I just got back from Milwaukee, and here’s one of my thankyou notes:
“Hey Bill,
Thanks again to you and Kari for a great brunch and some hanging out time. I am still thinking about your bear-like cat. I have also repeatedly scratched the asses of both my cats in hopes of causing them to lick themselves, and while they clearly like it, they do not lick themselves. Is the instinct limited to calico cats?
Best,
–J”
because this time I’ve got a hotel room with internet access.
I’m in town for this conference. I’m not an expert on governance by any means but juding by the papers I’m reading through, this is going to be a pretty wild and free ranging affair. The legal theory is especially mind-blowing for me, though I suppose it’s probably pretty pedestrian for people who read legal theory on a regular basis. Guess I’ve been missing out.
An Allegory, or Maybe Just a Simile
There is this standard scene in action movies where it’s near the end — what you think is the end — and the villain is lying in a bloody mess on the ground. The hero is congratulating his(1) buddies and/or making out with the female lead, and then the camera cuts to a blood-soaked hand, moving ever so slowly toward the gun that sits on the ground just a few inches away. The camera cuts back and forth between the blood-soaked hand of our near-dead antagonist and the celebrating heroes. The hand grabs the gun, takes aim, and BAM! you hear a gunshot. The hand is now facing up, the gun on the ground.
But who shot the antagonist?
Why, of course it was the sidekick who hadn’t fired a gun for the whole film because of some prior traumatic experience (except of course when the hero turns out to be omnicient and does it himself).
Anyway, you know the scenario. Even if you don’t watch action movies, you know the scenario.
Now: imagine that I and my colleagues are the hero. The villain is a beast called “service,” the celebration is occurring because it is the end of the school year, and the sidekick? Travel.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the new job is just like the old job: the term ends, and all those service duties that have been feeling neglected (despite my having spent a great deal of time this year on service-related matters) rear their ugly heads. The only cure is to get out of town.
But of course, no matter what happens, there will be a sequel in the fall. The villain’s offspring/friend/computer/etc. will come and get me. And if you’re an academic, it’s coming for you too. In theaters everywhere in September.
——-
1. There are relatively few action movies with female leads that follow this formula. The only one I can think of at the moment is that weird one with Geena Davis. Can’t even remember the name. It got panned (as these films usually do) but was actually pretty good.
I should have written something when she actually died, but seeing that I didn’t, I’ll just say a couple things here.
First of all, a story. I first became aware of Dworkin’s work as an undergrad. I don’t exactly know when, but I did. I wrote about paper about her (mostly her book Woman Hating, which has some awesome sections), an essay by Scott Tucker called “Gender, Fucking and Utopia” in _Social Text_, and Jeffrey Weeks’ Sexuality book. I came to the predictable (for a guy) conclusion that Tucker’s queer polymorphous sexuality and differentiated view of penetration (it’s not the problem), pornography (it’s not the problem), and patriarchy (okay, that still bites) was preferable to Dworkin’s well-known position on those matters.
[Digression]
The paper was for a course called “Sexualities: From Perversity to Diversity,” which was part of the new cultural studies-ish humanities curriculum at the University of Minnesota. In my undergrad education, it came late in a long sequence of courses on sexuality, representation, queer theory, and so forth. There were even more courses that I didn’t take. But it was a sad situation for poor Ellen Messer-Davidow, who was teaching the course for the first time. She’d set up something like the first half of the course as a critique of what we’d now call heteronormativity. She must have thought she was getting a whole gaggle of whitebread Minnesotans. What she got was a class full of out radical lesbians, gay AIDS activists, children of open marriages, S/M practitioners, and everything inbetween. Since this was over a decade ago, the details are foggy, but I do remember some kind of revolt and a change in the readings packet to reflect the fact that a core of activist students in the class were impatient with the deconstructing heteronormativity section of the course and were ready to move on to alternative sexualities right away. I wasn’t part of that particular revolt, since even at the time I identified with the professor — though I certainly benefitted from it since I too was coasting through the critique of heterosexuality part of the course.
I remember that Ellen was disappointed with my conclusions in the final paper. John Fiske was at Minnesota that quarter, and his conclusions about the possibilities for radical politics no doubt temporarily mellowed my otherwise utopian political bent. That Fiskean moment didn’t last long for me (though Fiske was one hell of a good teacher — more on that in another post sometime) but at the time, it must have had some impact on my conclusion. I remember Ellen said something in her comments about the cynicism of my generation. Now here I am now on the other side of that argument. I guess that’s the life of the mind for you.
[/Digression]
Despite my disagreement with her, Dworkin capitivated my imagination because of the sheer force and quality of her writing, and she sent me on a long path through second-wave feminism, so-called “radical feminism,” to which I still have a strong affective attachment. Though today I pretty much only read that kind of work in used bookstores, or when I point someone to Firestone’s Dialectic of Sex which still intrigues me. And yet it holds a significant place in my imagination as I evaluate more contemporary feminist writing, especially academic feminist writing. Perhaps it’s a kind of mellowing that comes with institutionalization and a kind of co-optation that comes with professionalization. I don’t know. But when I read Judith Butler or Nancy Fraser now, I want to know where’s the rage? Where did patriarchy go as a concept? Doesn’t anyone want to get rid of it anymore? Of course I know they do, and they’re just looking for more sophisticated ways to talk about it. And yet, unfairly, I hold them up to the second-wave yardstick and find them wanting, even as I think much more with them than with Dworkin and her interlocutors. Of course, this is horribly unfair, as none of my own academic writing rages on against capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, etc., though I can occasionally work up some indignation.
Anyway, in thinking of Dworkin’s passing, I mainly wonder what will/has become of second-wave feminism’s radical critique of patriarchy and desire for a fundamental transformation of relations between men and women. Or did the second wave feminists make just enough progress for the system to buy everyone in the middle and upper classes off? One could ask the same question about radical queer politics, but I guess that’s for another post.
sounded like a good title for this otherwise banal post.
Emergent Summer Habits
I’m definitely in the post-semester afterglow, though instead of screwing off for a few days as I’d intended, I’ve been right back to work; finishing up a responsible draft of a coauthored paper for a conference in Milwaukee next weekend, and working on the book proposal and afterword. There will come some downtime, soon oh soon.
Actually, this weekend hasn’t been too bad. We spent yesterday cleaning up in anticipation of a potluck for Carrie’s seminar and my advisees/TAs/RAs, but the real thrill was that the NFL draft was on TV. It was so nice to think about football all day. There was endless gossip and speculation, most of it incorrect, but it was a real joy. It ended with a reminder that we were in Canada, though. At the end of the first round they switched to the NBA playoffs, and the draft coverage was to be continued on ESPN2 “call your cable operator if you don’t have it.’ Well, up here in the provinces we extra don’t have it. I was glad to see the Vikings draft a speedy wide receiver though. It would be a shame if Culpepper had to give up his vertical game.
The potluck itself was outstanding of course, but I won’t disclose too much on here in order to protect the innocent. Our spinach pie was a hit, though. The last guests left around 2:30 and we cleaned up before bed. Woke up at noon today. Now that’s a summer schedule I can get behind.
Tonight we dined with friends who were recently in Cuba. I had Cuban rum and yes, a Cuban cigar. It was an outstanding experience, not the least because it would have been illegal in my previous place of residence. The food and conversation were great, too, naturally.
Gearheaded Update
In other news, I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of a ‘control surface’ for my audio software after finding a good deal on a used one. It’s got lots of lights, buttons and knobs and makes it more like an analog mixing console. It should significantly speed up my work process in mixing, though I confess to being particularly excited about the lights.
I’m sure like 1 million people have already linked to this, but it’s cool: The bummer about catch-up posts is that they’re never as richly detailed as if I posted them as they were happening. I Feel Like An Asshole So I had a hotel booked in Hyde Park, the Ramada Inn. Two independent sources told me stories of squalid conditions there, which made me a bit nervous. I’m not a “no brown M&Ms” kind of guest speaker but I had cause to worry. I was headed over to visit my friends Loretta and Toby and their twins, and figured I’d call the hotel and tell them I was checking in late (rather than driving all the way south to drop off my bags and then go north again). Well, the Ramada Inn lost my reservation. This was surely a sign. So, in conjunction with a very courteous talk organizer, I started looked for alternative options for a place to stay. I found a place downtown for $109 a night, just a couple blocks south of the Art Institute where I would speak on Thursday. How lucky! I checked in, went to bed. spent my day at the U of C, went to bed, woke up and as I was headed out the door to walk to the School of the Art Institute, I looked out the front door to discover that I was on the wrong side of a picket line Now, had I checked the comments on my blog, I would have noticed Andy’s comment about the Congress Plaza hotel being the site of a long-term strike and home of said $109 deal. But I didn’t do that. So here I was, having already spent two nights in a hotel I should have been boycotting, and feeling like a complete asshole. As one person put it to me, I can’t exactly go to the concierge and say “I’m never staying here again!” as I was checking out. I mean, I obviously didn’t know, and I didn’t think to ask “are your rates so low because your employees are on strike?” when I was searching for a less-likely-to-be-squalid alternative to the Ramada, but that just goes to show that some deals are too good to be true. Chicago was otherwise lovely. Except for the head cold: Wednesday morning I wake up with a head full of sand and spend the next two days medicating myself with a combination of water, caffeine, decongestant and pain killers. There is a corect mix to achieve lucidity. Anyway, I got to catch up with some friends, and I also got to be the center of attention for two days in a row. Both events — at the U of C and at the School of the Art Institute, were organized by grad students. Come to think of it, MOST academic events at those institutions are probably organized by grad students but in this case there was no pretense otherwise. the U of C event was particularly cool because it wasn’t the usual talk-for-40-minutes-take-questions-for-20 routine. Instead, they read my paper in advance, I got to give a 10 minute spiel on background, and then got a very detailed response from one participant. After that, a free-ranging discussion ensued and I think the whole thing lasted 2 hours. It was very productive and engaging for me. The SAIC talk was also excellent, if less creative in format. The lecture hall was outstanding though and very well outfitted with technology. I suppose that’s necessary since most of their guest speakers are artists. Pittsburgh was a bit less thrilling, only because the cold got worse and I had to spend much of the weekend recovering. Still, another student defended (that’s one to go!) and I got to see another posse of old friends, though not as many as last time. I felt a tinge of nostalgia as I drove up from the airport in my rental car, though by Monday night I was eager to get home. “The New Pope is an Asshole” These were Carrie’s words as she brought in the paper this morning. Let’s have a look at the checklist: –opponent of same-sex marriage Yep. Asshole. Here’s a Cool Fact About McGill in Comparison With My Old Job Semesters here are 13 weeks long. At Pitt, they were 14 weeks long. At Illinois (where I did my grad work), they were 15 weeks long. Let’s say, hypothetically, that I spend the rest of my career at McGill rather than at Pitt. That means I save two weeks of teaching per year. Let says, for argument’s sake, that I will retire in 31 years. That’s a total of 62 weeks, I’ve saved. If we allow for a 28-week academic year at the old job, that means that I will spend the equivalent of approximately 2.2 fewer years in the classroom. Note that this does not include sabbaticals or other factors I’m too lazy to include. Did I mention I turned in my undergraduate marks yesterday (with the help of my TAs, of course)? It’s officially “summer” for me, and though I have a million things to do, it still feels great. Coming soon: the summer “to do” list.
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A Winner From the Late-Night Internet Patrol
Reasons to Fear Canada
Chicago-Pittsburgh
–opponent of contraception
–opponent of expanded role for women in Catholic church
–former member of Hitler youth
