All three novels are key works in their national canons, and are set largely on slave plantations. Like several other narratives from the Latin American nineteenth century, their plots feature romances that fail due to a varying combinations of incest and miscegenation. In Cecilia Valdés most clearly, the patriarch Cándido Gamboa is the literal father … More 226
I must review Bhabha’s “third space” for current purposes, and write that man back about that paper. Axé.
I have won awards for beautiful offices and office doors at two universities. That is not me in the doorway, but it is my office. Axé.
The darker side of mestizaje When before the Congress of Angostura Bolívar proposes to shape nations by mixing the “diverse blood” of the new citizens (1819), he makes a double gesture. The new nations are conceived in racial terms and at the same time situate themselves, at least at the level of public discourse, beyond … More Yes, I am a slow writer … but I will be faster
…would look at the research university conceived as support of industry, with an emphasis on “productivity.” I am not at all opposed to work and production and I favor more of these and not less, but in this the product gets a distorted emphasis. The student’s putative need for improved study methods is conflated with … More An academic study of academic advice
“…you’ve got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict.” This is the one phrase I like from On the Road and it is anti-Boycean, and it rejects the values of Reeducation. Axé.
I have far too much to do but I think I can write the Cecilia section of this paper using the CFP to which I responded with a related piece, or rewrite that abstract en ese sentido (if I write the Cecilia section about vision). I will again work on the door and the yard. … More Constant activity and I want a vacation
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place Like the pale … More The Rose of the World
We are no longer a university, we are a corporation. Evidence is in every detail: the bus no longer takes standing passengers; it is now forbidden to write in chalk on the sidewalk. The university will close in 15-20 years, based on the current rate of non-replacement of FTEs. Before the advent of e-mail, how … More Things students said, and asked today. Things I thought.
In the last NEH seminar I attended there was a Brazilian scholar who gave a talk about the African cultural origins of “our Negroes,” as she said. White Brazilian scholars and European scholars of Brazil are very concerned about the negative influence Black persons and movements from the United States and, to some extent, the … More Sobre la expresión “nuestros negros”
