Invisibility suggests a hidden dimension, sometimes unknowing or inadvertent but more than likely planned, or at least ordered, structurally arranged, deeply embedded. So, institutionally, it is not that race has been made ‘absent’ but that its presence has been rendered invisible and silenced (save to the sensitive eye and ear), purged of explicit terms of … More The sensitive eye and ear
I have misplaced my cellular telephone and a new one would cost money I do not have, so I have cancelled it. I am under contract to it so I still have to pay the bill until the contract is over, but I do not have a cellular telephone. It is wonderful. I would pay … More La libertad
Because they are terrified preachers: fire and brimstone, how bad the world is; because they are grand inquisitors. Because they are unrelenting torture victims; because they are lying in vats of burning oil, and stretching out their hands to pull us in. Because they will not be satisfied until we join them in death and … More I dislike professors…
…terror about extreme violence which my doing serious research and writing did at one time provoke. My irrational feeling is that I will keep life and limb together if I am not seen in process and if it doesn’t take time from other things. Coming up with offprints is fine, but one must not be … More This is what it is
Finding all sorts of documents, putting them on websites, pairing them, creating activities on them with detailed instructions. Forming student teams to undertake projects. Discovering ways to introduce short theoretical texts. Judging the difficulty level of the same. Annotating and marking up. It is a science and it involves a great deal of code-hacking and … More Teaching
We have MOOC fever here. Undine has unearthed commentary from Babbit. It is a must-read. Axé.
Goal: find files, put things in order, really start to write. Actually: I put in the time but the way I used it is, I found one file so rich I just read it and am rereading book it is based on, which is kind of a motherlode book as I now understand. In the … More El writing group
This is the sign of progress: I am reading and enjoying the Goldberg book. As I have said before: people keep insisting reading is a way to avoid writing; you cannot, however, write without it. It is a sign of progress because in my worst period I could not read. I would think: this resembles … More Cuba y la noche
I must also post to the reading class website, instructions for their assignment. They know the assignment but they will need very specific instructions. For Valentine’s Day they are each presenting on a love song, and identifying rhetorical situations and techniques in love songs. But they must have step by step instructions or they will … More On Spain
Questions of space and time were issues in all the texts I taught today, in three different classes on three different things. I feel behind on work, and the students feel behind on Spanish and on general knowledge. At the same time the authors of the texts we are reading, and the characters in them … More On modernism
