Manuscript Year!

Evolution of a cover letter

2012-02-07T21:54:00.002+01:00

(Cover letter to editor to be mailed along with book proposal.)

Four months ago: "This book makes three important scholarly interventions..."

Today: "This book has a chapter on the gay Nazi (enclosed)."

Failure to befriend sheep

2011-11-29T18:27:00.003+01:00

At long last: victory over funding agency

2011-10-13T22:48:00.004+01:00

CC found a run-on sentence in the instructions of a funder to whom you have probably applied for money more than once, and if you are like me, have been rejected multiple times, despite spending hours of your and your loved one's time ensuring that your proposal contains no run-on sentences.

Cretinism

2011-07-21T17:29:00.008+01:00

In the mid nineteenth century, so I read yesterday, European psychiatrists rushed to cure the dread condition "cretinism" and its attendant intellectual disability, stunted growth, and remarkable facial abnormalities.

But what caused it? Some were like: "hereditary degeneration." Other guys said: living in swampy areas, or soil conditions. They found it spreading in remote villages in the Swiss Alps, with some hamlets entirely populated by "cretins."
(Appenzell--likely former home of many Swiss cretins.)

So, perhaps like you, I am trained to think about culture and imagination, and I am thinking: is this (yet again) elite Europeans gazing at impoverished Europeans and seeing biological degeneration rather than the actual economic and political inequalities producing poverty? But why is this happening in the Swiss Alps, not in urban slums?

So, of course, being a trained historian, I google image searched "cretinism."

OK! And people: that is not just the bourgeois imagination. Indeed, it's hyperthyroidism, caused by iodine deficiency, and it was common in Alpine villages prior to better food distribution systems because the soil in those valleys lacks iodine.

But then the imagination comes back in force, because the theory of "degeneration" so popular in nineteenth century Europe (Morel)--decadent culture, the decline of the race, the madness of the crowd, etc.--began with a study of these Swiss villagers with hyperthyroid. Degeneration won out as the explanation for what ailed them, but actually, the guys who were for the 'bad soil' explanation were correct.

Bibliography
Pick, Faces of Degeneration
Wikipedia

Bananas

2011-04-09T18:12:00.004+01:00

I truly love the heck out of bananas.
You know, it is not like they themselves are the tastiest food ever. It's more like, they just go great in everything. They make everything better! Pancakes, smoothies, frozen blueberries, snack-time when you have nothing else to eat!

You can freeze them and then mash them up with frozen blueberries: so delicious!

People/women, I am mentoring. (Part IV)

2010-11-16T00:35:00.007+01:00

People, I am mentoring me some women and girls. I say: Women!/fellow women! I am mentoring. Mentoring, mentoring, mentoring!

But I am essentially mentoring for free, when I should be doing something else. You know?

Why won't you send me some cash?

You know, this makes me think about: it was all about mentoring in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Women were mentoring the heck--the heck, I say--out of other women and girls. They were mentoring them so much that some of them got the creeps! But then what. The Nazis, that's what. And you know why? 'Cause they didn't get that cash. They mentored, but they had no cash.

Think about that, fellow women.

Brain, brain, go--uh--for it!

2010-10-21T18:34:00.001+01:00

Why does writing coincide with a sudden, entirely new to me and obsessive interest in the vintage lamps for sale on ebay?

Major in relaxing!

2010-09-21T15:03:00.003+01:00

We noticed yesterday evening that in the nice glossy photograph of one of our profs. lecturing to a fancy big lecture hall on the cover of the new propaganda brochure for our major, there's a student apparently sleeping in the front row of said lecture hall.

Touch the future

2010-09-15T05:22:00.005+01:00

first day of class

student: My adviser just signed me up for this class, so I do not have the readings.
me: Oh, OK. Your adviser signed you up? Are you interested in the class?
student: Uh, yeah. I asked her to sign me up for a "modern" class.

(note: "modern [discipline unspecified]" is kind of broad.)

next class
(same) student absent.

next class

(same) student: Professor, I downloaded the books for the class onto my I Pad, so if you see me looking at my computer during class for a long time, that is why.

(note: I have banned computers in my class.)

me: Your I Pod? That is not a good way to read the books.
student: No, my I Pad! These are the new times, I downloaded the books.
me: Uh, which book? We did not read any books for today. We read articles.
student: Uhm.
me: Do you mean [name of textbook]?
student: I don't know. My mom downloaded them for me.

Revealed yesterday

2010-09-09T17:58:00.001+01:00

Revealed yesterday (unrelated):

The pope is gay.

Humans have an innate longing for fur.

Jane Austen/Mitfords news

2010-09-07T14:37:00.003+01:00

Mansfield Park kept me up until 2 am! It's crunching my heart into little pieces. I'm inspired to throw this out there to those of you who obsess about Jane Austen: is Mansfield Park her greatest novel? Because: I've never been so engrossed by a book that had 'so much to recommend against it'--uh, for one, lack of a single likable character.

By the way, come to think of people who might read this: When you said one of the Mitford sisters was an admirer of Hitler, I didn't realize you meant "she moved to Munich for four years and stalked Hitler, to the point of creeping him out."

Shoot

2010-09-01T02:45:00.005+01:00

Shoot, I have to teach tomorrow. WTF? Why can't the summer just be, like, at all times?

And look, so I say this every Sept., I say it cause it's the damn truth: German unification is boooorrrrriiinnngggg.

German unification (1871!) is so boring, it's the kind of boring that you want to protect others from, even strangers. You know, like today I was thinking to myself: how I need a new bra, but I was like--hey, I just bought three bras in like, December--and then I was like--gee, what happened to those three bras? Oh, well, one got chewed up by the dryer....etc.

That information about my bras is so boring that I would not tell it to anyone, in order to not subject them to such a boring story. Except for CC. For some reason she is exempt from this and I told her about the bras. We were on a long drive, anyway, so maybe it was just nice to have something to talk about.

But I would not tell even CC about German unification. It is that boring.

The irony is that I have to tell people in my class tomorrow about it because basically, they are paying me to tell them about it, in violation of my own sense of human fellow-feeling.

CBAM returns

2010-08-11T13:56:00.000+01:00

CBAM's blog is active and has a bold new look!

Discuss!

2010-08-10T20:40:00.003+01:00

Did peoples see The Kids are All Right, the new lezzie movie? I saw it last night with CC. If you saw it, what did you think? I am curious!

I'm out of meadow

2010-07-30T13:50:00.001+01:00

Alpine toe story

2010-07-24T22:04:00.004+01:00

I enjoyed very much hiking in the Alps with CC and the occasional Ibex (or Chamois) (pictured)
despite dropping CC's laptop on my toe the night before we left for the hike. The toe (pictured), as Tom put it, saved the laptop "from certain smashtastrophe." Happily it turned out that the toe didn't hurt much once I soaked it in a bidé and strapped it into a hiking boot.

Nice to Teriso

2010-07-18T22:38:00.004+01:00

Above: The beach in Nice two nights ago (rocks instead of sand!) and the view in Teriso, Italy this morning.

CC tells me that this summer is the hottest in recorded history, according to U.S. NOAA. We are leaving for our hike in the Maritime Alps tomorrow morning.

'Fiche rides off into the sunset

2010-07-15T09:29:00.009+01:00

It was pointed out to me by CC that the raging international debate to settle once-and-for-all the question of microfiche versus microfilm is not whipped into "raging" just yet because some people do not have an opinion. Because they do not know what the 'fiche is.

Microfiche is these plastic cards, a little bigger than index cards. On them are tiny photographs of documents.

To read them, you go into a little windowless back room and put them into a giant machine (circa 1990 if you're lucky; 1970 if you're not) that makes a lot of noise and heat and projects the tiny pictures onto a screen.

Can you see why this is much better than microfilm?

Microfilm is the same kinds of tiny pictures of documents on plastic, but on a reel instead of on cards. These reels are very long, maybe 50 feet long. They have many more tiny pictures on them than do the microfiche cards. You put them into usually the same machine that reads the 'fiche.

(In a recent moment of personal victory, when faced with a biatchy archivist, I taught myself to convert the reader machine from microfilm to microfiche reading.)

But the main reason that the 'fiche is the best is that it's so, so much easier to find the document you're looking for on the 'fiche. You don't have to scroll through 500 pages of documents to find your doc. On the 'fiche, it's right there, waiting patiently for you.

That is why I heart the 'fiche.

The sadness is that I think around 1980, someone decided that the films are better. Because they are more durable? (I think the reason they filmed these files anyway was to preserve them, also to save space.) Who knows. Anyway, there are a lot more films out there riding the range than 'fiches. That is why everybody has to get behind the 'fiche!

The Hills are Alive

2010-07-13T09:53:00.000+01:00

Walking tour: post-Nazi Munich

2010-07-09T15:08:00.015+01:00

The Nazi party was founded in Munich, grew into a mass party there, and kept its headquarters there after it took over the German government in 1933. Architecture and aesthetics were deeply important to the fascists--fascism consisted in them--and the dictatorship had big plans to re-make Munich, but never broke ground on the most ambitious of them. They did, however, build a number of buildings in Munich, many of which survived the war and are still in use today.

What's fascist architecture all about? Are these buildings evil? How do people negotiate the past as they use these buildings?

I went on a walking tour to check it out, with the help of this website along with this book.

First stop: The former House of German Art (Haus der Kunst). Convinced of the need to revitalize German art, by which he meant to get rid of Jewish artists, modern art, and expressionism, Hitler commissioned this museum with much fan fare. Across the street, a temporary exhibition of what the Nazis labeled "degenerate art" (including works by the greats of German expressionism) drew far more spectators than the Nazi-approved art in the Haus der Kunst. Today, it's still a museum, but it purports to display the art that the Nazis tried to suppress.

Above: the doors on the side of the Haus der Kunst. Creepy, huh? The building isn't in great shape right now. When it opened, the stone (granite?) was bright white, and its facade dominated the view from the street (they've let the trees grow up in front of the main facade.)
Above: The Führerbau or Führer building, a major Nazi Party administrative building containing an office and living quarters for Hitler. An integral part of its design was the giant eagle and swastika above its portico, which, like similar garnishes on other buildings, was removed, likely by the U.S. army that occupied Munich. Can you see the spot where the eagle used to be?

Another party administrative building across the street from the Führer building. Although they were built well before the war, a tunnel and air raid shelter connected them. A lot of the building materials for Nazi construction were quarried by concentration camp prisoners in brutal and often fatal work conditions.

These two Party administrative buildings above face a central square that saw the most extensive fascist architectural makeover of any spot in Munich. Here they built two "honor temples" to house the coffins of the Party members killed in the Beer Hall Putsch. The "honor temples" saw an annual pageant commemorating the putsch and expressing fascist aesthetics. Here's a link to see the whole plaza (the gate in the foreground pre-existed the fascist construction.) The U.S. army tore down the "honor temples" and re-buried the putschers.

Above: a party office building, now a Bavarian government office building. Here they just took down the swastika and left up the eagle (the swastika was inside the wreath that the eagle is holding in its talons.)

Above: a fountain that's pretty much the same today as when built. German fascist sculpture can be tough to spot because it's so banal, but you can often spot it because it tends to depict the beautiful, naked male body instead of the female body. The statues I find slightly silly, unlike the buildings. There are a bunch lying around in overgrown Berlin parks, half-forgotten. (Or maybe not forgotten. There's one I used to pass a lot that someone spray painted a message on. The message was, 'this is a Nazi statue.' I wouldn't have known otherwise because it is a statue of a fat baby and a basket of flowers.)

So what's it all about?

One thing that interests me about these buildings is that they're not over the top or campy, at all. Moreover, they seem to have succeeded, in that they express a unique and fascist aesthetic that's about monumentality, a lot of stone and right angles, and a kind of modernist spin on greco-roman tropes (like the square columns).

I feel like they have a dwarfing affect on the viewer. You feel unimportant, and the building doesn't compensate for its monumentality by offering charming ornamentation or beauty. But is that me reading into it? Fascism was all about subverting the individual to the state/nation.

Also, they creep the heck out of me! I sort of can't believe that people go to work in them every day.

What do you think?

Surf Munich!

2010-07-06T22:22:00.001+01:00

My heart belongs to microfiche

2010-07-04T09:20:00.001+01:00

Microfiche is so much better than microfilm. Only losers would choose microfilm!

Toronto police shoot aparently peaceful protestors with rubber bullets

2010-07-02T15:47:00.002+01:00

Even though I know they do this kind of stuff--I have seen the NYC police cart people away in the midst of a peaceful march--this video shocked me. It's long, but try to catch the last two minutes.

It's just such a small march!

Still against it

2010-07-01T19:50:00.005+01:00

I still support boycotting the facebook, but I joined it.

I joined it because I said to myself, 'Self: if there were a new technology that let you see a picture of like, everyone you ever knew, including the 60% of those people with whom you are no longer in touch, and maybe learn a little about them--would you struggle to be the only person in the world not using that technology?' And then I said back to myself: 'Self, I would struggle to do that but probably give in at some point.'

Also, I have to spend the weekend alone in southern Germany and I feel lonely. (This may be a better reason.)

Anyway, there you go. I defiantly pledge myself to the blog medium!

That's no giant carpet, that's a man baby.

2010-06-29T07:59:00.006+01:00

We've secretly replaced these historic buildings with giant carpets painted to look just like these historic buildings.

Will the tourists notice the difference? Let's watch!

I'm in Munich, capital of Bavaria! I like it here and will stay for at least two more days! Despite the replacement of historic buildings.

Well, you know, in this crazy city, whose to say what's a historic building and what's a giant carpet? The joint was bombed to bits in 1944.* Every historic building you see is a replacement of a historic building.

*Uh, I noticed after I posted that this is in the passive voice. Curious, eh? And just who bombed it to bits? Who's getting in free to national parks?

Judith Butler Declines Berlin Pride's "Civil Courage" Award

2010-06-25T14:59:00.009+01:00

Judith Butler declined the Berlin Pride Parade's "Civil Courage" award in a speech here in Berlin less than a week ago in a call for gay pride movements to fight racism and islamophobia.

Butler said that she declined the award in order to distance herself from the explicit racism of the organizers of the giant Berlin gay pride event (known here as Christopher Street Day or CSD) and their failure to deal with racism in their movement, including racism against Muslims here in Berlin. Butler also decried the commercialism of the pride event. Her action has, as you can imagine, caused a kerfuffle here, but sadly hasn't gotten any coverage in the U.S. as far as I can tell.

I say: Way to go, Judy B.!
Butler suggested that the "Civil Courage" prize be given instead to these Berlin groups:

GLADT (Turkish Gays and Lesbians)

LesMigraS (an organization of lesbian migrants and black lesbians against violence and discrimination)

SUSPECT (a group of queers against violence, racism, and homophobia)
ReachOut (an organization for victims of right-wing, racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and transphobic violence)

Transgenialer CSD (the alternative Pride parade)

Here is an English press release from SUSPECT and and a video of part of Butler's speech (with English subtitles--she apparently spoke in German.)

Angela Davis's statement of support for Butler.

Transgenialer CSD's 2009 logo:

The Greatest Generation

2010-06-22T02:20:00.006+01:00

Me: Wow, me and CC sure had to pay a lot to get into the park at the beach today. It is sure expensive.
Dad: Your mother and I do not have to pay at the national parks--we get in free! Because we have the old man pass.
Me: What? That's not fair.
Dad: It's fair. Hey! It's fair because we won World War II.
Me: ??
Dad: We won WWII!
Me: What? You were six years old.
Dad: I collected cans.
Me: Uh, you definitely turned nine in 1945.
Dad: We bought stamps! We collected cans! We collected tin foil.

Putting the bad back in tribadism

2010-06-08T20:29:00.004+01:00

Nice, friendly reader may remember the 1000-page book, E.F.W. Eberhard's 1924 The Erotic Foundations of Women's Emancipation (Die Frauenemanzipation und Ihre Erotischen Grundlagen). I took lots of digital photographs of it in 2007 and merrily imagined myself reading it later.

Then it seemed for a long time like in fact, I would not read it later.

But yesterday I started reading chapter 6. And yes, the book is indeed the hoot that its chapter titles promised it would be.

Chapter 5: Masturbation and the Women's Emancipation Movement
Chapter 6: Tribadism and the Women's Emancipation Movement
Chapter 7: Sadism and the Women's Emancipation Movement

You couldn't publish certain descriptions of sex acts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even if you were a scientist of sex. The sexologists got around this by putting them in Latin. E.F.W. Eberhard quotes them a lot.

The thing is, you can often tell what they mean, even if you do not speak Latin (or if your Latin teacher did not go over this vocabulary in high school):

frictio genitalium mutua (p. 538)

Which is good, because the online Latin dictionary run by Notre Dame University is no help.

Lesbian skeletons found by archeologists!

2010-05-26T18:31:00.005+01:00

Wars, natural catastrophes, and indeed all situations with great danger and uncertain outcome, will quickly upset regimes of pleasure and desire. “In such periods dreams that have been restrained are quickly realized."

There are countless episodes in history that prove this. A classic example is ancient Pompeii. Many skeletons found there, it’s well known to researchers, are in the act of having sex. In one house: lesbian skeletons. One has its hand on the other’s pubic region.

--Franz Scott (partial paraphrase), Das Lesbische Weib, 1933

Grading

2010-05-10T21:59:00.003+01:00

Grading hurts me brain!

Did you know? The functioning of printers is directly affected by their proximity to the survivors of recent car accidents

2010-04-27T17:06:00.003+01:00

Student:

"Sorry that I did not print my paper out before class started this morning. My roommate got in a bad car accident last night."

Note: This same roommate's bout of swine flu earlier in the semester showed that the functioning of printers is also adversely affected by their proximity to swine flu.

No additional headline needed

2010-03-10T16:00:00.002+01:00

(Thanks to Kid Showbusiness.)

Chalk butt

2010-03-02T23:26:00.009+01:00

Sometimes I turn around from writing on the board and people on the right side of my class are laughing amongst themselves. This is when I am teaching.

For the past year I've attributed this to my own (substantial) paranoia, until about an hour ago when after my lecture a student tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You have chalk on your butt."

I waited until most of my students were gone, then I craned my neck around and had a look at my butt. It had a big white line across one cheek. This line could only be from me sitting on the chalk ledge--the part of the blackboard where you store chalk.

At that moment, gazing at my own butt, I realized: I sometimes "rest" on the chalk ledge when I'm teaching. I hadn't consciously considered this before--it's just something I do without thinking while I teach. I feel tired, so I perch or lean on whatever is handy.

But when I perch on the chalk ledge: white line across butt.

Winter goal achieved

2010-02-07T21:47:00.005+01:00

I achieved my winter goal, which was to see an icicle growing from the roof of a house all the way to the ground.

It only took me one week to achieve this goal!

Winter holiday math

2009-12-31T03:26:00.005+01:00

3 glasses of white wine (2 riesling, 1 sauvignon blanc)
13 final exams left to grade
2 and one half hours before grades are due via online submission
At least 1 more college football--er--game coming on TV tonight

Cats?!: The Musical

2009-12-03T05:30:00.001+01:00

This is a prototype song for our musical currently in development, "Cats?!: The Musical," which is about two women who fall in love and write a bilingual Broadway musical about cats.

This song, "Boîte au Chat/Cat Box," is from act one of the musical-within-a-musical, which purports to be a musical about the actual lives and concerns of real cats, rather than a romaticized and metaphorical treatment of cats on stage like some other musicals about cats.

We are in the process of recruiting backers to support the development of the musical. If you are interested, please get in touch.

Lying experiment: results!

2009-12-02T03:28:00.003+01:00

So, to sum up the lying experiment, which I think only I find interesting: I did not lie that much during one week. At least, I did not lie that much given how I defined "lying."

(I recall that I had another lie that week that I hadn't reported. It was that I told my Dad that some of the many articles he had my Mom mail me had not yet arrived; in reality, they had arrived, but I had not read them.)

What does it all mean? Hmm, who knows? In practice, it likely means that I will hop on my high horse without qualms next time it prances by, and continue to trot around the paddock judging others. Maybe I should do the world more of a service and keep track of that behavior.

9 November 1989!

2009-11-10T01:11:00.001+01:00

Dishonesty update

2009-11-04T01:21:00.002+01:00

This probably strikes beloved reader as obnoxious, but I don't have any lies to report from days three through six. I remember that I thought I told one on Sat. night while a little drunk at a Halloween party. But I can't remember what it was.

I did undertake dastardly doings over the weekend, rest assured. I picked my nose, wallowed in self-pity, and harangued CC, among other things.

Lying experiment (2)

2009-10-30T05:21:00.003+01:00

I remembered two more.

In class today I lied to a student--er, gave an answer to her question that was no answer, and was really a blind guess on my part, which I acted like was actually an answer. I feel bad about this.*

Also tonight I went to a screening of a documentary. The guy who organized it asked me to come to a dinner with the director, but I lied and said I couldn't because I had to teach. This invitation and lie happened a few weeks ago, but when I went to see the movie tonight I had to repeat the story of not being able to go to the dinner to someone else. However, when I did this I eventually sort of admitted to her that I lied to the organizer of the dinner in order to get out of it, but this was after repeating the lie to her a few times.

I also noticed that keeping track like this makes me extra scrupulous when I am talking to people.

*I looked it up and actually, my guess wasn't so blind, but was basically right! Now I think I wasn't lying, but was speaking from faint but basically accurate memory of the fact that the WWII Allies were a large group of nations, but that aside from the big famous ones (Britain, France, later the U.S.S.R. and U.S.) were smallish and weak, and none was in a position to challenge Germany's conquest of France in 1940.

Lying experiment (1)

2009-10-29T23:39:00.003+01:00

I was driving to the old homestead last week and stopped for dinner in a pizza joint by the highway. Having nothing to do but listen to the right-wing chitter chatter of the pizza chefs, I picked up a free parenting newsletter. In it was an article about children lying. The article said in part that although you may be hurt when your precious wee four-year-old lies to you, don't worry. It's a sign of advancing cognitive development! The average adult lies eleven times a week.

The last bit fascinated me--eleven times a week? Isn't that a lot? The article cited no source; after googling, I determined this number, eleven, is an urban myth. However, I found that actually, it's probably more like twenty-five times a day.

Have I been over-reacting to dishonesty over the course of my life? My parents had a very clear no-lying policy, which I broke often, but which did leave me with the impression that lying was a very serious offense (a violation of one's own self worth and of another's trust) and to be avoided if at all possible. Recently, students told me some whoppers, and I've gotten upset and sad.

(Recent stories I have heard or heard of include: no paper due to injured Dachshund that had to be rushed to a special hospital; deceased grandparent; waxing appointment that conflicted with class.)

But maybe this lying isn't such a big deal after all?

I therefore decided last night around 6 pm to keep track for one week of my own lying.

I think we all know that people tell "white lies" often out of social nicety, for diplomatic reasons, etc. As in, "I like your hair!" Stuff like that, I'm not interested in. I want to know how many times in a week I tell unequivocal falsehoods, and why. I am not counting stuff that I don't totally agree with or mean, but say to be nice or polite or diplomatic. I mean clear falsehoods, statements that can't in any way be true, no matter how you spin them.

I started the experiment at about 6 pm last night, and by 6:30 pm I had lied in order to get a student discount ticket to a movie. The ticket seller asked if I was a student, and I said yes. Then, I had to fill out a raffle at the theater, and I checked the "student" box, but also checked "other" hoping to mitigate the falsehood.

However, since then I haven't noticed any more.

Our pumpkins

2009-10-26T03:34:00.002+01:00

Cf. spooky 2007!

Sleep

2009-10-24T05:22:00.007+01:00

CC and me are writing this post as joint authors. We talked about what we would write about and decided to write about sleep.

We chose this topic because sleep is good, and because we talk a lot about how much each of us likes to sleep and how hard it is to wake up. Really, it's how hard it is to wake up. I (YSA) talk a lot about that.

CC: Today I had to meet a student at 9 am, and I felt like 9 am was too early, especially for a Friday, but when I got there on time the student was already there editing his paper. This is the only student in danger of failing the class. I told him I was impressed with his dedication, and he responded that he feels that he has to use every minute of the day in order to succeed.

YSA: I don't feel like people really appreciate how hard it is to get out of bed. It (sleep) is like a drug. Like a drug! It does not matter what I resolve the night before when I go to bed or what I set the alarm for, or if I set two alarms, or if I pledge to CC that I will get up and not hit snooze for one hour. Nothing matters. When the sleep is happening, nothing else matters. I will hit snooze for two hours, or take the batteries out of the alarm clock, whatever.

CC: YSA is not exaggerating. She is never realistic about her waking-up goals and as a result constantly feels guilty. LIke, every morning, she wakes up and faces the day... already guilty. This is a problem for her, and as a consequence, for me, too.

YSA: That is so true!

CC: The guilt is contagious. I also feel guilty, even though I had no waking up goals to begin with! (I gave these up as soon as I became a grad student - or rather, chose this profession partially because it allows me to sleep in.)

[Side comment: CC: Is being a grad student a profession? YSA: Yes. CC: No.]

YSA, do you have any more comments?

YSA: No. Just that it is very hard to get up.

Jaw-dropping historiography experience

2009-10-08T23:29:00.006+01:00

Yesterday this retired old guy historian (old white guy) came to visit us. He just won a big prestigious award for his book. He gave a talk about writing the book.

He said the following.

"I wanted this book to be inclusive. I wanted to include the old, traditional history, because it is still valuable. And I also wanted to include the newer types of history that many historians are working on."

Me silently thinking: Oh, OK. Well, at least you are including the new stuff.

He elaborated:
"I wanted to include traditional history--political, diplomatic, and military history..."

Me thinking: Oh, good. Now I know what those are.

Old guy: "And I wanted to include the new history--"

Me thinking, as you probably are: hmm, how will I feel when he categorizes women's history as "a newfangled kind of history that he wanted to include," will I feel OK about that? Or patronized?

Old guy: "The new kinds of history: cultural, social, and economic history."

Me: panicking.

Note: Social history was "new" in 1970.

Failed jokes (recent)

2009-10-07T01:01:00.006+01:00

Uttered by yours truly while lecturing and met by students in Nazi History 102 with total and complete silence.

Last week, while screening Triumph of the Will:

"See these Nazi Party members cheering for Hitler? Well, they really loved Hitler. They loved, loved him. They thought Hitler was just...[trying to think of joke]...the best thing since sliced bread."

Today, toward the end of a stock rant about the origins of the Boy Scouts (whom I have always opposed) in the Boer War and their paramilitary accouterments and historic imperialism, which was prompted by a student question about the relationship between the American Boy Scouts and the Hitler Youth:

Me: "I mean, come on. Who sells cookies in a paramilitary uniform? Who sells cookies in a paramilitary uniform?"
Student: Uhm, the Girl Scouts?

From a paper currently being graded

2009-09-27T20:48:00.001+01:00

"The Iranian government does not allow women to wear clothing, which defeats the purpose of them to have vision."

Dude, woah!

2009-09-25T23:44:00.001+01:00

Woah people, I actually today went to a dept. meeting that was about peoples's tenure cases. I actually heard tenure cases come up! They kicked us out of the room after a while though because untenured peoples do not get to vote. We are lowly.

First staff meeting

2009-09-16T00:00:00.008+01:00

I attended my very first staff meeting of faculty yesterday. There I discovered, when the doors of the august conference room swung shut, the lights had dimmed, and all students had scurried away (except for the grad student rep) that: Yes, the staff are all lizard people.*

Yes, once again, I was unknowingly hired by lizard people.
Tom: How could that happen again?
Me: ???
Tom: You should really ask them at the interview, "Are you lizard people?"
Me: It's so awkward, you know?
Tom: Now you have to help them take over the world.
Me: They are starting by trying to get elected as the junior senator from Minnesota. I don't know how to begin to explain to them that that's just going to be very, very tricky.
Tom: The worst part for you is that they truly do not understand how the government works.

*This "lizard people" myth is used by, among other people, an anti semitic guy. This blog rejects racism and anti semitism. Refer to comments section.

Michael Burleigh's favorite word

2009-09-11T18:02:00.002+01:00

maladroit |ˌmaləˈdroit|
adjective
ineffective or bungling; clumsy.

I am making my class read an 800 page book by Burleigh. I am taking this occasion to improve my vocabulary.

I think my class does not like the book so much, but I love it! And then I force them to say that they love it, too, by asking them in class what they think of it. Then they all name things about it that they appreciate about it in order to make me think that they in fact read it. Even though I know that secretly, many did not.

Oh, actually, I did have something to post about

2009-09-09T04:15:00.002+01:00

Me: Wow, I am tired, and I don't know why! I'm just so tired. And I do not think I read that last email from the department administrator, about upcoming deadlines and stuff and forms we are supposed to fill out, but I will soon...
Dept. Chair/aka "my boss": You know, a lot of people just ignore those emails and those deadlines.
Me: Eh?
Dept. Chair: I mean, I am not saying that you should or anything. I am just saying, you know, that a lot of people just ignore them.

Tired again

2009-09-09T03:52:00.002+01:00

Now it is the second week of classes and I am tired again.

Word of the week: Plangent (adj)
(of a sound) loud, reverberating, often melancholy.
When my student mentioned that his contribution to class discussion was courtesy of Wikipedia, my heart issued a plangent moan.

Sorry CBAM that I did not write back to your emails. I am so tired. That is so nice that you got me a present!

Why am I so tired?

2009-09-04T19:32:00.002+01:00

Why did the first week of classes make me so tired?

And also: I survived the first week of classes!!!

In memorium, Michael Jackson

2009-07-03T17:29:00.008+01:00

File this under that category, 'things that have made sense to you since childhood, but that you suddenly one day as an adult realize actually do not make sense.'

When I was six, Michael Jackson did a commercial for Pepsi which featured some pyrotechnics. During filming, his hair caught fire and he was seriously injured.

For years afterward, my mother and I boycotted Pepsi. I remember us telling one another and other people that we did not buy or drink Pepsi because "they set Michael Jackson's hair on fire."

Perhaps related to this boycott, which I remembered a few days ago and which seems to have originated from logic that I no longer feel that I can entirely explain, is a conversation that CC's friend reported having with students in a summer class that she's teaching.

CC's friend mentioned Michael Jackson's death to her class. In the course of ensuing comments, she realized that the students did not know that he was black. They thought he was white. She explained that he had begun life brown, but that his skin had lightened (unclear why) and he'd had plastic surgery.

They did not believe her.

How much is one less day of your labia itching like crazy worth to you, in dollars?

2009-06-01T21:28:00.008+01:00

Ok, I know that you, sincerely appreciated reader, are not going to like this post, but my sense of justice compels me to describe the following. And it was either post or tell CC at length, and actually posting is probably better for my relationship.

When I was coming up many years previous, they made this anti yeast infection cream that you had to use for 7 days. It costed like 14. (It was expensive!)

Then they invented 3-day cream. Then, a super crystal-power option: 1-day ultra cream.

And, this being soul-less capitalism, they priced them incrementally. The 3-day cream is like 19$. And the 1-day nuclear treatment: a whopping 22$!

I feel this is unfair and unjust, the worst of capitalism: How much is it worth to you to have 4 fewer days of genital itching? What about 6 fewer days? Is it worth 8 dollars?? If you hunker down with cranberry juice for just 2 more days, you'll save 3$--yes, you'll net the cost of the juice!--or, uh, what the hell am I thinking?

No one should have to answer these questions.

Actually did something (but did not get paid)

2009-05-31T16:24:00.004+01:00

Hey, I actually did something for my new job. I was pretty excited about this. They asked me to do something professor-like; like, to evaluate something based on my expertise!

They asked the faculty email list to say which journal subscriptions the cash-strapped library should not cancel.

This required me to dig deep, really deep, into my extensive training, in order to say that no, our library should not cancel its subscription to Central European History.

I developed this process:

Ask self: Have you, or anyone you know, ever read, or felt like you/they ought to read, any article in any of the journals in question?

Example: Slavic Review--hmm, I think so-and-so had an issue of that kicking around his office--we better not cancel that one.

Task dispatched with aplomb!

In related news, recent nightmares include:

I'm in some seminar (as a participant) and a guy on the hiring committee walks in and sits in the back of the room. Then I realize that instead of pants, I'm wearing a bath towel.

I go into my first day of class and the students are so rowdy that I can't even say, "Hi, my name is..." and have to call security to have one particularly uncooperative girl dragged away. Oh, and I on top of it, I haven't finished writing the syllabus.

In the big time now

2009-05-22T15:58:00.005+01:00

Hey reader, check it out--I got my picture taken in front of something that there's a picture of in Making of the West.

The MOW is the textbook that taught me everything I know about European history.

MOW is the one constant and reliable support in grad student life and is therefore beloved. When asked in job interviews how I would teach a survey class: "Well, I would assign MOW..." Some grad-student-taught summer courses are actually (semi) dramatic readings of the MOW.

Queen of Pickles

2009-05-19T15:39:00.009+01:00

Deep in the marshes east of Berlin lies an ancient land, er, forgotten by time, where people travel by barge from farm to farm, a former hot-spot of East German tourism (the "Venice of Germany") where the mail is delivered by punt and members of an ethnic/cultural minority (the Sorbs) won fame for their pickle recipes: the Spreewald.

I have wanted to go here for a long, long time, but no one else wanted to go--until CC! [Birds chirping, puppies frolicking, flute music.]

(Picture: we rented a canoe and paddled around. Sadly my camera ran out of batteries.)

By canoe, we reached a village beer garden and the Pickle Museum. The Pickle Museum underwhelmed (until, at the end and after trying unsuccessfully to talk us into buying sausages, they gave us those same sausages for free.) But, at the Pickle Museum, I found out about the Queen of Pickles Pageant.

Each year, ladies of the Spreewald dress in traditional costumes, fix up a basket of pickles according to an original recipe, embody Spreewald culture, and arrive by barge to be judged by one old man and two old ladies. The winner is crowned Queen of Pickles.

The Sorbs of the Spreewald endured some harassment by the Nazi regime, which wanted them to stop speaking their dialect, etc. Under the communist East Germany, flocks of tourists included a friend of mine who went for a day. Her family lived in West Germany. When West Germans went into the East, they had to buy 25 Marks worth of East German money. They weren't allowed to take any back with them--they had to spend it all in the DDR. My friend said the canoe rental cost them 1 Mark, and at the end of the day her dad was left with like 20 M, which he had to get rid of. So he tipped the woman selling french fries 20 M. This was apparently very embarrassing for my friend because the french fry seller took offense.

(Picture: mail delivery by punt)

(About the french fry story: me being an American*, I was like, "Why was she offended? Hey, free money!" My friend was like, 'well it's like, you big rich West Germans come and eat our pickles, and lord it over us, you think you're so great, etc.')

*Read: insensitive

Tourism at the Revolution

2009-05-09T13:09:00.011+01:00

This is about my May 1 adventures, which happened about a week ago.

The First of May or International Worker's Day is a big left/socialist/communist holiday around here. It was a big day for the good old German Social Democrats (SPD), who, I want to note, are a mainstream political party, one of the nation's largest, who put on a well-attended street fair with free concerts, Turkish food, and a booth where you could write an answer to: "Why are you celebrating the 1 of May?" People wrote: "Because I love vacation!" and "Because I want free childcare!"

Right, so before I get to the riot: the socialists around here come in many varieties.

The First of May is maybe the biggest day of the year for rioting by the anti-fascist left--the German Communist Party (Yes, they're still around!), Antifascist Action, those folks. The anti-neo Nazi punks. Who, as I found out, seem to be mostly under the age of 17.

They kicked things off with a march, which I filmed! (Below.) The anti fascism march, as you can maybe tell from the video, seemed from the outset to be organized in anticipation of violent clashes with the Berlin police, who showed up in their usual large numbers and also in full riot gear (sort of like football pads, with a motorcycle helmet). The anti fascist kids wear all black, black hoods and sunglasses (apparently the police photograph them and try to arrest them later). Some seemed to be wearing multiple sweatshirts, for extra padding.

This was all somewhat out of tune with the democratic socialism street fair taking place in the same neighborhood (Kreuzberg). On the sidewalk with me as I filmed the passing demo were street-fair goers, one of whom was sipping a mojito. An antifascist teenager in all black ran by us, shouted something like "down with capitalism!", and knocked her mojito out of her hand.

She was like, "Hey, my mojito."

I guess I left before things got real lively. The next day the overly conservative newspapers proclaimed it the worst 1 May riots in years, with hundreds of police officers injured (injured anti fascists didn't make the newspaper headlines.) But they were gearing up to proclaim it the worse 1 May riots in years the day before. And having police in riot gear there from the get-go doesn't help things, right?

I did see one dumpster that'd been set on fire. I stopped to take this picture of it:

As I was lining up to take this picture, a little boy rode past me on a bike. I tried to get him in the picture too, but as I was focusing, the fire in the dumpster caught his attention and he wiped out, flipping over his handlebars and landing in the middle of the street. I ended up with a picture of this, too:

The boy got up and ran toward the fire--I guess it was in his apartment building, which may be why he wiped out on his bike when he saw it. He stood and watched the ambulance crew drag the dumpster into the street, where it burned.

This made me feel sad about the whole demo.

Night of the spooky bike tour

2009-05-01T08:54:00.010+01:00

Yesterday, April 30, was a creepy evening here in Berlin. It was Walpurgisnacht, the festival of the witches's dance, and also the anniversary of Hitler's suicide.

When the sun set, I went on a bike ride to a) look for witches and b) look for neo-Nazis discretely observing the anniversary.

First stop: Hitler's bunker, the site of his and his wife Eva Hitler (formerly Braun)'s suicide and the erstwhile site of their graves.

As you can see, it's now a parking lot. (The bunker was mostly destroyed by the Soviets and later by the East German government, though the floor and walls are apparently still down there.) For years there was no sign. From what I've read, the city didn't mark the site to keep it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.

But according to the sign pictured above, since the movie Downfall came out, there's been so much interest that they put up said sign.

So, is it a neo-Nazi shrine? Well, there weren't any neo-Nazis lurking around. (I may have missed their real holiday, H.'s birthday.)

There was that guy with a camera and microphone just sitting by the sign (pictured). Hmmm, what was he up to? Waiting for a ride? Surreptitiously recording what was going on?

Sorry--I have no idea because I didn't ask him.

Additional Hitler/Braun trivia: Burned and then buried in the garden above the bunker, their remains did not rest there for long, but were dug up by the Soviets, identified with dental records and x-rays, and shipped to a KGB barracks near Magdeburg, Germany, where they languished until 1970, when the KGB fully cremated them and tossed the ashes in a river. The Soviets kept the story of the remains secret, and until the end of the Cold War a mystery surrounded the final whereabouts of the bodies.

Next stop: The search for witches!

Walpurgisnacht is an ancient pagan spring festival that involves witches jumping over bonfires. In Berlin, it got mixed up with May 1, which is the next day. May 1 or International Worker's Day, which is today (!!), involves left demos and rioting.

There used to be a big Walpurgisnacht party, which I guess often turned into a riot, in a park in the neighborhood in which I'm staying. I biked over there (pictured below).

It was pretty cool! I did see one little kid dressed as a witch. Lots of people where there, all drinking beer--punks, parents, people my age, older folks, little kids (they did not appear to be drinking beer). Also a bunch of bands. And fire juggling. And a bonfire.

Walpurgisnacht I guess is tamer than it once was. No rioting that I saw. But a whole army of police were in attendance, as they have been at every gathering of more than twenty people that I've ever been to in Berlin.

These police are the "Anti Conflict Team." They wore these vests. I was unsure whether the vests were working or not.

Birthday!!

2009-04-29T07:44:00.003+01:00

Happy Birthday, CC.

To celebrate, here's some "re-purposed material" (in the words of one of my favorite NPR shows) featuring CC.

Places I lived, April 2008-April 2009, in no particular order

2009-04-24T23:11:00.004+01:00

(The yellow building, not the car. It's last summer in Ithaca.)

(CC's place, NJ)

(Berlin, photo from this morning.)

(Toronto)

(Princeton last April--This is from the goodbye house party)

Sugar shack

2009-04-22T07:34:00.011+01:00

CC took me to do a Quebec cultural thing, which is to celebrate maple syrup by eating a bunch of breakfast-esque food for dinner smothered in maple syrup, in a historic-seeming building staffed by people in 18th century costumes. This is called "sugaring off."*

We went to famous Sucre de la Montagne, founded in the 1970s by Pierre Faucher, who is famous. Sucre de la Montagne is a maple sugar farm and a huge restaurant. (They served 1,500 peopled the day we were there.)

They make the maple syrup right there!

CC's dad explained to me how famous Pierre Faucher is. It seemed to me that part of Pierre Faucher's success was due to how he'd evoked an 18th century Quebec masculinity (all the dudes who work there had on these cute, like, fur trapper guy costumes) that appeals mightly to 21st century Quebecois. Faucher himself is, I guess, the star practitioner of this manly maple syrup farming thing.

His picture is all over the restaurant.

Then we got our picture taken with the real guy!

*This name seems vaguely obscene to me (verb+"off," you know?) so I often mis-call it "sugaring up" which seems more PG, but then CC gets annoyed.

Doing things I promised myself I wouldn't

2009-04-02T20:06:00.005+01:00

I just this hour started signing emails to my students with my initials. I swore up and down I'd never do that. It's so pretentious.

You know, that happens a lot to me with this job. Ever since I started in grad school. Like, 'When *I'm* a TA, I won't make undergrads go to a boring discussion section...When *I'm* an instructor, I'll never skip out on class time with undergrads to go to a nice lunchie-lunch...' (Actually, that one happened yesterday.)

But I don't want to sign my first name to emails. And writing out first and last name takes forever. And is weird.

So here I am again.

It's spring!

2009-03-31T05:20:00.010+01:00

CC and me went on a bike ride all over Toronto. First we fixed our bikes at Bike Pirates. Then we biked way out on this peninsula/island in Lake Ontario.

View Larger Map

We biked to the lighthouse (point B on map). It was kind of cold and far away from the city. I was tired. CC wants me to write: I was tickled pink.

On the peninsula were all these colored bricks and rusty metal scraps (CC: rusty scrap metal). The sun was setting.

(Photo by CC)

We took the subway home, which I was very glad about. (Subway ride between points C and A on map.) It was sort of spring. Spring: no snow, fix bike, bike ride! Sort of not spring: wearing 2 pairs of pants and mittens, freezing cold, riding on subway with bike.

CC sadly only had one pair of pants and was cold. Then I got home and realized I'd had a spare pair (a third pair, just in case) in my backpack the whole time. Woops.

Like Art

2009-03-20T19:22:00.002+01:00

I stumbled on this picture a few months ago while looking for illustrations for various pro-OBAMA posts on this blog.

You can see why it didn't work as a simple pro-OBAMA picture, yes? But I can't bear to just delete it. It fascinates and scares me. What do you think?

Congrats to CBAM!

2009-03-17T14:41:00.002+01:00

Congrats to CBAM for getting ahold of a baby.

Dangers of undergrad

2009-03-16T16:03:00.004+01:00

My friend who is also teaching a senior seminar for undergrads reports that with 4 weeks to go in the semester, in a class of 7, already 3 grandparents have passed away. 2 grandfathers passed away in the same week.

In my senior seminar of 15, only one grandparent has been lost so far. But we have had also had 1 trip to the emergency room for an infected pierced ear lobe, 2 chronic flus, and 1 person who had to ship to the west coast to take part in military exercises.

Ancient rivalry

2009-03-13T16:33:00.006+01:00

CC requested that I post this story.

Background: I am here doing this postdoc at big university in the True North. I went to school at the state U. of you-guys-know-where. Down the road from state U. is a super fancy private U--so fancy that the professors are knights. Right now, I'm finishing my postdoc year. They are interviewing postdoc candidates for this position next year. There are 3 of us postdocs. We have to meet with each of the postdoc candidates. Our boss told us to try to sell them on the idea of taking this postdoc, so that's generally what we try to do in the meetings. We are not in any way involved with the selection process. We tell the candidates this at the start of every meeting.

The other day, a postdoc candidate from big fancy U. (hereafter b.f.U.) came through here. We had our meeting. Like I said, there are 3 of us postdocs. Two are chicks and one is a dude. My impression was that the guy from b.f.U. generally only made eye contact with the dude (my fellow postdoc and comrade), and wouldn't look at the two chick postdocs. He also wouldn't let me finish several sentences and contradicted a few things that I said. We also had this exchange:

Me: You are from (town near state U. where I went), right? I used to live there!
B.f.U. dude: Oh, right--?
Me: I went to state U., but I lived in [town where b.f.U. is]--I really liked it.
Me thinking: now I can reminisce about me and CC's lovely house in that town and our garden. Happy feelings.
B.f.U. dude: Oh, right, you went to state U.
Me: Yeah, but I lived in...
B.f.U. dude: Right, state U., they have a really good German languages program. And a really good philosophy program, I heard.

Note: I did not get my degree in either of those departments.

OK, so I have always hated the idea of b.f.U. and those fancy private schools, and loved my public school, and also secretly feared that they were all much better than us. So I am a little biased at the outset. But I found the guy obnoxious.

A few days later...

Boss of all of us post docs: Hey YSA and [other chick post doc], what did you think of the guy from b.f.U.?
Me and other post doc: Oh, we did not go to his job talk.
Boss: I know that you did not go to his job talk because I was there. I am asking you what you thought of him.
Other postdoc: [silence.]
Me: Uh.
Boss: ?
Me: Uh, he seemed nice.
Boss: That's not very enthusiastic!
Me: [trying to do the right thing] Well, you know, I went to state u. and he goes to b.f.U., we have an ancient rivalry.

And, here is what I am like. I am like: Who the fuck would ever have thought that I, I, a grad of state U., would someday be in a position to utter a disparaging word in the context of a big job search about a b.f.U. student??? Who would have fucking thought, eh???

Take that, you arrogant motherfuckers!!!

(OK, and also, I feel bad, sort of. But sort of glad. You know how that is?)

Wanting to make nice food present

2009-03-09T23:26:00.004+01:00

CC is coming to visit tomorrow. I am so happy about this! I want to make her a nice food present that she can eat when she arrives. But I cannot think of anything to make. It would have to be a dessert (she is arriving at night).

Problem: CC dessert favorites and YSA dessert favorites are opposite. CC likes what to me are fancy French-esque desserts. Like with fancy cheese in them. I like giant chocolate cake slices and apple pie.

Other problem: I know I should make CC's favorite dessert. But I don't want to eat CC's favorite dessert.

Is that wrong to want?

(Also, I don't know how to make CC's favorite dessert.)

Blog made prettier and maybe to change name

2009-03-09T23:18:00.002+01:00

I made this blog look prettier. I am going to change its name to something less ahistorical.

Yeah!

Women mentoring other women. That's what the Weimar Republic (in Germany) was really all about.

2009-03-07T00:20:00.002+01:00

Sheesh!:

a) Although law on prostitution of 1927 figures large in muskrat-like dissertation, just getting around to reading parliamentary debate on said law now.

b) These feminist ladies in parliament who were all about rescuing girls from prostitution and bringing them back to morality and order--yes, mentoring them (well, sort of--by "mentoring" here I mean locking them up in Catholic reformatories)--in parliament, these ladies were all like, "We are so psyched about this new prostitution law. And once we get our Protective Custody Law* we can really save lots of girls from prostitution! Yeah!"

*Protective Custody Law (weirdly not passed until Nazis took power despite support from ladies like those mentioned above, who were not Nazis by the way) basically allowed police and welfare workers to lock up whoever they wanted, sans any kind of judicial proceeding, indefinitely.

Woah ladies, now that's some mentoring! Shit, if I'd known about this I totally could have gotten that grant.

New blog?

2009-03-06T16:15:00.003+01:00

Dear reader(s), I am thinking about starting a new blog. What do you think? It could be about the usual stuff and also about the first year of being an assist. prof. I think I work pretty good with the year-in-the-life format.

Thrown Under Bus By Sister Feminists

2009-02-24T23:46:00.004+01:00

This feminist bookstore, which I support with my whole little womyn-loving being, sent email pleas for me to order coursebooks there and to urge students to shop there, not online, because feminist bookstore is part of community, does all kinds of events, etc.--unlike big online chain that threatens to eat it up!

So of course I ordered books for my seminar there and forced little dears to walk the extra blocks to shop there.

Yay feminism!

Then I went in today to pick up my "desk copies" (free copies that instructors get when they order the books--just one of our little scams) and...

Feminist Clerk: That will be $35.00
YSA: (having to stand on tip-toe to see over feminist counter) Not free?
Feminist Clerk: You have to say when you place the order whether you want desk copies. You did not say when you ordered that you wanted desk copies.
YSA: But why would I not want desk copies?
Feminist Clerk: You did not state that when you ordered the books.
YSA: ?? Fine. I will get them from the library.

I go to library--books not on shelf!--realize that that is because I placed them on course reserve, consider reading own books on course reserve in cage-like reserve reading room, realize that own students will see this and shreds of dignity will be stripped away, resolve to try to borrow books from grad student friends.

The moral: community, feminism--it's all out the window if you don't explicitly state, in writing, that you want desk copies.

Question for discussion

2009-01-26T19:32:00.002+01:00

Should Congress be replaced by a coven of witches?

Our president

2009-01-19T19:33:00.002+01:00

New comic

2008-12-23T02:36:00.001+01:00

Hey, check out Chinslip! It is drawn by my nephew Ben.

Overlooked No Longer!

2008-12-10T02:36:00.002+01:00

"Although disposable menstrual pads were initially overlooked, the enfranchisement of women in 1920 gave women a sense of authenticity as citizens."

---from a paper currently being graded

Yeeeaaaahhhh!!!

2008-11-05T15:01:00.005+01:00

Hurray, Tom voted
He beat up those guys at the polls
They tried to stop him
(YSA)

way to go CBAM!
by leaving the house to vote
you have changed the world
(Tom)

good job YSA!
braving moose and goose to vote
in the great white north
(Tom)

D. votes: Wyoming
She used the postal service
Take that, Dick Cheney!
(YSA)

Bravely she waited
Deterred by no line: Cheesequest
And she met a friend
(YSA)

Would she put on pants?
Would she leave her apartment?
For O.? CBAM: "Yes!"
(YSA)

CC could not vote
But she was for OBAMA
She is very glad
(YSA)

Good job, my sister
You canceled your husband's vote
Still, it's kind of sad.
(YSA)

Vote Obama: Get FREE DY/TOMOG Stuff!

2008-11-04T01:16:00.005+01:00

Hey readers, if you vote for OBAMA tomorrow come to Dissertation Year and/or The Tomog and get free DY stuff: A haiku made up just for you! Please vote, testify in the comments section, and if you are anonymous provide any information you'd like included in the haiku! Joint offer with The Tomog!

You can also get yourself included in a story about CC and YSA on vacation if you choose. Your choice--haiku or vacation story! VoooOOOoooTE!*

*Vote to cancel out my brother-in-law's vote--arg!

Get out the vote for OBAMA

2008-11-03T22:40:00.002+01:00

People, if you want to, you can call voters and tell them where their polling location is, and that if they need a free ride to the polls, the number they can call to get that. And also that OBAMA needs their vote!

You can do it from the Obama website.

I called three people! (I left three messages on answering machines. But for a shy person, that is better than nothing.)

GoOOOOOO!

2008-11-03T13:55:00.003+01:00

GooooOOOooooo OBAMA!!!

Congrats Jess and Dan and Samuel!

Update: Shoot, I told my class this morning who I voted for! Woops. You are not supposed to do that, right? But I am so extremely excited and afraid that I can't help it!!! Who can do any work??? I am just reading the NY Times all day long.

Vote, people, vooooteee!!! This is it!!!

Dear reader(s)

2008-10-26T19:01:00.003+01:00

Dear reader(s):

And so, I have reached the end of my dissertation year(s). That seems to me to mean that I have also reached the end of this blog.

However, I am not sure what to do. I would like to keep writing a blog. But not a blog about my dissertation. I am wondering if I could start a new blog on a new topic. But what topic? Academia? (Boring and depressing.) Lesbianism? (Exciting, fun, but I'm not sure how unique my take on this topic will be.) Living in Canada? (Sort of a limited issue.) Staying at least five feet away from others at all times? (Important, but difficult to narrate in an interesting way.) Animals? (I have no critiques of this one.)

What do you think about the future of blogging by me in a post-diss environment?

Alive and well in the far north, where it's snowing

2008-10-22T01:25:00.002+02:00

It's snowing! Very alarming: it is also October. Who will dig out my car, apartment, self? (Supposedly I'm to be consoled in the knowledge that "it won't stick.")

Oh, and I survived my illness so far. And I got this e-mail:

Dear YSA,

This is an auto generated message to inform you that the dean of your school has updated your diploma application review status to: Graduating

Registrar System Mailer

I think that this e-mail marks the actual "graduating" of me from grad school. As in, when I opened this email from Registrar System Mailer, I graduated. Though it's unclear.

Not the weepy, bucolic commencement ceremony I'd looked forward to. But still: Thank you, Registrar System Mailer, where ever you are!

And...that's it!

2008-10-10T00:14:00.001+02:00

Congratulations! Your ETD has been accepted. If you have any questions regarding graduation or anything related to the Graduate School - please contact !@%Y*^T***&^%%###

Thank you for using *#etd,
Administrator

And it only took me 4 tries to get the formatting right.

Also, I came down at once with a really nasty flu that CC has identified through online research as TB. Yuck. I spent all day in bed.

Stumbling toward the finish line!

2008-10-07T02:12:00.002+02:00

I received this in an email!

Thank you for submitting your ETD. When reviewing your work, we learned that the following formatting problems must be corrected before you resubmit your ETD:

Add title page and abstract to ETD
Add preliminary pages to table of contents and renumber
Add c.v. to table of contents (last entry)

To complete the process, you will need to log in...

Wow, all I have to do is (see above)! Diss creature is stumbling toward the finish line--crawling in an ill-advised zig zag toward the finish line--or is it slouching toward the finish line aaaahhh!

New Animal Information

2008-10-03T23:39:00.003+02:00

I am really busy right now trying to graduate, and also undergoing a psychological process that appears to be the result of the end of graduate school and entails a) my brain really not working well and me being confused a lot, and b) the receeding of the mean and paranoid part of my personality--but, BUT--I am not too busy to have discovered the world's largest rodent (average weight 100 lbs!) living a mile from my new apartment!

It lives in the little zoo in the park! I was running in the park and I saw some of them. They make lots of different noises, including whistling and snorting.

CC told her family about this and they suggested that non-Western people eat the world's largest rodent. I told my sister and she said she heard on the radio that when Europeans first saw the world's largest rodent in South America, they wrote to the Pope to ask him to identify it. They wrote a description of it, including that it swims. The Pope wrote back and identified that it was a fish.

Image courtsey of Home of the World's Largest Rodent. Person pictured is a trained zoo professional: do not attempt.

Update: Lady Who Measures the Margins and Page Numbers and Stuff

2008-10-03T23:31:00.003+02:00

Ok, so as of now, I've sent it twice to the electronic upload webpage thing. The first time I couldn't get it as one document with two kinds of page numbers. So I uploaded two separate documents. The Lady Who Measures the Margins and Page Numbers and Stuff emailed: "Call the Help Desk, (###) ###-####."

Then, on the airplane, I figured out how to get it as one document. So I uploaded it again at 1 am. The online sytem said it received it.

I called The Lady at 4:25 pm eastern (deadline is 4:30 pm eastern) and she said she'll be at work till midnight tonight measuring margins, but she'll email me if I need to adjust anything and resubmit.

So now I am waiting for her to email back. Thanks for all your well wishes, people.

Woah, here we go!

2008-10-02T16:39:00.002+02:00

Woah, so basically CC is reading the first 10 pg. of the intro for major grammar fiascoes, I have to read and consider some advice emailed me by SM, maybe tweak an adjective in the acknowledgments, (Should I thank Tom for "being awesome"? Is that a fair characterization of Tom's gifts and talents? I want to mention Tom's classic "The Nazis Sucked Ass!" e-mail, but that's too much for a dissertation.) uh, and then I am going to upload the thing! Maybe within the hour.

A nice thing was that I asked SM to proof read my acknowledgments and then she sent me her's and her partner's. The best part of all this is the acknowledgments.

Oh, future plot development: Once you upload, the powers of the grad school check with a ruler to make sure you followed the format. So likely I'll have to upload once more. The deadline is tomorrow at 4:30 pm!

Spell Check!

2008-10-02T02:17:00.003+02:00

I am sitting here spell checking my entire dissertation.

Wow! This reminds me of other occasions spell checking stuff. But none of those papers were 286 pages long. I think it will take about 40 minutes. Most of my job is to press "Ignore All" when spell checker hits a German word.

More flaming hula hoops, dancing trolls, and tightrope-walking minature ponies

2008-09-30T19:16:00.003+02:00

As the U.S. economy implodes, potentially portending hard years to come, I am entering the final round in this circus-like process of getting a PhD in history.

This is the part where you "file" your dissertation. You defended it, the committee signed off on it. Then you have to file to meet the deadline to graduate (which for me to get an October, '08 dated degree is Oct. 3). So I did the defense--my committee signed off in April. I've supposedly been "revising per their comments" over the past months. A few weeks ago, I sent it to my committee again, so that they could pretend to re-read it to make sure I made their revisions, which is unusual and due to the break-neck pace in my case of writing and defending, as well as to my committee fighting within itself. But since they signed off in April, they can no longer stop me from filing, not that any actually seem to have read it the second time. In short, as far as the faculty are concerned, I've jumped through all the flaming hula hoops.

When you file, you have to hand the diss over to your university's library and to the online database of dissertations. This makes the diss publicly available. You can't work on it anymore or make any more changes. You have to do this to get a diploma.

This filing stuff ushers in a new set of dancing ponies and hula hoops, supervised by a new cast of authority figures: the very nice people at the Grad School. They are in charge of making sure you filled out many forms, paid large fees, and submitted the dissertation in a format that accords with the university library's standards.

You might think that after many, many rounds of hula-hoop jumping, miniature pony riding, alligator wrangling, etc., this would be a piece of cake.

But no. At the moment, I am consulting with three other grad students in an attempt to figure out how to have one PDF file with two kinds of page numbers (Roman numerals for the first few pages, Arabic for the rest of the text.) But don't worry. I think I figured it out.

The silver lining: I've been so broke from age 25 to 30, while in grad school, that I have zero dollars invested in the stock market.

Teaching again

2008-09-16T16:37:00.005+02:00

So I moved to a strange city again and am teaching and missing CC and all of you guys. Like usual. Ugh. But anyway...

I spent all this time working on this PhD that qualifies me to teach the history of sexuality, and during a lot of this time my work was about explaining to funding institutions (and maybe to myself, it turns out) that the history of sexuality isn't actually about sex, it's about power relations, social constructions of identity, imperialism, race, etc. And it is.

(Photo from the Magnus-Hirschfeld_Gesellschaft)

But also, it's about sex. That came as sort of a shock. Like, I am teaching this class (which I've been running around frantically getting ready for) called "State and Sexuality," thinking all the while that I'd talk a lot about The State. But I'm three class sessions in and I don't think I've said the word "penis" so many times in front of so many people since I was 10 years old. And what's worse is that when I say the word "penis" it is in a sentence like: "They thought the vagina was an inverted penis."

And if I'm shocked by what comes out of my mouth, try getting my students to take part in class discussion!

There we all were on the first day of class at what CC tells me is the stodgiest university in Canada, and I show them a giant slide of the picture above.

I am like, "What's going on in this picture? Who are these people?" We talked about what time period they appear to be in, that they are women and men socializing together, that some of the men appear to be close, perhaps lovers...Then a student is like, "They are wearing costumes."

I was like, "OK, how can you tell those are costumes?"

We talked about 'what is a costume?' for a while. Someone pointed out that a few people seem to be in 1700s garb, way out of time period for the 1920s when the photo was taken.

Finally I was like: "Isn't that a guy wearing a dress? I think that's a guy wearing a dress!"

I look out at my class, and all students are silently and very seriously nodding. They'd noticed that, of course. But they were apparently too shy to say it!

Register to Vote Obama!

2008-09-15T20:44:00.007+02:00

This website will help you register to vote if you want. It is easy. You just fill out the form online, print it, and mail it to the address from the list they will give you.

Uh, but it will only help you if you want to vote for Obama. If you are voting for the Wack-a-Doodle Crew it will not help you and you will have to find another website, sorry.

Huge DY Congrats!

2008-09-06T04:59:00.001+02:00

Big, humungeous congrats to JAH, cohabitant of witchcraft-capable cat and future--holy shit--mother!

And what I meant by that was

2008-09-06T04:57:00.003+02:00

I am writing a syllabus for this class that I foolishly claimed to want to teach, it is called "State and Sexuality in Modern Europe." (Try telling that to your parents.)

So it is called that, but when you look at the syllabus you see that what I meant by that was "Male Homosexuality in Germany, With Occasional Foray Into British Feminism, 1860-1933."

Deviants were bumming!

2008-08-30T22:19:00.000+02:00

This cartoon like, sums up my whole dissertation. Thanks, Tom!

Comments written on my dissertation

2008-08-26T22:12:00.004+02:00

For the last three pages, you've been tearing this other person's dissertation apart, but here you are citing their evidence as proof of your own argument. Perhaps pick one or the other?

Here you write that newspaper readers sympathized with 'Man A' and not with 'Man B' because 'man a' was a respectable middle class bank clerk and 'Man B' was a homeless blackmailer. But have you considered whether newspaper readers also sympathized with 'Man A' because 'Man B' blackmailed him until 'Man A' killed himself, leaving behind a wife and child?

Here you've written that 'Cabaret Dancer A''s case shows that the police were tolerant of naked cabaret, because the police decided not to bring obscenity charges against her and she kept doing her show. Several pages later, in a small paragraph, you note that two years later, police did bring obscenity charges against 'Cabaret Dancer A', and she was tried, convicted, and fined. But you argue that "the fact that she was fined shows that her behavior was not prohibited--if fined, a person can still do the behavior they were fined for. They just have to pay a fine."--Is this the best example for this argument?

Scary moment

2008-08-26T19:00:00.002+02:00

A few moments ago, I checked on the NYT front page online. The main picture is of Joe Biden wiping away tears during a speech. I saw it and immediately recognized the iconography we've all become so familiar with--a tearful guy in a suit, the American flag in the background--and my brain went: "Crap--sex scandal! It's all over!"

But no. He was just tearing up about Delaware. Whew!

What do you guys think of Biden as VP pick anyway?

The Shirt Test

2008-08-11T02:46:00.004+02:00

I am at the beach with my parents and other family members, and had the following conversation with my dad.

Dad: Hey, YSA. Do you notice anything about this shirt I am wearing?
YSA: (Noticing striped golf shirt, but not seeing anything particularly interesting about it) No...
Dad: Do these stripes make me look fat?
YSA: No--hey, your shirt is on inside out.
Dad: That is right!
YSA: Hey, what is the deal? Was that some kind of test?
Dad: (Taking shirt off and putting it on right side out) Humph.
YSA: What was that, the final test? Like, 'Now that you have passed The Shirt Test, you are officially an adult'?
Dad: (Finishing putting shirt back on) No. That was a test to see if you are alive!
YSA: Dad, your shirt is on backwards now!
Dad: (Trying to fix backward shirt) Mmph.

No furniture in Canada!

2008-08-03T18:42:00.004+02:00

I made it to Toronto. We took lots of pictures! But I have no internet and not really a phone, so you will have to use your imagination, reader. We have to get some furniture 'cause CC is bumming about having zero chairs. You really take chairs for granted until they're gone, it's true.

Witch bumming over time

2008-07-28T23:45:00.003+02:00

Prove any historical argument!

For relational graph of witches, angry mobs, and witch burnings over time, see The Tomog.