People have been talking about this blog quite a lot–even in academia, which is why this entry may be quite fitting:
There are some entries that are rather haphazardly put together, but a number of them are witty and entertaining. Enjoy.
Day 374: Depeche Mode
Yes, if you like them, you must have liked my blog recently (lame “Enjoy the Silence” reference).
Explanation: stuff is going on and I don’t want to jinx it. Also, chances for that stuff that’s going on to actually happen (i.e. produce results) are really slim, so I have to force myself not to think about it, which has the same effect as someone telling you not to think of an elephant (you think of an elephant–just in case that wasn’t clear). But: stuff may or may not be happening.
Other current projects that take up my time:
1. I am training for the first annual Summarizing Infinite Jest World Championship.
2. I am preparing the launch of my new line of merchandise–evidently you don’t have to be famous any more these days to release your own fashion/fragrance line (mine will include shirts with my confused faced as standard logo and a variety of lines that say things such as “Heisenberg may or may not have been here” — my current fragrance that will be released later this week is “Eau D’Espair for Men”–it will be part of a Humanities Ph.D. toiletry set).
3. I am advising a friend on the pros and cons of getting various Greimas-squares tattoos.
Just thought I’d bring you up to speed.
Day 347: It’s Bakhtin Time!
Yes, it is true: the dialogic imagination is in the house! (Maybe, if we’re all really lucky and keep our fingers crossed, the dialectic may even stop by–that is, as long as the dialogic does not deteriorate, as is common, into the logic of the carnivalesque).
Ok, enough pseudo-comedic references to weird Russians. The point of this post: the course blog for my Multiethnic U.S. literature class is off the ground (and, in case I have not yet mentioned this yet, my Intro to Multiethnic U.S. literature course this spring is now 25% more multi-ethnic–for the same price–what a great deal!). Students have posted their first response papers and now it is up to the online community to test their logic. What this means is, that I invite you to read some posts and comment on critical method, logic, ask further questions, or voice your criticism. This, of course, should not be competely devastating (remember: they are beginning literature students and this is a general education course), but, as you will see, there are problems with logic and underdeveloped arguments that need to be pointed out–i.e. students need to get into the habit of thinking through their arguments/analyses/logical frameworks in detail and more carefully before releasing them into the world. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. The next set of papers on Octavia Butler will be posted by Monday.
to visit the site, click this link:
Day 341: Multiethnic Literature
This semester I am experimenting a bit with alternative teaching and writing formats in my course on Multiethnic Literatures of the U.S. I have created a course blog that will be (at some point–hopefully) pretty much completely student-run. Students are signed up as contributors/authors and will post short responses, as well as longer critical essays on novels. The point of the blog is to ensure that students don’t simply write each paper in one long all-nighter every four weeks. Instead, I want them to be responsible for taking care of and respond to outside comments on their writings (and to each others’ posts). This will hopefully get them into a regular writing routine, which, so I hope, will result in more carefully framed research questions and more complicated critical arguments.
I therefore invite all of you to visit this blog and participate in the discussions, since even very brief comments, ideas and, criticism will help them think through problems more critically. To that end, this blog will not only focus on literary and cultural issues, but also invites students and outside readers to discuss the social and political problems that are mediated by cultural production. The general topic of my course this semester is “race, diversity, neoliberalism.”
You can visit the blog here:
http://multiethnicliterature.edublogs.org/
Check back often for constantly updated student writing (the first batch of papers will be posted next Thursday)–we all greatly appreciate your feedback. Also, feel free to spread the word about this, send the url to people you know, or maybe even advertise the blidget (the blog is also available as a blog widget for your own blog, facebook, etc.)–this would help us a lot and hopefully ensure that we get some outside comments. Thanks–cj
Day 326: Back Again and Almost Sober
Yes, I have re-emerged from the swamp of self-pity and alcohol abuse I was caught in for about a month (which climaxed spectacularly over the course of Christmas, which I exclusively spent with myself, the movie theater, bars, beer, shots, and, for good measure, the occasional Irish car bomb) and have entered the (ironically quite Bruce Willis-ean “with a vengeance”) “fuck it, I’ll keep working my ass off and show you what you passed up” stage. The last I have to say about what transpired in the last two to three months is this: you thought 2 girls 1 cup was disturbing and emotionally scarring? Try 400 Ph.D.s 1 job! You can catch it annually at the MLA convention.
As far as blogging is concerned, this site will from now on return to its roots and accompany me in the next three to four months as I finish revising/writing the last two chapters of my dissertation (we are at the moment looking at 8 chapters, excluding intro and conclusion, of which about 6 1/2 exist in more or less completed stages). Concretely, this means that I will not be posting about whiny job market and personal life shite any more (part of the elaborate process of repression I have developed in order to replace perpetual inebriation–for practical reasons: it’s a lot cheaper) and will instead return to posts on (critical) theory and contemporary issues in literary/cultural studies.
hope everyone’s well out there and had a good start into the new year–cheers,
cj
Day 299: I’m Sorry
I know I’ve been increasingly digitally (as well as physically) anti-social for the last, well, weeks and months, actually. My thoughts are just completely colonized by job market and writing issues and this to the extent that I am finding it hard to sleep at night. This week I’ve in fact been trying to contact Sam Elliott, asking him to read me Cormac McCarthy novels to help me fall asleep (which seems like one of the most effective forms of relaxation to me–it’s a voice thing). Alas, it seems as though this plan will not work out. He’s busy with some movie.
Apart from harassing actors, I am currently trying to write an article on 9/11, the desiring structures the event produced and their effect on contemporary cultural production. I also gave my first finals this week and have to grade them along with my first stack of final papers (I’ll be getting more next week–those that are still in preparation will probably be sent to me in draft form over the weekend for comments and suggestions, so I’ll have to do a round of pre-grading as well). Additionally, I have to start working on two other writing projects, which I may initially have to put on the back burner for a while, since I have my departmental mock job interview on Thursday. Our department sets these up to prepare us for the real thing. They assemble a committee that will simulate real conditions (or ideally, conditions that are tougher than that). Fun fact about my committee: one of the members will be Gerald Graff. Despite the fact that this scares me somewhat, I figure if I am able to do half way well in the eyes of the actual PRESIDENT of the MLA, the actual MLA interviews should not freak me out too much any more, right?
Ok, that’s about it for now. I’ll try to be better about posting in the future–the overall pace of my life surely has to slow down sometime and leave me room for posting etc. again, no?
Day 216: Know Your Enemy…
… is a fantastic song. However, it has nothing to do with what follows. Or does it? No, no. Not really. I am a very friendly person. That is, if you are not…
ok, this may take too long 🙂
I have been tagged by anaj to answer 19 questions. Apparently, this is some new thing going around the blogosphere. I wonder: why 19? And who cares? (Do we actually care to find out something of substance about the people whose blog we read? Is this really an attempt to build a social community that has depth? Or is this purely an exercise in narcissism? I suspect it may be the latter. Seriously, Hardt and Negri aside, isn’t the social component of the internet less about finding and connecting with someone you find interesting than doing things so that lots of people will find you interesting–the desire to connect seems less democratic than purely flowing into one single direction [i.e. the enjoyment arising from building a community of virtual stalkers who stalk an ideally, digitally projected version of yourself?–i.e. is the the consentual, collective creation of social simulacra?]) In this spirit, here are my answers:
1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.
I have LOTS of scars. I used to be both a very stupid child and a rather self-destructive teenager. There are also lots of weird medical or embarassing stories to tell here. Ask me if you really want to hear more. (Ok–one quick, harmless one: I have a big scar on my upper lip that is the result of a toilet door splitting my lip completely in the middle (vertically)–was hard to get back together but now it is not too noticeable)
2. What does your phone look like? List your reasons to buy it?
It is black and silver. It is scratched and banged up. It allows me to communicate with people who are otherwise not visually or audibly accessible to me.
3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?
A Che flag and a painting/collection of quotes of Sacco and Vanzetti. Oh, and a Metropolis poster and prints of van Gogh’s Guernica and Man with Guitar.
4. What is your current desktop picture?
Yves Tanguy, Indefinite Divisibility
5. Do you believe in gay marriage?
I don’t believe in marriage, period. However, I also believe that craziness is not specific to gender or sexual orientation, so if a gay person is really crazy enough to want to get married, he/she should be allowed to express his/her craziness in the same way heterosexual people are allowed to do.
6. What do you want more than anything right now?
I want to be done with my dissertation and have a job lined up so I can concentrate on drinking and hiking through the desert/mountains by myself for a few months.
7 . What time were you born?
no idea
8. Are your parents still together?
nope
9. Last person who made you cry?
Don’t want to say.
10. What is your favorite perfume / cologne?
Cool Water (that is what I use most frequently, at least)
11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?
Every combination, really (well, red and white is a little freaky but who am I to judge–I had a bunny once who could make that shit work!). I have to admit, however, that I do have a serious fetish for black hair and bright blue eyes.
12. What are you listening to? Why?
Wind in trees. My window is open.
13. Do you get scared of the dark?
If I do, I pretend to be Chuck Norris and then the dark gets scared of me.
14. Do you like painkillers?
Muchly.
15. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
Yes. In fact, I have never done so.
16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
Anything that would require outdoor fire/barbecue to be prepared, which in turn would require me drinking beer while preparing it, which would mean that I am done with writing for the next few days, because otherwise I would not have time to do this.
17. Who was the last person who made you mad?
Myself.
18. List one habit you have that has the potential to annoy people?
I tend to isolate myself for long periods of time and unintentionally alienate people when I write (it is apparently quite annoying, bordering on the cruel).
19. Who was the last person who made you smile?
Someone in the street who gave me what seemed to be a really big, uninhibited and honest smile and said: “hi!” this morning when I got back from buying coffee. Isn’t that just the best beginning for a day?
I guess I also have to tag other people. Let’s see. I hereby tag: Joanna, Shannon, Red Crochet, Dejan, caveblogem and ELECTRA.
Day 200: 200 Days of Blogging, 1 Day of Not Smoking
Ok, I didn’t really blog every single one of those 200 days. It has been more like 200 days and 109 posts, so a little more than every second day, which is not bad but I would really like to improve upon that quota and get to about a 75% success rate in the fight against laziness.
The not smoking thing: it is killing me. Seriously. I had a job market meeting today, which freaked the hell out of me and marked the beginning of a very stressful period. Smoking a cigarette after this meeting outside University Hall (which is how I usually respond to this kind of psycho-terror) would have been soooo nice. But I remained strong (and instead began wiggling my fingers and toes, a desperate surrogate action that has not stopped yet–hard to type this way). I also went to Whole Foods and got a salad for dinner. I am so healthy right now it’s making me sick.
Today, I also read Vol. 9 of Y: The Last Man–and it was goooood. I never smoked after sex but this was a satisfying experience that truly needed to be celebrated with a good cigarette after. But, again, I remained strong (well, at least I did not give in to my craving–strong may be too flattering a description of my current state). Hmmm…now that I think about it: strange that I never used to smoke after sex. It just never appealed to me. Maybe this means that I should have a LOT of sex, since this may help me not to smoke. Sounds like a reasonable plan, no?
Oh, I also went to a new coffee shop today. Metropolis. I liked it. Good coffee. Lots of people studying. Maybe a little hip for me, now that I am all old n’ shite.
Day 185: A Brief Glance Into Spook Country
Here two short excerpts from Spook Country I felt like sharing. This is not yet the in-depth approach to the novel I will try to begin posting here soon–it is simply me sharing some passages I liked.
1. A passage that shows Gibson can write and this in a style I appreciate. Also, I love the subtle theoretical argument included here regarding contemporary structures of feeling. Gibson is one of the reasons the title of my dissertation became Nostalgia for the Future.
After they’d had a look at Alberto’s memorial to Helmut Newton, which involved a lot of vaguely Deco-styled monochrome nudity in honor of its subject’s body of work, she walked back to the Mondrian through that weird evanescent moment that belongs to every sunny morning in West Hollywood, when some strange perpetual promise of chlorophyll and hidden, warming fruit graces the air, just before the hydrocarbon blanket settles in. That sense of some peripheral and prelapsarian beauty, of something a little more than a hundred years past, but in that moment achingly present, as though the city were something you could wipe from your glasses and forget.
2. And we’re back in Cayce Pollard’s universe, indeed:
But think about blogs, how each one is actually trying to describe reality.
They are?
In theory.
Okay.
But when you look at blogs, where you’re most likely to find the real info is in the links. It’s contextual, and not only who the blog’s linked to, but who’s linked the blog.
Day 176: The Last Week
Dear all,
I have been a bad blogger again. So sorry. The reason for my longer absence was sadly not connected to sunshine, lakes and beer but to an insane writing load. I was a good boy, though and finished a dissertation chapter, began revising the first two chapters, wrote an article that will hopefully be accepted for an edited collection to be published in Germany and am at the moment in the process of writing another article for a collection and preparing an article that will hopefully be part of a 2008 special issue of Antipode. So, lots on my plate. The positive aspect of all this is that the article I am writing at the moment is on the TV show Lost (reading the show as a mediation and at times critique of a specific post-9/11 structure of feeling), which is a fun piece to write. I have to admit, throwing some theory at pop-culture every once in a while is quite therapeutic in between all the high-theory “high-culture” stuff I usually have to work on. This still does not mean that I generally condone the practice of cultural studies but I do see the necessity of engaging with mass culture on a very serious level, as culture in general is the realm in which political opinions and subjectivities are not only formed but also proliferated and contested. Such is the nature of contemporary capitalism as it dialectically interacts with its sociocultural dimension. (Hence, I do not disagree with cultural studies’ object of study–I disagree with the method–well, I can get on board with some Birmingham School stuff but US CS, as well as Australian CS, are methodologically, if not ideologically, often quite suspect.)
Be that as it may, I have not been sleeping a lot, haven’t been social (including blogging) and I think my dog is getting mad at me as well for not playing with him as much as I should. We usually start the day with a big fight in the yard (if you were able to see my forearms and my hands during the times I am home you would be able to imagine what that looks like). Since I have not been able to do that lately he is more and more often directing his early morning energy at my shoes (he does not destroy them, no, he’s a good, albeit passive-aggressive doggie–he just hides them in the garden). Today, however, I will allow myself half a day of social activity and since I have to be very careful in what kinds of activities I invest my precious time I chose one that is as “social” as it gets: after doing some more writing, my brother and I will drive to Worms, which is where Mainz is playing their first round of the DFB Cup today. Those two teams have been hating each other with a passion for decades now and it promises to be quite an event. Should be fun. I’ll take some pictures and put them on flickr tomorrow.
Oh and a piece of good news: I might be done with my dissertation fairly soon! (Well, relatively speaking–I mean the “soon” as defined by grad-student conceptions of time.) I kinda have a love/hate relationship with that thought, though. I like the idea of being done. However, being done soon is a result of my dissertation director telling me to drop the planned third part of the dissertation, as it is too long already. Part three, she says, could be extended into a separate project, which is a nice idea. However, I really wanted to write that part, had been looking forward to writing it since about February and had it practically all spelled out in terms of extensive notes etc. While I agree with the decision (I already have about 300 pages, excluding intro and conclusion, and have one more chapter to write) this is quite a change in attitude for me. Up until a few days ago my motto was: “I’ll write you–even if it kills me!” (yes, indicating a fight against my dissertation that has become quite personal and at this point resembles more some form of contact sport than a writing project). So, now I only have to write one more chapter, which will happen soon and then revise and polish the already completed ones. After that I’ll be done. Wow. Granted, the revision process will still be a lot of work, take a long time and I’ll be changing a number of things and adding theoretical texts, but it is still a very different feeling compared to the rush of constantly producing new stuff. Well, I am sure I won’t get bored. There is still the psychological torture-fest that is the job market, which will begin in the middle of September. No rest for the wicked.
Cerebral Jetsam 