It is that one is not required to be one’s own enemy. In Reeducation this was required, and a great deal of academic advice is structured in the same way: one is to suspect and mistrust oneself. One could even harbor friendly feelings toward oneself. I have done this sometimes — especially, as I remember, … More I see
I might need a present. One of the beds, which I bought in late graduate school and was wonderful, is having some trouble with the slats and has no headboard. I could repair the slats if I got the right burlap and staples but it would still have no headboard. I am shopping. I have … More A light post
February 16th is the eighth anniversary of this blog; February 17th is the anniversary of my feeling it had actually started. February 17th also marks six months that I have been un-depressed. That was the pre-written post I had planned to have come up now. It is ironic because really I am coming off a … More febrero
I really am not cut out to teach in a foreign language department, and perhaps not in a foreign literature department, either. I did not have these problems in graduate school but they surfaced as soon as I left that institution and they have not left me. 1. Bad foreign language teacher. Too much speaking … More Postscript on teaching
Historiann says this and I am glad to hear not only I have this problem. My unhappiness inadequacy as a professor would be greatly mitigated by a lower teaching load. Here is that journal on syllabi, and we should all publish in it, for many reasons including that it will get us research credit for teaching … More On teaching, the upshot
Jacques Lacan proposed as the axiom of the ethics of psychoanalysis: “Do not compromise your desire.” I am using this quotation for other purposes but you should follow the link and read the article, which has turned me into a Žižekite. It now being the 17th, I am six months un-depressed and I think I will … More Lacan, Žižek
“She opens the world of words and makes you think you have created it yourself.” That is what a good student said about me but these characteristics are not appreciated by all. In any case, I think I should write an essay about the last two days I have spent thinking about the introduction to … More I will write another meta-academic essay, or two
Verbal distinctions should be valued, since they stand for mental – intellectual – distinctions. Yet one feels it is somehow a pity that the word “poet” should have been split asunder. For nowadays when we speak of a poet, we think only of the utterer of such lyric, birdlike notes as “With ships the sea … More The Telling of the Tale
The students have never read any fiction before, of any kind, in any language. What I should be doing is having story hour. In my elementary schools, after lunch, the teacher would read high quality, age appropriate books for a whole hour. I should conceive of this course the way I do of the extracurricular … More How I should be teaching the introduction to the study of literature
Las ilusiones del patriotismo no tienen término. En el primer siglo de nuestra era, Plutarco se burló de quienes declaran que la luna de Atenas es mejor que la luna de Corinto; Milton, en el siglo XVII notó que Dios tenía la costumbre de revelarse primero a Sus ingleses; Fitche, a principios del siglo XIX, … More Nuestro pobre individualismo
