Off to the zoo! K-zoo!

Off to the medieval conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan! I’m presenting on authorship, so that’s my excuse for going. It seems to be a hot topic in medieval studies right now and I’m interested in the whole picture, not just the feminist or modernist approaches to it. This is probably the last time I’ll be presenting/writing in this field of study, but I certainly do have a soft spot for medieval literature, philosophy, and theology.

Cheers to working on the road and spreading the word about authorship!

Ok, the clip above is just amusing. They come alive in the text!

p.s. Can anyone tell me why there’s so much Native American imagery in this last youtube clip labeled “medieval music 1″? It’s strange, no?

Not Ready

I’m tired today and I miss my grandmother. I could say more, but that really sums it up.

Finishing up conference paper that I’m giving in a few days. Also, need to finish up and tie a bow around Project 1, which is long overdue. I very much wanted to hand it to Prof in person tomorrow, but I just don’t think I’m going to be able to at this point. Have to finish up revisions on the road (because I can’t give up on perfecting the blasted thing), email it, then hand in the hard copy next week. Project 1 must finally go out the door. I think it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever written, and will be a basis for my dissertation, but who knows. I’m not sure if anyone will like Project 1 beside me, but I think maybe my Grandma would like it. She never read the book it’s about, even though I bought if for her some years ago; she only reads her devotional Bible and Billy Graham type of stuff. Still, knowing her, I think she’d approve of what it stands for.

I sometimes tell people that my Grandma raised me, which partly true and partly not. I lived with my parents, a street over from Grandma’s house, and my mother would certainly be upset if she learned that I attributed my upbringing to Grandma and not her. Still, Grandma was the person who had the most positive impact on me as a kid. My inclination toward feminism most likely came from her, as well as the other best parts of me. She was the only person who really tried to protect me from the ongoing violence and was a major source of encouragement. She’s still alive, but just is not well. While being admitted to the hospital today she told my mom — “I’m ready.” What she meant was, “I’m ready to die.” We seem to have these ready-made sayings, codes, to indicate feelings, emotions, or fears that we can’t or won’t give a voice to. I am decidedly _not ready_ for my Grandmother to leave this world. And, I suppose there’s a ready-made reaction that I’m supposed to be having right now, on the brink of losing a surrogate parent, mentor, friend, but I don’t know what it is. Something just feels off-kilter; my focus has shifted. All I know is that I’ve been fighting with my writing all year long, working hard to come to terms with it, and now I’m hanging onto it (finally), craving it, because really when I get down to it — it’s all I have. It feels like I’m writing to hang onto my life, not to record it necessarily, but to truly hang onto it; to live. I’ve felt this way for some time, I think. Since college perhaps. If I can’t save my Grandmother, or Daisy, or anyone else but myself, that’s just what I’ll do. I wrote a post a while ago expressing frustration at the feeling of holding a gun one’s head while writing. I still hold contempt for that feeling of “writing under the gun,” but I realize now that even when I’m not working under time constraints the risk is just the same. I feel like if I don’t write I’ll die somehow. I am repeatedly surprised to find myself alive in bleak times when I have not writing as steadily as I should. There are profound reasons that I can not yet articulate well about why I’ve chosen this profession, but it is clear to me that it forms a core part of my being, my existence, and my survival. After enduring some personal hardships and revelations in the past year and a half (since I moved to KS), I’ve had to learn how to adopt a whole new way of being and existing in the world. For reasons I’m not willing to disclose just yet, my past survival mechanisms don’t work anymore. It can be difficult to learn a whole new way of existing and interacting in the world. For some reason I had been fighting or resisting one of the very things I should be embracing. That ends to-day.

My Grandmother might think she’s ready, but I’m not and I don’t plan to be. I sometimes envy super-organized people and try to mimic this OCD behavior myself. The truth is, though, that’s not who I am. I’m never ready; and, I don’t want to be. I want to use up every last minute I have, not just because I’m a perfectionist, but because that’s how life should be. Pushed up to the edge of whatever’s on the other side, so close that life never really stops. We don’t have to be ready for death, to deliver a conference paper, to end whatever it is that we’re working on (well, to a certain extent; I mean, the paper has to be somewhat written); there’s only a sigh between the ending of one thing and the beginning of another. At the end of _The Stone Dairies_ Daisy declares “I am not at peace,” then someone asks why they didn’t have daisies at the funeral instead of pansies, then someone sighs. It’s not a sigh of resignation (as I’d always read it to be); it’s a sigh of imperfection, of incompletion, of moving onto the next thing which involves the continuation. This last bit is underdeveloped, unfinished, but I have to run up to campus to screen a film for class. In the spirit of what I’ve just tried to articulate, I’m publishing this post despite it’s roughness. Take a breath and move onto the next thing or the next life, whatever that may be.

“Block Out” Excerpt

“Maybelle brought her blocked husband smoked fish wrapped in butcher’s paper. Also wonderful pears. Also gossip, sweet candy. But the truth is, though it is very seldom admitted to, there is very little anyone can do for anyone else. Interesting excursions can be planned, people invited to dinner, noodle puddings produced, orange juice squeezed, lamps left burning, bed covers turned invitingly down. Kisses can be dropped on the tops of heads, and news brought from one person’s world to another, but in the end it’s a matter of waiting things out in an improvised shelter and thinking as kindly of yourself as possible.”

~From Orange Fish by Carol Shields

“Beneath the Sheets of Paper”

I Can Has Cheezburger Meets Monty Python

“Word is to the Kitchen Gone”

It’s that insanely busy part of the semester and I can’t afford the time it would take to write a proper post right now — my apologies, dearest neglected blog. Even though I vowed to avoid departmental work this week altogether Prof Awesome needed some things done ASAP, so that has put an extra kink into my writing schedule.

Despite my time constraints, I thought I’d share this link to a radio interview with Susan Gubar (link below). Two lovely songs included in this clip as well — the one I like best is a ballad called “Mary Hamilton.” I’m planning to post a much longer piece on Prof Gubar at some point. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reading a lot of her work over the past several months, as well as the variety of reactions and harsh criticisms of her work with Sandra Gilbert. I haven’t met Prof Gubar yet and her voice on the radio show provides a more real sense of who she is or what she might be like. This is one reason why I really enjoy listening to radio interviews with people I’ve never met, or could never meet because they’ve passed on. Interviews available online with Carol Shields, for example, seem utterly invaluable. Not so much for the information given, but the small sense, miniscule even, that they provide of that person. In truth, I actually did meet Prof Gubar once, for 1 minute and 30 seconds one day in Bloomington. It happened so fast that all I can remember is her hair color, that she’s tall, carries some sort of briefcase, walks at a brisk pace, and has a NY accent. The only words that I was able to get out of my mouth were my name and “I like HD.”

I’m fascinated by both the work she’s done, still is doing, and what a life force she is in feminist thought, literary studies, and academia. The quality of her work, its brilliance, the fun she seems to be having, and the sheer volume of her publications just captivates me — to such an extent that when I stumbled upon this radio interview I had to listen to it right then; and, when I find an article I have not yet read I really feel compelled to read it that very moment, even though I normally don’t have time to do so. Hope you enjoy this audio clip as much as I do. Look for a more substantial post on Prof Gubar’s work sometime in May, after the term has ended and life is more peaceful.

I believe you will need RealPlayer in order for this link to work:
Susan Gubar Interview, 2006

Scholarship Only Zone: “I am no longer willing”

Ok, I’m done with departmental service for this week, or the coming weeks even. As valuable as it might be, like Clarentine Flett — “I am no longer willing.” Trying to avoid what Susan Gubar names the POOP phenomenon in her article, “The Graying of Professor Erma Bombeck,” which is brilliantly fun by the way. POOP refers to “Psychological Offensives against Obligations that Proliferate.” Just read it the other night. Not sure how I missed it before. I’ve been trying to read everything the woman’s written, which has taken a while, I can tell you. Even if I were this woman’s contemporary it would be hard to keep up with all of her publications. This really is a fun article, but it has a very serious message behind it too.

No more POOP for today. I’m entering a scholarship only zone.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!

I’m living in a city possessed.

This first video just doesn’t get old.

Some groovy music in this video.

Rock Chalk Go KU!!

Eye of the Tyger — Auto-bio-graphic Explorations

I had been looking forward to seeing Persepolis for several months. Saw it a few weeks back and loved it. While it’s totally worth seeing, it ends a little abruptly for my liking. Around the same time I saw Persepolis I was reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. This was my first real graphic novel and I really enjoyed it. Bechdel’s plot and the way she deals with identity politics seems significantly more sophisticated than Marjane Satrapi’s novel. (I haven’t read Satrapi’s novel though; I’ve only seen the film, which could make a big difference in my reactions). Both of these graphic novels, however, seem worth anyone’s time. I wonder if Fun Home would be good as a film; the book is pretty awesome by itself.

Some images from Fun Home and Persepolis: the picture on the left resembles me now, whereas the image on the right depicts what I think I must have been like as a kid. Though, I didn’t grow up in Iran. And, my family certainly wasn’t as passive about my rants and revolts as Satrapi’s appear to have been.

And, another thing –

15. I want to go slap some of the parents in my neighborhood. I watch them from a distance. Me at my desk typing, observing. Stepping out to get the mail I hear the children wailing, screaming. Their only audible words are — “Daddy! Nooooo!”
16. I saw her kicking first, then running away in hot pink pants down the street. I sit here and silently shout — You go girl. You go. Run as fast as you can. Don’t stop.

A List, not *the* List(s)

A List. Of what no one knows exactly. Observations perhaps. Does it matter? Must lists have consistent or linear themes?
1. Nothing is working out as I wanted it to today. Learn how to relinquish control, control freak. You list-maker you.
2. Watching someone try to back out of a lie is sort of pleasurable, though I know that doesn’t make me sound like a nice person. It just proves what I had already been suspicious of.
3. “You’re not queer enough.”
4. Seems like an accusation that is very likely to spiral out of control. You’re not woman enough, Hillary. Feminist enough. Black enough. Butch enough. Patriotic enough. Soft enough. Done enough. Warm enough. Good enough. Enough already — ‘nough is ‘nough!
5. Paranoia reigns supreme. “You’re so paranoid you probably think this blog is about you,” says Eve. (Potentially spoken to Adam, the presumed atom that started this big authorship mess.)
6. I like the bunnies hopping around here. As a sort of post-Easter event.
7. Not sure why blog name changed where the bunnies now hop. This poststructuralist problem haunts me in other arenas as well.
8. Too many competing events this week. I feel like ducking out of all of it, but know I will be pressured into attending some things.
9. Like the one I organized for tonight.
10. Umbilical cord needs to be cut on project 1. Otherwise, I’m having triplets and that sounds painful. Too many pooping bodies. Too much potential for — poop.
11. I could go for a c-section though.
12. Does the rise in the number of c-sections in women have anything to do with the impatience of medical physicians? Medical or cultural pressure to hurry it up, punch it out, and purge ourselves of the foreign bodies/texts that are indeed of our own making. What about fear of complications?
13. “How can you complicate this idea further” seems to be a standard academic request. Request posed as a question.
14. How does the technology available affect the birthing process? Or, as Minh-ha suggests, is this really about female productivity? The inability to produce on cue or the waiting for the thing/body/baby to materialize?

This list is incomplete. It’s not a list of commandments. It’s not a to-do list. There’s no authority presumed here. This is just a list, only a list. You should now return to your regularly scheduled lives, as dictated by npr.

Lagrimas Negras

belly belly well…

Alack! I want to go to this, but cannot….

Stinky Internets

The internets stink on campus to-day. Bah! And, my new fancy computer has been acting funky for 2wks now. Not sure how much longer I can procrastinate on driving to KC and having someone look at it. I totally fell into the fetishist trap called Macintosh. I thought this new fangled machine was flawless! Def much better than the old dinosaur, which would die at the most inopportune moments. I’m not knocking the mac; I will never return to the clunky, ugly, and unpredictable world of the pc. PC=yuck. I love my new mac; it makes my life *so* much easier. But, every once in a while all the technology just breaks down and nothing works, at all. (Though, I am typing on the computer now, so clearly something is working.)

Sidenote: I’m not sure how many people heard me yelling profanities in my office while trying to print, email, or do anything that required a server that functioned properly. I hear Prof in Pink curse from his office fairly often, so perhaps I shouldn’t worry so much. I fit right in. Still, this was not a technologically successful day!

Fishing for Poetry in the Dark

Book orders are due Monday and I’ve been hemmin’ and hawin’ over which ones to use for my intro to poetry class in the Fall. I don’t normally worry about it all that much, but I’ve neither taken nor taught a poetry course before so I’m venturing into unknown territory. That part of it actually feels familiar. I always feel like I’m working outside of my field of speciality. I started out as a modernist in college, but never took a class on modernism. I wrote grants so I could travel and do research on Woolf and Joyce (separate trips for separate projects) and I sat in on classes that focused on modernist texts, but this was always in addition to my other coursework. In my Master’s program I did the same. Sat in on modernist classes because none were offered while I was working on my degree there. In addition to that, my Master’s advisor was a medievalist and there were no medieval classes to take either (the course offerings kind of sucked at the time, now that I think of it) so I sat in on some of my advisor’s classes and schooled myself on 14th-century contemplative literature. My advisor helped me a lot with my independent reading, but still. I had no one to talk to about my work. Now I’m finally in a program where there are many profs and students in my field, but I still don’t feel like I’ve been able to pay attention to modernist studies in the way that I want to. Poetry has suffered particularly because I’ve become obsessed with women’s autobiographies in the last year. I guess it’s good that I work well independently and am happy doing it, but it’s created this endless cycle of feeling like I’m not studying what I am “supposed” to be studying. Friends have been telling me that I should drop the poetry and make a complete switch to autobiographical studies since I’ve read so much about it and have been writing about it in several different projects. My interest in autobiography is sincere, but I’m mainly attracted to it as a theoretical approach. So, I’m stickin’ to the poetry. And, despite my attempts to get out of it, I’m still reading the Americans.

So, this class…. I think I’m going to focus on women poets (cuz the course description doesn’t say I can’t). I may not title it “women’s poetry or “intro to modern and contemporary women poets” because I may want to teach a few other male poets in there. I’ll have to be clear about this on the syllabus and course description though because otherwise students will complain that I’m a feminist and that I made them read poetry by women. Both of those things will be true actually and I’m beginning to come to a place where it doesn’t bother me to be derogatorily labeled with the f-word (a common response to the word feminism as an f-word; this is not my stance, of course), but I would like them to see feminism differently and to understand why I, or anyone, would want to focus on women poets, as opposed to the usual modernist men.

This all has been a long prelude to my choice of books for the Fall (sorry). I think I’ve settled on the Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Plath’s Ariel, and Mary Oliver’s Rules for the Dance. Someone recommended that I use a complete book of poetry so students could get a sense of reading poetry outside of an anthology. I thought this was good advise and strongly considered using Hejinian’s Fatalist because I really like her work and just read this book, but Norton’s anthology already includes a good bit of her work so I decided against that. I wanted someone who would be underrepresented in the anthology, but after tossing around several different ideas/books I decided on Plath’s Ariel because even though parts of it are frequently anthologized I thought it would be good to take a look at that book in its entirety. (That, and I know I’ll need to know it for my exams later. Though an argument could be made for Hejinian. Carla Harryman’s also a possibility; she’s not in the anthology. Maybe I’ll change my mind again by Monday.) Since I haven’t taught this class before I felt like I needed something that would help students learn to read poetry. I’m not crazy about Mary Oliver’s book, but I wanted to keep costs down and it seemed like it would do. In that email exchange between Lyn Hejinian and Billy Joe Harris that I posted on earlier, both Lyn and Billy Joe discuss the usefulness of Padgett’s Handbook of Poetic Forms, which I just ordered. I might use that instead of the Mary Oliver book, but I haven’t had a chance to look at the Padgett book yet so I’m not sure about it. (Though I noticed someone else had it in the bookstore, so maybe I should just go with it). Oliver’s book is “ok” but in the back she has a series of poems — all by dead white men, which just makes me cringe, particularly since my class will focus on women writers who most certainly will not all be white or western. While at the bookstore I picked up a copy of Furniss and Bath’s Reading Poetry: An Introduction. I’m not going to order it for the students (too expensive given that I’m making them buy the 2 volume Norton anthologies), but I may use it as a sourcebook for teaching. Derek Attridge is supposed to have a good one too, but again I wasn’t able to get a hold of it this week. (Alas.) Even as I’m writing about this I think I’ll just go with the Padgett book instead of Oliver. Those dead white men in the back make me want to vomit. I feel compelled, no, scratch that. I feel like it’s my responsibility as a scholar/teacher/human being to consider the political implications of the texts I teach, which is why I’m making a clear break from Eliot and the like.

Ok, this is all the time I’m going to spend thinking about teaching today. I got Prof Awesome’s book order together yesterday so that’s already taken care of. Back to writing about autobiography.

If anyone has other book recommendations — feel free to share them in the comments box! They will be much appreciated!

p.s. I don’t mean to create a hierarchy between my many identities as a scholar/teacher/human being. Though, I realize that I constructed it that way above (probably a reflection of how I’ve internalized the institution’s demands unconsciously). These things exist simultaneously, not as a hierarchy, but I clearly can’t be a scholar or a teacher without being human, so that’s got to come first. The scholars and teachers I value most, in fact, act like and treat others like human beings first and foremost.