The two first items on my Google Reader today: Tina at Scatterplot, writing that misfortunes highlight how lucky I am, and A. over at On My Commute, who is feeling lucky no longer putting off the inevitable. A double-whammy of good advice to quit whining and get some perspective — coincidence, or just good luck? So as I grind through the end of one more semester, no job on the horizon, but a very generously-funded fellowship, a great group of scholar-friends, and hours every day to do work I deeply enjoy, I think — eh, not the worst life in the world, not by far.
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I’m pretending I’m an art student today, hanging out in the very pretty but comfortable offices over at Steinhardt, doing work and drinking tea. When I imagine an alternate life at an imaginary university in Europe somewhere, my imaginary office looks a lot like the one I’m in right now — stacks of magazines, slide trays and house plants jockeying for space with the Macs. Not a Dell in sight. An email from TSM’s California Comp Lit informant reminded me that the bleeding of work into life I wrote about last week can also be a bleeding of life into work. So I’m letting myself enjoy that I get to spend my days reading, writing and chatting with smart and interesting people. That’s not so bad, right?
Earlier, was browsing the latest copy of Left Turn magazine, a new issue on “Igniting the Kindred: Visions of Queer Radicalism.” As the letter from the editors says, the articles prompt thoughts on the history of multi-racial, multi-issue queer politics, and what that history offers for thinking through social movements for queer/trans liberation today. Dean and I are excited and honored to have a little review in it we wrote of Milk, or really some thoughts on Milk in the era of Obama and Prop 8.
I keep thinking back on Emily’s post of a few weeks ago about learning how to manage your time and be more productive, but also feeling suspicious of that tendency — like, wtf with all this being productive all the time? I’m wondering again why the work overload in academia goes so unquestioned. It’s complained about, for sure, but at the same time, undergirding a publish or perish imperative is an ethos of suffer or see-ya. As in — this is how it is, you must work all the time, and express your desire to work all the time, or this just may not be the career path for you. While I recognize the privilege of academic work over other kinds of labor, I also recognize that never has anyone suggested to me that a 40-hour work week exists in the academy. (And not that I think 40 hours is reasonable anyway…) For me, the great lure of academia is having less structure imposed on my time. The flip side of this, of course, is that work time bleeds right into living time. When I was temping, in the late 90s (ah, the heady late 90s), I felt I was much more engaged with others in a critique of capitalism in our everyday lives. And so when I slacked off at a temp job, I felt I was sticking it to the man. (I believe I actually referred to it, following Michel de Certeau, as la perruque, because I took myself just that seriously.) But I also just enjoyed it — long lunch breaks, writing letters to friends on the clock, learning about this thing called “the internet” and the various distractions it promised. Now, when I shuck off work, I just feel bad about myself.
So, in the midst of being behind on virtually everything I could feel behind on, I’m thinking about how to get stuff done, but go easier on myself in the process. I am thinking of this as really late capitalism — late to finish the draft of that revise and resubmit, late to get to the library. Hell, this blog post took me two weeks to write. But as Greg’s old supervisor used to say, “We’re living a life,” and I’d like mine to be lived a little more slowly. Is that so wrong?
Rachel and I are doing some work at a cafe. We got the best seats, against a wall of windows, and our friends behind the counter are playing only good music. In between reading and writing we’ve been talking, mostly about reading and writing, and about how hard writing can be. And how finding a way to write (outlines? notes? a pile of articles? one perfect sentence at a time? pages of mess to be dealt with later?) is as big a struggle as figuring out the ideas. And maybe different ideas require different kinds of writing to reveal themselves.
Joan Didion, from “Why I Write”:
I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
But now I’m back. I was buried in work, and then occupied with rebelling against work, then suffering from post-rebellion malaise. Now I’m returning to work, happily, maybe even with some enthusiasm. Since last we spoke, I finished a draft of my introduction, which felt significant. Though I will undoubtedly have to change it quite a bit once everything else is written, I felt at some point here in the middle of the dissertation that I needed some direction, and writing the intro seems to have served that function. Speaking of intro’s, next on my to-do list is revising the intro for the anthology Patricia and I began editing oh so many years ago. But, finally, the review process is over and a contract is on the way. University presses, take your time much? I’ve been re-reading the articles, and making some notes for the authors, and that is the kind of work I really enjoy, thinking about people’s writing, and ways to help the brilliance shine through. On the top of my procrastination list right now is the R&R for an article that I just got back. Can’t… bear…. to touch it. But I will get to it soon, else this roll I’m on rolls off and leaves me and the article behind.
In other news: Looking for a job in a recession? I don’t recommend it. I got I think my 7th notice yesterday that a job I applied for has been callled off, not to mention the handsome pile of rejection letters that has accumulated. I wonder if Obama’s plan for federally-funded highway construction projects might include some post-doc positions… I still have a handful of active applications, but I’m making Plan B’s, which I’m feeling good about, and I’m in the very lucky position of being able to renew my funding next year, should it make sense to sit on the diss and wait to defend until something else opens up. I will say this about applying for jobs — it makes me really enjoy and appreciate time spent on the diss. The dissertation is a pure delight compared to preparing job applications. Pure delight.
Via the always resourceful Wicked Anomie, I discovered Wordle, which will create “word clouds” out of pasted-in text or a blog feed. Here’s what it made of an article based on my dissertation:
That basically does say it all. We should be able to submit dissertations in Wordle format, don’t you think?
I am back in the blogosphere after another trip out of town, this one to Northampton to help the chosen fam out with their new home purchase. I spent a few days tearing out sub-flooring, which I have to say was amazingly therapeutic: I didn’t think about my dissertation or the job market even once. Problem is, now I am back, and apparently still not thinking about my dissertation or the job market. My brain is on a work slow-down in protest of long hours and insufficient rewards. So, in a classic pacification strategy, I’m going easy on the brain and making minor concessions (sure, take a break, have a beer), knowing full well it will only lull my brain back into unwary submission. Next week, I will be cracking the whip again: you had your beers, you had your fun playing wii, now back to work! We will see how that goes.
Meanwhile, I was just asked to review an article for a journal, and the piece looks quite interesting, and actually I’m looking forward to it. Maybe just because I haven’t done enough peer-reviewing to feel burdened by it yet, but it is one apect of professionalization I’ve really enjoyed. Whenever I’ve reviewed pieces I’ve learned something new and interesting, and also gotten the satisfaction of realizing I already know a thing or two about a thing or two, and that is a nice feeling indeed (and a pleasant counter to the constant panics of insecurity being a grad student usually entails).
The temperature seems to have returned to something resembling a habitat suitable for human life, which I’m happy about, as I’m planning to be out and around on my bike later. Though first I need to fix a flat — the second in one week! Defying everything I know about having (and keeping) a bike in NYC, I leave my bike locked up downstairs in front of my building, and no trouble has ever come my way. But if I wind up with a third flat I’m going to begin to suspect sabotage. Yesterday, a long but fun day doing manny duty with Greg for the twins (by the end of the day we were all covered in popsicle juice; sharing a popsicle with a one-year old in 90something degree weather is not a neat affair.) I am no longer so tired after our Tuesday babysitting gig that I can’t do anything but get in bed with Pringles and my laptop tuned to Hulu, so I actually got some satisfying work done last night. A flurry of re-visiting some old favorite readings — Rajan’s Biocapital, Chow’s Protestant Ethnic, some pieces in Global Assemblages — plus some time with Aihwa Ong’s recent book on neoliberalism, which I’m finding quite helpful. Something I’m sorting out right now: the limits of ephochal readings of Foucault (such as “disciplinary society”) and some reasons we might want to concentrate instead on descriptions of technologies that (as Ong characterizes neoliberalism) can be deployed within any sort of political regime. This seems consonant with a Deleuzeun understanding of “diagrams” (abstract, mobile), despite some of the responsibility Deleuze bears for encouraging epochal readings (his “society of control.”) Meanwhile, the soc blogosphere is rife with advice these days for the would-be job candidate — Newsocprof, Scatterplot, Rethinking Markets — which I’m really appreciating. “Going on the market” seems sort of terrifying, but completing a set of discrete tasks feels do-able.
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, or am barely sleeping, I get a word or phrase running through my head over and over. The insomnia episode of a few nights ago featured just a few lyrics from an Alicia Keys song (“no one, no one, no one”) as I flipped uncomfortably around in bed. This morning, in that hazy thing between sleep and waking, it was “Theda Skocpol Theda Skocpol Theda Skocpol.” I have had a few good days of getting good work done and am feeling satisfied: I came up with a working title for the dissertation; I got most of my profesh website up and running; I figured out a game plan for getting the article for the Foucault book written over the next few weeks. (In fact, I was so busy working on Wednesday, that I didn’t find out Barack Obama had secured the democratic nom until I left my apartment at 4 pm and saw the neighbor’s newspaper lying outside her door. And I’d been on the computer all day. As Bridge said, “Maybe you were actually concentrating on your work.”) Last night, a great time at send-off drinks for Dean, except for the part with the gross guy who wouldn’t leave me alone (Him [leaning whole body into mine and drunkenly slurring]: “Can you help me??” Me [pushing with two hands]: “Are you gonna puke on me?!?”). Had a wonderful chat with Emily about job searches, writing, and blogs. It was nice to get some “live comments” from her. The conversation, and the work I’ve been doing the past few weeks—getting the diss in order, thinking about places I might like to live—made me realize all at once the obvious thing that I hadn’t fully thought out yet: This will be the last year I am a student.
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