Category Archives: Working

30/08/2019 · 16:26

The next meeting, and abstract

Meeting

What is his agenda?
What did we say about ourselves in our self-study (can we see our self-study)?

Password for that organization

[Almamater1!]

Abstract — things one cannot say

Is everything the fault of modernity, and if so, is it specifically the fault of Descartes? What are the exact problems, regarding this issue, with Hegel?
I think the issue is expansionism, and that predates the Enlightenment.
And I am NOT convinced it is all the fault of reason, or of science
Are there notes on this in my archives, from my old professor T.C.? This would help.

Budget for Austin (outrageous)

$100 dues
$140 registration
…and the beat will go on.

Axé.

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07/07/2019 · 21:09

Walters Museum, and student evaluations

Last summer I visited this museum and received its lovely magazine. Sticking with me in particular are the ceramics of Roberto Lugo and John Singer Sargent’s watercolor The Alhambra Vase. In the store, a bronze reproduction of a Chinese owl figurine, eight inches high.

∞∞∞∞∞∞

How to get high evaluations? Old and new suggestions include never changing the syllabus, not allowing student input or collaboration on course structure, just telling them how things are going to be and sticking to it, not allowing screens in class, saying the evaluations are for tenure and promotion, pointing out evidence of race/gender bias in the evaluation process, and having students write a metacognitive essay before evaluating the course.

Axé.

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06/07/2019 · 15:04

Latvia and César Moro

These topics are not unrelated since Latvia and the Baltics had such a strong modernist movement. I want to go on Latvian and Russian immersion in Riga, and then start studying Baltic modernism. I am not joking. I could study law as well, and write interesting columns for the international press.

There are films and series about life in Soviet Estonia I would like to see. I need to see other realistic films about life in the USSR and the Baltics.

I learned about Robin Myers, an interesting poet and translator from the United States who lives in Mexico City. I learned about her via books I was looking at related to César Moro, and look at the theme of everything, for us all — moving to foreign capitals to do our work.

*

I have decided to allow myself to seriously consider running away to Latvia, even though it may not be possible financially in the end. This is the Latvia Weekly. I did not expect to fall in love with Latvia, but I did.

I have also decided not to try to work at home. This, I discern, has been my error for a long time. “Unhygienic,” said a friend, and I agree. I’m going to get rid of books more agressively, too. My life will improve.

Axé.

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Filed under Poetry, Working

01/07/2019 · 20:56

Things involving Ferreira da Silva

I am not a Christian but I am about to use a Christian talisman for work, namely Paul’s words to Timothy: G-d does not give the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind. (Those words were written long ago but notice how little people have changed.) I am terrified of this project and need to live another way.

About the project: it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between platitudes and profundities. I keep finding F. da S. half very insightful and half flat, or too pat. Here human/universal (post Enlightenment) time, where everything culminates in modern Man, is contrasted to non-linear transformation (instead of progression). Perhaps I should just say yes. BUT I AM NOT CONVINCED BY REFERENCES TO CARTESIAN MIND-BODY DUALISM AS EXPLANATIONS OF WHAT IS BAD IN THE WORLD.

MEANWHILE, What is difference? Do we all have to be the same by color or culture to deserve the same rights, or is humanity enough similarity (note that we have to “other” people so as to posit them as lesser humans). F. da S. keeps saying modern science, with its categorizations, hierarchies, and linear thought is what divides and “others.” We need to stop this.

There was an article on her that I would have needed to get from Interlibrary Loan and did not, and I have misplaced the reference. I am hoping to find it, and I am hoping to find my notes from yesterday, toward my other essay.

Axé.

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Filed under Race book, Working

28/06/2019 · 14:30

Things

I’ve unstuck the to-do list so I can see the other posts. I’m going to get a whiteboard and a lamp for the office, and start working in there part of the time–partly because I don’t want to print at home, or to have the large pieces of butcher paper I want to write notes on dragging around at home. (I think I can get these things at General Office Supply.)

Thoughts on work for today: I am mixing three topics and need some sort of spreadsheet to separate them, or map them. I need three columns and a lot of rows, some blank spaces and some arrows. Also, I like to write and need to extract from my perception of it others’ concepts of suffering. I think of it as something I do at a table that is too high for me, or a chair that is too soft, with a lot of books weighing on my forehead and a lot of people sniping at my back. I think of it as something I do with a lot of muscle pain. Really I like to write by hand at a hard table, in bright light, and a feeling of health, not illness and pain.

Thoughts on mestizaje for today: it is for the lower classes. It whitens them and incorporates them to a national us while also separating them from the white-white elite. And it neutralizes those truer and darker others who might revolt, or be truly different.

Plans: tomorrow Saturday I will work, although I am not sure on what: either my files generally, or my abstracts, but it will be about this tripartite piece although I will not force linear progress. Sunday I will do outdoor things.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning I will have a writing push and YES I will insist on linear progress. I might spend all of Monday morning on mapping … and what I am NOT doing until 5 PM is reading news.

Thursday and Friday I will keep going, although it will not be a push, and Saturday the 6th I’ll go to town and work . . . Sunday the 7th is that film, and I could go to Baton Rouge early and work, and Monday through Wednesday, there comes that push again, and get those abstracts in before the 10th.

Thursday the 10th is a day off but I’ll work Saturday the 13th. I think. When is the best time to go to Houston? Can I go to Austin?

Axé.

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28/06/2019 · 10:13

Current evaluations of teaching

This proposal is quite interesting. We used to evaluate teaching with something more than Yelp-style reviews, yes.

Axé.

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19/06/2019 · 16:41

Very well.

I have finished ordering books on the one little grant and now I will order the rest on the other. I need the Galaxia Gutenberg García Lorca complete works in four volumes, and they are available for 200 € plus shipping from La Central. I also need the Cátedra edition of Así que pasen cinco años and El público as good an edition of the essays and manifestos as I can get.

I have to find out how to use my little university grant, to do this. I must also use it to reserve that room, for that talk.

Axé.

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