My family came to visit this weekend. Within five minutes of arriving, the following conversation ensued:
Mom: "So how are things going? I know you've been so busy lately..."
Me: "Ugh. To be honest, this week has been insane. I finally finished grading midterms and papers, and doing that while trying to catch up on other work since spring break has just made everything so much crazier. And, I have a paper due on Monday! I swear, I've been so busy, I literally haven't had time to eat."
Mom: "Oh, I was just thinking that you looked like you lost weight. You should be busy more often!"
Me: "Um. Thanks?"
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
newty g makes a comeback.
From The New Yorker:
"Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, is a reader--and something of a postermodern interpreter--of the works of Albert Camus and George Orwell. A few days before President Obama's big health-care 'summit,' Gingrich addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference. He cited Camus's, 'The Plague,' summarizing its message with Jack Nicholsonian authoritativeness: 'The authorities can't stand the truth.'"
Camus! At CPAC! He is rolling in his grave, surely. Where do you come up with this stuff, Newty G? And why do I still think you are strangely awesome?
"Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, is a reader--and something of a postermodern interpreter--of the works of Albert Camus and George Orwell. A few days before President Obama's big health-care 'summit,' Gingrich addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference. He cited Camus's, 'The Plague,' summarizing its message with Jack Nicholsonian authoritativeness: 'The authorities can't stand the truth.'"
Camus! At CPAC! He is rolling in his grave, surely. Where do you come up with this stuff, Newty G? And why do I still think you are strangely awesome?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
lessons learned.
Things I have learned so far in grad school:
1. When you are speaking, no one is listening to you.
2. In any grad seminar someone will repeat exactly what you just said five minutes ago and act as if it was entirely their own idea in the first place.
3. All undergrads assume that grads students a) live on campus and b) have unlimited free time and nothing to do except answer their questions.
4. Political theory grad students are very awkward creatures.
5. Awkwardness is a state of mind.
1. When you are speaking, no one is listening to you.
2. In any grad seminar someone will repeat exactly what you just said five minutes ago and act as if it was entirely their own idea in the first place.
3. All undergrads assume that grads students a) live on campus and b) have unlimited free time and nothing to do except answer their questions.
4. Political theory grad students are very awkward creatures.
5. Awkwardness is a state of mind.
Monday, February 15, 2010
a flood of weber.
I'm sure you all doubt my ridiculous talk of cosmic academic coincidences. But please, seriously, someone needs to explain to me how it's possible that, having never been assigned to read Max Weber before, I have read him already four times this semester, and in four different classes. Twenty-four years of Weber-less existence, and now, he is everywhere. Is this not a very strange coincidence? Is it not academically cosmic!? Come on!
(Those of you who took sosc at Chicago will object to my never having read Weber before, but unlike the rest of you my third quarter of sosc was taught by the world's most ridiculous professor (Gopal, I am still angry with you, FYI) and we spent so much time reading Marx we never got to Weber. I kid you not: We spent at least three classes discussing On The Jewish Question.)
I hope this flood of Weber ends better than my year of reading Nietzsche, which was not at all pleasant. So far it's going better, but in general it seems to me that an overdose of any kind of depressed German can't be healthy in the long run. But as long as I don't end up with a tattoo that reads "fundamental doubt is the father of knowledge," I think everything will be ok.
(Those of you who took sosc at Chicago will object to my never having read Weber before, but unlike the rest of you my third quarter of sosc was taught by the world's most ridiculous professor (Gopal, I am still angry with you, FYI) and we spent so much time reading Marx we never got to Weber. I kid you not: We spent at least three classes discussing On The Jewish Question.)
I hope this flood of Weber ends better than my year of reading Nietzsche, which was not at all pleasant. So far it's going better, but in general it seems to me that an overdose of any kind of depressed German can't be healthy in the long run. But as long as I don't end up with a tattoo that reads "fundamental doubt is the father of knowledge," I think everything will be ok.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
the position of total neurosis.
I have never wanted to be a teacher. Not even in a moment of vocational weakness have ever thought, "well, there's always teaching." This is fairly unusual, especially for someone who has always loved school. Teaching always seemed really difficult, though, and it involves the one thing I hate most: performing for a crowd. In light of this, you may reasonably ask, why would I ever think that it was a good idea to get a PhD in a subject that has teaching as its inevitable end? An excellent question, and one that I have no satisfactory answer for, so please, don't ask me.
In any case, I am now in the position where I not only have to assistant teach, but I'm leading discussion sections for a class which is on a topic I'm not particularly well-versed in. The subject of the class is politics, of course, but it's not really my kind of politics, which is to say that there are occasionally numbers and charts involved. I admit, I have yet to fully appreciate the science part of political science.
It's not clear to me, however, that I would be more comfortable teaching a subject that I do know a lot about. If I knew more about what I'm teaching I might very well realize even more clearly that I have no idea what I'm saying. This would only make matters worse. I spoke to Gremlin about this, and she suggests that there are three possible ways to teach something:
1. Total ignorance: you read something once and then pretend you know something coherent about it and the subject it's on.
2. Partial ignorance: you read something once or twice, but have read some other related things and have a half-formed grasp on the subject in general.
3. Relative Non-ignorance: You've read something a bunch of times, have read lots of other related things, have written on the subject and basically know a whole lot about it.
Gremlin and I agree that there would be nothing worse than teaching from position #2. In Partial Ignorance, you know enough to know there are many different points of view, but you don't know enough to really understand your own point of view, which invariably results in a half-assed presentation of confusion. In position #1, you don't know enough about the topic to appreciate the vagaries of it, and so have the ability to seem confident even when, in reality, you have no idea what's happening. Position #3 is, of course, the best position to teach from, but apparently one only reaches this point at the end of grad school. Which is why, I assume, most schools don't let grad students teach until their third or fourth year in the program, and even then only in their area of specialty. I should be so lucky.
Despite all of this insanity and anxiety about teaching, objectively I know that I can do nothing except shut up and deal with it, which is pretty much what everyone I've talked to about my predicament has suggested I do. I can't get fired, after all; I can only look stupid. Worse things have happened.
I've also realized that, consciously or unconsciously, I set myself up for this kind of grief. I volunteered to go to grad school, didn't I? It's my own damn fault. And this isn't the first time I've set myself up like this, either. In college, for example, I volunteered to write a BA thesis, which meant that I had to participate in a BA thesis seminar, which ensured that I would have to conquer a pathological fear I had had since grade school: letting other people, people who were not my teachers, read my writing. I can't explain it, but this was a long-standing problem for me; not even my mother had ever been allowed to read my papers. And yet, I volunteered to write a BA. Even worse, I ended up kind of enjoying my BA seminar.
And here I am, yet again, volunteering to do things I profess to dislike. There is something very wrong with me.
In any case, I am now in the position where I not only have to assistant teach, but I'm leading discussion sections for a class which is on a topic I'm not particularly well-versed in. The subject of the class is politics, of course, but it's not really my kind of politics, which is to say that there are occasionally numbers and charts involved. I admit, I have yet to fully appreciate the science part of political science.
It's not clear to me, however, that I would be more comfortable teaching a subject that I do know a lot about. If I knew more about what I'm teaching I might very well realize even more clearly that I have no idea what I'm saying. This would only make matters worse. I spoke to Gremlin about this, and she suggests that there are three possible ways to teach something:
1. Total ignorance: you read something once and then pretend you know something coherent about it and the subject it's on.
2. Partial ignorance: you read something once or twice, but have read some other related things and have a half-formed grasp on the subject in general.
3. Relative Non-ignorance: You've read something a bunch of times, have read lots of other related things, have written on the subject and basically know a whole lot about it.
Gremlin and I agree that there would be nothing worse than teaching from position #2. In Partial Ignorance, you know enough to know there are many different points of view, but you don't know enough to really understand your own point of view, which invariably results in a half-assed presentation of confusion. In position #1, you don't know enough about the topic to appreciate the vagaries of it, and so have the ability to seem confident even when, in reality, you have no idea what's happening. Position #3 is, of course, the best position to teach from, but apparently one only reaches this point at the end of grad school. Which is why, I assume, most schools don't let grad students teach until their third or fourth year in the program, and even then only in their area of specialty. I should be so lucky.
Despite all of this insanity and anxiety about teaching, objectively I know that I can do nothing except shut up and deal with it, which is pretty much what everyone I've talked to about my predicament has suggested I do. I can't get fired, after all; I can only look stupid. Worse things have happened.
I've also realized that, consciously or unconsciously, I set myself up for this kind of grief. I volunteered to go to grad school, didn't I? It's my own damn fault. And this isn't the first time I've set myself up like this, either. In college, for example, I volunteered to write a BA thesis, which meant that I had to participate in a BA thesis seminar, which ensured that I would have to conquer a pathological fear I had had since grade school: letting other people, people who were not my teachers, read my writing. I can't explain it, but this was a long-standing problem for me; not even my mother had ever been allowed to read my papers. And yet, I volunteered to write a BA. Even worse, I ended up kind of enjoying my BA seminar.
And here I am, yet again, volunteering to do things I profess to dislike. There is something very wrong with me.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
seven year itch.
In an attempt not to become a hopelessly lame grad student who does nothing but read political theory, I went to a lecture at the Corcoran last night. The speaker was Stefan Sagmeister, who is apparently a very famous designer, mostly of album covers, but who I had never heard of until a friend of mine invited me to the lecture. The subject was happiness and design, and Sagmeister, who is quite charming and very European, was incredibly entertaining.
I have absolutely no talent for design, which will certainly not come as a shock to anyone who has seen this blog, but my ineptitude has not stopped me from being genuinely interested in the subject. I like the way design is not quite a fine art while not being entirely practical, either. It can be frivolous in a way that architecture is not, while serving a much more functional purpose than something like sculpture or drawing. It's also a huge field; I'm particularly obsessed with book cover design and fonts, but there are a whole host of different ways to be a designer, and sometimes it's easy to overlook just how pervasive design can actually be. If you have seen the movie Helvetica, you will understand what I mean.
Anyway, all that is actually beside the point, because while the lecture was quite good, the most interesting part had nothing to do with design: it had to do with what Sagmeister calls his "seven year itch." In short, every seven years Sagmeister takes a whole 12 months off. He takes no clients, and devotes that entire year to exploring new ideas and indulging in experimentation without any expectations. Most of the lecture was spent defending this practice, and explaining how it makes him not only a happier person, but also a better designer. Being phenomenally successful, and possibly a tad eccentric, are obviously key to making this kind of lifestyle possible, but I have to say, I think it's a phenomenally good idea. It's tempting to consider this as a kind of sabbatical, but sabbaticals are usually used (at least in academia) to finish writing books, which, while undoubtedly useful, is not particularly experimental and carries very definite expectations.
What I have in mind is instead something closer to what Marilynne Robinson did after the success of her first book. Rumor has it that, instead of immediately starting her next novel, as most successful authors do, she took several years off and did very little except read. Not just literature, but also history and theology and philosophy. And this is why she can write so well on such a wide range of topics, which is what makes her, I think, such an excellent writer, both in her fiction and non-fiction. Robinson's seven year itch lasted longer than Sagmeister's, but nonetheless, it speaks to the same kind of commitment to experimentation and curiosity. The attraction of this idea goes back to an obsession I have with being interdisciplinary; it seems that the deeper I go into my specific discipline, the more obsessed I am with not being stuck in it.
In short, since I got to take most of 2009 off to travel and read and lay around New York, I am now thinking that I'll do it again seven years from now. Even if that turns out to be impossible, I think that just the idea could make surviving the next seven years much, much easier.
I have absolutely no talent for design, which will certainly not come as a shock to anyone who has seen this blog, but my ineptitude has not stopped me from being genuinely interested in the subject. I like the way design is not quite a fine art while not being entirely practical, either. It can be frivolous in a way that architecture is not, while serving a much more functional purpose than something like sculpture or drawing. It's also a huge field; I'm particularly obsessed with book cover design and fonts, but there are a whole host of different ways to be a designer, and sometimes it's easy to overlook just how pervasive design can actually be. If you have seen the movie Helvetica, you will understand what I mean.
Anyway, all that is actually beside the point, because while the lecture was quite good, the most interesting part had nothing to do with design: it had to do with what Sagmeister calls his "seven year itch." In short, every seven years Sagmeister takes a whole 12 months off. He takes no clients, and devotes that entire year to exploring new ideas and indulging in experimentation without any expectations. Most of the lecture was spent defending this practice, and explaining how it makes him not only a happier person, but also a better designer. Being phenomenally successful, and possibly a tad eccentric, are obviously key to making this kind of lifestyle possible, but I have to say, I think it's a phenomenally good idea. It's tempting to consider this as a kind of sabbatical, but sabbaticals are usually used (at least in academia) to finish writing books, which, while undoubtedly useful, is not particularly experimental and carries very definite expectations.
What I have in mind is instead something closer to what Marilynne Robinson did after the success of her first book. Rumor has it that, instead of immediately starting her next novel, as most successful authors do, she took several years off and did very little except read. Not just literature, but also history and theology and philosophy. And this is why she can write so well on such a wide range of topics, which is what makes her, I think, such an excellent writer, both in her fiction and non-fiction. Robinson's seven year itch lasted longer than Sagmeister's, but nonetheless, it speaks to the same kind of commitment to experimentation and curiosity. The attraction of this idea goes back to an obsession I have with being interdisciplinary; it seems that the deeper I go into my specific discipline, the more obsessed I am with not being stuck in it.
In short, since I got to take most of 2009 off to travel and read and lay around New York, I am now thinking that I'll do it again seven years from now. Even if that turns out to be impossible, I think that just the idea could make surviving the next seven years much, much easier.
Friday, December 18, 2009
an open letter to ridiculous people.
Dear Female Undergrad Student Body,
It is 39ยบ degrees here in Washington, DC today. That's pretty cold. Not Chicago in January, mind you, but still, it's cold enough. Indeed, it is cold enough for me to be wearing leggings, knee-length socks, leather boots, corduroy pants, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, a winter coat, gloves and a scarf. My walk to the bus this morning was pleasingly comfortable; not too warm, not too cold. And yet, when I arrived on campus, I spied you, Female Undergrad Student Body, being absolutely ridiculous, and wearing NO PANTS.
Seriously, Female Undergrad Student Body, I realize that pants can be constraining; they dig into your hips while you sit all day in the library writing papers, they sometimes make weird sounds as your legs rub together when you walk, buying them costs money, etc. I understand, I really do, because oftentimes the first thing I do when I get home at night is take off my pants. But you see, Female Undergrad Student Body, the key difference here is that I take off my pants at home while you wander around campus wearing only leggings. Leggings are not pants. And judging by how cold your ass must be right now, surely you can realize this.
The university you attend costs $35,000 a year. If you can afford that (and judging by the Uggs you're wearing, you probably can) then there is no reason to be walking around in your underwear.
Toastily yours,
Julia
It is 39ยบ degrees here in Washington, DC today. That's pretty cold. Not Chicago in January, mind you, but still, it's cold enough. Indeed, it is cold enough for me to be wearing leggings, knee-length socks, leather boots, corduroy pants, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, a winter coat, gloves and a scarf. My walk to the bus this morning was pleasingly comfortable; not too warm, not too cold. And yet, when I arrived on campus, I spied you, Female Undergrad Student Body, being absolutely ridiculous, and wearing NO PANTS.
Seriously, Female Undergrad Student Body, I realize that pants can be constraining; they dig into your hips while you sit all day in the library writing papers, they sometimes make weird sounds as your legs rub together when you walk, buying them costs money, etc. I understand, I really do, because oftentimes the first thing I do when I get home at night is take off my pants. But you see, Female Undergrad Student Body, the key difference here is that I take off my pants at home while you wander around campus wearing only leggings. Leggings are not pants. And judging by how cold your ass must be right now, surely you can realize this.
The university you attend costs $35,000 a year. If you can afford that (and judging by the Uggs you're wearing, you probably can) then there is no reason to be walking around in your underwear.
Toastily yours,
Julia
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