Raining Cats and Dogma

Aside from making the necessary edits to my dissertation before submission to the Graduate School, and the project of ultimately turning it into a book, I've got this apparently huge number of papers that just need to get written: ones that are in revision stages, were segments of my diss being broken out for articles and conferences, seminar papers that had potential but weren't related to my diss, or brand new ideas . . . Let's have a look, shall we?

* "Playing at Lives"--while also the title of the diss/book, it is the title of the biography article I submitted this past winter to Modern Drama. I just got the word back from my earlier "revise and re-submit." They want more changes. High Priority.

* "The Hegemony of 'We'"--a conference paper submission on the dangers of the communal voice when it conceals the influence of a single author's voice. Prominent even in counter-hegemonic discourse. Primary example: The Vagina Monologues. A portion of the diss to be re-written only if accepted by this year's Narrative Conference.

* "Staging Psychic Excess"--maps out parodic narrative as a template for playwrights working to transgress gender standard. Finds affinities between Butler, Brecht, and parodic narrative. presented in shorter form at Narrative Conference two years ago, under submission to Women and Performance. Waiting.

*"Towards a Parodic Spectator"--suggests that political parodic plays do more than simply critique their source text, but actually teacha parodic stance that can be used by resistant spectators to apply to other canonical plays. Needs to be printed out and sent to Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature.

* "Grading Standards for Training Teachers of Writing." with Nora Bellows--catchy title on this one, eh? suggests that grading standards and small group learning models can be highly effective methods of training teachers of many disciplines to grade and ultimately comment on writing. adapted from interactive presentation at Lilly-East conference. In outline stage.

* "Misapprehended Learning Goals and Academic Dishonesty" also with Nora--because the GW job requires research on both my primary field and teaching, I am working on a study that looks at how unstated and misunderstood learning objectives are a root cause (alongside the well-known ethical issues) of academic integrity violations. This one's actual going to require studies, surveys and focus groups, so it'll take a while to come together.

* “Can a Straight Feminist Live Happily Ever After? Heterosexual Romance and the Problems of Representation on Stage and Screen.” A version of a conference paper for the WV film colloq. I want to either rework it for an MLA panel, or, perhaps more fruitfully, work it up as a journal article. Need to brush up on my film lingo a bit (Fritz, are you reading?).

* “The Utopian Impulse of Docudrama” --this would be new material, but based on the diss. It's for a special issue of Modern Drama on Utopian Performatives, edited by Jill Dolan, whose thoughts on the matter come up often in my oral history/docudrama chapter. I'd actually need to act fast on this one, but the payoff could be pretty good.

* “‘This is Fabulously Counterfeit’: The Spanish Tragedy, Anti-Theatrical Anxiety, and Dramatic Containment of Violence.”--a seminar paper written YEARS ago, but honed after teaching several times and discussing with actual Rennaissance folk. It's all mapped out, but needs to be completely re-written, since I wasn't all that good a writer as an M.A. student.

* “Staging ‘The Inside of his Head’: Free Indirect Discourse in Modern American Drama.” This is really just the first chapter in what I hope will be my second book on narrative perspective in Modern Drama. I've got, like, twelve chapters mapped out on this puppy, but I'm just at very earliest stages of this project.

Crissakes. What am I doing bloggin when there's all this prose to be generated?

Posted by at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am in the process of drafting my course description for next semester's themed composition course. Suggestions (both for this draft, and for readings) warmly solicited . . .

Food Fights: The Pleasures and Politics of Eating

Writing about food is a deeply personal, and often a deeply pleasurable experience. Marcel Proust, in the most literary of terms, remembers his childhood through the scent of cookies, while anyone who has ever read Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate can virtually smell her quail in rose petal sauce. But like all pleasurable experiences, writing and thinking about food is also embroiled in debate at every turn, as Upton Sinclair proved by changing minds and turning stomachs with The Jungle. For example: Research suggests that food preferences are as unique to our identity as any other component of our personality. Genetically engineered foods promise utopian results and provoke Frankensteinian fears. Eating disorders plague women (and men) across the country, while advocates for vegetarian practices variously cite morality, health, and environmental well-being to support their choices. In short, our food is as troubling as it is satisfying. This semester, we will explore the pleasures and the politics of eating through a range of writing about food. We’ll look at texts like Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats, Madeline George’s “The Most Massive Woman Wins,” and shorter food writing from connoisseurs and cultural critics alike. At the same time, we’ll be doing our own food writing, ranging from restaurant reviews, to rhetorical analyses of other food writers, to extended research papers with food-related topics like Frankenfoods, body image, world hunger, or vegetarianism.

Posted by at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We went in for our sixth (!) sonogram of our impending little ones. Still growing evenly and well and on track for their 32-week age. Paige is estimated at 4 lbs, 1 oz., has a slightly bigger belly (perhaps beause her tummy was full) and is currently head down.

Collin, while only 3 lbs, 12 oz, has a bigger head than his sister, a full bladder (and slightly dilated kidneys as a result), and is currently in breech position. If that doesn't change (since his location indicates that he'll be the first to be born), we'll probably go C-section, but they've both flipped pretty dramatically in the last five weeks.

In a slightly related note, I always thought it was "breach" not "breech," but now that I think of it, he is about to try to come out "breeches first."

Anyway, everything is healthy--no signs of early labor, babies are growing fine, and the techs are still giving us a (jokingly) hard time for making them do twice as much work for a single appointment . . .

Posted by at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The other day someone asserted quite definitively that Bush was not going to win the next election. I thought this was optimism, but after having talked to my class today (exercise: define "patriot" as "anyone who speak their mind against government policies" or "anyone who acts, for political good or ill, accroding to their sense of the nation's good." Audience: a Bush family picnic). I am beginning to understand that Iraq might as well be called Waterloo. Even a student who self-identified as conservative said that she was becoming disillusioned with Bush.

Item 2: The other night I was playing volleyball in the sand courts at the Catholic Student Center, when a hit when flying wide toward the little stream that runs by Mowatt drive. Fortunately it was deflected from its damp course by a bit of shrubbery. I cheered, "Yay, Bush!." Realizing the faux pas, I followed with, "That may be the first time I've ever uttered those two words together. The point is not that this was particularly funny, but that everybody laughed.

Is 2004 the year of Dean? And let's be honest, even if it were Leiberman against Bush, wouldn't we vote Leiberman?

Posted by at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was exactly this beautiful out.

I wonder who wails in pain under today's infinite blue sky?

Posted by at 3:11 PM | Permalink

A recent entry from Chuck muses thoughtfully on blogs as sites for potential academic connections, essentially offering a rebuttal to Benjamin's fearof technological isolation.

Not only do I think that blogging does offer all this great potential for connection, let's not forget how personal connections can be overrated.

An example: Yesterday, I got onto a packed red line train toward Metro Center. I had to stand just inside the door against a plexiglass partition for support. About two or three stops later, another surge of people got on. So here I am standing intimately close to a very attractive young woman.

We were mere inches apart, close enough for me to notice that her Brown hair was flecked with red, close enough to notice how skillfully she had covered her not-perfect skin with foundation, close enough to associate her perfume with an ex's, a pungent-sweet, sharp-but-soft vanilla scent that still conjures bad memories. So close that I couldn't see her whole face in profile.

I haven't been as close to anyone I actually know, outside of Ann, for years. And yet here, in this incredibly intimate situation, I found myself unable to know anything about this other person. I'll surely never see her again.

So while blogging forges connections over distance, the f2f that Benjamin privileges as often as not ends up a bust, precisely because it's too intimate.

Technology and urbanity don't eliminate intimacy. They just change the contexts under which we can experience it.

Posted by at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My doorbell just rang. Sadly, our peephole is missing a lens, so I couldn't see who was outside. So, like a moron, I just swung open the door.

A lovely African American couple, armed with bags and Bibles asked me, with gleaming smiles, whether I was happy about the rising number of crime scenes in our area.

"No, I'd have to say I'm sad about that." I really hate being led by the nose.

Then they asked, "Do you think we can trust the government to handle the problem?"

Choose-your-own-adventure time.
*If you want to say "Yes, the government is competent," go directly to God-is-more-powerful, Psalms 146 rebuttal.
*If you want to say, "No, the government here is crap and we need to fight for better reforms," go to "Trust-God-for-your-reforms" speech.

I chose option three. Fight fire with rhetorical fire. Also misrepresent my belief structure.

"No we can't trust the government, we have to pray to God for those changes to happen when the next world comes" Blecchh. I hate the rhetoric of my fundamentalist youth, its dim utopian impulses, its defeatist political attitudes mixed with ultra-conservative political posturing. It's worse when it comes out of my own mouth, even in an attempt to get back to work more quickly.

Nonetheless, I've still misstepped. These weren't just any evangelicals--they were Jehovah's Witnesses. Not next world. This world. His hand goes into his bag, out comes The Watchtower. (They've gotten slimmer than they used to be, I notice). I coyly ask when the current predictions for the return of Christ was, since there have been, what, eight predictions since 1950? No, actually, I only wish I had asked that. Instead I say thanks and politely shut the door. I think they may be coming back another day to discuss what I'm supposed to read.

Here's the dilemma. I've tried everything with such Electrolux spiritualists. I've tried telling them what I think they want to hear. I've tried telling them quite simply that I don't share their beliefs and am not interested in reconsidering. I've tried telling them that I respect the missionary work they're doing (which I don't) but I don't agree with the religion they peddle.

Why is it that the only effective strategy is to be rude? In hawking a morality door-to-door, they literally force people into betraying that morality. And then they use it to justify the dire straits of the world. Do they not understand that they breed the conflict themselves? If there's something I dislike more than rhetorical leading-by-the-nose, it's being forced into acts I believe to be unethical by those who want me to adopt their ethic.

Posted by at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

OK. Who can tell me what to look for in a digital camera? With the two wee bairns coming soon, I'm thinking film processing might not be the most prudent of investments. Bring on the comments, please.

Posted by at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm not just saying this in case they read this (since none of them know about it yet . . .).

But I'm not kidding about them being seriously smart. On the first day of class (Wednesday) I handed out Judith Butler's "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution." I fully expected to have to walk them through it point by point.

Both sections ended the 50-minute period in a heated debate about whether gender identity and subjectivity (and indeed any subjectivity) can be said to pre-exist the gender performances that Butler claims constitute identity.

No kidding. I loved my UMCP students, but I'd be lying if I said the upper limit of my expectations wasn't pushed today.

Did I mention that this is a Freshman Writing class? I'm guessing I won't be getting many final projects on Creatine . . .

Posted by at 5:56 PM | Permalink

I got an email from the Writing Program director telling me that I might want to update my information in the University database, that something weird was going on there.

When I logged in, I found that they had my permanent address listed as Milford, Delaware.

My hometown.

From when I applied at GW as an undergrad.

Twelve years ago.

God only knows what other information is just floating out there in people's databases about me.

Posted by at 11:11 PM | Permalink