Perhaps it is because of being from the west and meditating on the ocean. I like and have balance and calm, which is not laziness. People from New England are brash, loud, crass, immature, and anxious, so they have much harder lives than I do. Perhaps I have been on strike all these years, against … More …endless academic advice…
She has written me a letter. Another one she wrote, if I remember well, asked for donations for Katrina victims. Now I am to renew my MLA membership. Here is why: As we prepare for another MLA convention, which will take place in Chicago from 9 to 12 January 2014, I wanted to remind you … More Rosemary Geisdorfer Feal
You can do it in the lower division if you are not teaching multisection, multiterm courses and interfacing with terminal M.A. adjuncts and fly-by-night textbook companies. Otherwise, you cannot, and it is not your fault. You can do it in the upper division if you teach these courses like lower division ones. That makes life … More Saving time on teaching — in a formerly regional university
Now I am coming up to the end of my second non-depressed month. I can see that part of not getting depressed is just mental health hygiene, as Clarissa says, and that includes, importantly, having resources for this and most importantly, knowing how not to internalize oppression. On the question of time, I now see … More Still more academic advice
Today I asked a Fulbright officer a question I wanted to ask over 20 years ago and got an even more positive answer than I had dreamed of getting then — had I dared to ask. I assumed that the problem I was having, that caused me to decline the Fulbright, was my problem, not … More Memories of underdevelopment
The other thing Jonathan and Clarissa do not understand about the situation of Rebecca Schuman and others is what it is like to work in a field the institution is working against. A common response to such observations is that the institution is against the humanities generally and that we are all suffering greatly. That … More Still more Schuman
Is it? I like this old article on exceptionalism by Lund. “The most implacable Latin American appropriation of Euro- centrism is a center/periphery discourse known as civilization and barbarism (civilización y barbarie).” Axé.
“Don’t be a professor, because it will not be about creating nice lower-division Spanish classes,” I was always told. “I know,” I always said, “that is why I am going on to the Ph.D.” But in my real life, being a professor is largely about doing that, and in poor situations por más señas. The … More Sobre la ironía
I have found out why a really successful person, professor and chair and also endowed chair in field, now working in construction, quit academia: “Any life would be preferable, including life under a bridge.” I was shocked that this person felt that way, and it was pointed out to me that if it was a … More The most wonderful profession in the world
Do you see? Here is another person with a law degree. Axé.
