Almost Caught up!

Almost Caught Up!!!

In the meantime, I'm off to see what the President has to say. Also, I would like it on record that I am grateful for having grown up in a family where skin color and sexual preference were not ignored, but treating people differently because of it was Just Wrong. That was true even for my paternal grandparents, who had Views on such things, and used language that was terribly paternalistic at times, but who judged people on merit.

In case you were wondering

In case you were wondering

This blog has been delayed by the impending Semester of Doom OMG a little busy. Ironically, I was more prepared and balanced when I was blogging every day. Argh.

Lemme finish the damned syllabi, and I'll get back to you. In the meantime, here is a picture of a cat:

On Avatar

On Avatar

I saw Avatar last night. There's a lot to say about it. First, let me get the whole race thing out of the way. Not because it's unimportant -- it's not, and the critics are right and correct in their complaints. It is sort of Dances With Wolves or any other film where the white folks are evil colonialists and the blue folks are going to teach them something. And it is told through the POV of the Earth person, rather than the people who adopt him. And yeah, he saves them all. Even more importantly, though, is that this particular trope is included mindlessly in the service of another one, that of technology and modern values against pastoralism and valuing the natural world. I think that this is really the kernel of all the race issues people have noticed, but haven't mentioned. For me the real problem is that, in setting up the dichotomy of 'people in touch with nature' vs. 'people who have destroyed their world through greed and technology,' Cameron et al. have clearly not considered that race and questions of race will exist in the minds of the audience. TO me, that's something worse.

But.

I'm not sure how I feel about this film, because there's a lot more to it, or maybe I'm just wanting to read more into it. At any rate, I'm going to go through it point by point, so if you don't want to read about the film, stop here.

Still here?

First -- The Na'vi are just really cool looking. Giant blue stripey vaguely feline people. I can see how people complain about the whole Native American look, but honestly, I wasn't so much bothered with that, if only because their clothing and hair could have been just as much Native American, but from South America -- with a touch of Aborigine, really. So if there is a complaint here, it really should be that Cameron and his team picked and chose traits that seemed to go with people who live in a tropical rainforest, and then tweaked them a bit for the Na'vi who live on the plains and near the sea. In some ways, this was distracting, but it also made sense, in that a pastiche of different looks and traits pulled from a lifetime of reading National Geographic (that's what it felt like, at least) may have been as much about trying to extrapolate from what we know of Earth, and applying it to another planet. So in a way, you can reverse engineer this to a conversation where the filmmakers said to each other, "So we want pastoral people, hunter-gatherers, with an animistic belief system -- what can we take from Earth?"

Thus, what we learn of Na'vi custom is pretty much derivative/imitation: for example, the Na'vi thank their prey when they make a kill, and try to make the kills as clean as possible. They don't kill unless it's necessary, but they certainly aren't peaceful. There are snippets of dialogue that tell us that there have been wars between the different Na'vi people, and we know they will defend their territory. They can also tap into the spirit of their world, and to the spirits of all the dead. But when it comes down to it, we do have the eternal conflict between colonizers and colonized, and one of the real problems in this film is that that's really secondary to the plot. As far as I can tell, the filmmakers really weren't thinking about race or colonialism at all. The Na'vi are less a people, and more caricatures who serve as foils in a cautionary tale about not appreciating Nature.

Nature, or rather, the planet Pandora, is one of the stars of the film. The depictions of the planet are stunning, and really, I think it's worth seeing the film if only to see the world-building. It's amazing and gorgeous. We mostly see the rainforest parts of the planet. It's like, and not like, every rainforest we've ever seen. The plants are gorgeous and huge, and many of them phosphorescent and beautifully coloured. There are misty mpuntains that float. This was problematic for me. That much disbelief I have trouble suspending. Having said that, they are sooo cool! The animals are pretty cool -- there are canine-like hunters, hammer-headed-rhino-like giant critters, something vaguely huge and feline, and dragon-things. It's as if the filmmakers took examples from both dinosaurs and early mammals, and combined them to make something new. I think it's pretty effective. For me, though, the best, and most creative part of the animals is that all of them have appendages that can be joined to a set of feelers in the tails of the Na'vi. Joining appendages allows the animals to join thoughts. It's a bit of a jar to realize that only the Na'vi seem to be able to jack in and impose their will on others; in a planet where everything is clearly very interconnected, there is still a clear hierarchy, and the anthropoid critters are on top. The Dragon-things are pretty high up the chain, too, it seems. Unlike the six-legged horse-critters, who can bond temporarily with any rider, the dragon-things bond only with one Na'vi, and for life. Still, easier than on Pern, due to the lack of telepathy needed, harder 'cos they try to kill the person who wants to bond with them. (yeah, problems with number in that last sentence -- sue me!)

Enter into this pristine landscape People from Earth. It seems to be the same Earth that spawned the Alien films, an Earth where man has destroyed most of the environment through greed and warfare, and giant corporation(s?) with mercenary armies have led expansion further out into space. This particular group is searching for Unobtainium, an element that exists to take the piss. And the corporation will do anything for it. Enter our Avatars, Na'vi versions of humans who can link into their empty brains and drive the bodies from comfy (not if you're claustrophobic) couches that have some sort of embedded psi-links. I'm not even going to go into how bad the science here is, because it's a cool idea, after all. But there's also a huge plot hole. Our hero, Jake, is supposed to gain the trust of the Na'vi by joining their group, which he does, and trying to negotiate a peaceful move of their homes away from the larges source of snipe nests unobtainium. So he's there long enough to gain trust, live with them learn their ways, and become one of them ... and never bothers to tell them why the Earth folk are there??? Really? Really? You'd think if he cared, he might have warned them somewhere in the process.

But obviously, he can't, because that would ruin the whole Evil Corporate Interests Ruining Nature For Fun And Profit &tm; theme. Because really, the crazed colonel in charge of the mercs wants to kill all the Na'vi, just because. He is that mean. He doesn't even care about the snipe unobtainium, just doing the soldier thing and killing blue cat-people and mocking the scientists.

And so we come to the end of the film where the bad guys look to be winning, until lo and behold, a plucky Latina pilot helps to rally the scientists to get Jake into his Avatar so that he can lead the Na'vi against his own kind. But will they trust him? And why should they listen? they have a war leader, after all. Ah, but Jake listened to his teacher and mate when she told him about how, in times of crisis, the Na'vi had been brought together by the rider of the super-dragon-thing...

Yeah, he dumps his dragon for a better model, rallies all the Na'vi, and prays to the planet to help. And the planet answers, but not till Cameron has killed off the plucky Latina and a bunch of Na'vi, not to mention the leader of the scientists (Sigourney Weaver, who is as good as ever). And then, in a terribly written ending, Jake tells us that "the aliens" were forced to leave Pandora, and the planet, or its deity, Eywa, uses its super-special "jack into the planet's energy" powers to transfer Jake's mind to his avatar's body forever and ever.

This is the one thing that I think could really have made an interesting film. The ability to truly change from one thing to another, to place a mind and soul into another body -- can that make a person that thing? One of the chief issues whenever we speak of race, and especially of racism and white allies, is that the white person can never truly know what it is like to be Other. Jake becomes Other, but in a world where there is no one but the Na'vi. Moreover, he never can lose the Earth marine that he was. The Na'vi have accepted him as one of them, but he didn't start out that way. There are so many interesting questions that the film could have asked, but didn't. But then really, should I have expected more?

The second time is no easier

The Second Time is No Easier

I start teaching a prep for the second time next term, i.e., in TWO WEEKS(!!!!!), and I have no effing idea what I'm doing. This is in part due to where I teach, in part due to the outcomes I've been driving for my department, which are more skills- than content-based, and in part from the resulting attempts to try to balance content and skills when I am the only damned medievalist in the department, and I am not sure what content is all that important anymore. No, seriously. This is the problem with not being able to teach one's own field very often. I seem to have lost a survey-level grasp of it and what my colleagues would consider important. (Hmmm... I have just realized I can search for syllabi online, and have done so, and haven't found a lot, but thank goodness for Jacqui Long and for Steve Muhlberger, who put up lots of sources at ORB). It doesn't help that I'm using the Innes textbook (which I like in many ways) and the newest James, so I'm sort of heading into uncharted territory. On the other hand, this means that I'm sort of caught up in the question of letting the texts dictate the shape of the course, or the ideas of what I want to teach dictate the ways I assign reading.

In my ideal world, I would have a list of topics, and then assign the readings as appropriate (and yes, I'm using primary sources -- the Rosenwein reader, possibly Tacitus, Beowulf (the dread Heaney translation, because it's in a Norton edition with good essays), Two Lives of Charlemagne, and probably some selections from the Tierney and Geary readers, as well as some stuff from the Fordham site. But my students do not have the narrative. We teach World Civ here, so there isn't a lot of time for Rome and the MA. Moreover, my students are not particularly likely to go find simple narratives for themselves, and they are also very likely to need to rely on the textbook for a narrative crutch. So somehow, I have to figure out how to balance narrative (possibly podcasts?), topical approaches, and the heavy discussion of primary sources that most of my courses rely on.

Now, this might be easy-ish if the course had worked last time, but in some ways it didn't. This was in part the composition of the class -- only two students really accepted the ideas that they were responsible for learning the narrative and that, for us pre-modern folks, a working knowledge of some basic primary sources and of types of primary sources is fundamental. Most of the people in the class saw the primary sources as being no more than those little boxes in big survey textbooks -- things that illustrate what the authors tell us, rather than the information the authors work from. I think this time, that will be less of a problem, if only because the students are all used to me and many have taken courses with me from the very beginning of their uni careers.

Still, I'm trying to work the balance, and also they sorts of assessments I'll be using. There will be a review essay, and I think a presentation each (how I'll fit those in, I'm not sure, but the topics will be biographical, I think -- Augustine, Gregory (of Tours, but maybe the Great), Bede, Boniface...suggestions?

Well, hell. I just got sidetracked by responding to some ideas about our thesis seminar syllabus, which a colleague and I have entirely re-written... what was I saying?

Oh, right. So does anybody have any brilliant ideas about this balancing act? I'm really thinking of sticking to Innes for a chronological (mostly) narrative, but taking in a break for James and then, within that chronology, pulling out some topics that I think need highlighting, and just forcing the students to work the topics into the larger narrative. Like wot I had to do.

Oh. And then there is geography. gotta work that in, too. bleargh.


This post brought to you by thinking online and blegging.

Carnivalesque 57

Carnivalesque 57

Hey, everybody! It's Ancient/Medieval Carnivalesque time!!! Go, read, enjoy!

a note to my medievalist colleagues

a note to my medievalist colleagues

And to the rest of my blogroll, for that matter.

Please stop writing for a while. It's Solstice, I don't do well in winter so much, and I cannot keep up with all of you. I really can't keep up with you if I am to get any work done.

So you, the one with the ponytail and the metal t-shirts (you know who you are!) and you, you people who should be digging your cars out of Canadian snows, and you, you scary lit people and your bodies and monsters and cannibals and theories...


Just go take a break and play with your families, dammit!

You are writing too many interesting things!

Something More Important

Something More Important

In case you have not been watching, the sf blogosphere has been full of righteous anger on behalf of author Peter Watts, who was arrested and beaten (beaten and arrested?) by US Border Patrol Officers last Tuesday.

There is a defense fund set up. Links are at the Scalzi post and at Making Light, I think.

I'm not going to get into arguing the fine points. I'm not really worrying about "he should have known better," for example, because US police procedures are not standard around the world, and also? No US police agency that I know of justifies using more force than is necessary to subdue a person. In other countries, it is perfectly normal to question the police as to the reasons for a search of a vehicle. Me, I'd have just done what the cops said -- not because I fear the police, but because I have known enough cops over the years to know that people who don't follow their orders can make *some* cops jumpy, and I don't like to be around jumpy people carrying loaded guns.

The sad truth is that we live in a country where people in positions of authority feel no need to justify their actions. One would think that the border folks might have thought about the fact that borders are places where cultural norms cannot be assumed to be the same. One would think.

More importantly, one would think that people who apparently posed no real threat wouldn't get pepper-sprayed, beaten, and arrested.

On the Recent Brouhaha

On the Recent Brouhaha

For those of you who don't read Whatever, you may have missed John Scalzi's recent post on the pay offered by Black Matrix Publishing, or his follow-up post that rounds up the responses of lots of pro writers and editors. Today, Scalzi points us to a very cranky response by MFA student and aspiring pro writer Jenn Brissett. The comment thread is wonderful. It's useful. It makes clear that Brissett doesn't get it.

So why do I care? Scalzi is not my friend, although I would love to hang out with him some time. I do know some professional sf writers and editors, though, and have been on the fringes of fandom for a long time. I don't see myself writing professionally, because I think I'm not really imaginative enough to write something that isn't jejeune and embarrassingly full of the Mary-Sue-ness that, even though it can sell (I'm looking at YOU, Stephinie Meyer), is not really very good. And if I wrote sf or fantasy, I would want it to be good, because I don't want the people I respect as writers to laugh at me. So yeah. Don't look for fiction by ADM anytime soon.

Right -- so this is why it concerns me at all. There are really a couple of reasons. The first is that, well, I have friends who write, and I want them to be writing for markets that pay relatively well. The second is that, well, I do write. I mean, I write really slowly, and I don't get paid in anything but CV credit, but in some ways I think that's relevant to the larger conversation. One of Brissett's arguments is that publishing with businesses like Black Matrix is still better than not publishing, because it can give a writer pro credits. The counter-argument is that some publishers are better than others; while the publishers who pay well tend to be the best-known and have the big pro reputations (hence good publication credits), many of the smaller and badly paying venues are also not places where the credit will count as much. This is not true for all of them, and I can imagine that, given the right publisher and editor, it might be advantageous for a newbie author to publish for free.

That seems pretty sensible to me, because the same is true for academic publishing. We rank our venues. A peer-reviewed publication is the bottom line, and from there there is a hierarchy of journals and publishers. Oxford UP or Cambridge UP will publish your book? Gold standard for many of us. Non-academic publisher or publisher with no guarantee of peer review? Not so much. There is an assumption of quality based on venue.

The second issue that strikes me about all this, though, is the one of payment. Academics don't expect to make tons of money from their books (although some do bring in some good royalties). To the best of my knowledge, most sf/f authors also do not make ginormous profits. Brissett argues that, by calling publishers like Black Matrix on their sweat-shop like wages, pro authors are acting as gatekeepers who don't want the newbies to get a fair shot. I call shenanigans on that. I may be a medievalist, but dammit, I teach the modern survey, too, and passed macroeconomics. I am familiar with Ricardo and his Iron Law of Wages. It's not about gatekeeping as much as it is looking around us and noting that, when we live in a society that undervalues labor, everybody's wages suck. This is true whether we look at people working at places like Walmart or in the kitchens of restaurants, or at humanities faculty. When people undersell themselves, they make it possible for employers to underpay them. Not only does it drag the wages of everyone else down, but it also encourages people to see what we do as having little worth. Unions can sometimes mitigate that, but honestly, they can't prevent state budget cuts and furloughs, which would not pass if people were properly infuriated and placed a high value on what we do.

Yeah -- that's getting a little close to blaming the victim, and I don't mean to do that. But this also connects back to our discussion of Bennett's History Matters, in terms of women and their occasionally willing participation in the perpetuation of the patriarchal equilibrium. Actually, it just connects back to feminism, plain and simple. If we aren't part of the solution, we are part of the problem -- and Brissett not only is part of the problem, but her arguments are so self-interested that she seems unable to see the same problem the rest of us do, i.e., that a poor wage structure, especially coupled with a venue that does not supply any particular cachet to its writers, is a sucker's game.

A final issue, which make it three for the promised two, is that ... WHAT? As I said above, I'm really sort of on the fringes of fandom. I don't drag myself to cons, even though I am starting to explore options there (Readercon, Sirens, and Wiscon are on my radar these days, although often they are not at convenient times for me to travel). But my overall impression, from being on those fringes for the past 30 or so years, is that the world of sf/f writing and editing is really not one of extraordinarily high, multi-bolted gates. There seem to be an awful lot of pros who got their start writing fanfic or editing fanzines. Smart people with something sensible to say seem to get put on con panels, and get worked into the system, although there does seem to be a flexible, but existing, frontier between the pros and the fans. But by and large, it seems to me to be a world where the talented can reinvent and establish themselves in ways that are not nearly as possible in many other professional areas.

You may wonder what all this is in service of. First, it's my blog and I had too much to say in a comment. Also? I've just successfully avoided marking essays for about 40 minutes! Guess it's time to get on that...

oh, dear

Thanks to Dr. Crazy for taking me to this site ...

What day is it?

What Day is it?

What I have done this week:

• taught 6 classes (including prep, obviously)
  
• had one chairs' meeting
  
• dealt with several end-of-semester student crises
  
• two phone interviews (on a search committee)
  
• Weighed in on College issues
  
• written up questions for a different part of the search
  
• written a review for survey classes
  
• lost a large chunk of my mind
  
• ranted about people who really got on my nerves
  
• paid bills
  
• had a really good meeting with a colleague on some of the things we're doing to revamp the program

What I would like to have done:

• slept more
  
• got to the gym
  
• kept the flat tidy
  
• read something for me
  
• reviewed to start writing again
  
• gone to the basketball game with friends
  
• did I mention sleep?

What I'm going to do with the rest of the week:

• sleep
  
• get to the gym
  
• have friends to dinner
  
• go out for a beer on Friday
  
• finish all my pre-exam grading
  
• write my final exams
  
• prep my last three days of classes
  
• teach 4 more classes this week
  
• finish reading Bone, from volume 5 on.
  
• Start my Christmas cards!!

If I do this, I can go for a hike next week, do some search committee work, and still get my grading done and in by next Sunday, and will have most of the break to write and prep for the newish course in my specialty area that I am teaching in the Spring. w00t!

Disturbing thought

Disturbing thought

I was looking around the blogosphere this evening, thinking about how much content people manage to transmit to their students. I don't get enough of that done, because I am so busy being Dr. Socratic Method to a bunch of people who can't be arsed to remember anything and have to be re-told/re-led to the same conclusions over and over again. And I get behind. And all my plans to be really good at my job fall apart, because I'm not making them learn enough stuff, and I'm not getting through what I want to get through, and I'm not delivering enough content.

I am teaching some of them how to read primary sources, though. Unless they talk about religious stuff, in which case, roughly 70% of my students will fall into ignorant credulity and talk about how clearly miracles must have happened if people said they did.

But anyway. Did you were worry that people think you're good at your job in part because they don't know any different? I wonder how they'd feel if they had to get through some of my medieval colleagues' classes. It's stuff like this that makes me worry I couldn't cut it somewhere else.











Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Call the Whaaambulance.

Cliopatria Awards Last Call

Cliopatria Awards Last Call

Nominations for this year's Cliopatria Awards end tomorrow. Please, please, pleeeease, nominate a favorite post!!

I'm judging the Cliopatria Awards this year, along with David Silbey of The Edge of the American West and Miriam Burstein of The Little Professor. We'll be judging the Best Individual Blog and Best Post categories. If you have a nominee, please click on the appropriate button below!

A serious post, brought to you by Patrick Stewart

A serious post, brought to you by Patrick Stewart (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 27)

A friend pointed me to this essay by Patrick Stewart on domestic violence. It's a hard read, but a good one. Some of you know that I was raised by a woman with a violent temper. I never had to witness the sort of thing Stewart mentions, but the rest, barring the alcohol, sounds eerily familiar.

But come Friday night, after the pubs closed, we awaited his return with trepidation. I would be in bed but not asleep. I could never sleep until he did; while he was awake we were all at risk. Instead, I would listen for his voice, singing, as he walked home. Certain songs were reassuring: I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen; I'll Walk Beside You . . . But army songs were not a good sign. And worst of all was silence. When I could only hear footsteps it was the signal to be super-alert.



Fortunately, my mother was not a drinker. She was just chronically depressed, possibly bipolar. She was never a particularly strong woman, and she seldom made a fist. Remember, I'm a boomer; when I was growing up, it was still considered normal to smack one's kids. The big difference to me was that, where some of my friends had parents who would take a belt to them (something that scared the hell out of me>, it was part of a very formalized system of rules. They knew when they broke them, and expected to be punished if caught. Not that that makes it much better (if at all), but there's not that constant wondering about what the rules are, and whether you might set things off. Anyway, I thought I would mention once again that the victims of domestic violence are also almost always the victims of emotional abuse. And that emotional abuse is so much easier to hide.

It's also much easier to ignore, or to miss, especially if you're caught in an abusive relationship. And if you grew up being used to emotional abuse, as a victim, or even as a witness, it's likely to feel familiar enough that it's sort of comforting. Me, I try to be vigilant in my own relationships, and I try not to ignore warning bells that go off in my head. It's harder if you see this happening to people you love -- and I have to admit, there are times that friends have had to point out red flags to me. More often, though, they've been there for the sort of reality checks that you need, because two of the most effective tactics of the emotional abuser are that they can make a person question reality and they tend to make the person being abused feel responsible for the abusive situation. To the outside world, the abuser often represents hirself as the victim. Usually, that's a true representation, as far as the abuser is concerned. That's the really fucked up part of emotional abuse: the abuser often thinks that zie is the most reasonable person around, if only hir spouse/child/partner/employee would just do things the right way. I'm posting some signs below, and I've tried to make them gender-neutral, because although abusive men are still by far more likely to beat the crap out of, and even kill, their partners, it's been my experience that women are right up there in the ranks of emotional abuse, which can bee far more subtle.

So I thought maybe I would post a few of the classic telltale signs of an abusive relationship, just because it never hurts to remind people (and even myself):

Zie was verbally abused as a child, witnessed it in hir own family, or was verbally abused by a previous partner.

* Zie has low self-esteem.

* Zie has an intense temper, triggered by minor frustrations and arguments.

* Hir sense of power or control depends on hir partner's acquiescence and performance per hir demands. Zie feels "in control" only if hir partner is totally passive and giving in to all of hir preferences and decisions.

* Zie has rigid expectations or fantasies of marriage, partnership, and what the partner should be/ how they should behave, and will not compromise. Zie expects a partner to behave according to hir expectations of what hir partner should be like; perhaps the way hir parents' marriage was, or its opposite. Zie demands that the partner change to accommodate hir expectations.

* Zie projects the blame for all relationship difficulties onto hir partner. Zie wouldn't get angry if only the partner would be who zie wants hir to be... Zie wouldn't drink if the partner didn't make hir unhappy... Zie denies the need for counseling because there's "nothing wrong with hir, only with the partner." Zie might not want the partner to get counseling because zie's threatened by the possibility of an outsider "taking sides" with him -- they just wouldn't understand the true dynamics of the relationship.

* Abusers are extremely possessive and jealous. They experience an intense desire to control their mates.

* Abusers often have superficial relationships with other people. Their primary, if not exclusive, relationship is with a spouse/longtime partner.

* Zie may be described as having a dual personality -- Zie is either sweet or exceptionally cruel and sharp. Zie is selfish or generous depending on her mood.

* A major characteristic of abusers is their capacity to deceive others. They can be sweet, calm, charming and convincing.

* The mate is usually a symbol. The abuser doesn't relate to hir partner as a person in hir own right, but as a symbol of a significant other. This is especially true when zie's angry. Zie assumes that the partner is thinking, feeling, or acting like that significant other -- often modeled on family member or authority figure).

(Adapted from a list at http://www.lilaclane.com/relationships/emotional-abuse/)

Also:

Emotional abuse is characterized by the abuser’s manipulation and invalidation of his or her partner. Here is a list of warning signs to be aware of.

Abusive Expectations

* Makes unreasonable demands.
* Requires constant attention, or that you spend all your free time with him/her.
* Constantly criticizes.
* No matter how much you give, it never seems to be enough.

Aggressing

* Calls you names, accuses, blames, threatens, or gives orders.
* Can be disguised as “helping” or “teaching.”
* Judgmental “I know best” attitude.

Constant Chaos

* Deliberately starts arguments and may be in constant conflict with you or with others
* Treats you well in front of others, but changes into a different person when you’re alone together, or vice versa.
* May enjoy “drama,” because it creates excitement and brings the focus back onto him/herself.

Denying

* Denies your personal needs, especially when that need is greatest, and does so with the intent of hurting, punishing, or humiliating you.
* Denies that certain events occurred or that certain things were said.
* Refuses to listen or communicate (silent treatment), and withdraws emotionally.
* Denies your perceptions, memory, and sanity.
* Disallows or overrules any viewpoints, perceptions, or feelings that differ from his/her own.
* Causes you to lose confidence in and question your own perceptions and feelings.
* Causes you to doubt your most powerful survival tool: your own mind.

Dominating

* Manipulates the relationship so that the only feelings and opinions that count are his/her own.
* Must have his/her own way, and will hurt your feelings if necessary in order to get it.
* Holds you personally responsible for his/her own happiness.
* Disregards your personal standards or beliefs, and may try to persuade you to do things that you don’t want to do.

Emotional Blackmail

* Plays on your fear, guilt, compassion, religious values, or other “hot buttons” to get what he/she wants.
* May threaten to end the relationship, totally reject or abandon you, give you the “cold shoulder,” or use other tactics to control you.

Invalidation

* Seeks to distort your perceptions of your own world.
* Refuses to or fails to acknowledge reality in order to create his/her own false reality.
* If you tell your partner that you felt hurt by something he/she did or said, he/she might say, “You’re too sensitive. That shouldn’t hurt you.”
* Or, the abuser might turn it around by saying, “You hurt me too sometimes. I just don’t say anything because I’m understanding.”
* Suggests that your emotions and perceptions are faulty and can’t be trusted.
* Any time your own feelings are disregarded or denied, invalidation has occurred.

Minimizing

* Less extreme form of denial.
* Says things like “You’re exaggerating” or “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
* Trivializes by suggesting that something you have communicated is inconsequential or unimportant.

Unpredictable Responses

* Acts angry or upset in a situation that normally would not warrant such a response, or gets angry certain times but not others.
* Blows up or gets angry at you over innocent comments you made.
* You feel like you have to “walk on eggshells” around him/her.
* Has drastic mood changes or sudden emotional outbursts.
* Likes something you do one day, but hates it the next.

Verbal Assaults

* Berates, belittles, criticizes, threatens, or calls you names.
* Subtle to blatant use of sarcasm and humiliation.
* Constantly finds flaws with you.
* Makes fun of you in front of others, or in private.



Emotional abuse often starts out very subtly, and progresses gradually over a period of time. Abusers are master manipulators, and can deceive even your friends and family – as well as their own. Trust your own feelings and perceptions. (taken from http://wsr.byu.edu/content/warning-signs-emotional-abuse)

Tyger

Tyger

via Jeffrey Jerome Cohen



enjoy

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 25)

I'm not all that fond of talking about how thankful I am for stuff, because so often it sounds like a bunch of mealy-mouthed platitudes. And yeah, I'm happy to have a job I love (IN THIS ECONOMY -- that's for New Kid), health, yada, yada, yada. But those are just sort of normal things, aren't they?

But here's a thing. I'm single and my family are all thousands of miles away. When LDW and I were together, he was a couple of thousand miles in the opposite direction. Holidays have always felt a bit iffy and worrisome. Not Christmas so much -- I'm actually a bit better at ignoring Christmas, which I really only like when there are kids and lots of family, and then I sort of hate the stress that can come about with lots of family :-)

No, really, I used to have to start my mornings with my best friend and her mom, with whom I lived for a time, then off to my grandparents for dad-family breakfast, then off to the maternal family (two at one point, as my grandparents were divorced), then to the dad house for dinner in the afternoon, then back to the friend house for dessert and carol-singing. That's a lot of running around. Christmas with my married family, or my mom and sisters, can also be a joy -- there is always a tantrum and always some sort of tension because someone will inevitably be late, or stressed at having to be the one who had to drive, or whatever.

So yeah, holidays alone are not the worst thing in the world.

One of the cool things about SLAC is that holidays alone don't necessarily exist. Part of it is that I do have family of sorts about three hours away. So I've had two Thanksgivings with them. And one in fabulous European Capital with LDW (I'm still sorry about that roast ...). And this year, I'm staying in town and eating with friends. Feeling a little guilty about not going to the family, especially because we need to see each other, but happy to hang out with some of my favorite colleagues. The best thing of all of this is that I don't feel like I'm included out of charity. That's a nice feeling.

This year, I can't get back to the left coast till New Year's. The fabulous European Capital option no longer exists. But I have bunches of friends who will be around for the holiday season, and I have tons of people to visit on all the days before and after Christmas itself. For the first time, I haven't had time to think about what to do during break besides working, because I know I have stuff to do. Same for Spring Break. I should stay home and work, but there may be a chance of a camping trip in an as-yet undecided locale.

Naturally, my life decides to have a social aspect exactly when I should be working harder and producing more. Life's funny that way. I expect there's an appropriate Terry Pratchett quote, but I can't be arsed to look it up. I've got baking, laundry, and marking to do tomorrow before I go and eat turkey.

A sad truth of academia?

A sad truth of academia? (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 23)

I have finished my teaching obligations for the week. I have finished my service obligations for the week. And all I can think is that I have several days in which I can actually get some damned work done. I have a big pile of marking to do -- essays for all classes, and catching up on all the online marking. The plus is that I will only have one set of papers to read the weekend before finals, and then the finals.

I am so looking forward to break, when I can ... ok, take a little break. I'm going home to visit The Kid and X and friends for five days, and there are a couple of parties and maybe some hiking, too. But mostly I will be looking forward to re-reading LDW's latest book, which I'm using for class, and at least one of his other books, and working on my damned book project (about which Superdean is nagging me) and also perhaps on my article for TenthMedieval. And going to the gym.

Maybe I'm just like this because I'm hopeless about time and balance. Maybe other academics spend their holidays actually having holidays. But I have this weird feeling that I'm not the only one who sees non-teaching time as a way to catch up.

On the other hand, I expect that it's a good thing that I've got to the point where I see these breaks now as real breaks, mental breaks, opportunities to do things I want to do, rather than as something I resent because I won't have a break. Still, I think I'd like to get more writing done in term time, and actually have a holiday, too.

An open letter to applicants

An open letter to applicants (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 22)

ProfGrrrl posted the other day about hiring committees and it got me thinking. I'm on a search committee this year, and it's going to be interesting. Politics and an inside candidate. I hate inside candidates. I try to stay away from committees where there is one. I don't know that this is true, but I don't feel I can speak freely about the inside candidate, because there will always be people who simply expect that we are supposed to hire the person they know, regardless of the other candidates. Ugh.

But that's not what I wanted to say. Mostly, what I wanted to say, not very delicately, is:

Dear Applicant and Applicant's Advisor/Referee,

Are you taking the piss? Because if you are, you have wasted a bunch of people's time. If you are not, you are friggin' morons. What the *hell* did you think you were doing? Our position is pretty specific. There's a chance that we won't find anyone who meets all the criteria, but we have a good chance of meeting someone who comes close. But you... I do understand that you come from a big and reputable research university, but really, you aren't all that, let alone a bag of chips.

Let's start off with your cover letter:

Nowhere does your letter address your suitability for the job we advertised. It doesn't show that you have the first clue about SLAC, a campus that has not only undergrads, but also several specialized schools that have very special needs. Some of those needs were outlined in the ad, but strangely, you didn't think you needed to mention how your very fancy-pants dissertation addresses the 4-3 teaching load and the classes you would teach: classes that have NOTHING to do with your fancy-pants dissertation. Now, to be fair, you do mention your teaching. Sort of. You've taught a lot, mostly as a grad student, and it's hard to tell how many of your courses were as a GA and how many were independent. But that's OK. And incorporating your philosophy into your cover letter is not a bad idea, either. But seriously, it's better to give us a clear idea of what you actually do than it is to include posh phrases in Italian and French -- I suppose it's at least a blessing that the Greek was at least transliterated. However, when you mention that you try to impart X's ideas of Y, where Y is theory, then really, you come off as a pretentious little git who thinks he's not only the gods' gift to the students, but oh, so much better than the people you'll be working with. Either that or no one has ever explained that, in a department that's hiring two people and only has four full-time faculty, that there will be at least two non-specialists on the search committee.

Also, it's good to sign the cover letter and to make sure that, when you cut and paste from your teaching philosophy, you at least try to re-word the most outstandingly precious phrases. I'm just sayin'.


Of course, I can't blame you entirely. You've been allowed to do all your work at the same BigName institution, from when you walked in the door as a freshman. No wonder your letter is so much like the one your advisor wrote for you. You might lose hir, by the way. The letter zie sent was even more pretentious. David Lodge couldn't have made that one up. Bespeckled with the droppings of name and reference to theory, the letter told us far more about your advisor than it did about why you were a suitable candidate for our job. This was a letter all about how erudite your advisor is -- why surely, we should hire someone purely because you are clearly the genius sprung forth from hir loins. Your publishing career, based on the sheer brilliance of your thesis, so carefully directed by the advisor, will allow us to bask in the glow of your reflection. Oh -- by the way, I still can't tell exactly what the point of your thesis was, because you defined yourself entirely in terms of the scholarship of others, without so much showing your own contribution to your field. If you're going to focus on research you'll never have a chance to do or teach while at SLAC, at least let us know how tragic it will be five years down the road when you die under the crush of our loads and your own bitterness. Except it's unlikely we'll be interviewing you, because, well, there's nothing you've told us about yourself but that you would be the last person we'd want to teach our students, who really want us to focus on them and teach them without making them feel stupid.

And to you other advisors out there? Please, do think about it before sending us two candidates from your program. Or at least in some way acknowledge that you are sending two students who have the same committees, and that each of them has hir own strengths. Maybe even make sure that the applicant letters aren't based on the same template, and that your letters are not formatted and written to say almost the same things in the same order. It makes you look sloppy. It doesn't help the person whose name comes alphabetically second. It makes me wonder what you've taught them about dealing with other academics. Having said that, I do like your candidates, and part of it is that the package looks solid -- it's just that seeing the same package (more or less) twice really does weaken the impact.

And for the rest of you people: this is not a bad job. It is a job in a field with not nearly enough openings, and it is tenure-track. Some of you should have applied. And some of you? Really. If you can't be bothered to tell us how you can fill the job we advertised, rather than the job we need to fill, stop wasting my time.

holding place

holding place

I actually fell asleepp while writing my post last night, and have a meeting for most of the day today. So here is today's post... I see it as substantial, because I have to think!

Also, last night Superdean nagged me about the book. Eep!



Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.


Questions from my friend chickenfeet2003

1. What would your dream vacation be?

One where I didn't have to feel rushed and could spend time with people without feeling guilty about what I'm not doing and who I'm not seeing. Actually, it might just be my usual England trip, but for the whole summer and with plenty of cash for traveling to see people. OTOH, I have always thought that it would be wonderful to charter a big sailboat with a few friends and spend an entire West Indies Tour sailing from island to island; sail to Jamaica, watch the Test while sitting in the sun, sail to Antigua, watch the Test ...



2. When are you coming to Toronto? (You are a bloody medievalist!)

I should look into that, shouldn't I? I shall start looking at research fellowships :-) But also, an LJ friend will be at PIMS next year, and I hope to visit her there...

3. What risky/foolish/daring/silly thing do you have an urge to try?
I'd like to do more rock climbing and maybe scuba diving.

4. What's your favourite whisk(e)y?

Whisky, definitely. Laphroig, or one whose name I can't remember, but I want to say it was from Orkney and had a seaweedy taste Scapa.

5. What movie can you watch over and over again?

A few of these: The Princess Bride, The Great Escape, A Bridge Too Far, The Lion in Winter, Love, Actually, Galaxy Quest ...

Long Day

Long Day (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 19)

I can't honestly think of anything substantial to say today, because my day just ended. Email, Doctor, tidying desk, lunch with guest speaker, guest speaker to class, office hours packed, more email and reading of Tacitus, grocery store, mad tidying of house, book club, now to clean up. Cannot wait for the weekend, except that I realized I have a meeting with my professional organization colleagues Saturday for between 4-6 hours, probably. Monday will start at 8 am and end at 10 pm, unless there is also beer. Thank goodness for Thanksgiving!

Something that struck me today

Something that struck me today (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 18)

One of the things that struck me today has to do with faculty privilege and how weird some of it seems to me. It's about communicating one's availability. I was feeling really grumpy today about people who don't communicate or pay attention. I'm talking about basic communication, nothing really work related. Just that I have colleagues and co-workers and student workers who just don't make sense to me. Some do. One of my colleagues never fails to pop hir head in and say hi when zie notices I've come in, and always says goodbye at night if zie leaves before me. Another always asks if I want the coffee left on when zie leaves, and I always know when zie is not going to be in, because zie mentions zie will be gone to a conference, for example. Some of my colleagues post their office hours clearly, and leave their doors ajar. If they are friends, we sort of know each other's schedules, more or less. Most of the students who work for my colleagues in our building pop their heads in when arriving or leaving, even though they don't work for me, just to say hi or bye. A couple even ask if I have work, if they have nothing assigned to them.

But then there are people who just don't communicate. The reason I started thinking about this was that I was by myself in the building for part of the afternoon, save one student. I don't know when the student left, but it was dark when zie did, and zie left the building door open. At night, after dark, with one female faculty member by herself in a building on the periphery of campus and adjacent to a busy road with not only lots of foot traffic, but a main thoroughfare for Dabbaville's homeless. It annoyed me. Part of it was the apparent lack of consideration, but then I realized that my expectations of communication just don't hold true for everybody.

This has happened before. I have a couple of friends who understand entirely when I ask them to text when they get home, if we've been out late, or if they have gone somewhere lonely by themselves to run, or some such thing. And we do that. They don't laugh when I post to facebook about illness or going for a run, because they were raised to check in, or know that single people can end up in all kinds of trouble and not be missed. Friends who thought it was a little silly have become a bit more understanding after I passed out for no identifiable reason last year. But anyway, I just think it's good to have an idea of where the people you care about are supposed to be, in case they end up somewhere else. Not everybody feels that way, and that's fine.

That was my reaction today. I reminded myself that my colleagues don't all have the same idea about communicating their whereabouts. And most of them are faculty. Faculty don't have to account for their time and where they spend it, except when required to be in a certain place for a class or meeting. So why should they communicate their schedules?

And then, I realised that I just don't buy it -- or not completely. If I need to talk to Superdean, or the Provost, or the President of SLAC, I may not be able to, but someone will know where they are and when they will be available. I don't account for every minute of the day, but I put a schedule for the week on my door, so that if people are looking for me, they can at least see if I'm definitely supposed to be somewhere else. And normally I shoot an email to folks if I'm coming in after about 10 on a non-teaching day (I like to go to the gym in the mornings sometimes, and often work till 7 ish). Hey, I'm department chair and have 25 advisees: people occasionally look for me. And if I'm home or working in a coffee shop, it's likely I'm checking email, anyway. Why? because it seems to me that, despite the freedom we have as faculty, people still normally keep something resembling bankers' hours, and part of the job is to be available to students and colleagues.

I've worked on a flex schedule before, by the way. I've worked jobs where I had a home office and only had to see my boss once a week. But if he was looking for me, he could usually find me, even if sometimes I was at a conference call in my pajamas. I've worked for places where every minute was jealously guarded as well. There's a difference in those atmospheres. Working from home on salary feels different from punching a clock. I never felt that I was obligated to call my boss and ask him if I could go to the gym at lunch, and he didn't care, as long as my work was done, and I returned calls and emails in a timely manner. But if I knew I'd be out of cell phone or internet range for more than a couple of hours, I'd usually let people know, because it's best not to have customers calling the boss to complain that you didn't pick up on the second ring.

I guess my point is that we work in a world where lots of people are accountable for their time, and there are lots of good reasons to communicate where we are, if only for simple courtesy and to make sure that, if our students need to see us, someone knows what to tell them about how to get hold of us. I'm just not sure how not having to account for one's movements got to be a faculty privilege, nor how that privilege seems more and more to be something assumed by staff and students, as well. Seems a little weird to me.