Category Archives: Working

I will write and submit the abstract here, and so should you. (The conference starts on a Thursday and I’ll teach my first class, farm the other two out, and go.)

I will finish my book orders and also work as much as I can on the syllabus and reading for that class.

I will make my plans for Florida and beyond. I will look up the Rob Stone books as well.

I will visit the ASUC store and REI. I will see Liz and Susan for work, and maybe others, for fun.

For the abstract, very rough:

Is it Bhabha, Mary L. Pratt, Said, who, how many say that looking at oneself through the eyes of the metropolis is a colonial trope? In Cecilia Valdés Villaverde represents Cuba with New Orleans eyes (Cuba sees itself through other eyes) but the New Orleans through which Cuba is seen is itself a construction based upon Northeastern tourists’ perceptions of Haitian immigrants. What was the French, but also heavily Spanish Louisiana actually like, before Americanization and also before the refrancesamiento created another fantasy image of the state? I will look at C. V. and K. Chopin but also G. W. Cable and A. Carpentier, but also N.O. press and lesser known writers like Charles Gayarré.

I discovered a Steven Yates who has interesting books and an interesting blog that will be good for my other article.

Axé.

I have always chafed in my role in it because of the way I was pressed by bossy and officious faculty, and the national leadership is the same. The state conference demanded I bring a fancy speaker here last fall, and the one who had most insisted upon this then objected to my being reimbursed for the cost. Now another one was beyond rude Saturday, after I schlepped to the center of the state para cumplir. I want to resign but should really not. More than that I want an apology from someone for their behavior this weekend. I am always surprised when people who present as allies are friends, are not.

In addition: I do not appreciate certain bad advice. And locally there was last year’s taunting, “Have you ever seen the [organization’s documents]?” when I was freakin’ following them to the letter. “If you cannot make person X fulfill my fantasy, I will Report You!” [With what goal in mind–to get me removed from the role you begged me to take?] And this year’s condescension and MASSIVE inconveniencing, also at the local level. I am so annoyed with several people in this organization; perhaps the issue is that most people are just not nice.

My problem, as always, is what I call “being treated like a servant”–by which I mean expected to do all the heavy lifting and then criticized for not doing it according to some individual’s instructions, and/or being invaded, having someone expect that my body or my mind or my house or my emotions are theirs to appropriate and use … and also that I am someone they can patronize and condescend to while I work for them. This makes me both terribly ashamed and frighteningly angry.

Axé.