doing so is a lot more complicated than assessing the banking concept, and it requires that we attend to students themselves and not merely to teachers who deposit knowledge into them. In giving students ownership over their educations, at least to some degree, we would have to acknowledge that evaluating teachers isn't necessarily going to produce gains in student learning or improvement in education generally. Because at the end of the day, such an approach to student learning and to education isn't all about the teacher.

Critics of the argument that I'm outlining here might say, "But of course the move to gauge the effectiveness of education by evaluating teachers is about student learning! The idea is that we'd evaluate teachers based on the performance of their students! How is that not about students?" My response would be that this sort of measurement assumes that inputs from teachers will be identical to outputs generated by students. And I think that assumption does not - and should not - mirror what actually happens when students are thinking. Instead, I would argue that what's going on with this sort of measurement strategy is that we don't really care about students at all - whether they think or not - but rather that we care about disciplining and regulating their instructors. And I think that impulse to discipline is deeply gendered, and it has to do with the feminization of teaching as a profession.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, here's what I wrote about this in my comment to Historiann's post:

I’m especially interested in the call to evaluate teachers based on student performance, particularly in terms of the gender implications of such a move. I feel like this connects a lot to the whole “our boys are not succeeding” rhetoric (this is not to say that there aren’t issues with how K-12 education serves male students vs. female – only to call into question the rhetoric). Basically, the rhetoric in both cases constructs teachers as bad mommies who aren’t doing their jobs if students don’t “succeed” by whatever external measurement is imposed.

If students (gendered male, whatever the “actual” sex) can’t excel, get into the right college, get a job, then it’s the teacher (gendered female, whatever the “actual” sex) who must be punished/regulated, much in the way that mothers must be punished/regulated for breast-feeding/not, making their own baby food/not, eating the right/wrong things during pregnancy, staying home/choosing daycare, as if a choice in one direction or the other would produce perfect children.

The discourse reduces the development of children/students to the performance of the phallic mother/teacher, and it fails to take into account the actual children/students in question. Now, of course, this gives us somebody to blame, and it’s a much easier thing to do that than to actually look at the complexity of human development. So in that regard, I get it.

But let me go further in my explanation, in order to link it back to my discussion of student-centered vs. teaching-centered approaches to learning. (This is still a little fuzzy in my head, but I think you'll get the gist of what I'm saying.) A truly student-centered ("problem-posing method") approach, one that values critical thinking, original inquiry, and "active learning," is often what legislators, tax-payers, and accrediting bodies would agree is desirable. However, having internalized the "banking concept," they only believe that those things are possible if a Subject Who Knows (read: teacher as authoritarian purveyor of Knowledge) administers the skills and information that they would say is required for those things to happen. Education is supposed to be something that both socializes and regulates students (a subject-position that I would also argue is feminized in our culture), and that can only happen if there is a figure of authority controlling what happens in the classroom. With the feminization of the teaching profession (and when I talk about this I'm not talking in a simplistic way about having a female teacher in front of the class, but rather the perception that teaching is an "appropriate" profession for women, so whether we're talking about male teachers or female teachers, we're still talking about a feminized profession), faith is lost in the "authority" of those who administer education. Thus, teachers must be policed, disciplined, and punished when students don't "succeed" by whatever measure, because at the end of the day, while they possess phallic authority by virtue of their position at the head of the class, they don't possess "real" authority in a patriarchal (or "banking concept") economy.

(I know my theorizing above is sloppy, but I'm thinking this through as I'm writing. Forgive me.)

At any rate. If we believe that students are passive objects upon which gifted teachers work their magic, or if we believe that students are passive objects upon which terrible teachers perpetrate harm, then we don't, at least from my perspective, actually believe in student learning. Heck, I'd say that we don't believe students are actually human beings with agency. Nevertheless, a more complicated picture of what student-centered instruction looks like, or a more complicated picture of the process by which students learn in a classroom environment, does not neatly fit into a business ("banking concept") model for education, nor does it produce the kind of data that such a model values.

Do I believe that teachers should be evaluated on their work? Yes. Do I believe that we must try to educate students as well as we possibly can? Yes. But I wonder at the belief of so many that the best strategies for doing so are so simple as administering tests and calculating pass rates.

(And no, I'm not going to offer some grand alternative to these strategies in this post. I've got work to do.)

On the Abatement of the Freak-Out (Though I'm Sure I'll Still Freak Out Again)

2010-04-11T12:23:00.003-04:00

So. I'm feeling loads better.

Something I keep relearning throughout this process is that I'm the sort of person, every time I reach a new step in a process, whatever it is, who loses it a little bit. Now, you'd think I wouldn't forget this about myself. I have felt very similarly with various steps in going to graduate school, going on the job market, the publication process, with the process toward tenure, with teaching new courses.... If anything, I'm probably better equipped than most people to know this about myself, as I've already done a lot of pretty major things on my own, and I know what that feels like.

I suppose where I keep getting blind-sided by the house-related stuff is that I had thought just making the big leap to decide to do it was the major thing, and I hadn't really thought very much about the other steps along the way. And so each time I reach a new phase, I lose it a little. Then, after a few days pass and I've had time to mull and plot and plan, I feel better.

So anyway, I'm in the "I feel better" place right now. My parents are going to lend me some money so I feel like I have more of a cushion (which I felt horrible asking them, but on the other hand, I'll pay them back as soon as I get my summer fellowship money and am moved, and they're happy to do it, so I need to just be grateful for the help and stop beating myself up about it), I think I have realistic plans for what I'm going to do/buy in the house in the short term/medium term/long term, and I'm feeling pretty comfortable with how it all will work out money/time/stress-wise.

I hope to have all of the money stuff totally squared away tomorrow or Tuesday, and I think that will be a huge weight off of me, and I've got a plan for packing and I've been making a list of things to donate and not to move. The plan, should everything go smoothly, is that I'll move at the end of May, be a bad conference attendee for my June conference and just drive down for the day of my paper (or maybe another day, too, depending, but not stay overnight at all - it's that close, and while I do think that attending a conference that way sucks, I also feel like my top priority in May/June has to be settling into my house).

I'm not jazzed about the end of the semester stress that I'll have over the next few weeks which is dovetailing with all of the closing stuff, but it will be fine.

So anyway, thanks for all of your comments to the freak-out post. They really did help me to put things into perspective.

(Oh, and another thing: yes, it is empowering for me to be doing this on my own. It really is. But it's also harder in some ways than it would be to be doing it with another person. I would never tell anyone that they shouldn't buy a house if they're doing it alone, but I also totally understand why people would choose not to do so and to just keep renting. It would be nice to spread some of this stress around to somebody else.)

Am Attempting to Breathe Deeply and Not Freak Out

2010-04-09T12:47:00.002-04:00

There is a reason why I've lived in this stupid apartment for seven years. It is because moving is really, really motherfucking stressful. Add to that the stress of buying a house, and I don't even know how to talk about how tightly I'm wound at this current moment.

Over the past three days, I have walked through the main home inspection (news will come today on the pest inspection and radon), gotten a variety of insurance quotes, called up a couple of banks about the financing, and, just now, started the process of getting quotes for movers. Oh, and I found out the most recent tax bills on the house for city and county. And I called up my management peeps at the apartment complex to find out about getting out of my lease a little early. (The good news: I will only need to pay one month of both rent and mortgage; the bad news: I have to pay one month of rent and mortgage.)

I feel like I have no money; I feel like I will never have money again. (Let's note that I have more money than I've ever had in my life, but I also see the money just bleeding from my various bank accounts and I feel like the bleeding will never stop.) I feel like I want to bail on one or both of the conferences I'm supposed to attend this summer (which I won't do, but still, I feel like I want to). I feel like I really don't want to be doing all of this totally by myself because dude, this is a lot for one person to take on. I feel completely ill-equipped for the whole process, and I feel like I hate everything. I also feel like the end of the semester is grinding me down on top of all of this, and I feel like everything is happening all at once and too quickly and too scarily. A large part of me feels like I just want to back out of the whole enterprise right now, and to live in my stupid apartment (which I hate) forever, just to avoid all of this. (I won't do that either, but a part of me really wants to.)

In other words, I am freaking the fuck out. And not in a "oh, this is so exciting" way but rather in a "I need to be medicated" sort of a way.

I am trying to talk myself off the ledge, to repeat over and over again "All of this will be fine once I get through the closing and move. All of this will be fine once I get through the closing and move." I keep trying to tell myself that this is not going to be a decision that ruins my entire life, but rather that makes my life better. I'm trying to keep some perspective and to realize that while change really stresses me out that I always feel like change is good once I've actually made a change.

But, seriously, people. This is for the birds. Wake me up when it's June and all of this is over.

The Home Inspection

2010-04-07T21:27:00.004-04:00

So it was today. And there were a few things that came up (all minor - like smoke detectors and a crack in the sidewalk and such) and one slightly less minor thing:

That's right. The carpenter bee. Pesky little buggers that don't really hurt the structural integrity of one's house, but which do drill little holes into your charming shingles, and then attract the woodpeckers to your house (for the carpenter bee is the prey of the woodpecker, and so while the structure of your house can be just fine, the house may also end up looking like Swiss cheese (and you will have swarms of bees hanging out at your house, although they don't typically sting anybody).

Anyway. Now, if this were a regular sale of a house, this would be the time for negotiation. However. Since this is a short-sale, and the bank is already taking a loss, I'm in the position of having to decide whether I can suck up the carpenter bee removal. (I mean, I could try to negotiate to lower the price of the house (banks don't fix things that come up in inspections), but the result would either be a) that the bank said no dice and I lost the 8K tax credit, or b) that the bank would take forever and a day to decide, and for something that will be like a 2500 dollar fix I would still lose the 8K tax credit, thus putting me out 5500 dollars. No, it's not ideal for me to suck it up, but in these circumstances, I actually get money for not trying to get money off the price of the house.) I've thought long and hard about it (and did much research about them) and if this is the only major-ish issue, I can hang. (The actual pest inspection will happen tomorrow, and if there were termites or something I would be out, but this is unlikely. And we'll get the results about radon back on Friday.) In other words, I think I might actually be buying a house.

However, can I just note that I'm wigging a little bit about what a money-pit any house is to maintain? I mean, I have the money to do it, it's not that - it's just after so many years renting I've become accustomed to not having to worry about that crap. That said, this little house is really in great shape, and really my only concern is maintenance - not actual "fixer-upper" type things. Indeed, I am capitalizing on the misfortune of the short-seller, as probably the whole reason that she's in the mess she's in is because she did so much to make the little house great (all windows replaced, new hardwood floors on the first floor, new shingles on the roof, AC installed, rehabbed bathroom, all within the last five years) so my only problem is, if all things are as I think they are, those pesky carpenter bees, which are really nothing much to worry about - although one does need to deal with them - according to my home inspector, my realtor, and the internet.

So, should all things be as I think that they are by the end of the week, I will need to a) deal with the shingles/carpenter bee issue, b) replace the door from the basement, c) deal with the smoke detector issue, as immediate things I want to fix. And given the fact that I get my summer fellowship money June 1, and the fact that I'll get the 8K tax credit, I can do all that and still have some money left over (though still, the money, I see it flowing out of my bank account and I sort of want to die).

Anyway, that's the latest on Crazy's House of Awesomeness. We shall see if it actually becomes Crazy's House of Awesomeness, for I'm superstitious enough to believe that something may still go awry.

P.S. I think one of the things that I love about CHA is that all of the door knobs appear to be original. I heart the door knobs of that house.

Research and the Regional State University

2010-04-06T19:29:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about scholarship of late, both of the student and professorial varieties. It's that time of year when we read student portfolios for our annual writing award and where both undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to present their research writing. I've also been thinking a lot about my own research, with sabbatical coming ever closer and with an idea for a pedagogy type article percolating in my head for a special issue of a journal, and a lot about mentoring junior faculty in their research agendas so that they will smoothly sail through tenure and promotion.

When I think about the bigger picture of scholarship in my context - so not just my own individual projects but rather the broader scope of what we have to offer in terms of faculty and student research (so whether we're talking about the research/scholarship that we assign our students to do and to write up or the research that faculty themselves do, which then of course influences how they mentor their students) - I often find myself frustrated. Why?

Well, we're not a research university. And I accept that. But the way in which that often plays out at my institution (and I suspect at many other institutions) is that research is this unspeakable thing which is nevertheless "required." And since it is unspeakable - i.e., that professors even within the same department don't really talk about it seriously with their colleagues, that we look at research as a thing we get done in spite of the "real" demands of our jobs - research becomes something that we think of as a distraction or as something that doesn't demand a high level of achievement. Instead, we see the research "requirement" much in the way that students see "requirements" that aren't meaningful - and we just do the bare minimum to pass. Further, we pass this way of thinking about research on to our students, who see a research paper as something to be "gotten through" as opposed to something that can be personally and intellectually rewarding. We perpetuate a culture of mediocrity.

Now. I am not saying that I will ever have the potential or resources to "produce" in terms of research as I would if I worked at a research university, nor do I think that I or my colleagues should be held to such a standard of production. The reality is that we do teach a 4-4 load, and the reality is that we have a very heavy service load on top of that. And, given the mission of our institution, those things are central and very important. But. That doesn't mean that research isn't a "real" part of the job, something to be done on the weekends and "summers off" like a hobby that you enjoy, and I think that is the attitude that many take.

And, funnily enough, the thing that bugs me most is the "passing that attitude on to students" part of it, because ultimately we are not a community college or a teaching only general education courses. It is, to my mind, my obligation - regional state university or no - to be engaged in scholarly pursuits, at a level appropriate to my institution, and to communicate the value of those pursuits in a knowledgeable and realistic way to my students. I think it is irresponsible, quite frankly, to do otherwise.

But, this is the thing: not all of my colleagues agree with me about the centrality of scholarship to what we do as professors of literature at a four-year university, or about the rigorous standard to which we should hold students.

So, here are some examples.

Recently, I attended a colloquium organized by and for our MA program. Now, it's true that most of these students have absolutely no intention of becoming professors, and we serve a unique niche population that is generally employed outside higher education full-time and intends to continue on in that outside employment. (And those who intend to work in higher ed typically are not expecting tenure-track employment.) In that regard, I have no problem with our program existing, its audience, or its requirements. But I do have a problem that a student was not advised that he shouldn't present a paper in a public forum that, at its center, had a serious theoretical failure of understanding that made its entire argument fall apart. This is a paper that, if this were an undergraduate student of mine, would have earned no better than a high C. Yes, it was acceptable, in terms of prose style, in terms of citation of sources, in terms of whatever. But. Nice effort, nice try, but dude, you don't understand the central thesis of the theory that you're engaging. And that gap makes the paper a less than exemplary effort. And yes, I expect precision, or at least an attempt at precision, even from undergraduates.

Chatting with a colleague during a break in this colloquium, we were discussing teaching upper-level lit courses, which we both teach, and the theory course that is required for some of our majors, which I also have taught. What I learned from this conversation was telling.

Apparently this colleague assigns an x-minimum-page-number paper as the major project in the colleague's lit course, but students regularly come in at well below that minimum (think 5 pages below the requirement). The colleague was genuinely upset that the students were just refusing to do the work, but when I suggested that the colleague should tell students that they will receive a failing grade if they don't meet the page minimum, the colleague looked at me like I was an ogre. "But how can you do that if they submitted something? How is that fair? I think most of us who've been here a long time just give them a C when they do something like that, because what else can you do?" And I said, "um, if you really believe that the page minimum is central, then if they don't meet it than they don't fulfill the minimum requirements of the assignment. Period. You warn them in big bold print that this will happen on the assignment sheet, you warn them about it in class. And if they still do it, well, then they get an F. And let me tell you, if you do that with one section, just once, you will never have another section in which this happens. Word will get around that you really mean it, and also you can tell the tale of the course in which 1/3 of the students in olden times failed the paper for just this reason. If you just hand out Cs, Cs that won't even necessarily result in the lowering of their course grade, how will they ever learn that these requirements aren't arbitrary but rather that they are about the size of the idea and their ability to see an idea through over an extended page length?"

Let's note that I don't actually make such a statement on any of my syllabi or in my course policies. But I also devote 1-2 class periods in upper-level lit courses to writing instruction, and a further class to library instruction, so my students don't test me the same way - in fact, at least some of my students typically go over the page maximum that I set. My colleague doesn't do any writing instruction in lit courses, apparently. There is no reason why my students should listen to me when they don't listen to this senior colleague of mine. There is no reason why I should scare the crap out of them more (though I know that I do, in spite of the fact that I'm still the youngest professor, and female, in my department). If there's any reason for the fact that my students perform while this person's student's don't, it's that they know that I take them seriously, that I take their writing seriously, and that I'm not going to just pass them on through so that I don't have to deal with complaints. And yes, this requires more work of me, in the way that my colleague would frame it, and yes, it requires me to be a hard-ass, when really I'm a big ol' softy on the inside, but it also makes reading those papers that I receive infinitely more rewarding - not only for me as a teacher but for me as a thinker. And it makes those papers that I assign infinitely more rewarding for my students to write. But more on that later.

So then we moved on to discussing the theory course, which movement happened because the colleague was moaning about the fact that I'll be on sabbatical and so I can't teach it in the fall and colleague will need to do it two semesters in a row. Apparently a few of the students currently enrolled in the colleague's course had signed up for my theory course when I taught it and, because I'm a Mean and Unreasonable Lady, dropped. But so we got to talking about what we assign in that course (in terms of reading, in terms of writing, in terms of presentations), and, well, let me just describe the facts.

My class:

4 or 5 (I don't remember which) 1-page (but they can be single-spaced essays in which they take a piece of theory that we've read, take a short passage from it, and use it to provide an analysis of a work of literature.
1 group presentation (where they are expected to introduce the class to a theoretical debate with which the entire class is not familiar and to explain why it's important).
participation
A take-home mid-term exam in which students engage with foundational theoretical texts (so I know that they can move beyond them into things that build from them)
a theoretically oriented research paper that requires students to actually write a 15 page piece of literary criticism that engages not only theory but also secondary critical sources.
a presentation final in which they describe their research paper and link their work in it to what they learned in the course.

Colleague's class:

daily quizzes.
Midterm
Final
Two presentations (which apparently at least the current students are really screwing up).
There may be a paper, but I'm not sure. I feel like there is, but I'm not sure what the parameters of it are.
Participation.

When I described what I do in there to my colleague, all I can say is that the colleague replied, "God! But all of that is so much WORK! Why would you have them write short papers when you could just give them daily quizzes! You actually expect them to use theory in a sophisticated way in their own writing!" or something close to that.

But see, here's the thing: I have my students do that kind of work precisely because that is the kind of work that I value. Yes, it's not easy to teach. Yes, students drop my classes because I push them WAY beyond where they want to be pushed. (Like in Mean Girls, "I'm a pusher!") But I am not willing to hand out Cs like candy, and I'm not willing to pretend that this pesky research, theory, and scholarship stuff doesn't matter. It is what the discipline is, as far as I'm concerned. Because, here's the thing: it really matters to me. I care about it. I think it's valuable. I think that even students who will never go to graduate school learn a whole hell of a lot by doing it. I think that theory, critical writing, and deep thought are things that are going to serve my students whatever they do after graduation.

And so what frustrates me, about my context, is that I think a whole hell of a lot of my colleagues don't believe those same things. Hell, I think they don't even believe that theory, critical writing, and deep thought actually benefit them in their lives beyond school. Or, maybe that's too uncharitable. Maybe they just believe that our students won't be benefited by those things, because, you know, our students are working-class, first-generation college students who just need a piece of paper to get on with their lives. Although, while that's not uncharitable to my colleagues, I think that attitude is deeply uncharitable to the students whom I teach and to the value of the humanities, and English specifically, generally. (Let's note that I was one of those working-class, first-generation college students, so this may be one source of my bristling - not just my commitment to my field.)

But if anything gives me hope and solace, it is this. In the past two years running, I have been the teacher of not only the students who received the "outstanding major" award, but also the teacher of the students who received the "outstanding writing for a graduating major" award. And if I look back over my time on the tenure-track, I have many more students to add to the count in both of those categories, and it is typically my students who are eligible for those awards and nominated, even if they don't end up winning. In other words, the pushing of them? The expecting really excellent work from them? It works. It's not like they're not capable. And it's not like my colleagues don't realize the incredible quality of my students' work when they see it in front of them. They do. It's just they think those students happened by that quality magically, whereas I see that "where the magic happens" is in my classroom - not as some gift bestowed by the gods. This is not in any way to say that I am solely what produces my students' achievements. No. I think this is about their ability. I think these would be strong students whether they had me or not. But I think that the ways in which I challenge them push them beyond the levels that they would reach otherwise. And I think my belief in them, that they are capable, and I think that my belief in the value of the critical and theoretical study of literature, does push them to the next level.

Don't believe me? This year's winner of our department's award for best writing of a graduating major was a student of mine. This student resisted me all the way. This student, as far as I could tell, hated everything that I assigned (in terms of both reading and writing), hated everything upon which I insisted. In this student's portfolio this year, though, I read that this was the hardest class that the student ever took but also the one in which the student stretched the most intellectually and in which this student, an honors student, felt the most challenged. In which the student did work of which s/he was most proud. In which the student saw his/her intellectual limits. This wasn't an honors course. And while the paper wasn't the best I read in that section, it was exceptional work. And when I read it again, in the judging for the writing award, I had a junior colleague say, "this student is an undergraduate!?! This student used Very Important Theorist appropriately and correctly and clearly got it? Plus integrated secondary criticism?!?! Unbelievable!" And let's note, that theory that the student used? Not required. This was a lit course and not a theory course - I just suggested to the student that it would be interesting, and then talked to the student about it independently.

And so yes, this is the student's achievement. The student wrote it, the student did the work. The student allowed me to teach everything I could, in spite of his/her resistance. But I believed that the student could do the work, and I was willing to put the work in to get the student there. And that is because I really do believe in the value of my discipline and of scholarship in it.

And so yes, I am frustrated when this isn't what's happening across my department. Because our students are capable of so much. And while I love that it's "my" students that are winning the awards, I really wish that students I've never met had a greater chance of competing.

So I guess this is my conclusion. Yes, I'm at a teaching institution. But I am at a university - a 4-year university - in which faculty mentor students in ways that suggest that they should go on to graduate degrees and in which we claim to be "experts" in our fields (although at a lower price than students would pay if they went to an R1). If we're going to sell ourselves in that way, we've got to value research. Even if we don't do as much of it as our R1 counterparts (and even as our lower-ranked R1 counterparts),. we've got a responsibility not to pretend that research is insignificant or stupid or hard or not a part of this field. Seriously: you've got a PhD. You've got a tenure-track job at a university. Why should you think that research doesn't count? Why would you want to think that research doesn't count?

Students and Required Courses

2010-04-01T18:23:00.002-04:00

This is further thinking related to yesterday's post, and then to Historiann's response to it over at her place and the comment thread that follows it. And I suppose this post is also informed by the fact that I have been a central figure in revamping, oh, like the entire curriculum at my university over the past 18 months. (Well, maybe not the entire curriculum, but I did almost single-handedly push through a massive revamping of our major as well as develop and push through, with a handful of others, a brand new general education program. And you wonder why I've got sabbaticalitis? This is probably the number one reason.)

But so here's the thing. Requirements. They suck. Nobody likes requirements. I certainly don't like requirements. Requirements hurt my feelings. Requirements are hoops I have to jump through. They cause anxiety (Am I meeting the requirements? Did I forget a requirement?), irritation (This requirement is for the birds!), and exhaustion (Too. Many. Requirements. !!!! I shall die!). My antipathy to requirements in very many ways influenced where I chose to get my Ph.D. One of the best things about my program was that it had very few requirements. One required course, a foreign language requirement, x amount of credit hours in coursework, and an oral qualifying exam and a dissertation. Boom. And the reading list for the qualifying exam? Designed by me (in consultation with faculty, but still, no standard reading lists). So anyway, I understand in a very personal way why students resist those courses that they are required to take. It's because requirements are anxiety-producing, irritating, and exhausting. And they feel arbitrary.

But so why have requirements at all then? Well. It turns out that required things have the potential to blow our minds and to get us to see a bigger picture than we would see and to try things we'd never try if we just followed our bliss or something. I think the trick, however, is that requirements should ultimately have some flexibility, and they should be transparent. There should be some room for independent thinking and interest, and the reason for the requirement should be evident to the person of whom the thing is required. That doesn't mean that an individual will be super-jazzed about fulfilling the things that are required of them, but at least it does mediate the whole "arbitrary and restrictive" thing.

So when we think about requirements, as people who require things, we've got to think about how to articulate the why of them. We can't just think about the execution or end result or the underlying philosophy. So just as one example, I hated the "community outreach" requirement that I had to fulfill for tenure. But, I also got why it was important that I did it, because it's very clear that it's part of my university's mission, and it's very clear that this sort of outreach is essential especially when it comes to making arguments for necessary budgets. I didn't love it, but I understood the "why" of it.

I think that a lot of times students across all disciplines don't understand the "why" of particular things that are required of them, whether it's in terms of courses that they take or whether it's in terms of assignments that they must complete in a given course. It's on us, as the people who make the requirements and who teach students and who advise students, to make the "why" explicit and clear.

This is the reason that even in my lit courses I spend time on writing instruction. This is the reason that in courses that reach an audience of non-majors, I spend a lot of time talking about what all students can get out of the course and its material. Now, not all students pay attention to those messages, but I do think that it's really important for me to send them whatever the case.

Do you know what I think the value of a literature course is for a non-humanities student? I think that it can potentially give them the power to experience more pleasure in the time that they have where they're not working. Seriously. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that non-majors and non-humanities folks will learn skills in my courses that will allow them to enjoy books and movies and television more than they would do, and more deeply than they would do, if they haven't taken my class. That is my One Big Learning Outcome. I don't expect them to become English majors, or to love the books/poetry/films/nonfiction that I teach. I don't expect them to love writing papers or taking the tests that I give, nor do I expect them even to love me (though I like it when they do). I expect to give them skills that will transfer to their reading of novels by Nicholas Sparks and Dan Brown. I expect to give them skills that will allow them to get even more out of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga, both in book and film forms. I expect for them to have the power to enjoy Stephen King and Clive Cussler even more than they do before they take my class. I don't expect that they are going to run off and read every novel Nabokov wrote, or that all of a sudden they'll be reading poetry like it's going out of style. I don't expect that they will think that T.S. Eliot exists for any other reason aside from hurting their feelings. I don't expect that they will all of a sudden be reading Literature with a Capital L for fun. Now, those things might happen, but I don't expect those things. What I expect is that I will teach my students skills that will translate into their everyday lives and make those everyday lives richer.

On the one hand, that's a very small expectation. On the other, when I encounter students like the one from yesterday's post, I realize how huge such a goal really is. How much it really means.

Requirements allow me, as a teacher, the potential to do that for students. For students, requirements allow them the potential to realize that maybe there's more to life than what they've already experienced and what they already know. In that way, requirements are very good things.

Nevertheless, requirements suck, both for teachers and for students. For teachers they suck because it means that you'll have that student who refuses to commit and to engage, always. For students they suck because they feel like roadblocks to what you "really" want to do and think about. I'm not sure there's any way entirely to get around that suckitude. But I do think that it's worth spending some energy on trying to combat it.