Pennies in a Jar

Songs from 1988-93

2012-01-01T16:01:00.001-05:00

I'm working on a series of essays that focus on my life from 1988-93, which are my undergraduate years (though the essays are not really about college). I've been thinking for a while of creating a playlist of songs from the time because music was always in the background, whether from my car radio, my CD player when I was riding the bus, or the background in bars and clubs. Thanks to Wikipedia, I am able to find out when the songs were released and put them in order. But that's not just my Virgo mentality at work. I can look at the list and see a kind of progression, my transition from boyhood to manhood. I just set my timer for twenty minutes today and got the list started. It'll be fun to listen to on the treadmill, though I better have a notebook handy for the memories that arise.

If anyone can think of any songs from that time period, feel free to let me know in the comments. My only rules for including them on the playlist are 1) only one song from an artist or I'll end up putting all of Depeche Mode's Violator and R.E.M.'s Out of Time on the list and 2) they have to be something that played a role, however minor, in my own life. Perhaps your memories might trigger some of my own. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

What I Learned in 2011

2011-12-31T16:52:00.000-05:00

Just because everyone else is excited about it doesn't mean I have to be.

You really cannot over-prepare for the financial side of a sabbatical.

The opposite of holding a grudge is not re-inviting someone back into my life. Sometimes it is just better to say, "That's in the past, and I'm now in a good place in my life. I wish you the same." And then let go.

Just get the work done.

I cannot think or write in soundbites, and that is fine.

New York City is best nine floors up.

I prefer Facebook over Google+ because I do not like picking and choosing who gets what from me; I'd rather throw it all out there and let other people pick and choose what they want (if anything).

The less I carry with me, the happier I am; I mean that literally, but it works figuratively, too.

When my mother died, my life changed forever. There was a time to grieve what I lost. Now is the time to celebrate the life I have, which she gave me.

Schadenfreude may have its place in life, but it's a small one.

I have no reason ever to step on a scale again because it is better to pay attention to the numbers on my blood pressure machine than the numbers on a scale. Even during my annual physical, I can tell the doctor I don't want to know what the scale says even if he does.

Diet and exercise are words I don't want or need to use in my life.

There is value and pleasure in reading fiction.

How many times do I have to be hit across the head before I ask, "Excuse me. What was that again?" Actually, asking that happens often; it's listening to the answer that needs to happen now.

I'm missing out on less than I think I am.

My Most Memorable Reality-TV Moments of 2011

2011-12-28T21:52:00.001-05:00

(Andy at Reality Blurred read a comment I made on Facebook and asked for people's thoughts on the best and worst of reality TV in 2011. I wrote what is below but lost my links when I tried to post it as a comment, so I'm posting it here and putting a link over there.)

I know I watch some different shows than many RB commentors, and I know some are going to cringe at what I think were some reality-TV highlights this year. For me, a high point was America's Next Top Model All-Stars (and the cringing has started). For those of us who are fans, it was a great season mainly because just about everyone on the show was good, and the show focused mostly on their work as models and not as much on in-house drama. The finale was a shock to many because something looked off, and that's because it was. Whatever happened, Lisa D'Amato won, which is what I find fascinating because she appeared previously on the third season of Celebrity Rehab and was number ten on the Top Ten Villains on Reality TV (back in 2008). She brought drama, not talent. But I was proven wrong. She was never drunk and never talked to any shrubbery. Instead, she won challenges and photo shoots. She looked serious and driven. I had never seen this Lisa before, and I admit she impressed me.

As another highlight, I loved the fact that Dustin won Top Shot 3, mainly because he had no military or law enforcement background. Top Shot 2 (which also aired in 2011) featured George, who may be a nice guy deep inside but acted like a child on the show, demeaning anyone who was not a marine. And if you wanted some drama, there was always MTV and The Challenge: Rivals and the fight between Paula and Laurel, which brought Paula's history with eating disorders center stage again.

Two Theories on the Representation of Rape (Inspired by Dragon Tattoo and Precious)

2011-12-21T17:52:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I saw the first showing of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I could. In general, I liked it. I didn't think it was amazing, but it certainly wasn't bad. It was a good thriller, and I think Fincher made some general good choices about what to cut and what to keep. I have a lot of little, minor questions, but one big one is bugging me. Obviously from this post's title, it's about the representation of rape and sexual assault, so I understand many will not want to read it. But I would love comments because this does bug me. Also, I will be giving major spoilers of the book and the two film versions of it. If you want to know nothing, stop reading now.

My question has to do with how the rape of women and the rape of men are treated and why those differences exist. I'll start with the book since it all starts there. It is about the sadistic torture of women. We see that in multiple ways. The entire mystery ends up being about a father and son who tortured women their entire lives, and that is a separate storyline from Lisbeth Salander's own rapes. In the book, we get graphic descriptions of these rapes. Personally, as I've noted before, I think the book does a pretty good job of balancing how much to say. On one hand, Larsson does not shy away from the subject, which is good. I think too many books, films, and TV shows say too little and allow audiences to continue denying the severity of rape (though this is changing and not true with all examples, of course). At the same time, he does not say everything he could. When Salander suffers her tortuous rape at the hands of Nils Burjman, we know it goes on for ninety minutes, but we don't get a full description of it, which would be too much, but we do recognize how horrible it is.

In the book, a few men rape a lot of women. Each of the three men is punished, though not within a legal context. The Swedish film and the American film include each of these men and what they do. The final man who commits the most assaults over several decades is the one that Blomkvist and Salander end up searching for. Blomkvist shows up at this man's house and ends up trapped in that man's torture chamber. In the book, this man makes it obvious that he is about to rape Blomkvist as well: he cuts his clothes off with a knife and then grabs Blomkvist and gives him an aggressive kiss.

Neither film shows this kiss. The American film does show Blomkvist strung up and partially stripped, and the man comments that he has never had a man in this torture chamber or been with a man since he himself was raped by his father. The kiss is gone. And I wonder why? The films have no problem depicting the rape of women, and they have no problem showing Salander's rape of the man who raped her. But they pull back when it comes to representing the rape of a man who is not a sadistic pig. Why?

Theory One: It is always okay to depict the rape of any adult woman by any adult man, but it is rarely okay to show the rape of a man unless he clearly "deserves it."

This got me thinking of another film that centers on rape, Precious. In that film, Precious is raped her entire life by her father. But she is also raped continually by her mother. In the film, that is only alluded to in one scene when her mother calls Precious into her bedroom. I can't remember the exact words she said, but it was something general about coming in to help Momma, and her mother is in bed. I know many intelligent people who did not read this scene as the rape of a daughter by her mother because they expressed shock when I mentioned it or when they read it in the book. I've taught the book the film is based upon, Push, several times. Students who have seen the movie before the book are often shocked when we get to the two scenes that mention the mother's sexual abuse of her daughter.

Theory Two: It is always okay to depict the rape of a child of any gender if that rapist is a man, but it is rarely okay to show it if the rapist is a woman.

Why does this matter? We live in a culture that often does whatever it can to ignore the severity of rape and sexual assault. We think we are a culture that faces it, but I do not see a lot of truth in that. It is very, very true that a strong, strong majority of rapes are committed by men on women. I want to repeat that to be clear: a strong, strong majority of rapes are committed by men on women. But not all rapes happen that way. When I talk in general about rape, I always try not to use gendered language because rape is not just something men do to women.

Many, many people who study the rape of men point out that a major reason men who are raped do not come forward is because they worry that they will not be believed, that they will be laughed at, or that they will be thought of as less than a man. The continued invisibility of the rape of men and boys plays a major role in these feelings. We are also hearing more and more stories of women playing roles in the rape of children either in engaging in rape themselves or in creating situations that allow men to abuse children. Again, those who study these cases say that the survivors often do not report it because they think they will not be believed. Yes, there are a few cases of women who rape men, but that is incredibly rare. That does not mean it never happens or it should never be represented or discussed. But I am most curious right now about the rape of men by men and the rape of children by women because 1) it seems like I am continually hearing more and more stories of such cases in "real life" and 2) I am rarely seeing the depiction of such cases in mass media.

My two theories allow society in general to remain in denial about certain forms of rape and sexual abuse. This is the worst thing to do to survivors of any age or gender. This is why I speak up the way I do. Rape is always wrong. Murder can sometimes be okay such as in cases of self-defense and perhaps in certain wars. Rape is never permissible, however, but I am not sure we have moved much further than where we were as a society once women started speaking out clearly and strongly about their own rapes by men. That is still difficult, and we still live in a world with much blaming the victim and slut-shaming. It's changing slowly as long as many of us refuse to shut up about rape and sexual abuse in all of its forms. In general, though, these two theories seem to be coming truer and truer over time.

Do my two theories ring true to you? Do I just need to accept that this will change over time and not focus on things like a kiss between a rapist and a journalist in Dragon Tattoo and focus instead on the bigger story? Anyone prompted to have any other thoughts by what I've written? Obviously, I care about these issues but know my perspective may be limited as all perspectives are. While I may never "get it right," I certainly want to try to be, and I'll take whatever help any reader can offer.

More Obsessed with Dragon Tattoo Than Lisbeth Salander is with Nils Burjman's Whereabouts

2011-12-18T12:01:00.000-05:00

A few years ago, the husband made a rather astute observation about me: I treat pretty much everything in my life in an all or nothing way. I get obsessed easily. This was a time when I was ignoring him because I was focused on something else, and he was starting to get upset until it hit him that this is just who I am, and that it was not personal to him. He could point out times when I acted with the same laser focus toward a range of people, places, and things. I had never thought about it before, but he is completely right.

I only mention it now because anyone who has seen anything I have been doing online knows I'm obsessed with The Girl with the Dragon Tatto right now. And what is so bizarre is that I had not read any book or seen any movie until two weeks ago this past Friday. When I was flying to Houston, I was at home looking at my books and thinking that I really did not want to read anything that I intended to take seriously or was going to use in my research. Add that to the fact that a few people had asked me what I thought of the novel, if it crossed the line into rape porn or if it handled the depiction of violence well. So I decided to buy a copy at the airport and read it on the trip. As I noted on Twitter, I finished it on my flight out of Houston to Atlanta, so I bought the second one in Atlanta and finished it in NYC before I returned home a week ago yesterday. One week ago tonight, I watched the Swedish version of the first film. And I've been reading all news articles related to the upcoming film that I can find.

I'm planning to see the film at 7:00 on Tuesday when it premieres (I'll be at the AMC in Plainville if anyone local is also planning to see it then). This morning, the husband asked me if I was going to spend the rest of the week complaining about all the changes Fincher made in his film version (Fincher has already said he changed the ending, which has raised my ire). I told him I would respond the same way he did when he first saw the first of the Star Wars prequels and could not shut up about Jar Jar Binks and the future Darth Vadar yelling "Yippee!" in the pod race.

I also told him that I'm now reading The Hunger Games, so my obsession should be switching soon.

Oh, and I do not think the book crosses the line into rape porn. A writer, artist, or filmmaker has to tred a very fine line between revealing too much or too little. I actually get just as annoyed at too little because I think it helps people ignore the seriousness of sexual assault. To me, the book was a perfect balance. The movie? We'll see, and I won't be able to stop thinking about it for days, I'm sure.

Chris Brown, Police Violence, Macbeth, and More

2011-11-20T18:00:00.000-05:00

With the power outage, I have not been able to read a couple of things I had marked a few weeks ago, like this interview with Lee Gutkind about narrative medicine. CNF may be offering an online course in it next year. That could be interesting. I do wonder, though, if we are starting to create a false category with "narrative medicine" since so much can go under it. But you can get an MA in it.
This tweet from Elon James White is fantastic. After years of unarmed black men sometimes being not just shot but killed by police, it seems especially poignant. Now white people are experiencing something that has become normal for so many.
Chris Brown will never get it. He thinks that his beating of Rhianna should never be mentioned again. As I wrote over at Vulture, "If Jane Fonda can still get called Hanoi Jane by some people for things she did thirty years ago that were not crimes, Chris Brown needs to accept that this will follow him for the rest of his life, especially since it's a felony, and those are supposed to follow you the rest of your life. It's why you have to report all felony convictions whenever you apply for anything like a job or passport. Don't plead guilty to a crime if you can't do that time. And for felonies, that time is, in some form, forever." These outbursts of his (like the one a few months ago after Good Morning America) signal that he may just lose it sometime and assault a reporter or someone else, and then it'll be real jail time. But he can get help; he just has to get it now.
Several people pointed me to this article about how female comedians can supposedly get away with things male comedians cannot, like joking about rape. I didn't leave a comment over there, but I almost asked why women who have never been raped have a greater chance of getting away with joking about rape than a man who has been raped.
I (barely) got tickets to see Sleep No More my last night in NYC. I really can't wait. I always feel like I miss the big stuff, but I won't be missing this one. Since there's no dialogue, I think I need to reread Macbeth for the first time in over twenty years so I can catch how the movement, costumes, and set design are telling the story. Supposedly, every line of the play is embedded somewhere (and the play is free on Amazon).

Tweeting, Barebacking, and More

2011-11-12T16:34:00.001-05:00

Thanks to William Bradley for the link to an article about a man who tweeted the argument he was forced to overhear at a Burger King in Boston. The article's author argues that the argument should not have been made public on Twitter, and many of those who left comments agree. I disagree, though there are too many reasons to get into why. I just don't get why people are shocked when things done in public are made public. Since the Rodney King beating, we know that cameras and recoding devices are everywhere, and that was before we were even talking about social media. It's funny that so many are upset that this was made public on Twitter, but if this fight had led to the murder or assault of one member of the couple by the other, he'd be a hero for documenting what led to the crime. We can't have it both ways.
I love how the last paragraph of this article about some of the problems that have occurred at various occupy sites puts sexual assaults at the same level as peeing in a bottle. We were in the middle of the power outage when a women's only tent was created at Occupy Wall Street because some women felt the park wasn't safe, so I don't know if anyone has been talking about that or if it has been kept quiet so representation of the movement stays entirely positive.
John Hodgins tweeted a link to this great article on happiness. It's a lot of common sense, but it's also concise, clear, and something I think I should read daily.
I was really happy to see such an extensive article about sex parties and barebacking in SF Weekly, but I did feel compelled to leave this comment at the site: "As someone who has been around and having sex since the 80s, who lost my first husband to AIDS as well as numerous friends, I really can't believe we're still having this discussion. People were having sex without condoms way before any porn company had videos showing it, way before barebacking was a word, and way before we had even a tenth of the drugs we have now to combat HIV. If you condemn the practice, it will not disappear. It will just go further underground. Shaming people about their sexual practices (when it's consenting adults with consenting adults) will lead to nothing but more pain, death, and conflict. Lots and lots of people have sex with condoms. Lots of lots of people do not. I'd rather have conversations than point fingers and say the government should step in and do something to 'those people.'" I've left other comments, too, in response to what some people have said to me, but it's all the same kind of conversation we all usually have on this subject, and that's sad, really.

Random Thoughts on #Occupywallstreet

2011-10-05T12:53:00.000-04:00

Being in NYC right now is pretty fascinating timing, from the events surrounding the commemoration of the decade since 9/11 to the helicopter crash yesterday to the string of sexual assaults in Brooklyn to #occupywallstreet. I've been down to #occupywallstreet a few times as an observer. I say that for reasons that will hopefully become clear after reading my observations below.

Also, while I shouldn't have to say it, the opinions on my blog are my own and not that of my employer, those providing the fellowship that allows me to live in NYC, or anyone else on the planet. Got it? Good.

Is confusion an emotion? When I think of the primary thing I feel about everything happening, confusion is what I feel most (with some sadness and anger thrown in).

Saturday, September 24, was the day that protestors were maced as they walked north. Here's the thing that starts my confusion. I was leaving my place to get lunch somewhere when I got to Broadway and saw the march. But I didn't know what the march was for. Some of the signs were clearly about Wall Street, but this was the weekend after Troy Davis was executed in Georgia, and a good half of the signs carried by the marchers were about justice for Troy Davis, so I thought the march was about that. Also, I was apparently about two or three blocks before they were maced, but the police I saw looked so bored that I thought the group had a parade permit and that officers were following along, cordoning off traffic, and moving everyone to Washington Square Park (I heard later that they were trying to get to Union Square). Then, later, I heard about the mace or pepper spray and that it was the #occupywallstreet group. Hence, the start of my confusion.
The park this is serving as headquarters is a private park catty-corner from the World Trade Center. It's an expanse of cement with a few trees here and there. I am curious as to why they chose a private park and not, say, the public park at City Hall. It's just as close to Wall Street and can hold more people. The group has looked the same the last few days, with a couple of hundred people looking like they are in the group sleeping there. And hundreds of other join in at various moments, especially the marches (see below, though). The guy who owns the park was on the news saying that he's cool with everything, but I'm betting this is going to end when he decides to shut down the park. I'm also wondering if he's going to end up putting a fence around it (like most of the public parks in the city). And if there is any violence in the park, will he be liable since he owns the land?
People regularly drive by and yell some version of "Get a job!" to the crowd. At first, people would yell back. Today, no one responded. The police kind of chuckled, but their eyes were looking at the crowd, wondering, I am just assuming, if things would escalate, but it's become a bit ordinary, I think, to hear people drive by and yell that they should all get jobs.
And this gets at another point of confusion that leads to sadness. The signs that are printed say "99% work for the 1%." Anyone see the potential problem in framing it that way? On the local news, the protesters who are on camera are ones who talk about having a job but living paycheck to paycheck or just not being able to pay their bills after working forty hours a week. A minor skirmish I happened to see on Monday was between a homeless person telling a group of these people that they should be happy they have a job. A few people started raising their voices to the homeless guy, but most people looked a little freaked out, including me. I get why the homeless man was upset. He's hearing people complain about working, and he wants to work. But the workers protesting are right to protest. Still, I have started to wonder about the whole 99% nomenclature and if people think of that group as containing only people who work and earn money for the 1% or everyone who is not the 1%. I'm betting there's a lack of consistency. Actually, I'm betting most people haven't thought about it that deeply. But a fight between protesters and the homeless would be a really bad idea. That dust-up got shut down fast, and I wonder if there have been more.
And now the anger. Recently, there have been at least ten sexual assaults in Brooklyn. It looks like two men are involved. Obviously, a lot of people are upset by this, and I should probably write a separate post on it, especially the way that SlutWalk has been brought into this. Today, at 6:00, there is going to be a march in Brooklyn about these assaults. I got the email about it last week. Then, #occupywallstreet decided to have another march today at 5:30. I think they have been wanting to do something during the week when Wall Street employees are actually around. Now, it happens that groups plan events that overlap, especially since each is about something happening right now. I plan to go to Brooklyn for that march, and anyone who knows me should not be surprised one bit that I would choose that one. When I was there this morning, and someone passing out flyers about today's march tried to hand one to me, I said, "No, thanks. I know about it, but I'll actually be at the Brooklyn Rally against Sexual Assault." His response? "This is more important." I say, "I think both are important." He said, "We need people more." I knew to keep my cool and just said, "Do you want to say that to any of the journalists around here?" And we walked away from each other. I left soon after. I know that people will have their own reasons to choose one over the other if they would normally attend both, but to say that one is more important? To say to me (and, yeah, the guy didn't know me, but still) that sexual assault is something "less than"? What an ass. And I know he is an individual ass, and his views are not necessarily the views of others, but it did piss me off. Maybe I should have lied or kept quiet, but I honestly thought that we were all kind of on the same side. I was wrong. But, really, don't pick fights with the homeless or sexual assault survivors.
Two other random things. First, it smells great down there now because all the food trucks are all situated along the south side of the park. Second, the vendors have shown up, including a guy who has a table of bronze or brass bulls like the one on Wall Street. Really? Do you think these protestors want to take a replica of the bull home to remember this? Ah, capitalism (which is what this all comes down anyway, I guess).
Oh, one other important thing. I have been taking photos, but I decided today that I will not post them online. In fact, I may delete them. Why? This has already become a tourist attraction, and there are tons of people with cameras around, and people are starting to make signs that say some version of, "Please do not exploit us by taking our pictures." And that hit me. I felt uneasy taking photos of people as I usually do, which is why so few of the photos I ever take are of people, and seeing that sign today made me flinch, but I immediately agreed. The computer where I do my photo work is at home, so I have posted nothing yet, but I planned to do so. I even have a photo where a woman to the side is wrapped up in a sleeping bag and drinking coffee from Starbucks. I admit I was going to post that photo with a comment about the irony of it, but I thought of that as only a giggle and nothing to be that critical of. But seeing that sign about exploitation made me remember one of the basic points of visual rhetoric. If I post a photo, someone could publish it somewhere. It happens all the time since I use a Creative Commons license, and my photos are usually background or used like stock images would be used (most recently, a real estate company wanted to use this one, for example). But I suddenly got the image in my head of someone taking that photo of the woman with Starbucks, cropping it, and somehow creating an image to promote hypocrisy. I don't want that to happen. I actually think that the Starbucks coffee along with the pizzas and Subway sandwiches are often donated. I've seen people walk into the group of people actually staying there 24/7 to bring food and drink. But, yeah, me just posting random photos on Flickr could lead to exploitation. I know a lot of people are doing it, and it's not something I think everyone should stop doing. We need to images. But I'm going to leave their creation and distribution to those who have been invested in this from the beginning and not just some basic tourist like me who has spent less than a few hours watching over a couple of weeks.

Now, I admit that I have not read a lot about #occupywallstreet online because I have barely been online these past few weeks, so I'm not sure what issues have or have not been mentioned elsewhere. I have watched the local NYC and national news (since I'm also living without cable, and there's really nothing else to watch at 6:00 PM). Frankly, I imagine what has been said in the media contains several versions of truth.

from Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner's "Sex in Public"

2011-09-25T18:51:00.002-04:00

Word, part two.

"Respectable gays like to think that they owe nothing to the sexual subculture they think of as sleazy. But their success, their way of living, their political rights, and their very identities would never have been possible but for the existence of the public sexual culture they now despise" (Berlant and Warner 563).

from Donald E. Hall's Reading Sexualities

2011-09-25T15:47:00.001-04:00

Word.

"We in sexuality studies need such place-holding utopias--ones in which wide-ranging sexual diversity is valued highly, in which explorations of possible mutabilities in sexual desire (self-generated, theoretically generated, and simply temporally inevitable) are discussed energetically, in which the many ways that people engage in consensual erotic relationships are appreciated--and we need a mechanism to get us there: a missionary-like zeal for conversing among ourselves and with those who differ from us. We also need the intellectual quickness, flexibility, and tenacity to weather setbacks, shift tactics, and allow ourselves and our goals to alter in active dialogue with others. Marketplace acceptance nad token media visibility, though useful, should never suffice as the telos or our work--they are simply a side benefit" (Hall 15).

How Would You Cite Quotations from TV Shows and Movies?

2011-07-28T19:36:00.000-04:00

Anyone who has been following me anywhere online knows that I have been researching rape jokes for a few years. I'm finally drafting the article, and I'm stumbling on something. At the start of my article, I list ten sample rape jokes I have collected from television and film over the last twenty years. What do you see as the most legitimate way of citing quotations from TV shows and movies? I'm trying to decide between two ways.

First is citing the actual episode of the TV show or the movie. The journal to which I plan to submit this article wants Chicago-style endnotes, and citing the individual episodes is tricky. The citation starts with the group, performer, or composer. Is that the person who wrote the episode/film? Is it the director? Is it the person who spoke the quotation in question? The one advantage of citing quotations this way is that I am citing the original source, but it's not often a source that people can find easily (such as obscure movies and cancelled TV shows not on DVD). That's another thing, if it's on DVD, do I cite it that way even if I made a note of it fifteen years ago during a broadcast?

Second is citing IMDB quotation pages. I have been keeping notes for years, but I confirmed my notes by referring to IMDB, and I could cite the quotations from there. But that is not necessarily the original source. On one hand, this does show people the actual quotation they can read for themselves. But it also feels a bit like citing Wikipedia. IMDB is credible to me, but would academic readers read it this way?

I should note that I am planning to send it to a rhetoric journal and not a media studies journal, at least not for the first go around. So, rhetoricians, would citing the IMDB page bug you? What about you media scholars? Preferences?

(And if any students are reading this, you can see that professors struggle with citation just like you do.)

Now That I Know What I'm Doing

2011-04-24T17:37:00.000-04:00

In this post, I listed the various things I was applying for during my sabbatical. This past Friday, I finally heard about everything. I had made some educated guesses about what I would and would not get, and I was partly wrong and partly right. At any rate, I am going to be living on the NYU campus for the entire fall semester as an NYU Faculty Resource Network Scholar in Residence. Yes, I am very excited. The point is to be in the city and visit as many archives as often as possible. Then, I will be home for the spring semester and can figure out what to do with whatever I find in the fall. In June, I will also be at NYU for the week-long seminar on "The Anatomy of Evil." Last week, I applied for another June seminar and submitted a proposal to an October conference right before I started writing this entry.

So, for the rest of April and early May, it's all about finishing classes and submitting final grades. For the rest of May, it's all about finishing up my work as department chair and getting everything together for the interim chair. June is about travel. July and August will be about prep work for NYU. I want to make lists of the places to visit and what I definitely need to look at and what I will look out if time allows. I'll set up some appointments later in the summer. I'm also hoping to get an essay on Wojnarowicz and one on rape representations done by September 1 and one of my essays on pornography done by February 1. That may sound like a lot, and I need to be careful not to put too much pressure on myself or I'll crash, but each of those three essays are already in the drafting stage. One goal of the sabbatical is to finish those things and get them out and away.

I'm glad I can start making more official plans. And the rejections didn't sting at all. Of course, they came after I learned that the NYU fellowship had come through, which does make it easier. And I'm happy I tried for a few things, even the long shots.

From Edwidge Danticat's "A Little While"

2011-04-20T18:29:00.000-04:00

“It is,” she insists. “That’s what it is. And life, like death, lasts only yon ti moman.” Only a little while.

(more)

My Dreams are Getting Longer and Stranger

2011-03-12T14:45:00.000-05:00

I just have to write about the dream I had last night. As I've mentioned now and then, I saw a sleep specialist last summer. I just never have slept well, and nothing would work. My doctor would give me something like Ambien, and it would have no effect on me. I would try this and that to no avail. I would take something like Nyquil and end up jazzed and hopped up for hours. So, I saw this guy, and he had me figured out right away. Over a few weeks, we came up with drugs that would target my particular issues, and I started to sleep for what felt like the first time in my life. Now, I do have to make sure I give myself plenty of time to sleep, about nine hours with ten being perfect. The doctor says that I am recovering from about forty years of sleep debt. He also said that I would start having longer and move vivid dreams as I entered the deeper levels of sleep. I have always had odd dreams, but he was right about them getting stranger.

Last night, the first part involved being in a movie theatre that was as the base of an apartment building. I was outside the theatres and in the hallway. There was something I wanted to do, but Tria wouldn't help me. I think it was some kind of fight over who was going to get credit for something or get recognized for something, and she got in there first. So, I went upstairs. There was some other stuff before then that I don't remember.

In my apartment, I found my sister and brother-in-law. They looked exactly like they do now, both in their fifties. But they were acting like teenagers. And they were baby sitting two boys. They might have been my step-brothers, but I'm not sure. They, too, wouldn't talk to me or let me do anything, so I went to the back of the room. The boys were loud and jumping up and down, and my sister and brother-in-law were eating chips or popcorn or something while lying on the couch. My brother-in-law went in to start a bath for the boys so they could get ready for bed.

Then, my "father" got home. I use the quotation marks because he looked nothing like my father. In fact, he looked most like porn star Dean Coulter (link may be NSFW to some people) but with a thicker goatee. He went into the kitchen, and I went in to hug him, and he started talking to my like the husband does when I hug him when he or I get home or if we've been ensconced in our offices here at home away from each other for a few hours. And when I say he talked to me, I mean he was just using the terms of endearment that the husband uses with me, which could also be a way a father would talk to a child (yeah, you psychoanalysts can have your fun with that one). Oh, and let me make it clear that I am talking about the adult version of me just as the teenagers were adult versions of my sister and brother-and-law. I remember feeling like I was twelve even though I had a full beard and bald spot.

So, he's hugging me and asking if I'm okay, which I'm not, and the boys start screaming about how they need their bath before they go to bed, so my "father" goes in to start the the bath, but it's been running for awhile. The tub is full with water spilling over the edges. I run into another room to grab a bunch of towels that are all over the floor in the room where the teenagers are watching TV, stretched out on couches with their junk food all around them. The towels are things they were supposed to have washed, but they are all over the floor. My brother-in-law screams, "Aw, shit! I forgot!"

Then, I woke up. Don't know what the heck any of it means and don't really care. I'm more surprised that my dreams are getting longer and that I can remember more of them. And they are getting even weirder.

Help Me Find Columnists for My Rhetoric Course

2011-01-21T13:31:00.000-05:00

I'm teaching Foundations of Rhetoric, and I'm mixing it up. We're reading contemporary theorists (Foucault, Scarry, Haraway, Butler) in the first unit. For their major assignment, I want students to take the theories we've read and apply them to the work of one newspaper/magazine columnist who writes regularly. I want them to read that person's work for the last couple of months and develop an argument about the extent to which they are an effective rhetorician using the theories we've discussed. For example, Frank Rich was the first one who came to mind. But, obviously, I want to get a range of people with some diversity. Students will choose one, and I want to give them some real choices. Politically, there is George F. Will. There's Mona Charen and Maureen Dowd.

I will fully admit my embarrassment at not being able to think of racial or ethnic diversity. Maybe Ta-Nehisi Coates? I don't know if I can get over my personal anti-Andrew Sullivan bias. Yes, I'm still holding a grudge about the whole barebacking, magic glutes things from the 1990s.

So, when you think of columnists writing regularly today, who comes to mind? Any and all ideas appreciated.

Over the Next Month

2011-01-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

Four weeks from today, I will be in NYC. Four weeks from last night will be Robyn at Radio City Music Hall. Though a tangent for my professional blog, I have to say I do not understand why Robyn's music is not all over radio in the United States. It is the kind of pop/dance music that shows skill and grace. But, I digress. I am excited about the idea of spending the weekend in the city, and I cannot wait for the concert. But the weekend is the perfect timing for me because I have so many grant and fellowship applications due by then. Actually, the final deadline is four weeks from this past Friday. So, yeah, it's going to be a nutty month.

~~Fellowship One: January 15~~ Done and out!
~~Conference Panel Proposal: January 15~~ Done and out!
~~Grant One: January 21~~ Done and out!
~~Grant Two: January 24~~ Done and out!
~~Fellowship Two: February 4~~ Done and out!
~~Fellowship Three: February 4~~ Done and out!

And this coincides with the start of my semester this week and teaching two classes I have never taught before. But, hey, if anyone was reading my #reverb10 posts on my personal blog, I talked a lot about 2011 being the year of productivity, so no complaints from me. Right now, I'm excited. And nervous. I'm more nervous now that I've put it all in a list, but I'm excited about the potential.

Guess I better get to work, though.

No, I Really Suck

2011-01-03T21:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's post was in response to something I read where someone talked about how they feel bad reveling in schadenfreude, so they sometimes talk about themselves negatively to balance it out. Considering that yesterday's post was partly to show my negative qualities, it was pretty lame. And in a bit of karma, my worst instincts came out today, meaning my insane jealousy. I've kept it quelled for awhile, probably because of the good feelings I've been having for the last month. But there are certain people out there in the world who drive me up a wall. Why? Because they are admired and respected. And worst of all? They deserve to be admired and respected. There are a couple of blogs out there I don't read anymore because they just pissed me off. And they pissed me off because they were writing long, engaged posts that people were responding to. And to make it worse, I trolled. Oh, most people probably wouldn't think my comments were really trolling. They would just be anonymous and snide. And I'd get shot down fast because I deserved it. If I was acknowledged at all.

This came up today because I read a link in someone's blog to one of these bloggers. And I read that link, which led to more on that blog. Which reminded me of other blogs I felt the same about, so I checked those out. Same reaction. Even as I was doing it, I asked myself what I was doing. I hate wasting time, and this is the biggest waste of time of all. As I saw the clock on the computer reach the top of the hour, I started telling myself to get to work, to pull up something in Word that will make me feel better about how I was spending my time. I didn't do it, though, until I realized something, something simple that I had never acknowledged before. These people have such positive response to what they write because they work on it. They take time to write long, thoughtful posts full of links and ideas. Anyone who has been reading me for any amount of time knows I don't do that. I write as I think. And I don't proof. Sometimes, I'll read something a few days or even months after, find a typo, and fix it. Usually, though, I just leave it. I will not have people reprinting my posts in the New York Times or mentioned on HuffPo because I am not even trying to make that happen. So I have to let that go.

And I am thankful to all of you who do still read this blog. When I click my stats, I'm still surprised to see that people are reading. Thanks! I'd rather have these few readers who follow me around on my meandering. After all, that's the real me, or as close to it as anyone can get in a blog. As for those other people? Well, good on them for putting their efforts into posts that are engaging people. Seriously. I'll stay over here with my ADD-addled writing getting sidetracked by every shiny thing that comes along.

I Suck

2011-01-02T21:59:00.000-05:00

Anyone who does not know me who has read the posts I have written daily over the last month will likely have one of two reactions. Well, the third reaction is that someone could care less. That's probably the majority or readers who have found me from #reverb10 and Holidailies. But there's probably a group, however small, who fine me interesting, someone who's got it all together. Then there's group, hopefully smaller but perhaps not, who think I'm an ass, an arrogant braggart.

Oh, these posts this path month do show my best side. I can certainly be a pretty organized person, and this past month has been a pretty good one in terms of using that part of me to get things done. You know what I've been doing the past couple of days? I have been organizing our Christmas ornaments. Last Christmas was the first in this house, our final house. But it was two months after the move, and we were still stressed since we hadn't sold the old place. This year, things are calmer, and I decided to go through the decorations. If we didn't put it up this year, it's out, gone. And all the ornaments got labeled in various ziploc bags as opposed to the random plastic bags and newspaper wrappings we were using. See, that's what I do when I've got it together.

But I should confess. I am one of those academics who has no common sense. Well, that may not be fully true, but I sure do have a tendency to go about things the long way. It happens a lot. The husband and I are in Chicago, and we need to get to the other side of the platform, so I take us down the escalator about two floors and through a couple of doorways and up a couple of escalators. Then, the husband asks why we didn't take the stairs that are over the tracks. Huh. In all the time I lived in Chicago and transferred to a train at that station, I never really noticed those stairs, and there was more than one time that I had to get to the other side to get to the train I wanted. That's not the lone example either. There are times I drive somewhere and realize that there was a perfectly clear and shorter route there.

I am just the kind of person who takes five steps when two would do. The husband jokes that I dirty ever dish in the house when I make dinner. It's true. There are times I do something, throw utensils in the sink, and then realize that I really could have used the knife, cutting board, or bowl again. Sometimes it pisses me off because I hate to waste time, especially when I'm the cause of the waste.

But I try not to dwell on that. As I tell my husband, it may take a while, but we will get there. It may not be graceful. It may not be smooth. But we get there. That's what I try to remember.

Put Up or Shut Up

2011-01-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

I've liked this daily bit of writing over the last month for #reverb10, and there are still a few days left for Holidailies. Even though I was bugged by how the prompts for #reverb10 seemed repetitive, I had some fun moments, especially early on. I will not be keeping up with daily blogging, but it's been nice to do it for a month. I wrote more this past month than I have in a year. That's sad. I'm a firm believer in how blogging is where we can slow down and think, but I, too, have gotten caught up in the quickness of Twitter and Facebook. I wonder how many words a day I actually write?

At any rate, this blogging has coincided with other writing. I've done more this break than any other winter break. Actually, the fifteen pages I have written for an article I'm writing is pretty amazing, to me. Some people do it all the time, but I don't. And even though I've been feeling good, I looked at the calendar today and panicked a bit. Lots of deadlines, but I'm ahead of the game in a lot of ways. My winter class starts on Monday, which sucks in that I will have to get up early daily for the next couple of weeks, but the money is nice especially since the teaching is easy, being the fourth time I've taught this winter class. And I chose the early slot rather than the afternoon because this does give me the rest of the day to work. It's still over two weeks before spring classes start.

I've spent the last month doing all this talk about what I want these next few months to be. What's the cliche? Put up or shut up. It's time.

My Grading Process

2010-12-31T15:29:00.000-05:00

I have been teaching for almost twenty years, and I have learned a lot in that time, including how little students know about the work professors do. That is partly where this post comes from. When I assign a piece of formal writing in my classes, I tell students that it will take me one to two weeks to return papers to them. Occasionally, I get asked why it takes that long. I try to explain quickly, but it often doesn't feel right. So, I am creating this post so that students can understand how I grade. And I do not mean how I decide what gets an A, B, or C; my general grading rubric does that. This is the actual process I follow when I get papers from a class. It's not that amazing or interesting, but I just want to make visible something that is generally invisible. Too much happens behind closed doors, and it does not have to be that way. So, if you are in one of my classes, and you write an essay for me, here's what I do next.

First, I download all of the essays I have received, giving them clear names so I can distinguish between clean copies and copies that will contain my comments. That way, I do not return the wrong essay to a student. Because I use Dropbox as my storage system, all of those essays get backed up immediately, too, so there is no chance they will get lost.

Next, I count how many essays I have to grade. Then, I look at my personal schedule and see what is coming up for me over the next couple of weeks, how many meetings I have or other deadlines I must meet. At that point, I decide when I want to have these essays returned and how many I need to grade each day to meet that goal. For me, grading several essays in a row is a bad idea because I get tired, and the essays I grade last end up with fewer comments and less feedback. That is not fair. Therefore, I came up with this method. If I only have five essays to grade, I can grade them without feeling rushed.

Then, I start grading. I always grade essays in the order in which I received them. I open up the document that is supposed to contain my comments, and I start commenting. As I do this, I keep a copy of the prompt for the assignment close by so I can remember what the exact requirements are. Depending on the assignment, grading can take from ten to thirty minutes. Usually, I grade three and take a break. As I grade each essay, I write down the student's name, their grade, and a couple of words about why they received that grade on a legal pad I keep next to my computer. This helps me keep grades consistent. If I gave a student a B- because of lack of evidence, then I know that other essays with the same problem should get the same grade unless there are other issues are play, too.

After that, one of two things happen. If it's a small class of twelve students or so, I will grade all of the essays. Then, I review the grades to make sure I have been consistent. This means opening up some of the essays to review my comments or just checking my list of grades to see if anything seems odd. In the past few years, making sure I am consistent has not been an issue. After grading writing for almost twenty years, I know what I am doing. I just like to make sure. Also, this is when I develop the list of general issues that I plan to review during class. After this review, I email all of the essays back. In a class of about twenty students or so, I may email back the essays by students who turned them in first once I have completed about two-thirds of the grading. That is usually more than enough to ensure consistency and clarity on my part. And, if you have the chance to revise, it gives the students who turned in their work first a few more days, maybe, to think about those revisions.

When I grade formal essays, I attach the graded essay to a reply to the email the student sent that contained the essay. I include a generic message that describes how to find my comments and understand the marks on the page. I then hit "Send." If I am grading a revision, I generally do not comment within essays since students have already gotten such feedback from me on the first draft. Instead, in my email replying back, I will write a paragraph that states the grade the essay has earned and why. I will always be glad to go over revisions for any students who are thinking of revising them again for writing samples to go with graduate school or job applications.

If any essays are late but still within the time I will take them, which is stated on the syllabus, I will grade those after I have returned all essays sent on time. If I have multiple classes that all have essays due around the same time, grading late work can take even longer. I do not comment on late essays, but I do send an email back saying what grade that essay has received. As I say on the syllabus, we can review these essays in my office, especially if you have the chance to revise.

I should add that I do almost all of my grading at home where I have a big desk, large computer screen, and comfortable chair. Sometimes, I have the TV on playing some marathon of America's Next Top Model or Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, shows I have seen many times before and that function as white noise, blocking out anything that might disrupt me. Sometimes, I'll have the radio on, usually B96 on iTunes. Complete quiet makes too aware of every creak in floors or car driving by outside, which does discombobulate me. I always try to create a space and time where I can focus until I have met that day's quota. I know some professors who light candles and others who make sure they have certain (non-alcoholic!) drinks or snacks nearby. I stick with water.

If there is anything else anyone wants to know about my grading process, just ask. I really do think professors should make more of what we do clear to students.

Core Story

2010-12-31T14:49:00.000-05:00

What is my core story? I love my job, and my job is my life, so I love my life. That is a statement that I should not write for a lot of reasons. One, I know people who are fighting to get into jobs like mine, people who are more qualified than I was when I was first looking. By saying this, I am not trying to brag but trying to show my gratitude. Also saying that my job is my life is something that really freaks a lot of people out. As someone wrote on Facebook the other day when I said something along these lines, "When does the job end and life begin?" To me, they're intertwined, purposely. I don't have kids. This is a world that puts up a lot of roadblocks to gay men having children. We explored our options in the late 1990s and decided in 2000 that we were officially not going to have children. So, we both began to explore other options for what our life could become, which meant we both devoted more time to our careers. It also meant that we started regular saving for big trips, what with not having to save for college or anything like that.

But, basically, he returned to graduate school, and I finished. I got the job where we decided to make our permanent home. And we both work all the time but in ways that don't feel like work. Oh, sure, there are days when the deadlines and demands get to be a bit much. In general, though, we're reading things that relate to our work, we're watching things on TV on in the movie theatres that relate to our work, and we're spending time talking about our work. And we feel very, very lucky to be able to do that. While I'm on sabbatical, he will be finishing his dissertation, and we'll be there to support each other, reading srafts, offering encouragement, giving each other space when needed and shoulder at other times.

My core story is that I love talking, reading, writing, and thinking about all these things I get to talk, read, write, and think about. I seek opportunities where I can do more talking, reading, writing, and thinking. I don't do it to be a star or to impress anyone; the rather short list of publications on my CV sure proves that. It's more about the daily routine, the curling up in the chair in my office with a good book, the curling up on the couch with the husband to watch a movie that will have us talking for weeks.

I am lucky to be where I am, and I know that. Things can change very quickly, which is why I try to appreciate and celebrate what I have while I have. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Gift

2010-12-30T20:19:00.000-05:00

What's the greatest gift I have been given this year? The ability to say no. This relates to the moment to which I keep referring whenever we're supposed to write about important moments of the past year. For years, people have been telling me I need to learn to say no. Sometimes, my answer was that I would say no when I wanted to. But this past year has taught me that even if I don't want to say no, saying no really might be the best thing in the long run. Or it just might mean more time for the things to which I have already said yes. I've known that I could say no for years. This past year, I truly started to believe it. And act on it.

Defining Moment

2010-12-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

The prompt for #reverb10 is to discuss a defining moment of the past year, but I feel like that's been the primary topic of all of the #reverb10 posts. In this entry, I link to previous posts where I wrote about the topic. It has come up so many times in the prompts that this is now the second post where I'm linking to posts where I already talk about it. #reverb 10 has been fun, but I'm a little over talking about moments from the past year. Or maybe it's just a sign that I lead a lame life since I don't have numerous ones to discuss? Well, I'd argue that all my effort from the past few years has finally created a sense of cohesion that I've wanted for a long time. And that's a good thing.

Achieve

2010-12-28T22:04:00.000-05:00

I think it's pretty obvious from previous posts what I want to achieve in 2011: productivity. I want to get stuff done. Already during this winter break, I have written more than I have during any other winter break, and I still have some time left. I have thirteen pages done for an article I want to get done for a journal's deadline of February 15, and I actually feel like I can do that. After I post this, I'm going to add a bit more to it. The #reverb10 prompt says to list ten things we can do or thoughts we can have so that we can feel what we say we want to feel next year. Again, as previous posts show, I've been thinking of this for awhile, so I do have things in mind.

Apply for the grants and fellowships I have on my calendar. I have a few grants and such that I want to apply for. Some are long shots, and some feel doable. No matter in which category they fall, I plan to get these done and then move on. I think the moving on is important because I want to put forth a good effort but not obsess over everything.
Keep track of my spending. The sabbatical comes with a 40% pay cut. I've been planning for that since I started thinking of my sabbatical application. I was eligible to apply for this year, but I wasn't going to do that as long as we had two mortgages. Now, I feel fine about things, but I know that I need to be more conscious of my spending so I don't have to think about money during the year.
Write regularly. I'm not saying I should write daily because I actually don't think daily writing is the best thing to do, but I do need to write regularly, whether I meet time goals or page goals.
Read regularly. This is why I do not think I need to write daily. Some days, I should just read something that relates to my writing. Today, I stopped at Starbucks before a movie just to read, and what I read is what I'm planning to put into the article I'm not writing, which is why I have something to add tonight.
Move regularly. I am making a pledge to stop talking about exercising. I do not plan to exercise. But I plan to move more. For me, that means walking more. When I'm in NYC, I already enter or exit the subway at a stop or two before or after the stop closest to where I need to be. And that's what I want to do. With winter coming, that does mean hitting the treadmill. But I just need to move, which gets the blood flowing and gives me time to think.
Dream. I need to dream, to daydream and imagine what it would be like to achieve the big things or make big steps. This allows me to follow the cliche of reaching for the stars and ending up higher than I would have if I hadn't tried to reach for them. I need to dream, usually when I'm walking.
Sleep. I have gotten a lot better about sleeping in the last few months, and I need to do that. I need to stop feeling guilty for sleeping late. I'm a night owl. So I often will sleep until ten in the morning this coming year, but that's fine because I have the energy to work well into the night. It doesn't matter when I work, so it shouldn't matter when I sleep. I just need to do it.
Review my journals. I have always thought I should go through all the journals I have been keeping off-and-on since fourth grade to see what's there, to keep track of ideas, and just to reflect. I know that will be good for me in a lot of ways.
Clear out the clutter. Yes, I'm an anal-retentive Virgo, so I'm pretty organized. But there are always things to go through. There are some boxes and plastic totes shoved in the back of closets during our move, and now is the time to go through them, slowly but surely. I always tell my students that fastwriting and brainstorming help you empty your head of ideas to make room for new ones. And I think the same works physically. I get rid of things I do not need, and I make room for things that are better for me.
Believe in myself. I need to remember that I can do this. It's not about impressing anyone. It's about putting work out there that I believe in, that says what I want to say. If I keep that in mind, I'll be happy with what I've produced in 2011 and beyond.

This was a good one. I like how the prompt forced me to articulate a few things more concretely. Here's to doing it!

Ordinary Joy

2010-12-27T21:05:00.017-05:00

The moments this past year when I felt ordinary joy are generally private ones. They are all those moments when the husband and I ended up having a spontaneous, random, extended conversation. I can remember coming home from work, and we end up sitting at the kitchen table for an hour talking about something I read online about some TV show we watch, and then we end up talking about politics, which then segues into some memory we share, and then it all circles around again. These conversations can't be planned, but they happen every few weeks. It's the randomness that I love, how it goes from serious to ridiculous to intimate. And then we retreat to our offices for whatever work we have to do.

We have lots of time to talk during the week. We talk when we drive to our Friday movie, and we talk at dinner. We talk at dinner on weekend nights, and we chat everyday about whatever happened. But it's these spontaneous random moments that I love. I can't make them happen, but I appreciate them when they do.

Grading Rubric

2010-12-27T19:39:00.000-05:00

This is a general grading rubric that I use in all of my classes. I have another post where I describe my actual grading process in terms of what I do first and last when grading, but this post focuses on the general framework I use to assess student work.

Grading is a part of the course in which I do not necessarily find pleasure. While I enjoy responding to your formal assignments and helping you improve your work and deepen your thinking, having to put a letter at the end as sort of a final act is not fun. Still, grades are a necessary part of a college education, and after teaching for several years, I do have a clear sense of how to grade particular essays. It is my responsibility to be as clear as possible to you about how I grade and what you need to do to receive the grade you want. This rubric is meant to stimulate discussion between us about what makes strong writing. Let's go over your assignments together and talk about what to do to improve them. Use this as a starting place for learning and a guide as you revise.

As you look at the list that follows each grade range, notice the order in which I present each item. This reflects how important each item is when I make decisions about grades. In other words, the most important thing when I grade any assignment is whether or not you complete the assignment itself. After that, I look at the other elements in order. I start with an essay in the "C" range since that's what a typically average essay earns.

A formal assignment in the "C" range:

Meets the basic requirements of the prompt,
Follows a clear organizational plan,
Centers on a controlling purpose,
Uses concrete and specific details,
Provides supporting reasons and information, and
Displays few grammatical and stylistic errors that do not impede meaning.

A formal assignment in the "B" range:

Meets the requirements of the prompt fully,
Follows a clear organizational plan that does not feel rigid or confining,
Focuses on a specific and clear controlling purpose,
Uses concrete and specific details that address almost all reader questions,
Provides a range of supporting information, and
Displays strong sentence styles and structures.

A formal assignment in the "A" range:

Goes beyond the requirements of the prompt;
Exhibits an original, clear, and insightful perspective;
Includes rich and vivid details that do not feel extraneous or overbearing;
Flows freely and never causes the reader to stumble or pause;
Explains ideas completely yet succinctly; and
Follows rules of grammar while also using a variety of sentence styles and structures.

A formal assignment in the "D" range:

Generates text without much connection to the prompt,
Jumps around without following a clear pattern of organization,
Follows tangents and irrelevant points,
Uses few details or only keeps things abstract,
Provides little support in terms of evidence, and
Exhibits a disregard for sentence structure and grammar that impedes meaning.

A formal assignment in the "F" range:

Does not meet the general requirements of the prompt including page length,
Uses little or no detail or support,
Does not display a clear plan for organization, and
Exhibits a clear and obvious disregard for sentence structure and style that impedes meaning.

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Contacting Nels

2010-12-27T19:35:00.000-05:00

It's very important that my students are able to stay in touch with me throughout the course and even after it's done. This post exists so that all current and former students know how to find me if needed. If problems or any questions or concerns arise, I need to know as soon as possible. Luckily, there are lots of ways to contact me.

1) Email me. This is always the best way to reach me. I love email because it creates a clear record of our conversation that we can refer back to later. We all have lots going on in our lives, so being able to go back and check what we talked about after the fact is very useful.

Note of Caution: If you use your UHartford email, you should be checking your spam folder to make sure you are getting all messages from me. I use Gmail because it has a larger storage system than UHartford's webmail (as well as other features). I have noticed that some students have trouble getting messages from a non-UHartford account, especially if they have attachments like graded essays. They often end up in your spam folder, so you may need to whitelist my email address. You may ask why I don't just use my UHartford account so this won't happen, but that would not solve the problem of emails from places like Gmail going into your spam folder. You need to know how to check it because emails about scholarships, internships, or jobs may end up there, too.

2) Come by my office (Auerbach 212B) and see me. For Spring 2011, my office hours are from 12:15 to 3:15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 1:00 to 3:00 on Fridays. If you're in the area during those times, drop by. I do recommend that, when possible, you set up a time to meet by email or when you see me in class because I do have various meetings on and off campus. I am in and out of the office a lot, but we should be able to make a time to meet easily. It's great to meet face-to-face to go over drafts of your formal assignments, my comments on graded versions, or anything we need to talk about in detail.

3) Instant message me if you have Gmail or are on Facebook. I never add students as friends first on Facebook (because I know you may want to keep some things private), but if you add me as a friend, I will confirm it. When I'm logged into Gmail or Facebook, you can message me, which is great for a quick question. Many times, especially when I'm home outside office hours, I'm just jumping on and off quickly, or I'm logged in but away from the computer, so I may not respond or may have to leave quickly. But this can work for a quick question or if you want to make sure I'm in my office if you are hoping to stop by.

Like I said, stay in touch and let me know whatever it is you think I need to know throughout the semester and after as needed. Let's talk whenever you have any concern in mind.

To get back to your course blog, use the back button on your web browser.

Soul Food

2010-12-26T23:32:00.032-05:00

I'm sorry I cannot look at today's #reverb10 prompt after spending the last few days writing about gay pornography without giggling like an adolescent boy, but the question "What went into your mouth and touched your soul?" has had me laughing since I read it. A big part of that, though, is that I'm not a foodie, and I can't think of any meals that I ate this year that touched my soul. Oh, I am very lucky to have a husband who loves to cook, especially at holidays. We've been together long enough that we have foods we love to eat at certain times of the year, especially when the meal is just about us. In fact, while eating our Christmas dinner, I pointed out that we have not had lasagna in a while, what with both of us being so busy during the semester.

In 2010, I did not do a lot of traveling that involved eating. I have in the past. I do always like to have one fancy meal when I'm in a new city. I have to admit that I love Qi's lunch specials whenever I'm in New York City, and I was just introduced to them this past November. For $10, I can get shrimp pad thai and crispy dumplings, feeling full for the rest of the afternoon and feeling like I ate good, solid food without a lot of processing.

It's just been in the past few years that I started improving my palate with visits to good, local restaurants when I travel. As expensive as they are, I can't do a lot of them, but we visit Braza for special events here at home. I wish I could remember the two restaurants we went to last summer when we were in Bangor. Our friends took us, and I filled myself with shrimp, which is my favorite thing to do. Oh, I can't forget that we did hit Cafe Adobe when we flew to Texas for my niece's wedding. I eat there at least once whenever I am in town.

I certainly love food, but I don't know a lot about it. I'm trying, though, and having a good time when I do.

Photo

2010-12-25T23:28:00.000-05:00

The prompt for #reverb10 is to select a photo of ourselves that represents us from this past year. I have a lot to choose from, I'm going to choose the photo of my Christmas loot.

I think this represents who I am in more ways. We love books in this house. I'm running out of room for new ones but plan on buying bookcases at some point. And this photo has a bunch of stuff that describes who I am and where my mind is at the moment. There are some art books (or at least one big one on the bottom) related to my big research project at the moment. There are some smaller books on sexual cultures relating to my research in general. And there are a lot of memoirs since those are what I read for fun. There's also the entire series of Square Pegs, which the husband made me promise I would not make him watch. I won't. I'll save it to watch here on the computer. In fact, I may slide in a disc when I'm done with this and have it run in the corner.

But if you want to know who I am and where my head is at right now, this photo is perfect. It gets at the various parts of me. Totally different head. Totally.

Everything's Okay

2010-12-24T18:07:00.000-05:00

I feel like I have already written about the one moment this past year that showed me that everything would be alright. In fact, I wrote about it more than once and have referred to it often. Now, I must be honest. One reason why I feel like I can handle certain wrenches thrown at me in my career because I have tenure. As things change, I know that I will most likely have a job. So, I felt like things were going to be okay even as they change because I know that chances are pretty good that I will be able to pay bills and stay safe, warm, fed, and comfortable. Many times, when I get worried and anxious, I remind myself how easy I have it, which I have also written about this month. So, yeah, everything's cool.

New Name

2010-12-23T17:10:00.001-05:00

The #reverb10 prompt is about what name you would use if you could introduce yourself by a new name for a day. I'm not going to write about that. I love my name. It's unique and weird, and I love that. I can't even think of any other name that I would use or why I would want to use one. Been trying to think about it today and can't come up with anything.

So, instead, I will thank Sara for giving me a Versatile Blogger Award!

I am now supposed to give seven facts about myself that you can't learn anywhere else. That's difficult for me because I have pretty much put everything out there online that I am comfortable putting out there. But here we go.

The first series of books I was addicted to was the Encyclopedia Brown series. I was in third grade. I remember checking books out from the school library to read in the doctor's office because that was when I had surgery on my ears to put tubes in to relieve the hearing loss I was suffering and was seeing him monthly for a while as he checked out the results of the surgery and removed the tubes when the time came. I stopped reading them when I was able to figure out that case because I didn't like figuring out the ending. I rarely try to guess the secret in films or movies.
I actually love playing racquetball but haven't done it in years. There's no place around here to do it easily or cheaply.
When I was in therapy, I had to fill out the typical background form, which meant stating that my brother committed suicide in his 30s. Of course, the therapist had to gravitate toward that and how it affected me. My response? "I only remember seeing him twice in my life. The first time was accidentally in a parking lot, and I was stunned by how much we looked alike. I just didn't know him." And we moved on.
I could become a pescatarian very easily not so much because I love fish, but I love shrimp. My grandfather built a shrimp boat called The Cajun Queen. I would still need a steak now and then, though.
The greatest gift of my childhood was the fact that my maternal grandmother lived with us until she had a stroke when I was fourteen, which was the first difficult thing I ever faced. When she died my second semester of college, my parents were divorced but still got together to talk about who should call me. They supposedly spent an hour just on that subject until my father called me in my dorm right before I left for dinner.
I spent most of my high school years in fear of what might happen to me for being gay, smart, and just plain different, but nothing ever happened to me (thankfully). And I never did let my fear stop me from wearing hot pink shoelaces.
When the X Games or the like are on, I get bored easily unless it's freestyle street rollerblading. Even if skateboarders of bikers are on the same course, I get bored. When it's rollerblading, I'm riveted. Maybe because the wheels are attached to their feet no matter what?

And I am supposed to give the award to seven bloggers. I choose Michael, Bill, Dave, Natalie, Julie, Chubarama (possibly NSFW), and a blogger I care about who keeps a locked blog and shall remain nameless.

Travel

2010-12-22T21:29:00.000-05:00

2010 was not a year where we did a lot of travel. After Russia in 2008, we knew our next big trip would be Japan, but the savings for that got wiped out when we bought our new condo, so it'll be a few years. We did travel to Maine to see friends we had not seen since 2006, and that was a blast. As I said when I wrote about friendship, it's great to just pick up where you left off with people. And their kids are great. The two-year old daughter we'd never met had the husband wrapped around her little finger, and the son we'd already met is, frankly, like a smaller version of me. It was a good few days.

In May, we flew back to Texas for my niece's wedding. It was an emotional event, but it was fun. Still freaky to see this girl become a married woman even if she is twenty-three years old. I still remember the day she was born! The photo above is what my sister was able to get displayed on the marquee of the theatre that is downtown but has been closed for decades now. And we'll be going back in the coming May for my nephew's graduation from high school. He actually turns eighteen on Saturday. Now all that can make a guy feel old.

I also spent a lot of time in New York City. Thanks to Priceline, I got some great deals on hotels and was able to spend the night a few times for the class I was auditing at NYU. I love being able to take a train into the city so easily.

In 2011, we do not have any travel planned other than the trip to Texas (though we are hoping for a few days in New Orleans), but I may do some during the sabbatical. I'm actually applying for a grant that will enable me to travel to Paris and Mexico City, place that influenced the artists I'm studying. I worked on that grant yesterday and found a lot of information that will help me on that. I will also be going in New York City a lot for archival work and maybe Washington DC for more.

Travel is our thing, and we plan to do whatever we can when we can.

Future Self

2010-12-21T23:24:00.000-05:00

What advice would I give to myself for the coming year while keeping the me of five years from now in mind? Just do it. I know I'm getting repetitive in these posts, and I could blame the prompts, but that probably wouldn't be fair. The fact is that I have been dreaming of going on sabbatical for a couple of years now. When I would have a bad day at work, I would imagine what it would be like not to have to go to work. I would imagine responding to emails with, "I'm sorry. I am on sabbatical for the year. You should contact so-and-so." I was eligible to apply for a sabbatical for this year, but the application was due when we had two mortgages, and year-long sabbatical comes with a pay cut. I knew I could not apply until we sold our old place. So, the daydreaming continued. Then, I spent last summer working on my application. It didn't take all summer to write, but I thought about it often. I wanted it, so I worked for it. And I got it! Now, my daydreams are about what I will do with it. I'm applying for grants and fellowships, so I daydream about what I would do if I win any of them. But I also keep in mind that I do not need any of them to complete my work.

That is why, when I think of myself five years from now, I tell myself to spend the next year just doing it. Just write. Read and plan, which I am good at doing, but also write. I already plan to spend most days of the week writing. Right now, I have published three articles in peer-reviewed journals and one chapter in a book. In five years, I can double that. I can spend the next year laying the foundation for that. Actually, I expect to more than double that. I will either have my book done around five years from now or decided to turn it into a series of articles. And while I am doing this, my husband will finish his dissertation and be writing his own articles or book. These next few years will be like the recent ones where we support each other in our work.

Bonus: what would I tell the me of ten years ago? Along the lines of what I just wrote, just do it. Ten years ago, I was just starting to study for my candidacy exams, and my anxiety was growing. I would also tell myself to go into therapy rather than waiting until my anxiety was making me physically ill. I would tell myself to stop worrying about being perfect or right. I would tell myself that there are people out there who will always criticize me no matter what I do. But there are also people who like what I do. And, frankly, most people could care less about what I do, which is a big reason why I should just follow my heart and mind, doing what feels right and opening myself up to the people who support me.

In a nutshell, I would tell the me of ten years ago to get over myself, and I plan to support the me of five years from now by getting over myself as much as possible.

Beyond Avoidance

2010-12-20T23:38:00.009-05:00

What have I spent this year ignoring? Actually, not a lot. That's actually a change for me. I am someone who has a history of avoidance. I won't go into it, but I got yelled at a lot as a kid. Sometimes, it was justified. Sometimes, it was not. It did not rise to the level of abuse even though I think anger at other people I now realize was sometimes taken out on me. But my defense became avoidance, which doesn't exactly stop getting yelled at, but at least then I don't feel like I'm being criticized for not doing something I didn't know I should be doing. When I was in therapy, we talked about this, and my coping strategy became asking myself what was the true worst case scenario if I did something and failed. Most of the time, the worst case scenario was not that bad, and it also rarely happened.

Perhaps it's because of being in therapy from 2005-9 and the fact that a lot in my life has stabilized with tenure, but I have gotten a lot better at not avoiding things. Oh, sure, could I do more for my health? Yes, but it's not like I've done nothing. I did not hit the treadmill as much I should have, but I did take my summer hikes and reduce carbonated, sugary drinks in my life. I did not finish a lot of research this past year, but I worked on some things including my successful sabbatical application that will allow me to do more next year. I also had my first year in a long time of not having one cent of credit card debit or paying one cent of interest. Even on this holiday break, I have already called and scheduled all appointments and meetings that I wanted to have, with my doctor, for my car, and with a couple of colleagues about projects.

2010 was a year when I did more, and I hope all of that sets up an even more productive 2011.

Healing

2010-12-19T22:02:00.000-05:00

I think 2010 was the year that I healed from my mother's death in 2007. I'm not saying I'm fully over it or that I will never hurt again, but the wound has healed with a visible scar that does not hurt at the touch. Looking back, I realize now that I spent the first six months in shock. In February 2008, I started breaking down a lot. It surprised me when it started happening because there were times when I couldn't control it. Then, the anger came, and that lasted for a good while. Today, I can't remember the last time I cried. I tear up now and then, but the true tears haven't hit for a while. That does not mean they won't, but I can talk about her much more easily than I could. In the last phone conversation I had with my sister, I brought up my mother naturally, and it wasn't a big deal, just a part of the conversation. It's been well over three years, so it's good to be at this point. Sad to think that over three years have passed. That's the worst part, living my life and doing things she'll know nothing about, but I can acknowledge that without breaking down. And I can continue living my life without feeling guilt. Actually, it would insult her more if I were not living my life after all the sacrifices and work she did for me to get here.

So, that's what I'm doing. I'm taking the gift that is life and living it. I'm enjoying the present, learning from the past, and making plans for a future. And a lot of that is because of her.

A Just Kids by Patti Smith Blog-a-Thon!

2010-12-19T17:02:00.000-05:00

Over the last few weeks, a few people I know on this here internet thing have been talking about Patti Smith's Just Kids and how they have just read it or want to read it. I'm in the middle of it right now (at the part where he first starts taking Polaroids). I've said now and then that people should write blog entries about the book, and we should have one of the old-fashioned discussions us bloggers used to have before the Twitter and the Facebook came along. So, how about it?

If you have read or want to read Patti Smith's Just Kids, write a blog post about it. Then, email me with a link, post a link in the comments to this thread, or tag your post in Delicious (or tweet with a link to the post) with #jkpost as one of the tags. I will create a post with links as they arrive and keep updating it with posts that appear until January 31.

In full disclosure, I am writing an academic book with a chapter on Mapplethorpe, so I'm always looking for interesting thoughts on him, but my work is more about what happened with the exhibit of his work in Cincinnati in 1990. In regard to this blog-a-thon, I just want to see a bunch of smart people talk about Smith, Mapplethorpe, and this amazing book.

Try

2010-12-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

Like Natalie, I often think of the word try as a waffling work, a way to commit without committing. And try is something I do all the time. I'm always trying things out. As I've said in other posts this month, I have a history of going to workshops and taking on projects for no other reason than they sound like an interesting thing to try. Trying is what I need to stop doing, actually. To follow yesterday's post, I now need to stop trying so much and finish some things, make some progress, commit to more, focus more. So, in the coming year, I plan to try less but do more.

Lesson Learned

2010-12-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

I would not say I have fully learned it, but last year, I learned to believe in myself more. In college, I was an English major specializing in the writing of poetry. You know why? Because poems are short. If one didn't go well, I could move on. The thought of committing to a long writing project, spending all semester on a short story or something longer felt potentially like too much of a waste of time. But this past year, for reasons that have been mentioned in other posts this month, I started to think about the kinds of projects I have on my plate. I started to think about the number of unfinished projects on my plate. I started to think of good ideas that would take a pretty good amount of time to complete. Professionally, I said no to more than I have in the past so I could make time for my own work, more time than I've made for it in the past.

By this time next year, I will have more to show from what I have learned this year about the need to believe in myself and commit to more. And it will keep growing from there.

Friendship

2010-12-16T21:06:00.000-05:00

I admit that I rolled my eyes when I saw that the topic for #reverb10 today was friendship. That's a word that's always made me cringe. It's so abstract and vague, and that's become even worse in an era where "friend" has become a verb as well as a noun.

And then, in a bit of synchronicity, I exchanged IMs today with a friend, the kind of friend I have had my entire life. I don't have a lot of people with whom I feel comfortable sharing things. You know, the kind of person you say the truth to when they ask, "Hey, how have things been?" Most of the time I smile and say "fine," but with a few people, they'll get more of the story. And what I find especially interesting--what I further confirmed in that conversation this afternoon--is that I am that way with people for life even if we speak rarely. I have my husband, a daily source of support, and I am lucky to have him.

The friends with whom I can share anything are not a part of my daily life, but I reconnect with them very easily. My sister is something of an example. We speak about four or five times a year. It's not often. But when we get together, we act like kids who hang out all the time. My husband is always surprised by how we act, and my mother would always shake her head at us (though I know she loved when we were all together acting like this). I am that way with certain people, able to pick up right where we left off when we were a daily part of each other's lives. It feels great when it happens, and it reminds me that I do have friends even if I have spent much of my life as an introverted loner who normally prefers to eat alone at conferences or meetings or other public gatherings. Something I need to remember.

Five Minutes

2010-12-15T17:54:00.000-05:00

Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

I want to remember my hikes last summer and what it felt like to walk on packed-down dirt, small stones, and decomposed leaves surrounded by trees with only pockets of sky above me, wind blowing all the while. I want to remember how at home I have felt here in our new home, especially as we bought a few things to make it more ours, like the new table in the breakfast nook and all the work I've done in my home office: the new desk, the painting, the new shelves. I want to remember working on my sabbatical application last summer and feeling like my ideas were coming together so easily and without effort, and I want to remember what it felt like to read the letter finding out I'd received a sabbatical. I want to remember my trips into New York City and other parts of the state, the guys I met when I went to Albany and Poughkeepsie. I want to remember sitting on the train listening to great music on my iPod, new stuff from Robyn and great dance music in general, the towns of coastal Connecticut flashing past me. I want to remember some of the topics that came up in my classes that got people talking (and learning): pornography, censorship, Columbine, The V

Appreciate

2010-12-14T21:32:00.000-05:00

I think 2010 was the year that I began to appreciate my freedom. Years ago, I was talking with a friend, and it came up that she was very happy she had kids but sometimes sad that she couldn't just cut loose and go off on a trip, and I was very happy that I had the ability to just cut loose and go off on a trip, but I was sometimes sad that I didn't have kids. Then, we started talking about people who spend all their time lamenting what they do not have instead of appreciating what they do.

This past year, I started to think about more ways to take advantage of the life I have instead of feeling sorry for myself about the things I don't. It's one reason I took more hikes last summer in the area. It's one reason I spent more nights in NYC this past semester on nights before the class I was auditing at NYU. It's a big reason I applied for a year-long sabbatical for next year, and the university announced publicly today that I am one of the winners. I am already planning to apply for fellowships that will allow me to live away from home for various periods of time. Of course, it's not like I can do this only because I do not have kids. I have colleagues in my hallway who have done year-long sabbaticals and lived out of the country with young twins to raise.

I'm just saying that I spent more time this past year asking myself what I can do instead of focusing on what I can't. That means I've felt like I've done more in the past few months, too. I'm not sure I've actually done anymore than I would have, but I am more aware of it. Even my husband says I whine less.

Notice I'm not saying I no longer whine. I just do it less.

Action

2010-12-13T21:08:00.000-05:00

Oh, in the coming year, I am all about action. If you look at my research blog, you will see a list of general projects on the right. By summer 2012, I plan to have made serious headway on all of those projects. Some will be done, and some will be drafted, and some will be researched. But I am planning to spend the next year-and-a-half making serious headway on my scholarship, building a foundation that I can use to create what I need to create to go up for full professor in a few years.

When I started this job, I read that the research that gets you tenure is done in the first three years on the job. You go up for tenure in years six or seven, but a lot of work has to get done early to make time for the academic publishing process. That's why I'm making serious plans for the next eighteen months or so. I'll be working on things for the next few years if I want to go up for full professor around the time I turn fifty. But a good, solid year of concentrated work will lay just the foundation I need so that I can enjoy the process and not stress out.

At least, that's the plan.

Body Integration

2010-12-12T23:32:00.000-05:00

I think I have already addressed today's #reverb10 prompt about a moment when I felt that my mind and body had truly integrated. It's the same experience I wrote in my post about a moment this past year when I felt truly in the moment, aware of all the senses. So, check that one out if you haven't. It's either my first or second favorite of the posts I have written this month.

And though it didn't happen this year but in 2009, this prompt also made me think of the Depeche Mode concert I attended at Madison Square Garden in August. Here's a video of them performing "Precious" that night.

Eleven (Minus Five) Things

2010-12-11T17:50:00.000-05:00

Today's #reverb10 post is about listing eleven things our lives do not need in 2011, including how we are going to get rid of them and how that will change our lives. At first, I couldn't think of anything. I am not trying to say my life is perfect, but I am saying that I have worked hard these last eight years since I moved to Connecticut and took this job to get my life to a certain point. Those who read my ProfHacker posts know that I have a long history reading a ton of self-help and creativity books, and I spent almost four years in therapy from 2005-09. I worked hard to get my life to a certain point and met a little luck along the way, too.

Also, this prompt is making me realize that I really do have the academic calendar burned into my psyche so deeply that I don't think of January 1 as the transition to a new year but instead think of the summer that way. Last summer, I did make some subtle but profound changes in my life. And thinking back, those things tend to happen in the summer. So, there are things I have cut out of my life and want to keep out of my life next year. Oh, let's be honest. Many of these things I do not want to cut out but reduce.

Carbonated Beverages: Now, I have not cut these out of my life completely. I get a Coke (not a Diet Coke and not a Coke Zero) every Friday night at the movies. But that is pretty much it. Every few weeks, I'll have one during the week, but usually only when my schedule is tight and lunch is nothing more than some granola bar of some sort, and I want more calories in me before I go to three hours classes. But I have not bought a carbonated beverage and brought it into this house since July. I've had to tighten the belt, too. And since I pretty much only drink water at home, that means I have pretty much cut caffeine out of my life, too, though I always bought Caffeine Free Coke for home, so that's not a huge change.
Daily Chai at Starbucks: This is one thing I do need to reduce. I love my chai, but it is full of sugar. There have been times I've had two in one day. I need to reduce that. Maybe four per week?
Late Nights: Last July, I finally met with a sleep specialist because I was sick of nothing working. My primary care physician gives me Ambien, and it does nothing for me. I do all the tricks I read about, and nothing happens. I met with a specialist who had me figured out in ten minutes, able to explain why certain things would not work for me and able to provide solutions. That night, I slept better than I ever have in my life. There was a week after that when I slept for twelve solid hours a night. My husband says I snored like he'd never heard if I fall asleep in the wrong position. I still need to cut out the late nights, though. I can get caught up in something on the computer or on TV and not get to bed until two in the morning. That needs to improve.
Lunches Out: This past semester, I did a fantastic job of not buying lunch on campus or going out for fast food. Even I was a bit stunned by that. Most of the time, I made a sandwich at home. I'm really hoping to keep that up in the coming year.
Online Time: Again, last summer, I thought about the number of sites I visit in a day, and I trimmed it back. I'm actually pretty happy with the amount of time I spend online. I rarely feel like I have wasted a ton of time surfing sites unless it was a time I planned to do it.
Scales: When the batteries in our scale ran out, I threw the scale away. I don't care what I weigh anymore. I did buy a blood pressure monitor because I think that number is a better way to judge my health than my weight. Along with getting rid of the scale, I started buying more clothes I liked, no longer waiting until I was back to a certain number or anything. What I weigh is now irrelevant to me.

And you know what? I have had this file open all day to add things that come to mind, and nothing else has. So here you go.

Wisdom

2010-12-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

In my opinion, I have already written (rather obliquely) about the wisest decision I made this year. About a year ago, I was told I needed to do what was best for my career. I thought I was doing that, but that comment, and the context in which it was made, pushed me to rethink what was best for my career. I'm forty-one. If things go well, I could work for the next thirty years or close to it. I do not want to waste those decades.

But what did I actually do? I talked to people I trusted about options. I spoke up about some things more and some things less. I began conceptualizing a book that I am actually going to attempt to write, knowing that the book may not happen but a few articles will, and my teaching will be better just from the research alone. I started doing things with a stronger sense of purpose. Usually, I would apply for some grants, workshops, or programs just because they sounded like fun, and I knew it would be cool to do if it could happen. Now, I'm thinking a bit more linearly. I am careful not to be too narrow-minded, but I do have a stronger sense of purpose than I have ever had before. I'm willing to take some risks. At dinner tonight, the husband and I were talking about a grant application I'm writing that will enable me to travel to a country where I don't even know the language but would be able to do some research. I actually have a list of grants and fellowships and such, and I'll be applying for them all. But if I get none of them? I can still move forward on all the projects I have in mind. I think that's why I feel so positive about some of the choices I have made in the last few months: I can see completing them under a variety of circumstances.

Obviously, I don't know if I've made the best decisions, yet. But I am really happy with where I am right now. The husband thinks I am really onto something. Other people who know me have been supportive and encouraging. Some people have even said they think I'm "finally" making the right choices. I have some endpoints in mind, but I'm making sure the journey is worth it, too.

Party

2010-12-09T23:44:00.002-05:00

For #reverb10, the prompt is about a party you attended this year, but I really don't do parties. Oh, I went to a couple a lowkey affairs this year, but we're mostly about haning out with another couple or an individual friend or whatever. But, right now, whenever I think of party, I think of this.

This song has party written all over it. It just appeared on the CD that dropped a few weeks ago, but I have been listening to it constantly. It will soon be my top played song on iTunes, and the one that's there now ("I Remember" by Kaskade and Deadmau5) has over ninety listens to it. I can't wait to see her in concert on Saturday, February 5, in NYC!

CFP: Documentary Techniques in Pornographic Film and Video (Panel for "Visible Evidence 18" [NYU, August 11-14, 2011])

2010-12-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

Proposals are invited for a panel to be entitled "Documentary Techniques in Pornographic Film and Video" to be proposed for Visible Evidence 18, which is being held at New York University from August 11-14, 2011 (check out the conference website at: http://visibleevidence.org/). This particular panel of three presenters will explore a recent and profound trend that appears across pornographic genres: the emphasis on capturing "real" sex through narrative techniques typically found in the documentary film tradition. Such techniques have become especially important in pornography that embodies feminist, lesbian, gay, trans, and queer perspectives, though some mainstream pornography has started utilizing such techniques, too.

At its simplest level, the use of documentary narrative techniques complicates how viewers consume and interpret pornography. Marginalized communities seem to applaud the use of techniques like interviews and voice-overs in pornography for revealing ways that sex can combat oppression. Tristan Taormino's Chemistry series seeks to explore the power of sexuality for a range of women through interviews and an aesthetic inspired by reality television. Treasure Island Studios has gained a certain level of infamy with its celebration of gay male sex without condoms, which has become more intriguing in recent years with their development of documentary videos such as Island created alongside traditional pornography like What I Can't See 3; the star of the pornographic film, John Sullivan, discusses in the documentary how pornography played a significant role in his own acceptance of his identity as a gay man. The documentary also reveals his HIV+ status, which is especially provocative considering his role in condom-less orgies like the one in the in the pornographic film.

At the same time, not every pornographic film that features hand-held cameras, voice-overs, or other documentary film techniques seeks to challenge oppression but can instead promote it. The rise of websites like The Bait Bus and Cruise Patrol feature sexual encounters filmed outside of traditional studios and in vans, buses, or boats traveling amidst an unsuspecting public, and the sex is sometimes meant to humiliate the woman or man involved, who might be left on the side of the road. Even though many of these encounters are staged (or they would be illegal), the use of documentary styles sends a problematic message to viewers that directly contradicts the message sent by other films that use similar techniques. This contradiction demands exploration.

The significance of this proposed panel resides in its in-depth exploration of how past debates on pornography's significance intersect with recent trends in narrative representation. Furthermore, this panel will examine how different types of pornography can mean divergent things to diverse groups. In other words, this panel delves into debates about pornography being bad or good for women, men, or transgender people, ultimately breaking away from such a simplistic binary and instead exploring why pornography's producers have started turning to documentary film techniques and pornography's consumers have begun embracing such films.

If you wish to be considered for this proposed panel, please email Dr. Nels P. Highberg, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Rhetoric and Professional Writing at the University of Hartford with 1) a 250-300 word abstract of your proposed presentation with a descriptive title, 2) a brief bibliography for you paper, and 3) a brief biography that includes your history of presenting at previous Visible Evidence conferences. His email is drnels at gmail dot com, and the proposal can be an attachment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf, or it can be in the email itself.

The deadline for proposals is January 1, 2011; all submitters will be notified of receipt of their proposal within twenty-four hours and of the panel chair's final decision by Friday, January 7, 2011; those not accepted for this panel can then submit to the conference's open call, which has a deadline of January 15, 2011.

Beautifully Different

2010-12-08T23:12:00.001-05:00

I should have known. After yesterday's post, I said that I really liked the #reverb10 prompts. Then, they throw one at me that makes me roll my eyes. Write about the thing that makes you different, the thing that makes people light up when you walk in a room. Of course, those same things would make other people cringe when you walk in that same room. I've spent my whole life being different and not doing too much to change that. Now, I am surrounded by like-minded people, and I don't think I'm all that different anymore. That's not a bad or a good thing. I think it's pretty typical once you're over forty. So, how about something different?

***

Spring 1999. I am twenty-nine years old and starting my second semester of my doctoral program. I don't know when or where, but I bought a square sketchbook, spiral-bound. It became my idea notebook for the semester. I picked it up tonight for no reason except that it was on top in the box of all of the paper journals I have ever kept, from the stapled-together pages of my fourth-grade journal to this. What do I find in this one?

*We think there is a split between the human and the technological, but the cyborg shows how this is not true.

*[Student Name] left my office. He said he wrote his paper because he didn't want to be boring and he wanted a topic you could disagree with, like I said to do. He was trying to get me to feel I had pushed him to pick this topic. He wanted to know how I picked the topic of the course and why it's what I research. I didn't tell the full truth but some of it. In the end, he is the only student I can say who wanted to question the topic.

*Gorgias was a doctor.

*[This was the semester I started my first blog in HTML. I have notes for how to create an email link in Netscape Composer.]

*For years, I would never let my think of this night, telling myself that it was high school and it was over.

*Medical writing is about control, organization, objectivity; these memoirs are about a disease that wrecks havoc.

*Puck is in prison, and Rachel is on The View.

*[I have drawn a map to the Red Light Cafe on Amsterdam in Chicago.]

*AIDS is not just a disease; it's a lens through which to view culture.

*There is a model search going on outside Planet Hollywood. There's also a convention of the American Physical Society. Thousands of Physicists. I'm terrified I look like one of them.

*When you drive somewhere, you have a strong sense of location that gives you a strong sense of place. When you fly, you lose that.

*Should we focus on the power of speaking or on the power of being heard?

*Face-to-face communication parallels the missionary position.

*Trauma: any assault to the body or psyche that cannot be integrated into one's consciousness.

*I decided to go see Stepmom and found my fare card was damaged, which means I lost the money that was on there.

*Cf. Browning, pgs. 120-1. Not only is secrecy key, but also the thrill of the unknown. Will this be a night of quantity or quality? Both or neither? Will this be a night I love out a fantasy I've been playing in my head for years? Or will this be a night I leave ashamed of my ever-increasing stomach?

*Get 3A batteries.

*Is associating homes with mothers always a bad thing?

*The fact that such places exist is proof of male privilege.

*At DBU, [Name Removed] and me and someone else talking about Madonna's merits. Another early queer moment.

*Hertz: 21.95 + 47.93

Community

2010-12-07T22:15:00.000-05:00

I am a member of a lot of communities. I have 772 friends on Facebook. Now, I have not even met all of these people face-to-face, but each one of them is part of a community I am a part of. Some are current or former students. Some are friends from high school or earlier. Some are people with whom I work. Some are people in the larger fields of rhetoric and composition. Some are gay men I know from local and regional gatherings. Some are friends from my various graduate programs. Some are people I met through being a relatively early blogger in the late 90s and early 00s. Within these larger communities are smaller communities. There are faculty who taught me in graduate school. There is the ProfHacker gang. There are people I worked with at the Houston Center for Photography when I was an undergrad.

There's a certain irony to all of this. I was the kid in elementary school who worked alone when other kids worked in groups or pairs. I remember in sixth grade language arts that we had an odd number of students. The teacher would often have us work in pairs, but I asked to work alone from the start, and she let me. She knew I could get the work done alone, and I think she saw something promising in me, so she wanted to encourage that. But that's a pattern that has run throughout my entire life. I am an introvert, no question. My husband's introversion is deeper than mine, but it is clearly an area where we mesh well. And that also says something about how I interact in my various communities.

I'm rarely at the center of things. I try not to be overbearing, but I also try to do my part and not disappear. And, in each of these communities, I tend to have a deep relationship with one or two others. Often, if I am in a group that I know I will be in for awhile, I try to find that one person who will be my confidant. And you know what's really funny? Most of those confidants turn out to be the same kind of woman. I'm talking hair color. I'm talking style of talking. I'm talking deep intelligence. I'm talking a sense of humor that can be both ribald and quirky. Those of you who know my best friend from high school will know the type. Seriously, it is kind of funny how I can list women who are quite similar and who often become that one person I connect with in a larger community, the individual who helps me get through the hard times and enjoy the good ones.

When I think about community, I think about individuals. I remember when I started my doctoral program. They had a meeting in the summer of all the new PhD students. I actually sat at the head of the table (they had nametags in alphabetical order, and I was in the middle) and looked around, wondering who would be the one who would be a crucial part of the next couple of years. I thought it would be one of the women but wasn't sure. On the first night of my first seminar on Women in Film, I walked in early, and one of those women was already there. That was it. We hit a movie the next afternoon and hung out constantly for two years. I'm not sure where she is now (there are people who are not on Facebook!), but I hear she's well.

But when I think of communities, I think of the people, the ones who are next to me as the community does its work, the people who make my life worth living.

Make

2010-12-06T22:15:00.001-05:00

What did I last make? And what do I want to make? I have been thinking about such questions all day since receiving the #reverb10 prompt, but I really do not know what to say. If one of the characteristics of living in 2010 is living in a knowledge economy, I am certainly in the middle of that. Like most people, my job does not lead to me making anything, not in the concrete sense. I sit at a desk here at home. I sit at a desk in the office. And I stand or sit in various classrooms on campus with students reading, writing, talking, and thinking. None of this is a negative. I worked very hard to create this life for myself. But thinking about making things is a bit sad.

I was the kid who loved crafts. I would go to the county library and get books on how to make holiday decorations or things out of popsicle sticks, glitter, and glue. I also loved science experiments. I would check out books on those and make houses for insects or slugs, collect rocks or leaves, or mix things together to see what colors or smells I could create. Last Christmas, I actually tried to make something for the husband. I was going to decoupage a wooden box with photos from our trip to Russia. I bought the stuff to do it, but it did not go well. I just made a mess.

For some synchronous reason, I had a thought the other day that it would be neat to get a cheap, old bike at some garage sale, get a book (I need books before I can do anything), and fix it up. When we moved to our house in Ohio, I bought a cheap little side table at a garage sale and planned to strip the paint from it, stain it, and use it. I stripped some of the paint off, but that's as far as it got. I eventually threw it away. Now, I'm thinking I should have just decoupaged all over it, seriously.

So, I haven't really made anything in a while. I could spin this topic into something that works and talk about making a mess or making dinner or making progress, but I spent the day thinking about how I used to make things but do not anymore. If one of the goals for #reverb10 is to think of what we want the immediate future to be, then maybe I should be thinking of what I would make if I could, if I just decided to spend a day making something.

Let Go

2010-12-05T22:51:00.002-05:00

Of What?

It was meant to be a somewhat innocuous comment. Of all the ones said in the meeting, it was not the one I was supposed to hold onto the most. Like many meetings in academia, there was some tension in the room, but everyone was speaking calmly and clearly with the goal of making sure she or he was heard and heard the others. After I stated a couple of concerns about how a particular decision would affect some of the work my colleagues and I were doing, someone in power said, "You need to do what's best for your own career." I immediately thought, "That's what I'm doing." But the comment needled at me all weekend. I thought it was clear that I was thinking of my career, but I realized that I was spending my time talking about other people, which led to me questioning what "my career" actually was. Soon, that led to questioning what "best" could mean. I grew more and more confused. And sad. I thought I had my career path figured out at least for the next few years, but I wondered how much of those plans I could really count on.

I had been happily (and naively) riding along the river's current, letting it carry me here and there. I was starting to realize, however, how much power I was putting into other people's hands. So far, I was happy with where I had been taken, but I was also starting to hit some rocks on the river's edge. The current was picking up. The hands carrying me squeezed harder, their grip growing tighter. I had to let go. I had to move closer to the edge of the river, taking a few forays out of it before coming back. I had to start making more choices for me, which was scary since the river had been carrying me so well, but I was also seeing the signs of where the river could take me if I let it. So, this year, I started thinking of things that would benefit no one else but me. It's not that these things were going to hurt anyone. They just wouldn't help. They just wouldn't satisfy the needs of others first or alongside my own. They would put me in front, at least at times. I had to change my conception of what counted as balance, sometimes thinking of others and sometimes thinking of myself. I still don't know what that all means, but I'm closer to figuring it out than I was at the end of that meeting last January.

Of whom?

The instant message was ordinary, just like ones he had sent regularly over the last couple of years: "Hey, how's it going? Lunch soon?" I had been out of my office when he sent it, down the hall touching base with people about a few things and filling up my water bottle before class. He had already logged off before I saw the message. I wrote a quick note to remind myself to email him that night. But I didn't. I didn't email him that week. I didn't email him that month. It's now December, and that was September. He had never done anything wrong. Even my husband said so. Other people liked to pretend we were all still in high school and questioned why I would go out dancing or drinking with a man other than my husband. The fact that my husband does not like to go out dancing or drinking and was happy I had a friend to do those things with was irrelevant. Some people made snide comments. Some people whispered behind their hands while looking right at me. It should not have mattered, but people I liked soon started asking veiled questions. Showing up and leaving together was enough to make people imagine the worst. I was tired of it. When he grew busy, I didn't push it. Then I was busy. The husband asked why I hadn't been out in a while. He asked if I was worried about his feelings, meaning my husband's. He reminded me more than once that he really was okay with me having a friend for the occasional night out. I told him I knew that, but it was also nice not to deal with drama, not to worry about rumors or innuendo.

It's now December, and that instant message was in September. I don't like thinking that I have let go, but actions speak louder than words.

Wonder

2010-12-04T22:30:00.000-05:00

By applying to NYU to audit a graduate course that requires weekly trips into the city, sometimes staying the night in areas I've never visited before, a seminar that exposes me to texts and ideas I would never consider otherwise. By flipping through guidebooks of local hikes and choosing one within ten or over twenty miles away, driving through towns I've only heard of and surrounding myself with trees and rocks and dirt and wind. By pointing out to my husband that we can use points to get a couple of free nights at a hotel in Maine, which we've never visited, to see friends we haven't seen since 2006. By teaching a book I have never read but have heard nothing but constant wonderful things about. By saying yes. By sending an email to someone I trust that says "How about I buy you lunch so we can talk about things beyond my control and how to figure out what's best for me." By clicking random links on Wikipedia and uncovering connections and trivia that make me laugh. By saying hello. By attaching a pedometer to my belt and wondering what it would take and where I would go to hit ten thousand steps in one day. By saying no. By buying sample paint colors and painting squares on my wall, staring at them for weeks and imagining what my space could be. By admitting that just telling the truth is the right step to take. By asking for help not just for me but for those I love. By never forgetting. By deciding never to step on a scale again but to check my blood pressure regularly instead. By giving myself time to wander around store aisles and thinking, "How would this look instead of what I actually came in for?" By signing up for #reverb10 within one minute of hearing about it. By pulling out of boxes and putting on display things from my childhood and adolescence that mattered to me. By checking what's in my checking account and donating some of it here or there when I wanted to feel like I was doing something, no matter how small. By not always saying what I was thinking but allowing myself to think it fully. By making mix CDs so I can sing in the car, loudly, windows up or down. By loving things about myself that others have criticized or laughed at for decades.

By dong all of these things, I created numerous moments this year that led to me saying some version of "wow" to some minor or major degree; I continually create wonder in my life by getting off my ass, breaking out of my routine, and doing things just because I have never done them or have not done them in a long time.

Moment

2010-12-03T23:05:00.000-05:00

Looking at the map of the park, I immediately noticed "Cedar Ridge Overlook" with a symbol of a pair of binoculars next to it. The key to the map said that this signaled a scenic view. I had driven by this state park regularly since moving to Connecticut in 2003. When I didn't want to drive the busy route over the mountain between home and campus, I would take the easier drive around the north end of it, going right by the park's entrance. Seeing that the park had a scenic overlook confused me. Sure, the area had beautiful trees of all types that made it clear why people would pay to tour New England just to look at leaves each fall. But what was this spot overlooking? The northwest suburbs of Hartford are home to some affluent towns and a few less affluent ones, but we are not talking about mountain ranges or distinctive peaks and valleys. Heublein Tower on the south side of Route 185 was the landmark people would visit, a one thousand-foot high stone building in the shape of a lighthouse that really does offer 360-degree views of central Connecticut. I never heard anything about the park on the north side. I just knew it was there from driving by it so often.

But I wanted to spend part of the summer exploring the area that had truly become my home, so I drove to Penwood State Park on Tuesday, June 8, and parked in the little lot I had seen but never been in. With a map, my camera, a roast beef sandwich, my cell phone, a bottle of water, and a green-and-white striped hand towel in my backpack, I started out on the dirt trail north of the parking lot. Soon, I could see nothing but nature around me. Trees surrounded me, most rising several feet above my head but almost as many stretched across the ground in various stages of decomposition. The shade was nice since it was just hot enough to sweat with little wind for comfort.

The dirt path began to rise quickly. At other parks, pathways were covered with small stones or lined with rocks or fallen trees, but this path was just tramped down dirt, smooth but nondescript. I knew to follow the small, yellow spots of spray paint on trees every fifty feet or so, and those spots started marking several curves. The rise of the path was always there, sometimes gentle but sometimes steep. I would have to slow down, or I would end up feeling my heartbeat more intensely, and I was not an experienced enough hiker to judge how far I would have to walk. The map had a key that said each half-inch equaled a half-mile, and one-way trip to the overlook was over a couple of inches long if not a solid three. The path narrowed. At my left, the trees slowly thinned, but the ones near me were thick enough to shield my vision from being able to see anything in the distance.

As the path rose, the wind increased. A few times, I would stop, close my eyes, a turn my head to the sky, feeling the wind blow over me. Rustling leaves were all I could hear. No birds chirped, and the highway was far enough behind me that it disappeared from my eyes, ears, and mind. At one point, the path took a little turn the left, and the tree line ended. I was on the edge of the mountain. I stopped and looked over the ledge. There was nothing to see except a steep, almost ninety-degree drop. "Fuck," I said, barely above a whisper. My stomach dropped a little, but I just moved closer to the right side of the narrow path. Within five minutes, I was there.

Cedar Ridge Overlook was a patch of grass about the size of my home office, which was only around fifteen feet square. The wind reached its peak, blowing much harder than I ever would have thought possible when I had entered the park. Ahead of me was pretty much nothing but green. I knew the town of Granby was to my far right, Simsbury in front of me, and Avon to the left, but all I saw was green, at least in the bottom half of my vision. Cumulus clouds filled the top half with smatterings of blue here and there. Mostly, though, I just saw clouds merged into one large group just like the trees. Small groupings of buildings dotted the landscape, but I mostly saw green and white. I threw my backpack to the side and sat down.

I admit it. I was a bit stunned. Such a spot existed so close to my work, home, and daily life? I stared for a few minutes at a clump of green to the bottom left, and then I would turn my head to the group of clouds in the center of my vision. Then, I'd look at a cluster of white dots--homes, I thought--to the side. This is what I did for over an hour, stared here and there and back again. At times, I think I smiled or at least felt like I did. With the wind blowing so steadily and no other moving images or sounds around me, my slow breaths were all that marked the passage of time, but even the rhythm of my breathing had no beginning or end, just like the trees, just like the clouds. It was certainly an overlook, place where I could see nothing and everything all at once.

Writing

2010-12-02T23:27:00.000-05:00

You really want to know what stops me from writing? And when I say "writing," I mean the kinds of essays and articles that one of my advisers once said function as money in the bank for academics. What stops me? Me. It's all on me. I don't have kids. I have a partner who works much like I do, meaning we are able to spend lots of time together because our days are relatively flexible. He often works all day and night, and so do I, with periodic breaks to check in with each other and our weekly date night and HGTV night. I don't have any family who require any time of me, no one I talk to more than once every four or five months. Yes, I have a demanding job, but a lot of people have the same job. Thousands of people do, and 99% or so have other demands on them I don't have. i don't have any other regular activities or relationships that demand consistent time. So, why don't I get the writing done? Why don't I create 750 words a day? Why don't I write for fifteen minutes a day?

Me. It's the usual. Fear of failure. Fear of success. I hate the thought of putting so much time into something that could go nowhere. It's why my creative writing specialty as an undergrad was poetry and not fiction. Poetry took less time. Of course, the subjects and style of my poems all point toward the narrative nonfiction I've always wanted to write and have played with over the years. I research like crazy. Wow, the folders I have around my office here with articles, notes, and jottings on index cards and little scraps of paper. In a couple of cases, I have outlines of entire articles. I mean, I at least have lists of sections: this followed by this followed by this. I have lots of starting places. I can envision the end. But I don't do it. I'm afraid. I'm anxious.

What do I do about this? Go downstairs and get the ladder so I can get over myself? Easier said than done. I know that. But I'm not going to beat myself up over it. That just makes it worse. I get in my own way, and that's a lot better than what's stopping a lot of other people.

One Word

2010-12-01T23:02:00.039-05:00

Shifting

Shifting describes what 2010 has been for me quite well. A lot of things have shifted in my life running the gamut from good to bad but mostly neutral. It all started in January when I had a conversation with someone that I won't go into because of the privacy issues of other people involved. However, I basically left that discussion with a new view of my future. I had been emphasizing certain things in my life, and someone advised me to change. Their motivations are still suspect to me, but I thought about what they said, and I scheduled a lunch with someone I could trust to talk about that comment and those issues.

What I realized is that I needed to shift focus in certain ways. Most people have not noticed the change, but I feel it. And my husband recognizes it, which makes sense since he is the only one who sees me daily and knows it all, but I started shifting things around, physically and mentally. I spent days in the summer hiking alone like I've been thinking about for years, time when I really could get away from everyone and everything, sitting on a ledge in the Talcott mountain range staring and thinking. I ended particular research projects and began others. I said yes to things I never thought I'd say yes to and no to things I never expected to leave behind. I allowed myself to show my anger when relevant rather than keep it inside like I've done for forty years. I painted my home office and bought a new desk so my primary workspace could feel more like mine. I made a lot of smaller changes, allowing me to shift my mindset to one that should be healthier for me physically and psychologically.

Focused

Focused is how I want to feel at the end of 2011. With the shifts described above, I have made some decisions about projects I want to start or continue, and I want to end the year feeling like I generated some focus on those projects and made some noticeable progress. I'm tired of feeling like I spin my wheels all day, just clicking on websites and random articles, just responding to what has been given to me rather than creating from scratch. Now, this does not mean that I want to limit things in my life, not necessarily. I still want to let my right-brained mindset have free reign, but I also want to give the random ideas in my head more shape and direction. After making and handling many shifts in 2010, I want to spend 2011 generating a bit more focus.

Art, Censorship, and Sexuality

2010-11-17T11:55:00.000-05:00

This is for a class presentations I am doing today for a section of AUCS 150: Gender, Identity, and Society.

Holly Hughes from UM Art & Design on Vimeo.

Social Media and the Teaching of Writing

2010-10-22T12:21:00.000-04:00

These links are for a presentation I am making later this afternoon at my university's Creative, Artistic, and Research Symposium. I am part of a panel talking about technology and pedagogy, so come by the Henry Roberts Room at 1:30 PM if you are on campus. And check out these links if you can't make it.

The Wayback Machine

Blogger

Brian Croxall on teaching with Twitter

Dawn Gilpin's use of the MCO494 hashtag

Wikipedia entry on The Perfect Storm

Chuck Tryon's Wikipedia Project

Julie Almeida (RPW grad) and her work with Examiner.com (Twitter | Facebook)

Defining Culture

2010-09-13T17:56:00.000-04:00

You know one of the things that sucks about writing a book on the culture wars? Having to define culture. It's such a loaded term, which people have been trying to define for quite awhile, certainly since the 19th century (when a whole lot of things were getting defined).

You've got Matthew Arnold. In Culture and Anarchy, he defines culture as "being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world." In a lot of ways, this is thinking of culture as an object, something out there. The "best" he talks about is what defines canons of art and literature. If you read the best books and study the best art and immerse yourself in the best philosophical thinking, then you can call yourself cultured. Culture becomes an identity. Some would argue that the humanities themselves are borne out of this sense of culture. If you go to a university and study the best, you come out cultured. Of course, this idea has been complicated by those like Stuart Hall. Hall and his peers looked at working class cultures (among other things) with the point of saying that even those whom we would not normally see as cultured have a culture. Just as you can talk about the best poetry, you can talk about the best rock-n-roll. This understanding of culture leads us to the idea of the popular, the label usually ascribed to cultural texts that are widely appreciated and not usually part of high culture. American Idol and Cosi Fan Tutte are both well-known cultural texts in the field of music, but the kinds of culture each represents could not be more different (and the fact that I both hold a PhD in English and had to look up how to spell "tutte" says something about the blurring of lines between high, low, and popular cultures, too). When it comes to studying art, Arnold's definition of culture certainly remains important.

Then we get into anthropology, a field that has been deeply criticized yet is foremost in most of our minds when we think of culture. There's Edward Burnett Tylor who worked in the same general place and time as Arnold. In his work on "primitive cultures" (an ugly phrase by our standards today), he says that culture, "taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." This is a much broader definition of culture than Arnold's. Though we now cringe at much work from the nineteenth-century on "the other," this is a pretty important stage in defining culture. Culture is no longer about texts or objects. It's still about knowledge, but it's about the kind of knowledge that we gain throughout our lives. Just as we learn language as we grow, we learn culture over time, too. Also, this broad definition pretty much contains all of what it means to be human, and that means that this definition of culture allows for oppression. If you remove from a person or larger group of people part of what makes people human, then you oppress that person or group. If marriage is part of what defines a culture, and you do not allow a group of people such as lesbians and gays to marry, then you are oppressing them. If voting is a part of culture, and you do not allow a group to vote (as was very common before a range of voter's rights acts in this country), then you are oppressing them.

It's worth noting that both of these definitions try to create a stable understanding of culture during a time when there was a lot of upheaval in the world with wars, revolts, protests, colonization, and other disruptive and often violent acts taking place around the world.

Arnold taught us to think of culture as something we can obtain through study. Tylor taught us that culture is something we are born into and learn throughout out lives. Sociology deepened things more.

In the twentieth-century in America, we get to Talcott Parsons. I had not heard of him before today, but I can see how he is important in defining culture. He brought structuralism into the mix by trying to uncover what it is in culture that makes us act the way we do. If Tylor defined culture in a broad sense and saw it as something we learned over time, Parsons dealt with what creates culture in the first place and how it maintains itself. He developed what seems to be a pretty complex and abstract theory of social action known as the AGIL Paradigm (AGIL stands for adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency). What I think is important about this is that a lot of the work in cultural studies and in social theory in general (as it is taught and has been taught in graduate schools for a good couple of decades now) can connect to his ideas. I'm thinking in particular of ideology and discipline. I'm not saying that Parsons is the father of theory. People were writing about these things before he was around. I'm just saying I see a connection.

Of course, for my work, it's not so important that I define culture coherently or cohesively. It's more important that I examine texts from the time period and see how they define culture, explicitly or implicitly. And it's important to have a firmer grasp on ways of defining culture so I can see where certain people and ideas fit. After all, everyone starts somewhere.

I'm auditing a class at NYU this semester called Issues in Arts Politics. I was excited to be allowed to audit because I thought it would help me with my book project, and it certainly looks like it will. It will get me thinking about the larger issues I have to deal with, like defining culture. Today was the first day of class, and I was thinking that I should condense my notes in a way that is relevant for me. So all of this is taken from class lecture and discussion and filtered through my own particular lenses. I'll try to do this each week even if it does mean leaving the house at 5:30 in the morning to get there on time.

Trialogue

2010-07-10T23:44:00.000-04:00

My Aunt Ruby thought we'd enjoy swimming at the beach in Sarasota, Florida. She lived on Treasure Island, which was about an hour north of Sarasota. It wasn't that Treasure Island didn't have great beaches. They did, and my aunt and uncle lived two blocks from them. They owned a motel with four kitchenette units, which made it easy to stay with them for a couple of weeks every now and then. The units curled around their two-bedroom bungalow, so we just walked across the gravel courtyard under a huge oak tree to our private room.

Aunt Ruby was not one to sit around, so she always had a few plans for us. I'm not sure if my mother followed along so easily because she was used to doing it since she was the youngest, because she genuinely enjoyed whatever my aunt planned, or because she just didn't want to cause trouble. I'm guessing my mother welcomed the chance to have someone else make the plans, do the driving, and take the responsibility since she had more responsibility than she probably wanted at home in Texas. It was 1983, the summer after eighth grade. My grandmother, who had been living with us since before I was born, had barely survived a stroke a few months earlier, and my parents were on the path toward divorce within a year even though I had no idea what problems existed between them at the time.

So when my aunt told us we were going to the Ringling Museum the day after our arrival, no one questioned the idea. She also told us to make sure we had out swimsuits. I had no problem getting back in the car even if I'd just spent two twelve-hour days in one. The entire drive down, I just stared at the water. I knew the Gulf of Mexico wasn't an ocean, but it sure looked like one to me. At the time, it was the only body of water I'd ever seen stretch past the horizon, and I just stared and stared and the white caps of waves breaking and fading and popping up all over the place.

After a few hours of gazing at classical art and touring manicured gardens, we stopped at a sandwich shop for lunch and went straight to the beach. I ate a little but cared more about the water.

"You can walk out pretty far here. The land is pretty flat for a while." Aunt Ruby walked to the back of the car to unlock the trunk for our folding chairs and beach towels. "You can change over there." She pointed to a clump of concrete blocks that contained the two bathrooms.

I rushed into my suit and jogged back to my aunt and mother within minutes. "We left the back door unlocked." My mother was digging in her bag for sunblock. "Put your clothes in there and make sure to hide your wallet. Lock it and come back here. I want to get enough sunscreen on you."

"Okay." I turned and ran. This was taking too long. Maybe we'd been there only five minutes, but it was an entire minutes. Hundreds of seconds. Back to the car, back to my mother, back to her so she could slather me with the gooey liquid. That tangy scent still makes me think of Florida even today and even though I used it daily growing up in Texas.

"Okay, go." My mother slapped me on the back of the head and laughed. It was good to hear her laugh. My aunt, who was spreading out towels on the sand stood up and turned to my slowly disappearing body. "When you get out a few feet, grab some handfuls and sand and let it fall through your fingers. You'll probably find some shark's teeth."

Shark's teeth? Whatever. The waves were crashing toward me, and I wanted to be in them. I jumped over them. I dove under them. The salt was strong. I had to keep my lips clenched, but I could already feel my face and neck drying out fast beneath the sun shining right on me and bouncing off the water. Jumping and diving and standing over and over again. Who knows how long it took to tire me out, but I moved closer to the shore and sat down. Aunt Ruby was right. The land was so flat, I could sit down quite a bit away from the shoreline.

I stuck my hands in the sand and felt little stones. Grabbing handfuls, I saw that the stones were little black triangles. Looking closer, seeing two gently serrated edges and one smooth side, I realized Aunt Ruby was right. These were teeth. With each handful, I pulled out a few more. It wasn't long until I had too many to hold, so I stood up and ran back to the beach.

"Look! Teeth!" I held them out to my mother and aunt. My mother bent over to look, but Aunt Ruby stayed still. "I told you. They lose teeth throughout their life. You can always find some around here." I found out at the county library on our return home that sharks lose thousands of teeth during their lifetime. New ones begin to grow in the back of their mouths and then slowly push forward. Old ones fall out of the front and get replaced by the new ones from the back. This happens every few months or, in some species, days.

"Put them here." My mother held out the empty wrapper from her sandwich. "Go get more."

I went back out as far as I could while still being able to sit on my knees and grab handfuls of sand. They were just as easy to find as before. The sandwich wrapper was full of dozens of little black teeth. After we'd returned to my aunt's in Treasure Island, Aunt Ruby gave me an old pill bottle. I soaked the label off and put the teeth inside. They filled about three-fourths of it.

I found that bottle in a box recently, boxes we shoved in closets when we moved and that I planned to go through this summer. Aunt Ruby died of a brain tumor just a few years after that trip, and my mother died three years ago. The pill bottle almost full of shark's teeth now sits on top of a bookshelf in my office here at home. I don't know if it will stay there, but I'll be keeping it out in the open here for a good long while.

Jeffrey G. Sherman's "Love Speech: The Social Utility of Pornography."

2010-07-05T19:01:00.000-04:00

Jeffrey G. Sherman's "Love Speech: The Social Utility of Pornography" is probably one of my favorite articles of all time. It was published in Stanford Law Review in 1995, and it's so relevant today. One of my big pet peeves when it comes to scholarship on pornography is that it works from a monolithic definition of pornography. Those who then condemn pornography for damaging women's lives ignore pornography that does not have any women in it but still believe their arguments apply to pornography without women. Sherman's argument attempts to combat that by explaining how gay pornography actually improves the lives of gay men. He goes beyond the free speech argument that says pornography should exist because we should not attempt to constrict the marketplace of ideas even if those ideas are harmful ones to say that gay male pornography actually has benefits to it. I agree with much of what he says on a gut level as well as an intellectual one. He articulates something I have been feeling but unable to put into words. I was taking some notes on this article today; here are a few quotations from it.

"In this article, I shall argue not that pornography is to be 'tolerated,' the traditional liberal attitude, but that pornography--at least gay male pornography--is to be valued as serving a social good: it enables its consumers to realize satisfying, nurturing sexual lives" (Sherman 662).

"Unlike liberalism's tolerance-based 'defense,' my argument embraces feminism's assumption that pornography has behavioral and psychological effects" (Sherman 667).

"[S]exuality and sexual response are so personal and idiosyncratic, and the sexual responses of men and women are so demonstrably different, that each sex may be peculiarly ill-suited to make assertions about the other's sexuality" (Sherman 668).

"Sexual exhilaration in the context of a mutually desired sexual connection may present the only circumstance in which one can achieve a complete submersion of self in another's being, transcending the leaden constraints of political obligation and rational discourse" (Sherman 670).

"If government is to foster its citizens' flourishing, and if an integrated sexuality is part of that flourishing, it follows that political regimes must be conducive to sexual integrity" (Sherman 671).

"The silencing and subordination of gay men on account of their sexuality denies gay men the self-acknowledgment and self-definition that every group needs to participate fully in civic life" (Sherman 671).

"It is a sensibility, a culture, a community from which the heterosexual world has much to learn and which is entitled to equal weight and deference" (Sherman 675).

"[B]ecause of our culture's presumption of heterosexuality, we speak of gayness, rather than sexual orientation, as being the invisible quality" (Sherman 676).

"Heterocentrism may disaffirm gay men, but it does not demonize them. Homophobia does that" (Sherman 676).

"A gay adolescent encounters many examples of male-male 'affection,' but they fail to provide the validation he needs if they do not explicitly acknowledge male-male sex" (Sherman 683).

"The men in the gay pornographic films were not being treated like women; they were being treated like gay men" (Sherman 691).

"Sadly, these critics fail to extend that insight to male-male penetration; instead, their comments suggest the erroneous view that penetration is penetration and that two gay men having sex with each other must necessarily be aping the sexist heterosexual norm" (Sherman 693).

"The gay pornography market 'has become a guarantee, at least until legal equality is won, that the existence of sexual minorities and their struggle for sexual rights remain in the realm of public visibility'" (Sherman 694, quoting Andrew Ross in No Respect).

"Second, and perhaps more important, the feminists' argument sets forth a rigid model of what constitutes 'correct' and 'incorrect' sexual interactions. If society accepts that model and restricts permissible sexual images according to that vision, gays and lesbians are likely to feel the lash disproportionately" (Sherman 695).

"The relative importance of pornography in the gay male imagination results from the suppression of other forms of gay expression: not only artistic expression but lived interpersonal expression" (Sherman 703).

"The eradication of homophobia will not occur in isolation. Rather, it will coincide with the eradication of misogyny, for the two are simply different aspects of the same hatred: hatred of femininity" (Sherman 703).

"Enduring gay coupled relationships particularly threaten the hierarchy by offering an example of committed, stable loving that requires neither procreation nor gender-based subordination" (Sherman 704).

The (Missing) Faces of African-American Girls with AIDS

2010-06-27T18:12:00.000-04:00

Anyone who has been following me online for the last few years may remember occasional mentions of an article I was writing on representations of African-American girls with AIDS. Well, it's now published! Feminist Foundations has it as their lead article in the Spring 2010 issue, which just appeared this summer. If you have Project Muse, you can download it (and perhaps get me on the Most Frequently Downloaded Articles list!). Otherwise, email me for a copy.

2010-06-12T16:41:00.000-04:00

I have an article that should be out this summer where I talk about the role that shame has played in my teaching. It's basically about why I did not choose to come out to my classes. Though it would have exploded my argument, I wish I'd read Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity before I sent that article out. Sedgwick writes a pretty compelling argument for why shame is not always a negative thing. In fact, it's pretty integral to shaping our sense of self, which in turn means it's integral in how we relate to others. Here are some quotations of hers that are pushing me to rethink shame.

"In fact, shame and identity remain in very dynamic relation to one another, at once deconstituting and foundational, because shame is both peculiarly contagious and peculiarly individuating" (Sedgwick 36).

"That's the double movement shame makes: toward painful individuation, toward uncontrollable relationality" (Sedgwick 37).

"The conventional way of distinguishing shame from guilt is that shame attaches to and sharpens the sense of what one is, whereas guilt attaches to what one does" (Sedgwick 37).

"The forms taken by shame are not distinct 'toxic' parts of a group or individual identity that can be excised; they are instead integral to and residual in the processes by which identity itself is formed" (Sedgwick 63).

"If the structuration of shame differs strongly between cultures, between periods, and between different forms of politics, however, it differs also simply from one person to another within a given culture and time" (Sedgwick 63).

"Shame interests me politically, then, because it generates and legitimates the place of identity--the question of identity--at the origin of the impulse to the performative, but does so without giving that identity space the standing of an essence. It constitutes it as to-be-constituted, which is also to say, as already there for the (necessary, productive) misconstrual and misrecognition. Shame--living, as it does, on and in the muscles and capillaries of the face--seems to be uniquely contagious from one person to another" (Sedgwick 64).

"Survivors' guilt and, more generally, the politics of guilt will be better understood when we can see them in some relation to the slippery dynamics of shame" (Sedgwick 64).

Yes, I'm posting a lot of quotations lately. I'm spending this first part of the summer doing a lot of notetaking, which is why I'm finding a lot of amazing quotations and presenting a few here now and then. If they inspire you, I'd love to hear how in the comments. Oh, I have written about this book before on my personal blog.

From Larry Kramer's "Nuremberg Trials for AIDS"

2010-06-05T13:48:00.000-04:00

Each of many, many people committed acts of inconceivable inhumanity that must be documented. Without such official documentation, the politics of homo-hating and bigotry will continue to rule the world and this plague will never end.

More. . .

Two Reasons Why Some People Do Not Get Tested for HIV

2010-06-03T14:43:00.000-04:00

At 3:00 PM EST today, the National HIV Testing Day Twitter Town Hall will be taking place. Check out the #nhtd hashtag for tweets about HIV testing. My initial thoughts are too long to convey in a tweet, so I thought I'd map them out here. HIV testing is incredibly important, but there are two things that always come to mind whenever I hear people calling for HIV testing, two reasons why people may not want to get tested. I've been talking about both of these reasons for years, and no one has been able to give me strong counterarguments for them that I can use when people give these reasons to me. I welcome hearing such perspectives in the comments.

The first reason has gotten more attention in recent health care reform debates. Many people do not get tested for HIV because they do not want to be labeled as having a pre-existing condition when it comes to seeking health insurance. Years ago in graduate school, I had a friend who said that he was not going to get tested until he earned tenure and could be more greatly assured that he would never lose his insurance since he would have greater job security. There's a lot of logic to what he said. If he took a new job and had to sign up for new insurance, a pre-existing condition could make it difficult, and drug therapies aimed at HIV are not cheap. This is one reason why many of us argue that true health care reform must include provisions for those who have a range of pre-existing conditions.

The second reason why some people choose not to get tested for HIV has to do with our judicial system. Many people do not want to get tested for HIV because being HIV-positive subjects them to greater criminal prosecution. Back in the late 1980s when I started having sex, the belief was that you needed to take measures to protect yourself if you did not want to contract HIV. In the late 1990s, that began to change as states (over thirty of them at last count) began to argue that individual responsibility was largely irrelevant and instead started to criminalize the transmission of HIV. Actually, I'm wrong. In five states (Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, and Tennessee), you do not have to transmit HIV to be a criminal.

Missouri really drives me batty, though. As Tim Dean puts it in Unlimited Intimacy, "Missouri is unique in explicitly denying the use of a condom as a defense" (6n10). In other words, if you are a man who is HIV-positive, and you have sex with someone while wearing a condom and without disclosing your status, you are a criminal. If you are an HIV-positive woman, and you have sex with a man and ask him to wear a condom but do not disclose your status, then you are a criminal. If you are transgender, then this point obviously applies to the person/people who insert(s) a penis into the other(s). We can (and should) discuss the ethics of disclosure but not here. My argument in this post is that the criminalization of HIV transmission has had the effect of pushing some people not to get tested. As someone told me when I was doing HIV-related volunteer work when I lived in Ohio, "If I don't know my HIV status, then I decrease the reasons why someone would want me in jail."

Many people use the argument that getting tested for HIV and learning your status means that you gain greater control over your own health and well-being. There's a lot of truth to that. But getting tested and finding out you have HIV also means that you become a member of a class of people known as the HIV-positive, and we live in a country that means people with that label are allowed to be treated in ways people without that label do not, which means losing some of the control people have before being tested. Many people who do not want to be treated in those ways simply do not get tested. In no way am I arguing that getting tested for HIV is a bad thing. It can be really important and even necessary. I do just want to be clear that there are legitimate reasons why some people choose not to be tested, and dismissing those reasons does not help anyone.

If you believe in the importance of HIV testing, then I hope you not only urge individuals to get tested but also push our local, state, and national governments to enact laws (or remove laws) that will encourage and not discourage people from getting tested. It's something I'm trying to do by raising these issues whenever I can.

ETA: I created a Twapper Keeper for all of the #nhtd tweets.

Simplicity Itself

2010-05-31T22:26:00.000-04:00

From the looks of my research interests, it's clear that I engage with a lot of traumatic issues in my teaching and scholarship. This is a bit of a contradiction in that I often tell my writing students that they do not need to focus on the most traumatic events of their lives to write a compelling essay. No student have ever called me on the fact that I say one thing but so often teach and study something else. Now, if they do call me on it, I have an answer. I just finished Julie Powell's Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, and it's pretty damn amazing considering that it's a somewhat ordinary story.

Yes, cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year is pretty remarkable on a lot of levels, but it's not heroic or traumatic. And one of the cool things about it is that it is a somewhat ordinary thing to do, so ordinary that most people don't think of doing it. Anyone can pick up a cookbook and make it all, but no one does. No one does because there's no reason to do it. She didn't know that it would make her famous and provide her with an income that would enable her to quit her government drone job. At the time, she just cooked food and wrote about. She just lived her life with all of its quirks and ordinariness wrapped up together.

But she wrote a pretty compelling book, and it's compelling not because of what she does but because of how she writes about it. I just love her use of language. I adore how she connects events in her life with the food she's making. I'll just keep repeating that there's nothing especially compelling about what she does, but she composes a narrative that is compelling. Her friends are contemplating affairs and ending their marriages, and Powell reflects on that while cooking really detailed meals in a cramped kitchen. She has a mother her loves her and annoys her, and that relates to the food. Her pipes freeze. Her power goes out. She experiences what we all experience, but the way she tells that story is unique and special.

Powell makes a point in her first chapter that Child uses the phrase "simplicity itself" to describe a potato soup recipe, and Powell realizes that simplicity does not mean easy. Yes, the recipe is quite simple on a lot of levels, but it does take care and effort to make. The same can be said of this book. It looks simple, but I doubt writing it was easy. I couldn't write this way, and I've been studying writing for years. I almost didn't pick up the book because I really didn't think it could be as good as it actually is because it didn't look that amazing on the surface.

I was wrong.

Are You a Sex Offender?

2010-05-26T18:18:00.000-04:00

I haven't read all of the essays in Best Sex Writing 2009 though I'm just over halfway. I do want to take a moment to note how much I like "Sex Offenders!!" by Kelly David. It is an extensive piece of investigative journalism that originally appeared in San Diego City Beat on April 15, 2008. The original essay is still available on their site. I have long had a problem with sex offender registries because of the disregard so many people have for how "sex offender" is defined. People assume that it only means pedophiles, but it often includes people convicted of a wide range of crimes. This article gets at that, which is why I was happy to read it. For example, David describes a former prostitute who ended up being labeled a sex offender because she said "Show me your dick" to an adult male vice officer. I won't get into prostitute's rights in this post, but I do wonder why that act means she has to spend the rest of her life on a sex offender registry?

Furthermore, why is this woman not allowed even to walk her kids to school since the law the article talks about says those on the registry can't ever appear within three hundred feet of a school, public library, city park, or other such business? Now, to be fair, the article does not say this woman has kids, but the point is the same. Any person convicted of the same crime of which she was convicted cannot ever appear within three hundred feet of their kid's school or ever take part in a parent-teacher conference or attend a school play or help out at a class party without risk of going to jail for up to six months. And this is even if their crimes only involved adults. I just don't get that.

Whenever I think about these issues, I always think of David Valdes Greenwood's play Bully Dance. He held a reading of it on my campus a few years ago. I have a copy in my campus office, but I'm at home now, so I can't list the names, but the play is autobiographical. Valdes Greenwood was on a bus with a Canadian man who had traveled to Maine to kill people on their sex offender registry. He killed two men, one of whom was on the registry for statutory rape. When he was seventeen, he slept with his fifteen-year old girlfriend. The father had him arrested, and he was jailed and told he had to appear on the registry for the rest of his life. He married the girlfriend and had children with her. When the killer realized that he'd killed a man who was not a pedophile and who had been in a long-term marriage with his victim, he lost it and ended up on the bus with Valdes Greenwood and other passengers. The killer ended up shooting himself while on the bus. He was one of those people who made the idiotic assumption that someone who appeared on a sex offender registry must be a pedophile. When he realized he was wrong, it was too late. Who hurt her more? The man who had sex with her when they were both in high school, married her, and fathered her children? Or the man who shot her husband in cold blood?

This particular article in this book might be more than two years old, but the issues are still relevant. The Supreme Court recently decided that Congress is allowed to continue keeping sex offenders in prison after their sentence has ended. A new federal law proposed by the Justice Department says that teenagers who commit crimes would not have to appear in such registered for the rest of their lives. I'm glad to hear that since I don't think a fourteen-year-old-girl arrested for some form of prostitution needs to have letters saying she's a sex offender sent to all of the other residents of the nursing home she enters when she's eighty. We're nowhere near to having a firm grasp on these issues, but I hope that anyone who fights for any position is crystal clear as to how they are defining "sex offender" and why.

ETA: The man from Canada who shot the sex offenders in Maine is Stephen A. Marshall.

The Value of Unrespectability

2010-05-23T14:35:00.000-04:00

The artists discussed in this book, from Paul Cadmus to Holly Hughes, could not transcend the homophobic constraints imposed upon their work. They could, however, restage and resist those constraints within the space of their art. Rather than defending their work as proper or decent, these artists drew upon the force of the improper and the indecent, the force of fairies, most wanted men, sadomasochists, AIDS activists, and flaming queers. They used the outlaw status of homosexuality both to contest the threat of censorship and to propose other visions of social, sexual, and creative life. These artists offer a record of resistance within the history of twentieth-century American culture. But they also do something more. In the face of ongoing demands for decent art, they urge us to recognize the value, and to take the risk, of unrespectability.

--from Richard Meyer's Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art (2002)

The Need for Sexual Exploration

2010-05-22T16:49:00.000-04:00

While reading Richard Meyer's Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art (2002), I found this quotation from Cindy Patton's Sex and Germs: The Politics of AIDS (1985).

AIDS must not be viewed as proof that sexual exploration and the elaboration of sexual community were mistakes. [. . .] Lesbians and gay men [. . .] must maintain that vision of sexual liberation that defines the last fifteen years of [our] activism (235-6).

I think this rings even more true today in light of the continuing conservative backlash against queers of all types at local, state, national, and international levels as well as the mainstream gay/lesbian movement's current emphasis on a liberal (as opposed to a radical) political agenda.

Open the Window

2010-04-29T19:53:00.001-04:00

People think I live a life of complete freedom, and they are largely right. It's a gift I cannot ignore. Despite the homophobia I still encounter regularly, I still live a life where I can be out in my personal and professional life. Despite the criticisms of the tenure process in academia, I have earned tenure, which means I've earned the right to pursue just about any professional project I want. On a personal level, I have a supportive husband who gives me the space to be me. Though I often think of him whenever I make just about any decision about anything, there is no one else on this planet who factors into choices about how I live my life. It's a dream scenario to so many people, and I cannot take it for granted.

But it's amazing how easy it is to feel constrained by so many conscious and unconscious things. It's annoying and frustrating. There are some logical aspects of my life that hold me back, comments, judgments, and experiences that occurred in the first half of my life that wreck havoc on the second. I'm not talking about anything severe but just the typical things that happen to most of us, the things that get called "whining" by a lot of people when mentioned in public. And, yeah, it can feel like whining, too, when we think about them and wonder, "Oh, sure, that hurt, but that was then. This is now."

Someone once told me that one of the biggest roadblocks to many of my dreams was my freedom. I don't have to struggle to find time to write, so I don't make time to write because it's too easy to imagine putting it off later, after watching another episode of thirtysomething through Netflix on the Wii or checking Twitter one more time. From August 2002 to June 2003, I wrote a dissertation, conducted a national job search, and held my first full-time academic position. I look back at that time and wonder how I did it. The answer? I had to do it.

Now, in the state of privilege that defines my life, I often don't get things done when I don't really have to do them. Oh, the "whining" label is starting to approach the tongue, isn't it? But I'm more writing this out like this to get myself to face this. It's not the first time I've talked to myself like this, but I've been thinking a lot these last few months about the next phase of my life. I have some ideas, but I'm holding myself back for the same reasons I've held myself back my entire life.

And the reasons aren't that valid at all.

The Full Picture

2010-04-17T18:39:00.000-04:00

My parents started leaving me home alone for the day the summer I was eight years old. Though my grandmother lived with us, she'd leave the heat of Texas for a couple of months in the more bearable warmth at my aunt's house in Virginia. It's a bit shocking to think of leaving an eight-year-old alone all day, but I loved it. My father would come home for lunch, and my mother always called later in the afternoon from the store where she worked to check on me, just a few hours before they both would be home for the night.

Even then, I loved being alone. As the temperatures would often hit the high nineties if not the low hundreds by noon, I spent all of my time inside. In a world without cable, this meant reruns of Green Acres and Gidget. I'd spend hours with the thousands of Legos my aunt would send from the toy store she managed in Florida, constructing an entire town in red, blue, yellow, green, and white splendor. Yes, even then, the anal-retentive Virgo in me tried to keep each house or store in one color, which was easier to do than one might think. I probably read the entire Great Americans series from the county library in the center of town, though I only remember details from Walt Disney's childhood on a Missouri farm and Helen Keller's education with Anne Sullivan.

It's not too difficult to see the relationship between the summer of 1978 and my life today. Lots of reading, lots of television, lots of color. I was happy to live with the rules given to me--cooking only in a toaster over, checking the dog's water bowl once in the morning and once in the afternoon--if it meant I had the living room television to myself and the ability to sit in any chair or anywhere on the floor. That was freedom, being able to stretch and fill the expanse around me with space left over and no one noticing anything about me.

I wonder, though, if that was the beginning of the end, or if the beginning was even months or years earlier. My parents divorced six years later, but they were apart long before then. It was around this time that my father started taking night classes at the community college thirty miles from town. He spent the nights he wasn't in class ensconced in the spare bedroom doing homework. My mother would sit with me in the living room, she in her cheap, cotton robes crocheting afghans for expectant mothers she knew from the store. There was always some child on the way for someone.

My parents didn't have to think about me much. I'm not sure if their thoughts dwelled on why they were living separate lives in the same house or if they occupied their thinking with the mundane details of life. Did either of them have any opinions on the world's first test-tube baby? The sentencing of the Son of Sam? The Camp David Peace Accords? Was my father simply trying to finish papers for classes like the ones I teach now and my mother trying to make sure the laundry was always done and dishes clean and put away in the years before we bought a dishwasher?

It was a quiet house, except for the constant sounds of The Waltons, Alice, and Eight is Enough in summer reruns. I would read or snap plastic bricks together or just stare at the screen when whatever was on it would make me laugh. As long as the dog's water bowl was full on the days I was alone, I had no responsibilities and nothing I had to think about, nothing I had to say to anyone about anything.

First Signs of Spring

2010-03-17T17:37:00.000-04:00

On my walk today, I glanced over at the side of the road and saw the first flowers of the year. It was close enough to home that I could grab my camera and document their appearance. On other parts of the walk, I noticed several green shoots, so I expect to see tulips soon. The crocuses are always first. It was a pretty mild winter around here, so I haven't been craving the first signs of spring. But I do appreciate the longer days. It's almost 5:30 right now, and the sun is brightly shining through my home office's window. I get the afternoon sun, which I love since I sleep through most of the morning usually.

It's now spring break, and it's time to get to work. I have some grading to do and lots of things piled up on the edges. I also have to make serious headway on a conference presentation for next week and hopefully on some other projects, too. There's a fair amount of time left in the semester, but it's also going to go fast if I don't watch it. There are some things I don't necessarily want to have done at the end of the semester but that I do want to have made progress on so I can continue the momentum into the summer.

On an opposite note, I spent the past three days in NYC, and it was great. I hung out with some guys who ensured that I was as worthless as possible, and I needed that. Oh, it was quite nice not to get on the internet at all for almost three days. Even though the goal of the trip was to do nothing, I actually felt my mind clearing so that I could think about some long-term scholarly and teaching projects. I was even happily surprised to work through some speed bumps I'd hit. The trip reminded me how I have to build in not just down time but serious nothing time.

I'm already thinking of planning another round in June, when summer will be showing its first signs before going into full bloom.

Part Two

2010-01-25T22:50:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling a little down tonight, which I wasn't expecting because today was just fine. But I was watching the Rosie O'Donnell interview on Oprah, and a lot of it resonated with me. Part of it is just listening to Rosie talk about losing her mother. I was much luckier than she was since I had my mother for thirty-seven years, and she had hers for ten. But I was thinking of my mother, nonetheless.

And that connects to the second topic. Rosie was talking about reaching forty-five and wondering what she was going to do with the rest of her life, which is something that's been on my mind, too. I am beyond lucky that I have reached forty having achieved what I've hoped to achieve in my life. I have the career I intended to have, I live in the home in which I've always wanted to live, and I live with a partner I hope to have for the rest of my life. All of that's great, and I do not mean to be taking it for granted. But while I will have to work to maintain those things, I've been thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life. I don't want to just spin my wheels for the next twenty, thirty years. I want to do something, but I'm not sure what it should be.

Part of this is brought on by recent conversations I've had resulting from the job search in my department that has just been canceled due to budget cuts. Yes, that happens, and it's sad, but the conversations I've had with various people have been eye-opening and confusing. People have been giving me some unsolicited advice. It's all been thought-provoking, and some people are being quite considerate. But I'm more confused about what I want to do next in my life/career (which are deeply integrated). I don't want to write a book. I know I'm supposed to want to write one, but I don't. Edit, yes, but write, no. I'm not sure if I want to write academically or creatively or for what kind of audience. I'm not sure if I want to work on some other area like photography or something similar.

I know I need to make some decisions before I wake up at fifty-five or something and wonder what I have to show for the last decade or whatever. Yes, I could say that maintaining this life, if I can do it, is something to be proud of. But the security I have now means I have opportunities, and I think it's sad to waste them.

Ah, well. I'll certainly be reporting whatever I do online, I'm sure.

Including Your Own Work in an Edited Collection?

2010-01-21T17:50:00.000-05:00

It's been a year since I earned tenure, and I'm starting to think about the next big steps I want to take. One thing I want to do is edit a collection of essays about the work of David Wojnarowicz, the artist I've been studying for a few years. I realized that I don't really want to write a book about him because I don't really care what I think, but I'd love to know what other people think. That's when the idea of a collection hit me. I've co-edited a couple, so I certainly know how to do it.

Here's the question. What do people think of editors who include their own work as a chapter? Every once in awhile, I hear some criticize an editor for doing that. I've often thought of it as a good thing. It's the editor putting herself or himself out there just like the other chapter authors. Also, I assume the editor has some passion for the subject, so it's cool to see what she or he has to say beyond the general introduction. But maybe I'm in the minority?

Because here's the question. As I create a call for submissions and take the time to let people write abstracts and essays, I've wondered if I should work on my own essay and send it to a journal or save it for the collection. Anyone have thoughts?

This is going to start something of a series here. I'm questioning where to best place my energy, so I'm exploring ideas and options.

Feeling Some Excitement for a Change

2010-01-19T17:23:00.000-05:00

Classes start tomorrow, and I'm more excited about the start of the semester than I've been in a long time. Perhaps it's because the start of the last semester was so rough. I had some administrative issues sapping all of my energy, the kinds of things I could do nothing about but that I had to handle the results of. You add all the drama from buying the new place, and I think back to last August and feel my stomach tighten up just a tad still.

This semester, though, I feel much more on target (knock on wood). I'm really excited about the two classes I'm teaching (blogs are here and here). I've taught each one once before, and they went extremely well. I decided to keep things pretty much the same, which means a lot of my prep is done. I feel like I can concentrate on actually teaching as well as deepening my own learning of the course materials. That should also feed into a couple of research projects I hope to make some serious headway on these next few months, too.

I'm also excited that I have no conferences this semester. That may sound odd, but I think I need a bit of a travel break. It's not like I've been traveling lately, but it is nice to have a semester where I will be in class everyday (barring anything unforseen) and where I can do my own thing on my own schedule. I've got a couple of articles coming out this semester, so I feel like I have something to show for scholarship.

Yeah, I might be tempting fate, and I know the mood won't last forever, but it's nice to feel excited about things for a change.

If you missed yesterday's Prof. Hacker post where I posted the track list for this semester's mix-CD, check it out. I'm even looking forward to the commute!

Too Organized (Except When You Need Something from Me)

2010-01-08T14:30:00.001-05:00

People often make fun of me for being organized. I'm not obsessive-compulsive, at least not unusually so. But I do have a place for everything and everything in its place, and when things get out of whack, I feel it and show it. I get flustered very easily. I know most jokes are in good fun. Today, though, someone needed a particular piece of paper from me. We went to my office, and I got it for hir, at which point, zie got a little wide-eyed and said, "Your office is freaking me out. It's too organized." At which point I said, "Good thing, too, or I might not have been able to find what you needed."

Zie changed the subject at that point.

Getting Rid of the Junk

2010-01-01T19:03:00.000-05:00

I haven't done a whole lot today, but I have done a few things: replaced a light bulb here and there, straightened up a few spots, read this and that. But of all I have done, I'm probably most geekily proud of cleaning out the bag that contained the enitre contents of our junk drawer from the old place. Da Man had put it on the desk in the kitchen to remind him to go through it, but I started while he was making dinner. There were a lot of expired coupons and instruction manuals for products we don't even own anymore. There were also some random photos of Auggie and the neighbor kids from back in Ohio. At one point, Da Man said, "You are just thrilled to be going through all of that right now, aren't you?"

Why, yes, yes I am. Happy New Year!

My Top Ten Films of 2009

2009-12-20T14:12:00.004-05:00

I love lists. With this being the end of the year and of the decade, there are a lot of lists out there, and I love them all. I normally don't create any myself because I don't know enough about a field to make judgments, but I certainly have my own favorites, which is what lists are all about. I'm not interested in influencing other people's opinions of things, but I like thinking of things that have brought me pleasure, which is what got me to thinking about movies.

This past year, I've seen forty-eight movies in theaters. That might seem like a lot to some people, but I'm also aware of the number of movies I haven't seen in theaters, like The Hurt Locker. But I saw a lot, and I liked a lot of what I saw. Here are my top ten movies of 2009 (and it includes movies released in 2008, but I saw them in 2009, which is why they are on this list).

1. Where the Wild Things Are: It was actually seeing this on a lot of top ten lists that got me thinking about making my own. I loved this movie, just absolutely adored it. As many of these lists say about the movie, it's not for kids. Instead, it's a movie that captures all the simplicity and intensity of childhood at once. A lot of us have complex relationships with our childhoods. Mine wasn't bad, but spent the first fourteen years of it alone, pretty much. I did a lot of watching (of television and other people) and thinking. I was in my own head most of the time, and this movie has come the closest to capturing that experience. I guess I'm not the only one who lived that way as a kid.

2. Slumdog Millionaire: I'm a sucker for movies about destiny, fate, and love. I got sucked into it right away and was afraid to blink until it was over. I knew how it would end, of course. Things were destined, after all! But I had no idea how they'd get there, and that's what made it so compelling.

3. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire: I have loved the book since I first read it in the last century. I've taught it several times. All that made me fear the film because I wasn't sure how an adaptation could align with a book I so loved, but the adaptation does fit the novel while still doing what films do. Amazing acting for a gripping story, too.

4. Milk: I've been waiting for years to see the story of Harvey Milk on screen, and this did not disappoint. It's a finely-crafted story made amazing by its actors, which did not just include Sean Penn. Whoever would have thought Josh Brolin would be considered a great actor? But he is, as are so many in this movie.

5. Gran Torino: This was just a great, simple story with amazing acting. This is probably the film on this list for which I had the smallest emotional response, but it's an amazing piece of storytelling.

6. Away: Kind of like Where The Wild Things Are does with childhood, this is a movie that paints a pretty realistic portrait of what actual relationships are like. These are two people who come from flawed but not bad families, and their friends are in flawed but not bad relationships. Well, some are bad. But what they realize is that they just have to figure out what they want for themselves and their child, and they'll be fine. The rules of other couples do not necessarily apply to them, and once they figure that out, they realize how good they have it overall. And that was a real joy to watch.

7. Revolutionary Road: Yeah, this is the anti-Away, but that's also what makes it good. This is a relationship that is being ripped apart from the inside. Kate Winslet deserved the Oscar for The Reader, but she made this movie, too.

8. Zombieland: Yep, we love our zombie movies in this house. We watch them all, and this is a pretty amazing addition to the genre. It was funny without losing the elements of horror that a zombie movie needs before it becomes a parody of itself.

9. Brüno: I know this is going to be on a lost of worst lists, but I just had a blast at this movie, as I wrote about already. I just laughed and laughed. We had fun with this one.

10. Paranormal Activity: It's no Blair Witch, which I loved, but it's good. It starts out slow, but once the horror starts, it starts. It's another movie that I was afraid to miss a second of. And, yes, I did think of it over the next few nights after I turned out the lights and walked through a dark house to get to bed. Once in bed, I was afraid to open my eyes, too. It takes a pretty good movie to make that happen!

As for the worst film of the year, you know I have to give it to Inglourious Basterds. I said before that I clearly do not understand this movie. I do not understand why it's getting so much acclaim. I watched it. I thought about it. I tried to appreciate it, but I can't. I just don't get it.

Print will die! Yea! Print will die! Oh, no!

2009-12-14T14:09:00.004-05:00

I know I better watch it or this blog along with my Facebook and Twitter updates will make me look like a somewhat younger but just as grumpy Andy Rooney. But, frankly, I wish the people who are already cheering the death of print and the people who are prostrating themselves over said death would both get over it. Print may be "dead" at some point, but it's not happening anytime soon. There will be a gradual transition, I'm sure. At the same time, print may not exist or be used as it's currently being used in the same ways within a few decades. But the transition will again be gradual, and we'll all learn to adjust.

Whatever happens to print will happen over time, and we'll adapt accordingly in the same ways we've learned to adapt to other changes in digital technology. I'm not sure what there is to cheer or complain about.

Except for complaining about those who cheer and those who complain, of course.

Extravagent Happiness

2009-12-13T21:44:00.004-05:00

There are certain things I like to do that make me happy. I think I sometimes resist them because they seem too superfluous or extravagant. Tomorrow is the last day of the class I'm auditing at NYU. The students who are actually enrolled are presenting their final projects, and I'm actually really looking forward to it. I bet no one will expect me to show up. One of the other auditors said goodbye as she walked out of the room last week, but I'm curious to see what they all will come up with. Maybe I'm looking forward to it because I don't teach graduate students, so the chance to watch grad students engage with the course material through their personal projects just sounds downright exciting. Okay, maybe that's too strong of a word. But I am looking forward to it.

That's not what's making me happy, though. Since this is the last day of class, and I'm not auditing a class next semester, this is my last trip for awhile. I hopped on Priceline last week and ended up getting a nice hotel room for the night tonight, and I'm typing from my room at a hotel that overlooks Ground Zero, though it's a different hotel that overlooks it than the one I stayed at in October. Not to be a shill for the company, but Priceline can be lead to some pretty great deals. I kept getting warnings that the price I was offering was too low (less than the 50% they said would be necessary to get something), but this place took it. You just have to be damn sure you want the room since you get charged for it. When my offer was accepted the other night, I walked downstairs and told Da Man, "Remember when I said I was thinking of spending the night in NYC? Well, I hope it's okay if I'm doing it on Sunday." He laughed. We've had similar conversations where he's been the one who tried out a ridiculously low price on a whim and had it accepted.

And though it's taken me a bit to get to my point, I really like hanging out here in the hotel room in my pajamas with my netbook and a silly movie I've seen fifty times on the television (in this case, Independence Day). I have a loyalty card for the hotel that got me free internet and access to the concierge floor. Since I saved a bit of money there, I decided to splurge on room service. It's been a horribly wet, dark, drippy day, which is perfect for sitting in the hotel room with the curtains wide open to the dark sky. I even graded tonight, as crazy as that may sound. I curled up in the easy chair and went through the memos and PowerPoints from last week's presentations in my intro to professional writing class. I emailed grades to all of my students and just have to go through their optional revisions, which many of them completed, to finish the semester. Well, to finish the grading. There's still administrative work as well as those phone interviews for the tenure-track position we have open.

Tomorrow, though, I'll hit the library. As my Facebook/Twitter question about scotosis last week probably made clear, I'm starting a project and want to do some background research into the framework I'm thinking of using. I've got a list of books and, thanks to Google Books, pages I want to look at. I might even get a haircut or something. I certainly need it.

The genesis for this entry came today when I was on the train. Like I said, it was dark and rainy, but it looked quite beautiful from the train, which was a bit quiet today (at least in the last car). I was doing a little reading, listening to some recent downloads on the iPod, and looking out the window quite a bit. Even the abandoned, graffiti-covered buildings had a certain sheen to them in the damp twilight. It made me think how I'm sometimes happiest when I'm alone yet surrounded by people, quiet people doing their own reading, listening, and looking. I'm lucky I can even consider taking the train into the city and hanging out for the night.

And I plan to take advantage of that luck when I can.

The Book and Film Versions of My Sister's Keeper (major spoilers ahead)

2009-12-10T22:13:00.002-05:00

Tonight, I led the last of three discussions at the Farmington Library on Jodi Picoult's novels. We ended with My Sister's Keeper, which is probably her best known novel since it was made it a major Hollywood film released last summer. I have some thoughts about the relationship between the book and the movie, but providing them means giving major spoilers about what happens in both of them. If you don't want to know what happens in either the book or the movie, stop reading now. Got it? Stop!

Wow, could an adaptation of a book into a movie ever be more different? Sure, I've seen lots of adaptations that leave out things in the book. Rarely can a film cover it all. But this has a completely different ending! I mean, different people live and die in each book, and that's pretty ridiculous.

The book does a pretty good job of delving into a pretty big gray area. Anna was conceived so that blood from her umbilicial cord could be used to combat her sister Katie's leukemia. But the procedures do not stop there. There are bone marrow transplants and all kinds of things taken from Anna for Katie. In the book, Anna is thirteen and is suing for the right to refuse to have one of her kidneys transplanted into Katie. The book follows the course of the trial. And the book does cover a variety of angles. Anna does not take this decision lightly, and everyone involved is conflicted. In the end, Anna wins her case. And as she and her lawyer drive to the hospital after the judge hands down his decision, they are in a car accident. Anna dies, and Katie gets Anna's kidney. The book ends with Katie in her 20s describing how they all have handled the years after Anna's death.

Now, a lot of us tonight felt that the ending was contrived. I admit that I didn't like it. I brought up the idea of deus ex machina and the ending feeling like a trick from God or something. Many of us were not fans of the ending. But seeing the movie changed all that for me and others.

In the movie? We never learn of the judge's decision because Katie dies in the hospital and Anna lives. The movie solely exists to make viewers cry. Small but sad scenes in the book take several minutes in the movie, and any sense of nuance is gone. Anna does not seem conflicted with her decision. Campbell, her lawyer, is just a smarmy stereotype in the movie when it's clear in the book that he has some dimensionality to him. I'm sure the book would annoy some doctors and lawyers who know more about some cases, but the movie lacks any complexity at all.

I'm curious what Jodi Picoult thinks of the film's drastic revision of her book. Maybe she just cashed the check and move on. Maybe she was upset but realized that she had no rights to the story once she released it to them. I've just never seen such a drastic revision. I enjoy a good cry at a movie, and this movie would have done it if I hadn't known the book's version. But I did know it, and the movie just pissed me off.

If you want to see a strong adaptation of a good novel, then see Precious. Push is an amazing book, and Precious is an amazing adaptation of it.

Fever Ray and La Roux

2009-12-09T22:15:00.004-05:00

After reading this interview with The Gossip's Beth Ditto, I was inspired to check out some of the acts she mentions, and I've fallen in love with Fever Ray and La Roux. In particular, I have been listening to Fever Ray's "When I Grow Up" and La Roux's "In for the Kill" interchangeably in the car on my commute. It's an odd combination, to be sure, but it also fits the general directions my mind takes throughout the day, from deep and brooding to light and airy. Hell, I'm often going both ways at the same time.

La Roux's official video for "In for the Kill" does not allow embedding, but you can see it here. And here's Fever Ray:

Keep Trying

2009-12-08T22:29:00.004-05:00

This afternoon, Creative Nonfiction Online selected my tweet as today's winner in their daily contest for the best memoir in 130 characters. Now, I admit that this is not the same as a Pulitzer or even having an essay published in their journal, but I was quite excited, mainly because I decided that one of my goals post-tenure is to do more with that kind of writing. When Creative Nonfiction announced this contest a few months ago, I started writing tweets, but I was getting frustrated easily.

Frustration is a common feeling for creative types. It's one reason why people stop being creative. At the time I was writing these tweets, I was also working on an essay that I sent to a few journals, some of whom rejected it faster than I thought possible. Frustration began bubbling and bubbling.

I told myself that this was part of the process, though. I've heard all of the stories about how Catch-22 is called that because it was rejected by twenty-two publishers before it appeared in print. I've heard repeatedly how it takes time. And all of that makes sense. I told myself when I started getting various forms of writing out there to be judged that it's about the process. You complete a project, whether a tweet or an essay, and you get it out there and move on to the next. I told myself this repeatedly.

But it is easier said than done. With CNF tweets, I would see the daily winners appear, and I would start with the whining. "But I had such a good one today!" Or, "Wait, I've read that several times, and I don't even understand it!" There were even times I would really work on them but not in a good way. It wasn't about crafting a fine sentence. It was about obsessing over it.

That essay I sent out last summer? I've been working on it in various forms for over ten years. I've edited it more times than I can remember. And I mean editing, not writing. I would work over words, tweaking verbs, combining sentences, breaking others into smaller units. I know that's quite normal for a lot of writers, another reason why people don't get work done and don't progress in their writing. But, dang, it was just frustrating me to feel stagnant.

With the tweets, I did almost give up a few weeks ago. I actually spent some time thinking whether or not I wanted to continue or move onto other things. But I like the daily aspect of it. I like that I do move on and produce something new regularly. So I tried again.

And "winning" or getting picked is not the only arbiter of success. Other people have said they like reading the tweets, and isn't that the point? I've "met" some great writers online. There were certainly many days I would think, "Damn, no wonder mine didn't get picked. That one's good." Last week, @Ralphley put me in his Follow Friday group, and that really made me feel good because I like his stuff, too. I know people are responding well, and that is a good thing. That's a reason to keep writing.

And this entry may sound like I'm making too big of a deal out of being a daily pick. But this entry is not really about that. It's more a reminder that I really do need to keep going with the same old writing process I promote daily in my classes. It's a reminder that there are people who like to see my work even if most of those people at the moment are not editors. They are still people I respect.

The tweet today was not one of my best. It was, "She always knew when to speak up and when to quiet down. I'd shake my head, wondering how dogs can communicate better than people." I like that it's about Auggie, but I have others I like more. I keep a list of them, and I really like the first one I ever wrote, "Neither the grave nor the obituary hit me hardest; it was the deck of worn, dog-eared playing cards she'd never touch again."

What's really funny about today's tweet is that it was inspired by a writing exercise I read about this morning where you respond to the idea that animals have a sixth sense. I had that in my head when I left home today. When I reached the office and saw a couple of cnftweets on Twitter, the thought hit me. So I posted it.

I need to get some other things out, too. Which means I need to finish some things. I need to find the balancing between revising and obsessing. And I need to keep reading. Basically, I need to keep trying.

No news there.

Looking at Each Other

2009-12-07T14:37:00.002-05:00

I like catching couples looking at each other. Well, I like it when I'm in a crowd, and I catch one member of a couple looking at another quietly. There was a man on the train today whose mouth turned into a permanent scowl. I was looking at him and wondering if it would be easier or harder to go through life with such a hard default expression. But then he glanced at the woman with him, and his face brightened. Just like that. There was a slight upturn to the lips, and his eyes widened a tad. It was subtle, but it was there. She didn't notice.

Of course, there are other times when I've caught such a look and wondered if such feelings would be reciprocated. Sometimes, one looks at another with more longing and more hope than they'll ever find returned in another's eyes. Catching that is not a pleasant feeling.

But today, I didn't have that feeling. For whatever reason, I thought she'd feel the same if she'd caught his eyes in hers.

A Novel or Memoir by a Woman in an International Context?

2009-12-06T14:46:00.004-05:00

Next semester, I'm teaching Intro to Gender Studies, and I'd love to find a novel or memoir written by a woman from outside the United States that I can teach for the section on Gender in International Contexts. I'd like something relatively contemporary, and if it's non-western, even better.

I'm not going with I, Rigoberta Menchu because there's too much controversy surrounding the book that I don't want to get into in this course for the time we have available. Last time, I taught In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez. I love the book, and it went over well, but I'd really like to teach something not written by someone form the United States, and I'd like to expose them to a place outside the Caribbean, so that cuts out Edwidge Danticat and Jamaica Kincaid, too (though I might still go with one of them). Malika Oufkir's Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail? Sara Suleri's Meatless Days? Slavenka Drakulic's The Balkan Express? Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters (though still by an American, but I do love that book)? Reading Lolita in Tehran still feels too much like a western book. Do I want to go with Persepolis? Ken Bugel's The Abandoned Baobab?

Why in the wold is The Abandonded Baobab listed on Amazon's bestselling literary books about Latin America? Are Senegal and Brussels in Latin America?

Just typing this out is making me think of pairing Perseoplis and The Abandoned Baobab, but I could be convinced otherwise. Oh, and I've got to teach bell hooks' "Eating the Other," too.

These are all ideas that hit me right away, but none are really sticking right now. Anyone have any new ideas? Anyone want to argue for anything I've already mentioned?

As Choreographers Dream

2009-11-28T22:56:00.008-05:00

I'm a sucker for stories about students who get really excited about learning something. One of my students told me the other day that the primary thing she's learned from me is that you have to be passionate about what you study. I like that. I've been meaning to share a story I read last week in the New York Times about advanced students at the School of American Ballet who enrolled in a choreography workshop. Now, these are pretty talented students who are already pretty engaged with the learning process, but I love reading how excited some of them are to take on the new challenge of choreography. That's a big reason why I audit the classes I do at NYU and take part in the workshops I've done in Puerto Rico, NYC, and other places. When we expose ourselves to new ideas and new ways of doing things, we learn how to approach what we do daily in new ways. I'm bookmarking this article mainly so I can read it when I need to be inspired. I certainly felt inspired reading it for the first time.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

2009-11-25T19:22:00.003-05:00

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, as I mentioned yesterday. Obviously, it's hit me particularly hard this year. This day was chosen because it's the day that the Mirabal sisters were killed in the Dominican Republic after an order was handed down by the country's dictator, Rafael Trujillo. Their story is fictionalized in the novel In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, which I have taught several times over the years.

But it's not just a day to protest rape and murder. It's a day to stand up for violence in all its guises. It's a day not just to stop telling misogynistic jokes but to stop allowing them to be told in your presence. It's a day to stand up against criticism and judgment and blame. It's one thing to say you're against militarized rapes in other countries, but it's quite another to confront the women and men in our daily lives who contribute to misogyny and patriarchy. I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying that I handle such confrontation easily, but we should at least be aware of the roles we all play in allowing violence against women to take place in our backyards and around the world.

Women are dying, and it's not just in the abstract.

Wendy Smiga Kirk, Requiescat in Pace

2009-11-24T21:07:00.004-05:00

The photo above is of the one-act play cast and crew from when I was a senior in high school. The play was The Dancers by Horton Foote. This was a play we did for contest. We'd won district, and this photo was taken at area, where we lost. But all of that is irrelevant. This photo matters to me today because the girl in the pink and glasses at the far right was murdered yesterday by her husband. Her children, who are 13 and 8, were home at the time but knew nothing about it. The unsubstantiated rumor is that she wanted a divorce, and he did not.

She was in her first year of high school when I was a senior. We met because we were in theatre together. For the play, she was a part of the crew. If you read any articles about her, they all mention that she was sweet and quiet, and she smiled a lot. That's exactly how I remember her. That's how everyone seems to be remembering her. She was not a part of my close circle of friends. I'm not trying to claim some intimate attachment to her that doesn't exist. She was a part of my outer circle of friends, at least as much as possible between first-year high school students and seniors.

There were two memories that came to mine when I started thinking about her. First, she gave each of the graduating seniors in theatre a plastic cup that she'd painted with little designs like flowers and curlicues and messages of good luck. At the bottom, she'd written, "Love, Wendy." I used mine as a pencil holder in the dorms, but the paint started wearing away after a couple of years, and I think I threw it out. It might be in a box somewhere, but I don't remember having seen it in years. I also remember a weekend when I'd returned home my first month of college. A Friday night, some of us who were in college and some who were still in high school went out for the night. I remember that she was in my car, and I just remember a lot of goofing around and laughing. This stands out to me because she wasn't as quiet as usual but was being just as silly as the rest of us. I remember thinking that she already seemed older than before.

This afternoon, I went downstairs to find my yearbook from senior year to see if she signed it. She had, telling me how thankful she was that I was her taxi all those late nights when we were out at theatre contests. She also said that class seemed empty with all us seniors gone. I did go to see the contest play when she would have been a sophomore, and I'm pretty sure she had a speaking role then, but I don't remember. That was probably the last time I saw her, I'm sure, and that was in 1989.

There's an incredible irony here. Tomorrow, November 25, is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I don't even know what to say about that. I look at the calendar with the date of her murder and the date of that commemoration and just shake my head.

I also can't help but think about her husband, the man who killed her. In no way at all am I trying to defend him in any sort of way, but I can't help but think about the way we treat healthcare and mental illness in this country. I know very, very few details, obviously, but he must have been sick to think that murdering the mother of his children was a viable option for handling whatever pain he was handling. I can't help but wonder if Wendy would still be alive if we as a culture took a more honest view of mental health or if there were more viable options for women and men to handle the pains of our lives.

But I don't know. That's a lot of speculation. My head is still swirling with all of this. I've thought of her now and then and wondered how she was. Now, all I keep thinking is that what happened to her is so, so wrong.

Laurie Anderson -- "O Superman"

2009-11-22T18:15:00.002-05:00

For my NYU class, we're talking about performance art tomorrow, which I love. One of the articles mentioned Laurie Anderson, and I hadn't seen this performance of "O Superman" in years. I remember seeing it at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1992. I'm not sure I've seen it since, but I certainly remember it. This is when I love YouTube. Sure, it can be full of crap, but it can have some great finds, too.

"That's Not Britney Spears on My iPod. It's Antonin Scalia!"

2009-11-21T22:08:00.005-05:00

Do non-lawyers out there know about The Oyez Project? It's a geek's dream. They say that they try "to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the [Supreme] Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955." You can download mp3s of the oral arguments heard by the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Why have I never heard about this before? For the class I'm auditing at NYU, we listen to the oral arguments of various cases. For this Monday, it's NEA v. Finley, which is the case that goes along with my Wojnarowicz research. I just downloaded the audio file so I can listen to it tomorrow.

I've already tried to think of cases I can start including more explicitly in my classes. Sure, I talk about Eisenstadt v. Baird, but now I could have them listen to the oral arguments. I'm sure that would excite them as much as reading the case, but the thought gets me excited. And isn't that a vital step to making anything we do in the classroom work?

Getting to Class

2009-11-17T23:54:00.003-05:00

I'm really going to miss not taking a class at NYU next semester. I've done it for two semesters now, and I love it. The class itself this semester is really great. I wish I had time to read everything because I know I'd be getting more out of it than I already am. As of now, I already get ideas flowing for the projects I intended, but I often get more ideas for other projects, too. And the train ride is fantastic for reading and thinking, which I never, ever give myself the time to do.

Next semester, no classes really work out for the times I'd be willing to take them. In the falls, I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are also the days the university sets aside time for meetings (no classes are offer during lunch just so there's guaranteed time to meet). In the springs, I teach in Mondays and Wednesdays (and sometimes Fridays), but I then have meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I thought of just saying I'd skip all meetings on Thursdays, but there really wasn't anything I wanted to take then.

And I realized on the train yesterday that I really need to give myself time to work on the projects that I'm getting all these ideas for. Things just really flow, and I generate lots of random sentences and paragraphs and fragments. I need to start working with them. I'll still be a university associate, which means I can get into the library (virtual and literal). I will still take trips to give myself the reading and thinking time.

I know how much I'll benefit from doing so.

No Longer at This Address

2009-11-15T21:39:00.003-05:00

My, goodness, the couple who lived here before us received every catalog known to humanity. Catalogs do not get forwarded, which is why they always add "or current resident" to the label. We must have received seventy-five different catalogs in our first month of living here. I've never even seen that much mail come to one location! It's kind of funny, too, because it might explain why we have the biggest mailbox in the group of boxes across the street from us. I didn't think there was any reason for it, but the amount of mail they must have gotten was probably nuts. There are tons from companies I've never even heard of. We now put more catalogs than magazines in recycling each week.

They also receive a lot of Republican-related mail (since that also now goes to "current resident"). There's a rather hotly contested Senate primary for the Republicans in Connecticut, so we're getting fliers we never would be getting otherwise. The ones for the woman running for the slot are rather interesting. And, no, I'm not naming her since she gets enough press. Her campaign is rather prominent. She is part of a business that features well-built men, which I only mention because some of my gay male friends have said they'd be happy to vote for her if it meant they could get private time with John Cena for a few hours. But I digress. I was just struck by the listing on one of her fliers of her social media sites. Sure, all candidates use Twitter and Facebook, but she also has Flickr, YouTube, and MySpace. MySpace is the one that gets me. I thought that was primarily used by independent musicians these days. I can't remember my username or password, so I haven't been back in years, but I thought it was a tad odd for her to have a site there. Maybe it's not, and I have no plans to check it out. It's also clear that she is spending a ton of money on her advertising. Wow, they are huge and incredibly well-designed.

I will be glad when our mail outnumbers theirs, though.

Putting the Books Away

2009-11-14T23:53:00.003-05:00

After writing for a few decades, I've learned a lot about my writing process. I am a heavy reviser. I plan for a while, and a lot of that planning isn't formal. I tend to draft pretty quickly pretty much because it's the part of the process I hate the most. Oh, it can just feel like ripping open veins and pouring blood on the page (or keyboard, as it were). But I can spend all day--or at least a few hours a day--revising. I love having pages in front of me and a blue pen that I can use to mark out and scratch up and add to for quite a while. Da Man is the opposite. His drafting process takes forever. He writes very, very slowly, but what he writes is pretty much what will stick in the final draft. One of the things I always tell students is that they need to try a few things and figure out the right process for them, and I use us as examples.

What's funny is that Da Man and I have realized how much our writing process aligns with other parts of our life. When we moved here, we both had a ton of books, of course. We got all the bookshelves in their spots right away, deciding which ones we'd each take and putting our own books away on our own time. I'm getting close to getting mine all put away while he's been done for a bit. As with his writing process, he put his books away quite slowly, and once a book landed in a spot, that's where is has pretty much stayed and will stay. I, on the other hand, left my books in piles on the floor in my office, and I've been moving them around these past few days. As with writing, I've been dreading finding the right spots for them, so I made quick piles of major categories. I separated narrative books into fiction and nonfiction and separated those by gender. I had other categories like film/pop culture, medial humanities, feminist theory, porn and sexual culture studies, composition theory, and all that. After getting the big piles on their shelves, I've started going over the shelves slowly, dividing the big categories further, trying to make sure I can find things when I need them. I'm not done, and I won't be done for a bit.

But that's fine by me. I'm enjoying this part.

Professors are People, Too

2009-11-13T23:33:00.002-05:00

Last night, I led another book discussion, this one at Avon Free Public Library. The book was Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler. It's a very experimental novel with different narratives interspersed within a meta-narrative about reading, writing, publishing, and translating. The woman who coordinates the discussions was in the room when I arrived, and we discussed whether people would show up or whether they might have given up on the book and skipped this time around. Several people did show up, though, and we talked for well over an hour. It was actually almost ninety minutes.

I've led a couple of other discussions there before on books I knew rather well. The last one was on The Bell Jar, which I could talk about in my sleep. This time around, I told the coordinator to let me know what she would like to have discussed. I was game for anything. This being such an odd, experimental text, I was a little concerned about what to say about it. I made it clear at the start that I'm not a Calvino expert or even all that knowledgeable about Italian literature, but I threw out some thoughts I had about why I think he might have written the book and what it was about his life that might have influenced this book.

Toward the end of our discussion, one of the participants brought up that he would not have finished the book if it weren't for the discussion, and he was interested in hearing what an expert would say about the book. I reminded him that I was an expert, and I told him how my background in rhetoric influences my reading of any book because it pushed me to think about such things as the cultural contexts in which books are written and how the author's life influenced the text, which is why I gave the speculations I did at the start.

He then asked me if I would have read this book on my own, and I said that I probably would have picked it up, found the beginning interesting, but stopped before the book was done. That gave everyone a good laugh, and he said he was glad to hear it. He'd said earlier that he wondered if he didn't get the book because he wasn't smart enough to get it, and I said that certainly was not the case.

It was one of those moments when I remembered that some people do look at university professors as a different breed of people, a group that is smarter and perhaps even more refined than the general population. Thoughts like that always make me laugh. Anyone who has earned a PhD knows many professors who want people to think we are a step above the masses, but we also know that's clearly not the case. The grads of online PhDs would probably feel the same way. As much as it would annoy some of the professoriate to hear me say, it's not intelligence that makes us who we are. Our education makes us look at things in a certain way in the same ways that any training affects anyone, but it sometimes takes effort more than intelligence to get that education.

Shh, don't tell anyone.

Starbucks References

2009-11-12T10:00:00.003-05:00

The purpose of this post is mainly as a place for my students to have one place where they can find links they might want to use for their formal report on the rhetorics of Starbucks.

*Their official website is going to prove invaluable to most of you. You may also want to check their official Twitter feed, Facebook page, or YouTube channel. You may want to check out My Starbucks Idea, which is a site for people to share their thoughts with people at the Starbucks corporation.

*There are also the sites that are not affiliated with Starbucks, such as Starbucks Gossip and I Hate Starbucks. This blog entry makes some points worth exploring, too. This site is the one mentioned in class that is a guide to ordering at SB.

*Don't forget our own library's list of databases in business and economics. I always recommend LexisNexis Academic for any research project.

If anyone (in our class or not) has anything to add, please leave a comment. Based on our discussion on Tuesday, I'm really excited by what students might produce with this project.

Clarifications

2009-11-11T19:14:00.003-05:00

I've been off-line for the past twenty-four hours or so, trying to process a few things. I made a comment on Twitter/Facebook that some people were critical of, and I'll admit the criticisms surprised me. What troubled me is that I thought people who have been part of my online world for the past few years would take what they knew about me and assume that I'm someone who tries to do the best I can to treat people respectfully and that I really try to do my job well. Instead, I encountered some assumptions that I was missing something, that I was in the wrong; therefore, I needed to be told what people assumed I was missing or wrong about. I thought people who did not know the specifics would give me the benefit of the doubt based on the history of what I have written here and elsewhere.

I often question what I post online just like I tell my students they shold be doing. In thinking about that particular comment, I knew how it could be read, but I really did tell myself, "the people who know you online know you get it and that this isn't about you." But that wasn't really the case. In a short time frame, I encountered several criticisms every time I clicked a link to go from Facebook to Twitter to email to elsewhere, and the collective effect stung.

It was probably pretty naive to think that specifics weren't necessary for those who have known me online for a few years to have shot me a "hang in there" or something. And many people did do that. I've tried to let the collective effect of the support outshine the collective effect of the criticisms, but that's hard for me. As I wrote in yesterday's entry, I have long been known as a highly sensitive person. I used to feel ashamed of that. One of the reasons I went into therapy in 2005 was to get a better handle on my emotions and how hard things can hit me. When I ended therapy a few months ago, I had actually learned to celebrate that sensitivity because it has helped lead me to a pretty good place in life.

This entry is not directed at anyone in particular, so I hope no one looks at any comments they might have seen in a specific space and think it's about them. No one has seen it all since no one has read my email. As I said, there were several criticisms that ran the gamut from minor to, frankly, direct and extreme. This entry is just meant to explain what I've been thinking for the past day and why I wrote yesterday's entry, which I've received a couple of kind, concerned questions about. I realized today how it might come across as passive-aggressive, and I didn't mean for that. I thought some clarification was in order.

Stop Crying, and Be a Man

2009-11-10T19:55:00.003-05:00

I have spent my entire life being told to toughen up, develop a thick skin, grow a pair, stop taking things so personally. Basically, people have been telling me for forty years to be a man.

But sometimes I cry. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I often don't have a wall around me but advertise when I'm hurt or when I'm ecstatic or when I feel whatever I feel.

I was told by a professor in college that my sensitivity was my greatest gift and my greatest curse. It has helped me get to a pretty good place in my life at forty, and I hope it helps me live the rest of my life just as well.

I wear that judgment like a badge of honor.

When I Grow Up

2009-11-09T23:10:00.003-05:00

On the train to NYC today, I was in my usual seat in the third front-facing row of the first car next to the window with two empty seats beside me. At Westport, a woman sat next to me, but I didn't really notice. I was focused on the netbook in my lap and the grant proposals I was hoping to finish grading before reaching the city.

She threw her coat on the rack above my head, half of it landing on top of my backpack. I was annoyed, largely because I've become an ordinary New Englander who sits annoyed at everything. I kept working though.

After Stamford, the last stop before the city, she held yesterday's New York Times Magazine so I could see it. "Would you trust a man who wears a tie like that to handle health care?" I glanced at her. She had a head full of straight, grey hair styled without being too showy and large glasses over her brown eyes. She was probably in her seventies or so.

I looked at the photo. "Are those stingrays on his tie?"

She gave a little laugh. "I don't know what they are, but it looks a bit ridiculous."

She leaned back and kept reading. I was done grading at this point, but I kept my netbook on the seat between us rather than grab my bag to put it away and make a show of moving her coat.

After 125th Street, she kept leaning into the aisle and looking forward. As we entered the tunnel taking us under the Upper East Side, she turned to me. "That's the first time I've ever watched the train go underground. I feel like a kid!"

As we neared the station, I asked if she wanted help getting her coat down. She said no. She asked if I wanted to get out of the seat before her. "Oh, no," I said. "I'm in no hurry," which was true, though I usually run out of the train and station like a bat out of hell since that's what people usually do.

I liked her. I wondered if it was because she reminded me of my mother since they'd be around the same age. But it wasn't that. She was just having fun, and that's rare to see in an adult. I want to be like that.

I want to be her when I grow up.

Random Thoughts Too Long for Twitter

2009-11-08T21:40:00.002-05:00

*Martina Navratilova is a freaking idiot for likening Andre Agassi's use of crystal meth with Roger Clemens' (alleged) use of steroids. Meth is not exactly something that will help someone win a Grand Slam tennis tournament. I get that it's the lying about it that she says is the problem, but the connection to Clemens just seems more idiotic the more I think about it.

*Joe Lieberman. The less said the better. Okay, that wasn't too long for Twitter, but I already complained about him over there enough this week.

*Chris Murphy rocks. He's our representative to the US House. Not only did he vote for the health care plan, but in the email he sent to constiuents about his vote, he describes how he was supposed to talk about it on Fox News, but "the producers at Fox News couldn’t get their act together." He's got my vote next year again and will probably get some of my money.

Can't Wait to See the Search Terms That Lead to This Entry

2009-11-07T17:15:00.004-05:00

For the NYU class I'm auditing, we're reading Catherine MacKinnon's Only Words, which is a short book that contains three essays on speech and equality. I'm still in the middle of the first one because I keep getting annoyed and have to stop. Anyone who has engaged with her work over the last twenty years or more can probably figure out why (check her Wikipedia entry if you want an overview of her positions). It's just so annoying that she creates a monolithic definition of pornography that ignores porn without women or without men, meaning gay and lesbian pornography.

Yet, she says that her ideas and activism should apply to all forms of pornography whatever their gendered makeup. For those with the book, see footnote 32, pages 121-2. And shall I note that she only comments on lesbian and gay porn in a footnote? She never says anything specific about how her analysis applies to non-heterosexual porn, and that just keeps pissing me off. She has examples from heterosexual porn, but she doesn't care enough about other forms to engage with them. She only wants throw out a blanket criticism and leave it at that.

I mean, she writes, "With pornography, men masturbate to women being exposed, humiliated, violated, degraded, mutilated, dismembered, bound, gagged, tortured, and killed" (17). Umm, what if there are no women in it? And that is nothing compared to "Empirically, all pornography is made under conditions of inequality based on sex, overwhelmingly by poor, desperate, homeless pimped women who were sexually abused as children" (20). It's the "all pornography" that gets me.

I can see how her argument fits a lot of heterosexual porn. I do believe that Deep Throat is quite possibly a film of Linda Boreman being raped. I have seen many examples of porn depicting the abuse and degradation of women. But to lump lesbian and gay pornography into the same category yet not say anything specific about why?

Sure, lesbian and gay pornography can celebrate abuse and degradation in the same ways that heterosexual porn can. But I think gay pornography especially has a unique history and grew out of particular contexts that are different than straight porn. And I do not think those histories and contexts should be ignored.

I don't want to dismiss her work, but the way she dismisses gay pornography makes me wonder if I should.

Old-People Glasses

2009-11-06T23:40:00.004-05:00

I'm old.

Yep, I received my new pair of glasses today, the ones with bifocals. Well, I actually did get progressive lenses, but when I say that to people, they think I have the ones that turn light or dark based on light conditions. But I want to say I've got old-people glasses.

Actually, I'm pretty happy about them. The glasses themselves are just like the last couple of pairs I bought in terms of style: thick, dark frames. I went with Paul Bartlett frames this time; my last ones were from the Randy Jackson Collection. And after the hemorrhage in my eye in 2007, I'm happy with any glasses that enable me to see better. The hemorrhage stabilized a while ago, but my doctor says it's pretty common for someone who is far-sighted, like I am, to have my ability to read plummet quickly at my age. When I picked up the books I was teaching for class at the start of the semester, I was stunned at how difficult it was to read them. I was worried it was part of the hemorrhage, but it was ordinary aging. And I'm quite fine with that.

Especially since I can see much better now.