1. “Your university is abusive toward [you],” said someone who does not know the place, and was just basing this on a few comments I made. That is why I have difficulty starting to work, why my first instinct is flight (no, not fight), and why no amount of advice on time and task management … More On abusive relationships
El mal que aqueja nuestro departamento, según mi estudiante, c’est la mauvaise volonté. Laquelle? –ai-je demandé. Bien, a-t’il répondu: c’est le narcissisme d’un chef, et l’égoïsme de l’autre, que hacen que todos se odian y se agreden entre sí. Es importante reconocer esto. Mi analista, el real, el de carne y hueso, dice que tengo … More Sur la mauvaise volonté
…about the introjected torturer. About the feeling of being imprisoned. You must go back in your box, back in your cage. The way I dissociate ever so slightly with this. Important: who has imprisoned me? I do not think it is the university. I think it is family and friends who imprisoned me here after … More A flash I had
I would of course love to do a BFA in plastic arts, painting, ceramics, sculpture especially (I would never have known that had I not tried it, I did not like sculpture to look at, very much, until I had a sculpture assignment and to my surprise, really liked it). I would also like to … More Postscript on fine arts
I woke up this morning very clearly aware of the reason I do not like to wake up: waking up means waking up to the university slapping me in the face and then putting me in a barrel of water and covering it, so that I will drown. I will then have to spend the … More La méditation pour cette semaine
Student: This book is something you administer, not something you learn from. When I am working with it and its companion website I am in a frenzy trying to make sure I know where I am and that I am matching the right thing to the right thing. I am completing an exercise and learning … More Some interlaced conversations today
Kristeva has that famous title Desire in Language but what about joy in language? Arguedas referred to himself as a “demonio feliz” speaking in Quechua and Castilian. Vallejo is a similarly happy demon, surfing seas of metaphor, watching the dance of words. Logopoeia. This is fun to say but one cannot say it without looking … More Ce matin
It’s interesting how relativist arguments get used in apologetics for institutions that claim to have had the absolute truth always and forever. C’est le post du jour et c’est très important. Axé.
There was something I heard from an unexpected quarter about nation and state as separate things, or things working separately, and that I would like to reencounter. I saw a film of an anti-MOOC symposium in which a literature professor talked about the large, live lecture as a way to model close reading and to … More Cette semaine
It is the drudgery of all these websites and all these very detailed exercises and assignments for all of these language courses. I wish I were one of those who wept because I just so could. I have specific things I am interested and want to do and every step further into the so-called profession … More Update
