We don’t know, of course, if anyone believes in the common good, or the public good any more, but here are some fragmentary notes from a conversation we had. 1. We should talk much more about research. In class. College has to become more interesting – we cannot allow it to be further redefined as … More The common good
Ancient notes, I think from a conference 20 years ago, that I kept and kept. What did they say and why did I keep them? Postmodernism as grand récit flattens out the complexities of Latin American modernism, which had postmodern characteristics and also more, it was more complex. It tries to articulate national and continental … More Ancient
The BRASA deadline is extended to September 1, Gott sei Dank, and I have to double-check the situation with LASA. I’d like to go to both just to see papers, and maybe I should even if I don’t get in or don’t make the submission deadlines. In the meantime, here are some of my old … More BRASA/LASA
On these issues: it seems that despite Catherine the Great’s reservations about serfdom, serfdom rose in the 18th century due to her modernization projects. Modern projects, modern ideas on liberty, AND more serf work needed, all at the same time. Modernity rises, coloniality rises. This is interesting; people do not realize how the serfs were … More Modernity/coloniality and race
I am still going through my files and it is shocking – so many quite good and almost finished papers I set aside, or that got swept aside in one storm or another. I have the Racial Order book, which is focused on the U.S. It talks about field theory (Bourdieu). Can race be a … More Des feuilles
FACE YOUR FEARS [I am transcribing these notes to avoid doing that, but it isn’t a bad form of procrastination as it is helping me get something else necessary done]. ALSO REMEMBER: Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II was a Confederate ally who had sheltered and supplied Southern ships during the Civil War. Then he offered … More Ideologies of Hispanism (more notes to frame Cecilia and plaçage) … these 13 points are a fairly good blocking out
This is an old article I had kept to think about subjectivity in Anzaldúa and also Vallejo. It’s outmoded now, but some of the points are still valid, on the precariousness of identity and subject positions. Having no secure position to which to return distinguishes “passing” from “passing as,” she says. “Passing” is like Morrison’s … More That postmodern subject of PASSING
I have been working on this whole thing for so long that it is disheartening, but I have to make PROGRESS this time. I am finding so many notes, so many half-done things. Anyway, I am digging it all out. I will remember that article on Schwarz, the phrase “the most specific feature of Brazilian … More “This thing of darkness” (more for Ferreira da Silva)
Who said it? Market incentives lower the value of college to both individuals and the public. Defunding chips away at both the public good and the private benefits to students. Faculty should unite on the concept of public good, and senior administrators should articulate it. Privatization has a price (and is not an improvement). Axé.
What modernity WAS in the nineteenth century WAS IN QUESTION. In Latin America, new policies were reducing democracy, around the same time as Jim Crow came in in the U.S. Sanders (Vanguard of the Atlantic world) says “Latin American republican modernity” arose in the 1840s – republican projects with citizens’ rights. This enabled subalterns to … More Things to fit in
coldhearted scientist وداد 