Someone I know, a Cajun, said yesterday that they had “deep grief” over the same kinds of issues in this culture that I complain of. In their case, they cannot see their family because of it, and they grieve this and the situation. So that is what I have, in part, deep grief. What other … More “Deep grief”
Now we are getting somewhere. It was in many ways literally true that I had to let that department chair abuse me, which he did in the name of the Cajuns, to survive. And I needed to survive. I gave up a great deal for it, and the whole experience reproduced earlier trauma, and I … More Still more on the latest episode of disgust
I don’t ever want to feel as I did [yesterday] again. Or for the past 27 years living in Lafayette. Therefore, this is what I have to say to the Cajuns of that Cajun Renaissance: yes, I have a PhD, and if you say so, yes, it’s better than yours. Yes, I’ve got broader academic … More Epistle to the Cajuns
Right, in a broader sense the revolution I’m in was lost 50 years ago and I know it. But my not wanting to be defeated is this: I don’t feel like quitting the university without another university job, it’s just that in my particular department religious adoration of the suffering Cajuns is required at all … More Something I said to a friend
Be on time, not in a rush. Put self first. Reach to the outside and to students, everyone else to the background. Two weeks in California in December. People don’t get to invade me and if they do, I get to stop them at the first opportunity. Other people may need to be more flexible, … More New Year
“After this year it seems pretty clear that universities have no backbone, the enlightenment values you and I were raised with have been abandoned (Post-modernists share a lot of the blame but that is a different essay). The process began with civil rights and anti-war movements when the ruling class decided the civics, history, and … More From friends
I always have liked Benjamin and actually, I would learn German to read him in the original, and maybe Goethe. The true picture of the past whizzes by. Only as a picture, which flashes its final farewell in the moment of its recognizability, is the past to be held fast. “The truth will not run … More Epigraphs for my novel, and revelations
From a Cajun friend: “There is a certain variety of active ignorance that is treated as virtue by white Louisianians. You hear them browbeat each other over their shitty beers at get-togethers, etc.” That’s exactly it. On French vs. Spanish, Spanish is far more cosmopolitan, and French is far more standardized.Spanish has more tenses, more … More The political analysis
I wonder if my exasperation with the non-disabled students who claim to have a personality or “learning style” making it impossible for them to do the work in Spanish 4 has to do with repressed anger at an administration who also claims to be impaired and require indulgence. I mean, they’re encumbered and limited by … More Still on that topic
I seem to see the forces in the university who press to dismantle programs and work against students and faculty as a truly lethal threat. And because they wrap themselves in the Cajun flag and say they are poor oppressed Cajuns trying to support other Cajuns, and play Cajun music, I end up angry at … More So what have we learned?
