coldhearted scientist وداد

Weak first draft of conclusion (it looks fine here but I don’t think I can include all of this)

07/03/2020

That point has been raised before (Castillo/Tabuenca) and responded to by Mariana Ortega. The problem is twofold. One issue, as scholars like Irwin (2001), Castillo and Tabuenca (2002), Saldaña-Portillo (2003), Castillo (2006) and Medina (2008) have noted, is that the borderlands in Anzaldúa’s model are very specifically the United States side of the Mexican border. … More Weak first draft of conclusion (it looks fine here but I don’t think I can include all of this)

Film on the Spanish Civil War

04/03/2020

What would you teach for this? (Side note: McClennen’s Globalization and Latin American Cinema costs hundreds of dollars; if not, I might use it as a textbook for a different film course.) La lengua de las mariposas – Raza – Dragón rapide/Encontrarás dragones – Cría cuervos – ¡Ay Carmela! – Land and freedom – El … More Film on the Spanish Civil War

Cecilia again

03/03/2020

Glissant in Poétique de la relation talks about the mestizo as the one who confounds categories, disturbs whiteness. That’s not how they’re constructed in Spanish America, they’re a nation-building category. But it does seem to be how Cecilia works in Cecilia Valdés. Is this further evidence of that novel being written in the United States … More Cecilia again

(María) Socorro Tabuenca (Córdoba)

02/03/2020

Tabuenca has written a great deal more, but all of it would have to come by interlibrary loan, so I am saving that reading for the next time I write on Anzaldúa. In another key, this is her interesting syllabus. * Then there is the Robert Irwin article (see 518-519 on Anzaldúa, and the discussion … More (María) Socorro Tabuenca (Córdoba)

Discerning darkness

28/02/2020

Inspired by a Nation article on Toni Morrison: white literature is sprinkled with racial eruptions, that we are not supposed to see. But they are there to remind us that we are not the ones who will suffer from capitalism / colonialism / slavery. As noted, we are trained not to see them, but if … More Discerning darkness

Rubén Medina

25/02/2020

I have to read that old Robert Young book, Colonial Desire. I never did. Meanwhile, Rubén Medina is a smart person I met randomly at one MLA early on, and who has been smart since. I need to find an old article of his, “Gloria Anzaldúa: The Politicsand Poetics of Mestizaje”, in Crítica: A Journal … More Rubén Medina

Le calvinisme et le travail

23/02/2020

Yesterday this illness I have had came upon me again and I wanted to go to sleep for the night at 7:17 PM. I said: you cannot do that, you must read at least one article and answer one e-mail, it won’t be too much. But it took me until after midnight to really read … More Le calvinisme et le travail

The neoliberal self

22/02/2020

This is the key to my article “Language and the entrepreneurial university.” How did we get here without realizing it? I saw the signs of it in the 70s and then 80s, and I felt the change happening in the 90s and early 00s but did not understand it, although I had a couple of … More The neoliberal self

More academic, more leftist, more actually political

31/01/2020

…and we will try… Axé.

Borderlands

15/01/2020

The thing about Anzaldúa’s book is that it is not just about any borderlands, it is about a specific region. Yes, I know she extrapolates a great deal from there, but it is STILL into largely US based theory (gone global). But it is from a region and the writing voice does have an identity, … More Borderlands

Writing in Memory of Paulo Freire