Life is so fresh and bright, so present and immediate, when one stands on one’s own authority and lays one’s artificial burdens down. It is easy, like a summer brook. Soon I will again be as I had become before I entered Reeducation. I will be free and innocent like the flowers. This blog is … More Mantra
I expected the first day of graduate school to be like any other school day, since I was beginning the Ph.D. program in the same department from which I had just graduated. But as I entered the building to go teach my class – this having been my first act in graduate school – I … More Diaphanous Screen
I have three students who have been caught with nickel bags and are now court ordered to attend Twelve Step meetings. Two have been adversely affected by it and are now failing my class. I am angry about this for their sakes and for my own reasons. I was assigned to attend Al-Anon when, at … More Nickel Bag
When I first took a job in Louisiana, several white liberals in Berkeley, California, accused me of racism. “You must be truly racist if you can go there. It would be too racist for me.” These people, of course, had never been here. I had never seen them hanging with any nonwhite people in California, … More On Racism in Louisiana
I was tagged for a meme in which one reveals eight random things about oneself, with the additional suggestion that since I am not in my usual location, I may be learning new things about myself. I said that I had already completed a similar meme; that this blog already reveals more about its author … More On Sleeping at Home
Read the post from which this is excerpted, and the comments thread. It is very much like religion, really – it’s all up to her. All she has to do is be obedient, do things right, and she will SHINE. She just has to follow the rules, endure the “struggles,” and remain loyal and faithful, … More On Coercion
I The other reason I so disliked Reeducation, and found it so destructive, was its assumption that one was not an adult, and its expectation that one become an adult for the first time, in a very limited way, under the aegis of Reeducation, and its very negative judgment of actual independence, individuation, freedom. II … More Independence, Individuation
This Fats rocking and rolling on “Ain’t That a Shame” – a great musician and song, and the video is a fascinating document. Observe. This is one of my farewell songs to Reeducation. I am really happy to have ejected as much of Reeducation from myself as I have over the past few weeks. It … More Fats Domino
I University Diaries writes about the male humanities professor who has a single-minded focus on research and a talent for bureaucratic maneuvering, and hates teaching. That formula, except for those it works for, gives us the washed-up, frustrated, ineffectual professor one sees in many popular representations. Reading this, it struck me that these were precisely … More On Self-Servingness in Academia
I “Since racial discrimination and segregation are over in this country,” said Z/Cero sardonically, “we can go right back to court sanctioned segregation.” Read all about it. “This is a decision that the Court and the nation will come to regret,” said Stephen Breyer, still lucid despite sitting with the likes of Rehnquist, Scalia and … More Purification
coldhearted scientist وداد 