Entries from March 2008

March 31, 2008

Mañanitas de César Chávez

César Chávez ¡Presente! Hoy día cumples 81 años y con nosotros los festejas, aunque no te veamos. Hoy en especial, pero también todos los días, nos da aliento tu luminosa presencia: limpia, sencilla, profunda.
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In memory of César Chávez we direct you to Lumpenprofessoriat, who has found an amazing, inspiring Barack Obama Poetry Slam, and to [...]

March 30, 2008

A Modest Proposal

It is the weekend, and I am in New Orleans singing with WWOZ. I have been hanging out at an excellent conference wherein smart professors and graduate students spoke. It has been very refreshing. I feel as though I am beginning to right my sails.
While driving back and forth I considered everyone’s posts on tenure [...]

March 30, 2008

Memorandum 3

To all faculty at Harvard, Michigan, Yale, and similar schools: In your book prefaces, please be a little more discreet about the fun you had writing them. We know your smart graduate students read this book in draft - in fact, to do so was their seminar - and made useful comments. We know you [...]

March 29, 2008

Memorandum 2

To all students with cute nicknames: The time to introduce these nicknames to me or to the class is not when you are in a desperate circumstance and need a special favor. The effort to portray yourself as a kitten or puppy by suddenly beginning to sign your e-mails “Mikey” or “‘Becca” is very transparent. [...]

March 29, 2008

Memorandum 1

This is the first of seven memoranda to seven groups, ranging loosely from the least irritating to the most. 
To all “non-denominational” “Christian” students: I understand very well that your home-schooling mother and your pastor may have given you to understand that you, like them, are members of a superior species, and that in this life [...]

March 28, 2008

On the Tenure Track

I
I had always heard that being on the tenure track was a terrible thing, but I liked it. This is largely because before I got the idea of going to graduate school and discovered I was doing well there, I thought my destiny was to become a Receptionist or a Homemaker. I considered the [...]

March 27, 2008

On Not Getting Tenure


There have been so many posts about the destructiveness of the tenure system that I would like to say something more about this. I, as people paying close attention to this blog may already know, did not get tenure.
It was not at all traumatic, as I had seen it coming. After my mid tenure review [...]

March 26, 2008

On Sincerity

Over a year ago I had an argument with a blogger in which he accused me of insincerity. One of his blog friends looked at the exchange and said that actually, I was sincere “to a fault.”
This was very interesting and I have thought about it since from time to time. I was first accused [...]

March 25, 2008

E-mail from da Whiteman

I wrote the post below some time ago. I thought - and think - the student was being manipulative and out of line in general. I still do but I also wonder sometimes in these situations: who is behaving towards her as she is behaving towards me?
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WM: I missed my oral presentation last week, because [...]

March 25, 2008

Day of Blogging for Voter Justice

Today I join Tom, among others, in Blogging for Voter Justice. Both of the links given in the last sentence explain how to participate and why you might want to join.
Remember, I do not agree with Barack Obama’s politics. The first time I voted in a Presidential primary I voted for Jesse Jackson, whose politics [...]