On a TV Bender

I learned today that I am what people call a "binge tv watcher."  I learned about this term by reading up on the specific television show that I have been binging on: Breaking Bad.  I've read a few warning things about this, and this Slate article was especially insightful.  Apparently even though I've hardly watched TV in any regularity over the past four months, watching three seasons of a TV show in the course of one week is considered a terrible habit.  But, to be perfectly honest, I don't think I'll stop anytime soon (well, except in five more episodes when I've completed season 4 and there are no more episodes to watch).

The thing is, on the contrary to what Jim Pagels says in the Slate article, I don't think that taking time to ponder each episode after watching it is important to the viewing experience.  With all due respect, I will say that as a person studying narrative I don't think you can tell someone how to take their narrative....  I mean, some people appreciate consuming things in high volume and sorting from there.  Some people like to spend time on smaller sections at a time before moving on.  I myself am a person who thinks best when I am given tons of material to think through.  The sustained thinking on one single thing has the potential to send me into my own personal hell of self-contradiction by thinking through every single meaning and blah blah blah.  No joy in that for me.  Whereas if I had just moved on without fully forming opinions on what I'm reading/watching, I might actually be more open to whatever happens.

No, thank you Jim.  I'll stick with binge TV for now.  I find it the single best way to punctuate a time when I don't have any particular responsibility.  I mean, I've watched four episodes of Breaking Bad today, and I expect one more before I go to bed.  I'M ON VACATION!  TV reminds me that I don't really have to think about this too much; I can sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.  Of course, if this was my daily routine, this would be a problem.  But as a way to spend a few days every now and then--especially on a rainy day like today--in between the world of responsibility, I think it's fun.  Plus, there are relatively few shows that one can binge on -- Arrested Development, The Wire, Breaking Bad, 24, and Battlestar Galactica all set the bar high -- without getting bored or irritated pretty quickly.  So, when a show like one of the ones listed above comes along, I think binging can be pretty great.

Mapping Du Bois' Intellectual Interests

I'm still wrapping up my FINAL final paper, which is due tomorrow.  My brain has basically already started vacation, so I really just need to finish this thing.  One of the things I'm talking about in the paper is Du Bois' bibliography for his work Black Reconstruction in America, which is fascinating because it lists his sources in groups.  I've never seen a bibliography quite like this.

He lists 10 categories with several sources included in each category:

1. Propaganda
2. Historians (Fair to Indifferent on the Negro)
3. Historians (These historians have studied the history of Negroes and write sympathetically about them)
4. Monographs
5. Answers
6. Lives (These are lives of leaders who took part in Reconstruction and whose acts and thoughts influenced Negro development)
7. Negro Historians
8. Unpublished Theses
9. Government Reports
10. Other Reports

Each category is pretty fascinating, but I am most interested in the section "lives" since Du Bois wrote THREE autobiographies and uses people's lives as a more valid representation of history than scholar-produced histories (or so I argue).  It's got me thinking about my own bibliography for this paper since I'm so committed to proving that Du Bois' intellectual interests can be traced through this bibliography.  Well, I've got a bunch of historical stuff, a New York Times article from 1897, archival photos from the digital W.E.B. Du Bois Archive, and a couple of historians who theorize race and historiography.  I am getting more and more interested in the historical material related to the authors I'm working with, so I expect to continue to work with older newspapers and photographs and incorporate them into my work as much as possible.  

One day I would love to have an elaborate bibliography like Du Bois that categorizes the materials I'm using rather than just a boring list.  I think it is a valuable resource for showing people how you are thinking and says a lot about the value you place on certain resources. 

Bird Watching and Radical Activism

As the winter break approaches, "sun of my life" and I are exploring some new hobbies that might take us away form our typical day-to-day activities.  So, we took a couple of really stupid quizzes online...yes, a quiz for hobbies.  No, we are not out of touch fools who don't know how to take note of the things we like to do.  It's just that both of us are totally spent right now and so, it seemed like a reasonably entertaining way to spend 3 minutes of our time.  And when I say stupid quizzes, I mean that one asks questions like "do you like string"?  Um, I neither like nor dislike string.

Here is the quiz, and you should take it and tell me what your recommended hobby is: http://spacefem.com/quizzes/hobby/

It recommended that "sun of my life" take up radical activism as a hobby.  Yeah.  Right.

Mine was bird watching.  Because this quiz gathered from my answers that I am highly motivated, but apparently don't really finish things.  I think this assessment is not true and that I would not really enjoy birdwatching at all...unless Jack Black and John Cleese were involved:

Out on a Limb

I've been writing away on final papers, which has taken me away from blogging.  But I figured this was worth sharing because it is FASCINATING -- a new documentary on prosthetics called Out on a Limb:

Obviously, I really want to see this film.  It sounds like it will also focus on the relationship between the military industrial complex and the development of advanced prosthetic technologies, which is of great interest to me.  In fact, the film's website indicates that this project was sparked by recent wars: "advances in prosthetics always coincide with wars. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have spurred unprecedented focus and funding, just as emerging technologies and developments in neuroscience are providing opportunities that never existed before."

This is helping me to make an argument in one of my final papers as well since my professor and I have been in a semester long debate about whether or not I can make the claim that current prosthetic technologies are creating new relationships between the body and technology (she says I can't, and I say I can).  

The Train to Christmas Town

It's hard to describe Santa Cruz to people--the vibe, the beauty, etc.  On the surface it looks like a cute little surfing town, and the more time you spend here the more familiar you get with the zaniness.  Once you are here for a while you see the weirdness come out...one example is that homeless men won't ask you for money, but they will ask if you want to play cards.  It's a small thing, but it says a lot more about the place in general, ya know.  

This holiday season, we are getting a sense of the structural weirdness of this place.  All weekend, at nearly every point throughout town, from about noon to 8 pm you can hear the loudest freakin' train horn I've ever heard blowing repeatedly every few minutes.  This is apparently "the train to Christmas town."  "Sun of my life" notes that the county made the decision to purchase this train because of the business opportunity it presented...although no train to an actual location, like San Jose or San Francisco, (that might actually be a significant business opportunity) is in the works.  

Apparently people board the train and ride around for an hour or so while elves come through the train cars and serve cookies and hot cocoa.  It sounds pretty adorable for kids...but the train itself sounds like the end of my sanity on the weekends.  

Radical Grading

I'm obsessed with the notion of grading at the moment.  I hate having to assign a specific value to a paper, and I also hate the pressure that grades put on students because they have the potential to cultivate students who work for a grade rather than for knowledge building.  Yet, as I'm required to grade, I am trying to be as reasonable and equitable as possible.  I use a strict criteria that students must meet, and I reward complex thinking even if the writing isn't up to par.  The problem, of course, is that complex thinking is harder than I realized it would be to identify when the writing is poor.

So, I've been thinking about how I'm going to deal with this since grading is a significant part of the work that I'm getting myself into.  One idea I've been thinking about today is the idea of sticking with my grading criteria, sharing it with students on the first day of class next quarter, and offering a caveat: grade your own paper before your turn it in.  The easy answer would be to allow them to submit a re-write.  The problem with this is purely a time issue; I don't think I could reasonably look at re-writes given my responsibilities during the quarter.  However, what if I had students turn in some kind of assessment form along with the paper they turn in that says something about where they think they fell on the grading scale using my criteria?  

It might give students a sense of agency with their work and more importantly, allow them to think critically about their papers as readers rather than writers.  I've gotta do a little research, but I'm compelled by this idea.  It could be problematic when the student's grade is far higher than the one I would give, but it would be a chance for me to offer specific feedback of an area requiring improvement that they might otherwise be blind to....  Anyway, it's really got me thinking.

Grading Papers...

is a race against time, and to make matters worse, I'm a really grumpy grader.  It's not because I think I'm brilliant and that the students I'm grading will never live up to my expectations or something like that.  Not at all.  In fact, reading their papers makes me empathize with the difficulty and complexity of expressing oneself.  In their writing, I see so many of the same errors that I make.  So, it's not from some grand high up position that I look down on these papers.  It's just frustrating when you have limited time and you keep reading for pages and pages and cannot figure out what in the heck someone is talking about or arguing for/against.

To be frank, grading just isn't nearly as "fun" as I thought it would be.  It takes me about an hour to grade each paper, and I have 30 students, so within the week that papers are turned in, I have to prepare to teach my section, complete my own reading/writing/ homework, AND grade all of the papers.  Let's just say that these pressures don't bring out the most generous attitude and commentary that I have to offer. The time pressure sets up an intense mood surrounding the papers as something I just have to get through rather than a process that I can enjoy and use as a way to get to know the students better, ya know.  

I'm really trying to fight this attitude, though.  This second round of papers is much better than the first because, in general, I can see how students' ideas are progressing after having read their first paper.  I can see them engaging more deeply in the material and finding ways to more clearly express their analysis.  It's just hard to maintain that front while I'm finding it far more difficult than I ever dreamed it would be to not fall into a deep malaise about the mountain of work that seems to always lay ahead of me.  Time management is part of it, but there is also a skill of knowing when to stop that I have not yet developed.  I'm starting to realize that I will never get on top of the workload...and that the best thing I can do for myself is to figure out how to manage the impossibility rather than try to conquer it.  

With that said, any and all tips for managing the impossible are more than welcome.

Toussaint Louverture

My work for one of my seminars and that of the class I am TA'ing for are converging at points because I am working on civil war related writings.  One figure, Toussaint Louverture, the Haitian Revolutionary, is becoming an important figure in both of these areas.  I really didn't know much about him before, and it's really too bad that I haven't encountered his name up to now because he is an important figure in history.

I thought I would share this video on his life that was done by PBS because it is a high quality segment on Haiti as the only country to have a successful slave revolution.  It's unique position in history and its tragic recreation of the same inequalities it originally sought to do away with makes it a story worth knowing.  I'm only able to upload a clip, but the full 50-minute show can be found here: http://vimeo.com/48343000

Workin' on it!

About a year ago to the day, I started working on a 20-page paper discussing failed roads and mobility in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower.  After writing that paper, I decided to embark on a project (which most of you know already) about citizenship in Parable of the Sower and its sequel, Parable of the Talents by thinking of citizenship as a form of prosthesis, which became a 60-page master's thesis.  In the meantime, I was accepted to a local conference and presented a 6-page version of the original paper on mobility, but inserted many good insights from the thesis project.

Now, I've just turned in a 12-page "version" of this same paper, which will become a 20-25 page version within the next three weeks.  You'd think I might be bored of this topic or something, but truthfully, I'm not!  Every time I sit down to do a significant revision I learn something that I didn't know before--about literary criticism and theory and about the novels themselves.  For example, my original thesis discussion involved a section on virtual reality in which I looked at how virtual reality breeds passive citizens.  Now, I've taken the passive citizens and virtual reality combo and looked at it with a more sophisticated theoretical framework, and I've become aware of the subversive nature of virtual reality.  I just re-read what I turned in today, and I can already see some of the things I suspect the professor will recommend that I reconsider when I revise it into the 20-25 page paper by the end of the quarter.

The previous academic programs I've been in have never encouraged rewriting something over time; in part because they were terminal programs with no expectation of publishing articles.  Now, I guess I'm getting a tiny taste of the process for publishing an article, which includes peer review, advisor feedback, multiple revisions, and multiple more reviews.  I'm hoping that these ideas will make their way into print at some point...if my stamina for staying interested in this project for a year now is any indication, then I should be able to make it through.

The joy of tangents while researching!

I'm currently researching a project about W.E.B Du Bois' most underrated work (in my humble opinion): Black Reconstruction in America.  In my research, I was reading a report to Congress from 1865 regarding the conditions of the post-civil war south.  Among many other things, the report talks about the oaths of allegiance that the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864 required of all former confederates and the fact that they were alternately mocked or beloved throughout the south and encouraged in newspapers.

I was wondering what the content of that oath was, but apparently it didn't actually have much content.  It was simply a card that one signed stating quite literally "oath of allegiance to the United States."  Here is a picture of such a card:

The pledge of allegiance that is said in U.S. classrooms seems in sentiment, at least, to have extended from the rifts experienced during the civil war since that is when oaths began to be required for certain people's political participation.  

Then I got to wondering when it was that a bunch of what could be considered propaganda got thrown into the language of the pledge of allegiance and when it became necessary to say "under God", for example, and it turns out that a representative from Michigan sponsored a bill in 1954 to add it in and voila, it's what we have today.   Oddly enough, the religious part of the pledge was added in by the government, but the original language of the pledge was not actually developed by the government.  To my surprise, the pledge was authored by a guy named Francis Bellamy who was actually a Christian Socialist.  He published the pledge of allegiance in 1892 to commemorate Columbus Day in a magazine for children based in Boston called The Youth's Companion.  The pledge of allegiance was proliferated in schools, but wasn't actually adopted by congress until 1942 in the middle of WWII; the legislation was intended "to codify and emphasize existing customs pertaining to the display and use of the flag of the United States of America." Congress also included another change...the original stance for reciting the pledge was with the right arm outstretched as pictured here:

Given the timing of 1942 and the eery similarity to the Nazi salute, congress changed the stance to hand-over-heart.  I knew some of this, but it is still jarring to see American school kids in the picture above making that salute.  What a strange little history, right? 

Thank You, Jon Stewart!

Just as I've been wondering when the mass media will start talking about reality and whatnot, Jon Stewart drops some American history knowledge on a particularly delusional member of the media in a segment called "It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Best of Times."

Apparently, I cannot embed the video here, but you can look at the clip here -- it is pretty awesome:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-15-2012/it-was-the-best-of-times--it-was-the-best-of-times

Dispelling American myths is one of my favorite pastimes!  Isn't it refreshing to talk about the truth--whether personal or political?!  I don't like the idea of living in a country where we can't be honest about our past and our present and what they mean for our future.  I really liked this segment.

Day 2 of getting back into the swing...

Day 2 of biking was another disaster, but I'm sticking with it.  By disaster, I mean that I made it 2/3 of the way up the hill to campus (remember that 750 foot incline in the span of 3 miles) and really could not go anymore.  I moved onto the sidewalk and out of the bike lane to give myself the option to get off and walk.  I got hot and tried to take off my helmet while still on the bike and crashed into the weeds.  Then, I had to walk the bike the final mile because I couldn't make it uphill any further!  

If only I had the four volt: 

Ahhh...but you know what, I felt GREAT afterward.  I felt tired as all hell and really out of shape, but I also felt too tired to be the anxious mess I have been lately.  In fact, I was too tired to be annoyed with the people who typically annoy me in my grad classes, which was a really good feeling.  Basically, extreme physical exertion is helping me to be a better person, and I'm totally down with that.  It seems like my body is charged with some kind of anxious energy right now that is going to go somewhere, and I would rather it spill out through my sweat on the hill than through verbal lashings or intense feelings of dislike toward other people.  

Getting back into the swing...

One of the many obvious pitfalls of being over-stressed and over-committed for the past few years has been my ability for physical activity.  I've been trying to get back into the activities I used to enjoy (Boot Camp over the summer, Step Aerobics at the start of the semester, etc.) and nothing has stuck.  I'm still working on finding my exercise groove and am finally trying to get over the idea of getting back to my self of years ago and looking to the present to figure out what I want to be engaged in for physical activity NOW.

I've been biking around a lot with "sun of my life" and biking HOME from school (after taking the uber-convenient bike shuttle to campus)...and today, I've started in on a new trial period of biking up the 750 foot elevation incline from my house to campus.  I did it today, and it was ridiculously hard.  I had to walk my bike the final stretch up the hill as my quads could barely keep going...but I actually enjoyed it in the same way that I used to find running really difficult but worth it for the feeling afterward.  

It seems like in times of stress, my body has less energy to put out there and yet, that extreme level of exertion is exactly what I need when I am stressed.  That's an easy logical rational connection to make, but when you are stressed, that level of physical exhaustion is about the last thing I can convince myself to do!  So, it is important to keep balancing my personal interests and the commitment to doing things I enjoy with the fact that not giving myself the choice to say no is often what helps me to push myself in positive ways.  For example, I biked to campus this morning because I decided it wasn't an option to say I was too tired or whatever to do it.

Now that I am writing this I am seeing a big connection between the PhD program itself and high impact exercise.  I continue to keep in mind that I am here by choice and not because I have to be, but at the same time, by not letting myself make an easy exit when things get really tough (like they are right now) I can push my mind into new insights and learnings that I never conceived of before.  

"Union, Justice, and Confidence"

In 1902, Louisiana adopted "Union, Justice, and Confidence" as its state motto.  How much does it live up to those values?  Well, 13,000 people can't speak for the whole state, but they do speak to a certain section of it, and I just learned that my home state of Louisiana is starting a petition (with 13,000 signatures already collected) to secede from the union in response to the 2012 election.  I am nothing short of embarrassed, appalled, and not that surprised -- all at the same time.

It is hard for me to talk about this because every assertion I make is fraught with condemnations against my people -- my family, friends, and community.  What I can talk about is how this confirms the magnitude of racist thinking that is active in my home state.  It amazes me that the tragedy of Katrina, for example (to use the easiest and most well-known example), has only served to sharpen racist sentiments rather than unite people across race and class boundaries.  I mean, there has surely been some bonding among individuals, but as a state entity, the people of Louisiana are woefully divided...and more so than the division of our country at large.  

Orleans parish, which covers much of New Orleans, voted 80.3% for Obama, and surprisingly, even East Baton Rouge parish went 50.8% in favor of Obama.  Out of 64 parishes, 10 voted for Obama and 54 voted for Romney.  Not only that, but 16 of those 54 parishes voted more than 70% in favor of Romney.  I'm not at all suggesting that communities who vote for Romney are automatically racist.  Far from that.  What I'm interested in is the fact that, according to census data, the parishes that voted for Obama are communities in which 50% or more of the population is black.  Compare that to a place like my home parish, Lafourche Parish, in which 81.1 % of the population is white, and the parish as a whole voted 73.2% in favor of Romney.

It's obvious to me that given these numbers, race has a significant influence on how people are voting.  Given the suffering that many Louisianans are experiencing after the major oil spill and the economic downturn, it is amazing to me how many people are voting against their own class interests.  I am not jumping to any major conclusions, but I am seeing that racism is playing a huge part in this equation.  This petition for secession is, in my opinion, nothing more than an articulation of this disquieting racist thinking.

The Global South

So, Puerto Rico voted to become a state this week...although that is only a half-truth as this Huffington Post article points out.  Regardless, isn't it kinda strange that no one in the mass media is talking about it?  At all?

I'm particularly interested in this topic right now because the class that I've been TA'ing is  centered in the idea of America as an empire, which the period of time at the turn of the 20th century illustrates most clearly (Puerto Rico was invaded by the U.S. in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and taken as a possession).  It's a fascinating time in U.S. history that I, for one, did not learn a whole lot about in U.S. history classes.  The national history I learned in high school basically went from the Civil War to the idea that Reconstruction was a failure and then, straight on into the 20th century.  

Anyway I'm re-learning this history and seeing a lot of complexity that I've never understood before.  This is the same time period that the U.S. became involved in the Phillipines, Panama, etc.  In a way, I'm also learning more deeply about the history of my hometown since a major figure from Thibodaux, Supreme Court Justice Edward Douglass White, was instrumental in shaping the relationship we now have with Puerto Rico based on his role in the "Insular Cases."  The Philippines became independent after WWII...I wonder what U.S. crisis it will take for Puerto Rico to get the kind of government that the people want--within the U.S. or independent from the U.S.

 

Speaking of Silence...

My last post was about silence, and I must have needed some because I have not been inspired to blog about anything for a while.  I'm not necessarily inspired to do so today, but I figure that I should either write something soon or shut this thing down.

One thing that's been on my mind a lot lately (mostly because of the directions my classes are going in) is what I might call the "particulars" of American racism...and of course, the re-election of Barack Obama has brought my thinking out of a specific academic context and into the very real world.  I feel extremely proud of our country for who we elected in 2012, especially the amazing increase in female politicians that will be changing the discourse in the Senate with 20 female senators!!!!!

What's really unsettling to me in spite of these victories is the amount of racism and sexism that is still so prevalent in our culture and manages to keep this country polarized.  The thing is, I hear a lot of direct connections being made between racism and Barack Obama's election and sexism and women's issues in politics.  What I hear a lot less about is the influence of these prejudices on nearly ALL social policies like tax rates, healthcare, welfare, social security, etc.  It's not an easy direct line to draw, but that is precisely what makes the role of these backward forms of thinking so unnerving and difficult to unravel.  

As one example, it's not because Obama is black that "Obamacare" opponents are instantiated in racist thinking, although that is one sad truth that even Yahoo! news reported on.  It's also rooted in the fact that white people, men in particular, have enjoyed a privileged position in this country ever since the end of the 17th century when race was essentially "created" by establishing slavery along lines of skin color rather than class.  If you are interested in this history, there is an outstanding article by historian Barbara Jeanne Fields entitled "Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America" that I highly recommend.  

One of many connections between racism and anti-healthcare positions is the fact that free market competition has always been a model that benefits privileged people the most...and it benefits them at the expense of most minority groups.  Our country's history of disenfranchising minority groups is long and deep and complicated, and it is difficult to sift through the rhetoric of political positions to see how racism influences these positions.  

I'd like to see the media doing more of this.  I'm wondering if the outcomes of this election and the clearly delusional Republican pundits assessments of facts that predicted a Romney win even as the election was called for Obama will signal the need for more attention to exposing the deep-seated ideological issues that shape the conservative politics of social issues....

The Silent Floor

The silent floor in the library is turning out to be my happy place for productive, uninterrupted, focused, get-it-done work spot.  It is so hard to find silence these days that this place is like academic sacred ground as far as I'm concerned.

Our culture is so full of chatter all the time that spaces dedicated to silence are increasingly hard to find.  The library where I used to work made it a point to celebrate the library as a social hotspot on campus, and even the Santa Cruz Public Library advertises "Turns Out the Library Has Nothing to Do with Silence."  Even the quiet floor has its talkers...and I'll admit that I'm usually the person that walks over and politely reminds them that this is the quiet floor and to please shut the f*ck up!  

I'm a talker, but I need the balance of quiet at times as much as I need conversation at other times.  I'm not trying to be nostalgic or anything, but in my undergraduate days, you could hear a pin drop in the silent area of the library where I would study.  In fact, I used to also spend a lot of time in communal reading rooms as well which weren't designated silent, but that were very quiet with only an occasional greeting or whisper to be heard.  Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it actually feels like the music in coffeehouses is louder than it used to be as well....

Given how hard it's been to seek out a silent place to focus in on deep study, I'm wondering how all of this noise is changing the way that the learning environment is changing.  In fact, how does this change general knowledge development for people reading or doing other enriching activities in public places?  It's almost like instead of providing plenty of quiet places for students on campus, there are more places for "group study."  In order to center on his/her work the successful student will have the ability to thrive in an environment of distractions.  

And I have to wonder, what are the consequences of finding fewer and fewer spaces for quietude beyond its effects on students?

Earthquake Preparedness

"Sun of my life" is turning out to be my earthquake preparedness plan.  He has felt several tremors since we've been in Santa Cruz, and I've either slept right through them or been so focused on my writing that I haven't noticed them.  It's kinda weird.  There was a 4.0 earthquake that happened just a moment ago, and I DIDN'T FEEL ANYTHING!  My partner, sitting right here with me, felt it and is the only reason I know about it.

But yeah, let's talk about this whole earthquake business.  It's totally freaky, and I do repeat the routine in my head often: "move to an uncluttered location and stand under something sturdy."  Or, in other words, just run as fast as I can out of the building.  

Santa Cruz is right smack dab on the San Andreas Fault.  There is no way to predict an earthquake.  In some literature I've heard scientists call earthquake studies a "data-poor field"....  It's not that reassuring.  I do much better with long and belabored freak outs about hurricanes that the government is still somehow never prepared to deal with no matter how far in advance a storm is predicted.  In fact, I'm thinking a lot about all of my east coast friends preparing for Frankenstorm right now!

I did find this "13 Crazy Earthquake Facts" article that seems to have eased my mind in the short term.  I mean, seriously, southern California registers 10,000 earthquakes a year?!  I have felt tremors a few times since I've been here, but my brain is still not connecting those vibrations to earthquakes...it's like I assume that I'm near construction or something like that.  Hopefully, my routinized brain will catch up to this new environment soon.  

Natural Born Killers

Last night we were looking to watch a dark comedy and to our surprise, Natural Born Killers showed up on that list.  Neither one of us had seen it before and both of us had heard so much about it that we both wanted to watch it.  It was a seriously violent and uncomfortable film to watch.  But it was also a very interesting commentary on violence and the media.  In fact, by the end of the movie it becomes entirely unclear without visuals to know whether "shoot" is being used to call for a camera shot or for someone to shoot a gun.

Now that I've seen the movie (nearly 20 years after its release), one thing that I think is interesting about the general response to the film's violence and adverse effects on potential copycats is that the media seems to have reproduced the exact same kind of sensationalism and inherent lack of clear ethics (that the film indicts) in their response to the film.  Roger Ebert's 1994 review of the film is spot on, especially when he notes that "(Oliver) Stone has touched a nerve here, because his film isn't about violence, it's about how we respond to violence, and that truly is shocking."  This is why although the film was difficult for me to watch and is not exactly what I would call entertainment, I'm glad I watched it from a critical perspective.  

I guess part of what surprised me about the notoriety of the violence portrayed in the film is that I've definitely seen films that are more violent than this one...for example, maybe Reservoir Dogs, The Silence of the Lambs, and perhaps even that old Brad Pitt movie Seven?  Those are a few that stick out in my mind for having certain horrific scenes that somehow have stayed with me for years after watching them.  The discussion of the limits and effects of violence in American films has been a long-running debate that I'll leave to other far more qualified pundits, but I will say that I agree with the sentiment that Natural Born Killers has been so looked down upon because it makes explicit connections between the American news media, sitcoms, early reality TV, etc. and the 50+ murders that Mickey (see what they did there with a nod to one of America' entertainment's earliest stars, Mickey Mouse?) and Mallory commit throughout the course of the film.  

From that perspective, the film is definitely worth watching to make your own assessment.  Speaking of assessments...if anyone from Netflix is reading this, I would NOT classify this film as a dark comedy.  It is definitely a satire; dark comedy and satire are not at all the same thing.

What I'm Reading Today

I'm currently taking a class on W.E.B. DuBois whose most famous work, Souls of Black Folk, I've always admired.  I didn't realize that he wrote some fiction and other works that could actually be seen as more important than Souls of Black Folk.  This week we are reading Darkwater, which is available on Project Gutenberg if you are interested in reading it.

DuBois is a master of creating a multi-genre text, which I think gives a lot of interesting texture to his work. Darkwater includes autobiographical, prayer, and poetic elements.  I've really just started the book and have only made it through the first few chapters, but already, his authenticity shines through the writing and makes for a compelling read.  He talks about his family, childhood and his ambitions and goals, which ultimately leads to a serious discussion of the history of race, labor, and whiteness in American history.  Dubois is not afraid to call a spade a spade, and I'm sure this has something to do with the fact that you hear about this book far less than you hear about Souls of Black Folk.  It is subversive in the sense that it calls exploitation and racism by their names rather than using euphemisms or offering apologies for why such inequality exists in U.S. society.

If you are interested in reading something that draws you in immediately and offers an apt historical accounting of early 20th century social conditions in the U.S. through the lens of a fascinating autobiography, I highly recommend reading this.  DuBois is a passionate and clear writer who looks into the depth of our society from the human soul to the history of exploitation of our people.  DuBois also edited a journal called "The Crisis", which I've been learning more about and you can read more about if you are interested:

Why Literature?

A lot of people ask me this question: "Why did you choose to get a PhD in Literature?  You must want to teach?"  It's an interesting question that is always followed with the stipulation that I must want to teach because why else would this degree be valuable?  Well, the truth is that yes, I want to teach.  However, the deeper truth is that I want to spend my life thinking about language and how it shapes who we are as people and how we, in turn, shape language.

Most people are surprised to learn that a PhD program in Literature contains, relatively speaking, little actual reading of literature.  In fact, I'm learning from my colleagues that many people entering a PhD program are unaware of this themselves.  There is very little literature, folks; it is nearly all theoretical texts and classes formed around theoretical schools or traditions.  I LOVE THIS STUFF!  It is hard because it is all abstract theory and philosophy, but it is all rewarding work when you sink your teeth into it.

One of the ideas that we explored in class today is the fact that it is common to think of language as an instrument or a tool of communication.  This theorist, Emile Benveniste, discusses how language is part of human nature and argues that it is not a tool or instrument.  And he claims that when scientists, historians, philosophers, etc. approach language as if it were a tool whose development could be pinpointed in history like that of the wheel, for example, they will find that it is impossible to find that moment in history because language is part of our human nature, not something that we developed, but that developed naturally as part of human nature.  

I am compelled by his argument and am surprised that I haven't come across his work before (although I have definitely read theorists who are basing their arguments off of his).  He uses the example of the grammatical subject, I, to show that the very idea of I has no definition and yet, is universal because it can be used by anyone.  When I use I, it applies to me, but then you can say I and it now applies to you.   By using I, we express ourselves...and yet, it is impossible to express oneself (specifically one's interiority) without using I.  Thus, this is one example of how the very idea of having interiority is tied up in language and cannot exist outside of language.  It gets to be a pretty tedious study of grammar and language, but one of the overall ideas in his essay is that language plays a fundamental role in making us who we are.  In other words, language makes us who we are (gives us self-consciousness); we do not make language and simply "use" it as a tool to express ourselves.  

The importance of studying language and literature cannot be understated in my mind because the questions that literary study seeks to answer the most fundamental questions about human existence.  That's what I thought I would share about that since I'm so often fielding that question these days.

Writer's Block...

It's not necessarily that I have it, but I have had a great deal of difficulty blogging lately.  I have no idea what to write about or what would interest my select readers.  So, I'm trying to think about that....  

Originally, this blog was meant to keep up with friends and family while I was in the midst of a crazy busy time in my life.  Now, I'm thousands of miles away from most friends and family and don't really have any more free time than I had before, but a bigger time difference--and, perhaps as a result, emotional distance--from all of you.

So, if you have ideas or thoughts about what you enjoy reading when you come here, please do let me know in the comments or by email.  It would be really helpful to know if this thing is too much of a journal, if you want to know more about literary theory, more about California or what!  

Without such commentary to work with right now, I will spend a little time today thinking about writer's block and how it seems like a very similar kind of thing to "exercise block" and other types of blockages that make us stumble when trying to pursue healthy and fulfilling activities that are good for us.  In continually striving to adapt well to my new schedule with all of its freedom and constraints, I've had to be a lot more in tune with knowing the most productive environment, time of day, and even the kinds of food and drink that keep me focused on reading, writing, responding to students, and preparing for teaching each week.  It's feeling a bit more like the training program that I was in for the marathon when I got to know my body so well that I knew exactly what I could and couldn't eat at certain times of the day if I wanted to go for an evening run and how much water to have to be hydrated for a morning run, etc.  

Maybe I could approach school a bit more like marathon training.  A few things that immediately come to mind are the need for clothing that suits the task, which was of the utmost importance in marathon training, and a good soundtrack for training.  I got some new music from a friend last weekend, so that may be a good start.  Cat Power's Cherokee from the new album is the first song -- this is an excellent sign.  Any other tips from your marathoners or fellow students-for-life?

Anyway, hope you enjoy this new song by Cat Power:

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's a FIREBALL?!

While looking up the best prospects of star gazing for the meteor shower this weekend, I learned that there was a crazy fireball over San Francisco last night!  

Is it just me or does this astronomer sound just a tad bit rehearsed?  It makes one skeptical of his statement, no? 

I'm going to go ahead and admit that when I had to whittle down my VHS collection many years ago I threw away several videotaped NOVA specials featuring UFO's that aired in the 1990's.  It's not that I believe in UFO's per se, but I am fascinated by the possibility of them.  I'm even more interested in hearing the stories of the people who believe they sighted one.  Anyway, I can't believe that this was so close to home!  I'm so curious!  

We will definitely be out around midnight on Saturday, the peak evening for watching the annual Orionid meteor shower.  It's usually a spectacle that doesn't disappoint, and it's been YEARS since I've been in a location dark enough to spectate.  

Doping & Neuroprosthesis

Yes, I'm still thinking a lot about prosthesis, and I don't suspect that my interest will wane anytime soon.   Interestingly enough, I'm finding more and more articles that were published in the past year about the idea of neuroprosthesis than ever before.  Apparently scientists are working on developing memory and attention aids.  Fascinating!

The argument I am trying to make in the essay (said essay is a section of my master's thesis and is now an article-length essay that I will be working on for who knows how long as I work to see if it is publishable) about the usefulness of examining narcotics as a form of prosthesis is occupying my thoughts a lot these days.  Part of my sustained interest is undoubtedly nourished by all of the talk of technology these days...and today, another turn in the idea of prosthesis came out with the news around the release of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's case against Lance Armstrong proved that.  

I found this New York Time blog entry discussing the problem with doping to be an interesting take on the issue.  At the end, the writer makes mention of someone's comments that "bike racing should be compared to Formula 1 or Nascar racing--with riders' bodies treated like machines to be tweaked with science."  I am in no way anti-technologist, but this sounds like a scary proposition, especially given the fact that so many drugs have unknown long-term consequences because they have been in use for such a short time.  I mean, what about the neurological effects of these drugs?  No one is talking about that, but surely there might be some concerns about the effects on the brain from this stuff?  This is serious business, and I'm not exactly sure what Science Fiction would have to say about it, but I'm pretty sure the story would be dystopian.

The Vocation

Today I was reminded of a certain side of myself that obsesses and agonizes over things that might not seem worthy of obsession to other people.  This does NOT include an obsession of keeping things clean or organized, which is why I would NEVER be mistakenly diagnosed with OCD.  The best way to characterize my obsessions is perhaps to say that I am obsessed with behavior.  My own behavior being the most easily accessed case study, but also other people's behaviors...even animals, organizations, you name it.

Here is an example of what I mean.  Back in 2005, a woman I worked with asked me to house sit and take care of her elderly cat and younger dog.  I agreed to it and thought it would be a fun adventure.  Well, in an effort to keep this story short, I will simply say that it was not fun.  In fact, it was a torturous experience for me.  The couple was on an international vacation for a week, and I was in charge of the animals toute seule with only the number of a friend of theirs to call in a pet emergency.  Never having had pets of my own as a child or with roommates or anything like that, how was I supposed to know what constitutes an emergency?  I did call once, and the friend laughed at me and assured me that everything was okay...if she had known what was going on behind the scenes, her answer may have been different.

So, what happened?  Well, the elderly cat peed on the carpet during the day just as the owners had suggested he might.  I used the cleaning solution, but then, I kept smelling it...and every day for the entire week I smelled it and kept scrubbing their carpet.  That was how it all started.  A few days after that, the cat went on a hunger strike and stopped eating regular meals to the extent that I tried to spoon feed him later in the week.  The dog started barking a lot when I was there and no amount of walking or petting would get him to stop.  

It was my own personal hell, except that it wasn't even mine!  But I couldn't abandon these creatures, so I did the only thing I knew to do in order to save their lives....  After the third day, I started a detailed journal of the cat's and the dog's behavior.  I got a legal pad and took note of every "momentous" interaction with the pets.  The entries looked something like:

• Cat pooped today.  Seemed like a normal amount.
• Put food out at 8:00 a.m.  Returned home at 6:00 p.m. and found food bowl empty.
• Dog barked for 13 minutes after we returned from a 24.5 minute walk.
• Fed dog 2 scoops of food, as directed.
• Cat hissed at me when I walked in the door.
• Cat clawed at the door from about 5:12 a.m. until I opened the door at 7:07 a.m.
• Dog stopped to sniff every weed on our walk today.

Yep.  I filled about 5 pages front and back of that legal pad.  I was so pleased with my thorough care taking and observations that I couldn't believe that the owners were pretty freaked out about my recording when they returned from vacation.  I was really afraid that one of the pets might die during or soon after their time in my care, and this was my justification that it wasn't my fault.  A complete record of our interactions.  Luckily, nothing every happened to these animals.

I got to thinking about this interesting experience of living with pets for a week because it reminded me that as crazy as I thought I was today as I freaked out about the hundreds of pages of dense theoretical material that it seems to take me FOREVER to read and how I wish I had stronger writing skills, I realized that despite my shortcomings, I am still entering one of the most suitable professions possible for me.  A profession that rewards this obsessive attention to behavior, and it is something of a strange comfort right now...and it really is a comfort.  

Columbus Day

Columbus Day was today apparently...and for the first year in a long time I didn't even realize it was today until I was in the classroom!  I am really pleased about it.  California apparently recognizes the day, but doesn't give government workers the day off.  And I guess by being part of the state university system, I am some kind of government worker, right?

I'm pleased about not knowing what today was and not having it is a vacation day because, like many people, I don't think that Columbus is a real cause for celebration since his "discovery" of the Americas marks the violent vanquishing of native populations among other atrocities.  I'm pleased about how I found out it was Columbus Day.  I am a Teaching Assistant for an American literature class entitled "The Historical Imaginary", which deals with precisely these kinds of issues within history.  My students used the story of Columbus as an example of how one can understand the difference between historicism and historical materialism in response to Walter Benjamin's theoretical work.  It was awesome to see students relate the issues that we were talking about in theory and literature into contemporary memorials, days of observance, etc.  

As a result, I felt like this was the best celebration of Columbus Day I've ever had!  In homage to rethinking Columbus and the one-sided stories that history so often tells...and in honor of historical materialists who seek to tell a different story than historicists...I'm posting the artist Tatzu Nishi's "Discovering Columbus" for your consideration.  I like the idea of bringing the public statue into a private space, which seems to be an interesting way of getting people to think critically about our public icons by showing how absurd such a sculpture would appear in a private home.  

Academic Vocabulary

One of the big hurdles of starting into any new kind of work and even any kind of new activity usually requires you to adapt to a new vocabulary.  I remember being completely lost in my first yoga class because I didn't know what downward dog, warrior, or eagle poses were (to name a few).  When, I began fundraising, I was unaccustomed to using the term "outcomes" in such a specific way that specifically referred to the success of clients being served and later on in my career, the term "legacy" took on a life of its own as it was a euphemism for asking people if they could give six figure gifts (thus, leaving a legacy) or not.  

Now that I am pursuing an academic career, I am also having to learn new vocabulary, but this time it isn't just about euphemisms and different ways of saying something. It's learning a lot of new words AND learning the philosophical concepts behind the use of these often complex terms.  In critical theory, which seeks to examine the social, historical, and ideological forces that shape culture and influence literature, some of these words are initially recognizable but seem completely out of place.  Take, for example, the word heliocentric.  Sure, I know this in terms of plants being attracted to the sun.  So, why is heliocentric being used by literary theorists so much?  It turns out that it is a useful term for critics who think that Western philosophy is too focused on itself to such an extent that it cannot include, no matter how hard it tries, classes of people who exist outside of Western norms.  

Similarly, the word "diversity", which is talked about all the time these days in the workplace and in politics, etc., becomes "heterogeneity" in critical theory.  The domestic worker becomes the "comprador periphery", the oppressed become the "subaltern" and similarities become "homologues".  Of course the nuance of using these more sophisticated terms does have a purpose and the purpose is to NOT make them synonymous with their more well-known iterations.  The subaltern only refers to a very specific set of oppressed people. Heterogeneity lends a more scientific view of the idea of diversity and multiculturalism.  

Right now my reading pace is banana slug slow, but I'm hoping that at some point I get into the groove of thinking about these words in a more natural and critical way.  It's humbling--and at times daunting--to have to learn so much new vocabulary, but like in my previous professions, it is also a useful tool for talking about specific, nuanced ideas. I'm finding that as I build this new vocabulary, I am also building new ideas because the two go hand in hand.