Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies

Well-earned politics

2008-07-19T03:57:29Z

I'm TAing a course on Heaven and Hell this semester; and my prof asked for suggestions. So, if you were teaching (or taking) this course, what would you want to talk about? Utopias/dystopias, problem of evil, life after death, other things?

Also, what would you want to read? I'm thinking classic lit and philosophy, of course (Socrates, Augustine, Blake, Milton, Dante); but also pop culture stuff. Movie, book, graphic novel suggestions?

In other news, I'm TAing for Intro to Gnosticism in the spring. I'm psyched -- I love the prof -- but I swear, my CV is going to be absolutely bizarre by the time I hit the job market.

oh, help

2008-07-15T21:57:00Z

This, THIS is what I get either for not reading my email very carefully or for planning ahead. I'm not sure which to berate myself for first.

Okay, see, what happened was I submitted this tiny piece I'd been working on to the national convention of the AAR. (That's "American Academy of Religion," for those outside the field.) And they took it. And it was good, brother. It was god-damned good. (Being accepted. The piece, she is still in progress.) My time-slot kinda sucked--late afternoon, third day of the conference--but promised to be nice and quiet, guaranteed to leave all but the hard-core scholars of transgendered performance (all four of us) and my friends well out of the audience.

This was in March. I haven't thought about it much since.

Except today, while ~~slacking online~~ dutifully pricing tickets to Chicago for said conference, it occurred to me to check the program. You know, to see how early I needed to get there to do the cool stuff (hopefully with the other Pagan Scholar Kids -- the conference is on Samhain this year) and how late I needed to stay after my presentation was over. And then it occurred to me to check the program for my name, because I'm shallow like that. And then, oh then, I got quite a shock.

It seems, through very little fault of my own, I have landed myself on a real panel at the AAR. Know who's presenting right after I do? Patrick Califia. (Short version: big ass name in trans studies. Potentially the name, since it's not a particularly big field.) Know who's responding to the papers? Amy Hollywood. (Decently big name in gender and performance. Her essay on performativity, citationality, and ritualization was on my reading list for my MA exam.) Know who I'm planning to reference in my own paper? Yeah. See above.

This is not exactly the same as when a woman of my acquaintance took classes with Mary Daly at BC, wherein the final exam consisted of sitting down at a table with--as she was sometimes known--"Scary Daly," having her open one of her own books, hand it to the student, and ask her what she, Mary Daly, meant when she wrote a particular passage.

However, it is not enough unlike the above for my comfort levels, either.

Gulp.

ramblin' on

2008-04-07T05:40:52Z

Random bits of update:

Conference paper on The Invisibles drafted. Disgustingly overdue seminar papers in progress -- if things continue apace AND I give up sleeping for the next, oh, week or so, I might just not fail out of school.

I was also offered and have happily accepted the Women's Study TA position, though oddly, it doesn't start until Spring 2010. Huh. I suppose I can wait...

Back to the ways in which Marx uses vampires to both demonstrate the function of capital and act as a cautionary tale against capitalism. Or Angela Carter. Or sleep. I haven't quite decided yet.

new frontiers

2008-03-27T16:02:54Z

I don't think I mentioned this, but I also interviewed with the Women's Studies department last week. They're looking for TAs; and I thought it'd be a good way to expand my teaching base.

Haven't heard back from them yet, but I did just hear from my advisor. He said they were "impressed." Which sounds like good news, no?

presenting...

2008-03-27T00:45:15Z

The Queer Theory/LGBT Studies panel accepted my paper on Northern Trad neo-shamanism. Hooray, and also yikes! Still waiting to hear back on my Milton paper. Fingers crossed.

Epistemology of the Sarcasm

2008-03-16T06:48:32Z

Advice on how to make sure your kids turn out gay, not to mention your students, your parishioners, your therapy clients, or your military subordinates, is less ubiquitous than you might think.

It doesn't matter how many times I read Eve Sedgwick, or how impenetrable I often find her prose. Bitch still cracks me up.

the making of poems

2008-02-15T00:50:03Z

the reason why i do it
though i fail and fail
in the giving of true names
is i am adam and his mother
and these failures are my job.

~Lucille Clifton

updates

2008-02-14T06:03:46Z

Only mostly dead. My paper on Morrison's Invisibles and Chaos Magic got accepted for the Graven Images conference queenofhalves organized, so I'll be in Boston at the beginning of April. Presenting for the very first time in Atlanta next month, allegedly to explain what JBut (err, Judith Butler) is talking about in Bodies That Matter re: why her model a) doesn't exactly work and b) perhaps more importantly, why it doesn't work in constructing religious bodies.

Frantically reading and prepping for my field exams. I have no more brains, just a direct connection between my eyes and my typing fingers. So...many...notes....

Random I heart academia moment of the week: Duke's search engines turned up a conference paper on bodies in Judith Butler's work that sounded interesting. We didn't have it. Duke didn't have it. So I emailed the author--a polisci theorist at UWales Swansea--fully expecting never to hear back. Not only did he email me hours later; he sent me the new-improved-prepublication expansion of the conference paper as an uncorrected journal page proof. Thus, smarty shout-out to Sam Chambers at Swansea. One of my favorite things about academia is how close you can get to the people who influence your thinking. Doesn't really happen in writing or in music, but in scholarly circles it's not even unusual to have drinks with the authors who rocked your world in undergrad.

Okay, I'm rambling. Time for sleep. Or more reading. Probably sleep.

For us, there is only the trying

2008-01-25T17:21:37Z

My roommate found this earlier this week. I think it might be the most heartbreakingly accurate description of grad school I've ever encountered.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

~T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, "East Coker"

Still waters

2007-12-12T01:21:57Z

Got my teaching reviews for this semester back today. When calculated with my fancy Plato finger-puppet, they officially add up to I WIN! I'M NOT THE WORST TA IN ALL THE LAND!

One of my favs actually drew me a picture; and another (as yet unidentified) student said my teaching was "incendiary." (Then hastened to add "in a good way" parenthetically.)

*whew*

Yay!

recitation

2007-12-03T00:28:40Z

Recitations finished this week. I'm really going to miss my kids -- which is something of a miracle, considering how abysmal my reviews were last year. But they learned so much, and they were really fun. Andandand...I got hugs after my last section.

Yay!

Definitely worth the cupcakes.

Your face is futile

2007-10-22T02:27:18Z

I just graded this essay. Needless to say, the student got an A.

Four philosophers walk into a bar, get drunk, and contemplate how irritating Annie Dillard is. Then they go to a dinner party and shout at each other about philosophical concepts.

First, Craig talks about how god can be proven through the temporal cosmological kalam argument, that the universe began, so god began it. Kierkegaard is then all "SHUT UP MORON YOU CAN'T APPEAL TO REASON TO PROVE GOD EXISTS. IT WILL NEVER WORK."

"WHATEVER, LOSER," shouts Craig. "I can provide two philosophical and two scientific arguments for the existence of god! They appeal to the impossibility of infinites and the big bang theory and..."

"NO!" says Soren. "You don't get it. Belief in god requires a LEAP OF FAITH. Human reason is futile."

"Your face is futile," says Craig.

Then Craig and Kierkegaard go fight in the porch. Mackie decides to talk about how philosophy can clarify the problem of evil.

"Basically," says Mackie, "philosophy shows that an all-powerful, all-good god can't coexist with evil. But evil does exist, so god it logically impossible. IN YOUR FACE, GOD."

Pike ignores Mackie. He just talks to himself about the problem of free will. "Philosophy shows that we don't have free will," he thinks. "God already knows everything, so our actions can't be free. They are predetermined."

THEN ALL OF THE DRUNK PHILOSOPHERS DANCE.

(time's up.)

She crossed out "Jesus" and wrote in "David Bowie" in the question about the best possible human being. This one definitely gets an 11.

Further up and further in

2007-10-05T00:22:54Z

I finally (seven months later) heard back about my CS Lewis paper. Short version: they liked it, now please change lots of things.

I can do that. The question now, of course, is when I can do it.

Still, hurray!

Pointed remarks

2007-09-30T05:23:25Z

Is this homework, or a commentary on my love life?

After such a promising title, I knew I could not possibly offer a satisfying essay; but perhaps the promise of the phallus is always dissatisfying in some way.

Judith Butler, "The Lesbian Phallus"

Instant karma

2007-09-19T00:39:12Z

I take back several of the things I've ever said about Marx. I've never denied that he was important, if not crucial, to the understanding of modern religious thought. But I never cared about him all that much, mostly 'cause I have no interest in money. And in my head, terms like "production" and "capitalism" and "commerce" all sound like "a franc, a yen, a buck, or a pound" -- which, if you don't speak musical theater, translates roughly to "moneymoneymoney" which equals I DON'T CARE.

But this article I'm reading by Akhil Gupta on conceptions of time based on "western" production schedules might just be a theophany. He's using Marxist theory of production to talk about how postcolonial thought needs to deconstruct dichotomies of concrete v. abstract time. Check it out:

I am concerned with refuting this opposition at some length because it serves as a master trope to distinguish the civilized from the primitive, cosmopolitan from rural, adults from children, and men from women. These disparate themes are unified in the narrative of progress embodied in the idea of development...

In moving from concreteness to abstraction, one develops simultaneously along cognitive, moral, intellectual, cultural, and economic dimensions. It is through this play of oppositions, by which the primitive, the rural, children, and women are assimilated, rather than by simple assertion, that the dominance of the West becomes synonymous with the development of the cultivated white male.

Hells yes. Preach it, brother Gupta. (I'm also digging his use of Salman Rushdie quotes to set off each section. I'm such a lit nerd.) This, this is why Marx still matters. It doesn't make me like him; but it does make him relevant to my work. (My roommate just explained that postcolonialists all have a very tense relationship with Marx--something about Marx being the first person to identify global capital, but also sort of a giant proponent of colonialism.)

*sigh*

All of which just means I have more reading to do.

source: Akhil Gupta, The Reincarnation of Souls and the Rebirth of Commodities: Representations of Time in "East" and "West"

Impermissibly good fun

2007-09-10T05:03:25Z

When asked if they are scared that the village dasmanan will discover that they drink alcohol, men often proudly respond, "Nobody can catch my penis."
~Magnus Marden, "All-male sonic Gatherings, Islamic reform, and masculinity in northern Pakistan"

Flames rose to my Roman nose, and my walkman's started to melt

2007-06-07T01:42:18Z

Pursuant to this post:

I spoke with my advisor about the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Evaluations.

For two hours.

Ouch.

First-and-foremost-ly, I must state for the benefit of the Recording Angel just how much I adore my advisor. I have nothing negative to say about Drew; but I didn't have the kind of relationship with any of the profs there that I do with my UNC advisor. He gets me, is incredibly supportive of both my scholastic and my personal pursuits, and is just an all-around wonderful man. It doesn't hurt that he's brilliant, either. (I have a total study-crush on him, obviously. I'd be very happy to sit around and listen to him say smart things for hours at a time.)

So when said Fabulous Advisor started this conversation with "I want you to know that I'm a big fan of yours; and I want you to do well; and that's where all this is coming from," I suspected I was not in for a friendly progress-report-type chat.

*deep breath*

The reason my FA looked at the evaluations so early is because my prof was "very unhappy" about my performance this past semester. Her qualms, if I'm understanding them correctly, are as follows:

1) Turn-around times for grading
Though technically within the times she alloted for grading, the prof was displeased that it took me longer to grade the exams than it did the other two TAs.

2) Absences in last week of class/exam period
She felt I should have asked her permission for my absences, and wanted more notice regarding them. She was also concerned that the other TAs had to grade my seniors' exams, and that everything might not go in on time.

3) Concerns about students' extreme dislike of me affecting her class evaluations
This one's pretty self-explanatory. She was worried that because so many of the kids felt so strongly about me, her own evaluations might suffer. She was particularly concerned with their reactions to my seemingly anti-Christian bias and the tone of my communications with them.

4) Interrupting with questions during class
She found my questions disruptive and distracting.

5) Professionalism and maturity
I didn't get a whole lot of details on this one. (I think by this point my FA was trying to spare my feelings. We were about 45 minutes into the conversation.) But clearly she felt I wasn't taking the job seriously enough.

Apparently, she doesn't think I should be TAing for anyone next semester. And when you put it like that, I'm not sure I can disagree with her. But I am TAing in the fall, probably for my advisor (hooray!), and, if so, on a subject I at least know from Adam (double hooray!).

I'm looking forward to teaching, despite these set-backs. It helps to remember that the HIST566 kids loved me, enough to tell the prof repeatedly how much I'd helped with their papers. Granted, that was only one class session. But still.

I am *not* looking forward to the inevitable conversation with last semester's prof when I return to campus, but I think it needs to happen. I'd like to hear her concerns directly from her, and to apologize for not meeting her expectations. Hopefully my next assignment'll go better. To that end:

Useful advice from FA
1) Right off the bat next year, I'm hauling my butt to the Center for Teaching and Learning. Apparently, these long-suffering folks are willing to sit in on classes, critique my methods, and offer advice on how best *not* to alienate the entire student body. My FA has worked with the CTL in semesters past, and had great things to say about them. So I figure I'll bring them my ~~giant pile of hatred~~ evaluations, throw my hands up in despair, and beg for help.

2) Must not treat students like peers. This is worth thinking about. I think I forget that they're thinking about me as a pseudo-teacher, rather than one of them. Attempts at comraderie are misplaced and apparently ineffective. As my FA pointed out, what reads as flippant/irreverent/silly in a graduate context might well feel dismissive or belittling to undergrads. (They don't laugh at my jokes, anyway.)

Likewise, my offhanded dismissal of or arguments with their comments might be read as aggressive or arrogant by undergrads, whereas grad students/profs would feel comfortable countering with their own opinions. In short: must tread lightly. Particularly with younger students, who are not, as previously suspected, mini-grad students, but rather just-out-of-high-school (academically speaking, practically zygotes).

3) I am not an activist in the classroom. (This is more about my Religion and Gender class than it was about my TA assignment, but it's good advice nonetheless.) I am facilitating conversation, not expressing my opinions. A podium is not a pulpit. No matter how offensive I might find some of the students' statements--and believe me, they were plenty offensive--I cannot bop them on their heads. (If only. Hare today, goon tomorrow...) It will not help to shout, growl, or beat them, either physically or verbally. This is not the way to change minds. Best to listen, consider, and respond *calmly*.

This is going to be hard. But it can be done: my FA's politics are, as I understand them, comparable to my own. And yet he is able to calmly face down what borders on hate speech and create an environment for learning. (Maybe if I took downers before class...) Sowing seeds. Change over time. As he said, feeding into a heterosexist and/or Christian persecution complex helps nothing. I can only hope to do as he does: treat each student with respect, no matter how horrifying I find the inside of his/her head to be (oy, Voltaire), and present the facts as I understand them. Drowning the horse who having been led to water, refuses to drink, is not an option.

I haven't completely ruled out truck-driving school, though.

Candle in the wind

2007-05-18T18:10:02Z

This is an overdue but well-deserved shout-out to the UNC Religion Department, whose contributions to my adopt-a-soldier scheme were generous and well-received. A friend's dedication to Books for Soldiers inspired me to get involved; so I contacted Operation Military Pride back in March. The kind people at OMP assigned me a soldier Somewhere Out There (which includes but is not limited to the Middle East).

Of course I'm broke, so I recruited the rest of my department to help. And they were great, despite some incredibly disparate views on the "war." What was supposed to be a single care-package turned into three full boxes of foodstuffs, personal items, and reading/viewing material. I heard back from our brother-in-arms yesterday--he's received our loot and was happy to have it. So Somewhere Out There, there's a soldier well-stocked in snack foods, sudoku, and pre-viewed DVDs who might be tossing a UNC football around with his buddies. (Notice I didn't say "unit." Admire my restraint.)

I whole-heartedly oppose this ridiculous military operation; and I've been hard-pressed when people have asked to explain *why* I sent soldier-goodies. Aside from it seeming like a Good Thing to Do, the only explanation I can come up with is this:

A.J. Muste...during the Vietnam War stood in front of the White House night after night with a candle. One rainy night, a reporter asked him, "Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?"

"Oh," Muste replied, "I don't do it to change the country. I do it so the country won't change me."

~Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

CONFERENCE: Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion

2007-05-15T04:18:27Z

26-28 April 2007
Syracuse University

Can't promise these notes will make any sense, but here's what I have scribbled from three days I spent in the same chair. (Good muffins, by the way.)

Helene Cixous
University of Paris-VII
"Promised Belief"

The introductory speaker highlighted Cixous's use of imagery, particularly that of the sorceress and of the hysteric, to discuss women's relationship with knowledge--the sorceress as "evil" knowledge, and the hysteric as the product of "wrong" (ie outside the church) healing.

Cixous herself began by promising that the Messiah would not appear during her talk. "I can promise you promised belief," she said, "nagging little apocalypses." (Her whole talk dripped like honey from her tongue--I can't wait to read the published transcript. Note to self: GET TAPE RECORDER.) She spoke of literature as belief: "I myself believe in literature...my first religion, my only religion, my foreign religion," and of G-d as "textual sovereign."

She spoke of her first book, In the Name of the First Name of God, in which she searched for "the hollow place of language in which the name of g-d can resound." The name of G-d, she said, "makes the whole language shake," "a name whose name is the Name [Ha-Shem]." She spoke of faith and belief, of faith as an act ("faithing"), of faith as "the auxilary of doubt, its disguise." "Faith," she said, "does not know...I think, therefore I tremble." She played the exegete with Numbers 20: 13-14 (Moses striking the rock for water, hesitating, and striking again). He was right to strike twice, to be afraid, she insisted. "You can't not tremble when you're about to speak to a rock. It's the least you can do." Doubt is to be expected: "Mary at the Annunciation doesn't say immediately 'yes.' She says 'WHAT?'...One prays to a pseudonym of god called 'just in case.'"

But most of all, she spoke of her relationship with Jacques Derrida. They were friends for forty years: they wrote; they argued; they recreated each other. She still dreams of him, enough to write herself notes of an afterlife from which "there may be Leaves;" and the writing, she said, "believes even when I do not, cannot." She spoke of his feminism--"if you think you are a woman," she told Derrida, "I grant it"--and of feminism itself: that "infinite patience...and ongoing, impatient patience." She detailed their disagreements about the nature of god ("we would play with god-naming all the time"), and the persistence of faith ("once interrupted, faith returns--no one knows why"). And when people asked her questions, it was as if they were speaking to a spiritualist, a medium: tell us how he spoke to you, how he speaks to you still.

Works Cited
Beethoven Forever, or, the Existence of God
Derrida, Faith in Knowledge
Derrida, A Deceitful Life

Random Quotes
"decapitation of prayer"
"the thing that makes my sentence shudder"
"I who am not I, heterogenrous to myself"
"little by little, time catches fire"

"May we always have to be forever starting all over again." (Derrida)
---

Sarah Coakley
Harvard Divinity School
"In Defense of Sacrifice: Gender, Selfhood and the Binding of Isaac"

Coakley tackled the postmodern problem of sacrifice ("veritasection"), particularly the inclusion of women as ritual actors. She countered the concept of gift-as-manipulation with Derrida's theory of pure gift, that which can only be given by an absolute Other, and gift-as-sacrifice, something "outside the economy of exchange." Coakley maintained her refusal to "disjoin gift and sacrifice." Most significantly, she re-gendered (or perhaps de-gendered) Isaac by insisting on a "divine desire more fundamental than gender," which "interrupts the binary, and creatively destabilizes gender rather than creating a third gender."

Her introduction laid out three roads: gender, sexuality, and "good old God" (Lacan). These concepts, she said, meet at the aqedah (Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac).

Section I addressed sacrifice itself. Coakley countered the conception that sacrifice is inherently violent (Kant: Abraham should have resisted; sacrifice requires ethical resistance) with Kierjegaard's Fear and Trembling (Abraham as the Knight of Faith). She explored the absence of feminisist presence in sacrifice--women in Abraham's position become Medeas, she said. Divine gifts, she suggested, are reflexive: they are an interaction between god and god, between aspects of god; they are "purgation into life" rather than "sacrifice unto death," and are "authentically submitted to god alone."

Section II of the lecture "kidnap[ped] Isaac for feminist reflection," and made him a willing, not powerless, sacrifice. Coakley's Isaac represents feminist selfhood and consent to divine intervention, a negotiation between "submission to false patriarchal authority" and "willing consent to the divine, a true call to purgation." She quoted Butler ("sexuality establishes us as outside of ourselves") and responded "yes, ecstatically in god."

Coakley explored the midrashim of Isaac: 9th century tales of Isaac seeking out Hagar after his "sacrifice" and Sarah's death, presumably so that she might marry Abraham; 3rd century accounts of Isaac binding himself, which were echoed in 5th century descriptions of a mature Isaac who couldn't have been bound unwillingly; John of the Cross's 16th century parallel of Isaac with Christ's suffering, with the consent of a suffering Father. John of the Cross spoke of a divine union after purgation that feels like death, and is actually a passage to life (aside from a single reference, which apparently Gertrude Stein made much of). These acts were "voluntarily purgative," Coakley insisted, "but aimed at the fullness of life."

The lecture's third section suggested that God interrupts the "twoness" of both Abraham/Sarah and Abraham/Isaac. Sacrifice is, and must be, suffered as purgation of desire, against the false direction of desire." The outcome of sacrifice is the sorting of desires, the purgation of idolatry. Divine "thirdness" interrupts the human binary; and in this paradigm, sexuality functions as the "divine tether of desire," a reminder of our "creatureliness" and our relationship to god.

Notes
I tried to get her to apply her theory to the story of Jepthah's Daughter, but she wouldn't bite. (Dr. Keller suggested that it sounded like a trick question; but an enthusiastic biblical scholar tracked me down in the lobby to discuss it further.)

Male Questioner: "I'm wondering about the knife."
SC: "Yes, you would."
---

Judith Butler
University of California at Berkley
"Sexual Politics, Torture, and the Limits of Sexual Discourse"

I don't have a whole lot of notes on Butler's talk -- she was a fantastic speaker, but most of her talk dealt with stuff I don't really do (read: politics). But her points on "not trading religious freedoms with sexual ones" were timely and well-made.

She discussed on the gendered problems France is having as a secular state, and the "hegemony imposed by liberalism." Their secular "freedom," she said, excludes religious communities and associations, and effectively "emasculate the state."

She also talked about "secular fundamentalism," and the distinction between dogmatic and critical thinking. She explored religion's function as a "matrix for the articulation of values," even within an ostensibly secular discourse.

Quotes
"I don't buy books with the word 'modernity' in the title. They scare me. The word is too big."

"My theology's more with Kafka."
---

Mark Jordan
Emory University
"The Return of Religion during the Reign of Sexuality"

Jordan's talk dealt with the interplay of sexuality with religion. He began by discussing "orgasmic enlightenment," the "triumph" of sexuality over Christendom. Sexual liberation, he maintained however, did not "quell Christianity;" and as "the work of theology is to sabotage totalities," theology must now address the totality of heteronormativity.

"Sex," Jordan said, "is God's Other... the death of god (Nietzsche) inaugurated another monarchy: 'King Sex' (Foucault)." Sex has become "god's viceroy;" we are now in search of a "better-sexed divinity." In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche puts forth just such a deity, the "tempter-god" Dionysus. That "God is dead" is an erotic complaint, Jordan suggested; we have traded votary sex for a god "who sometimes wants it." Jordan explored this theme via "Ariadne's Lament", particularly "Ariadne's call, scripted by Nietzsche, for violent theophany." "The rejection of one god is the invocation of another...the old god is dead because he would not have sex with us." Here Jordan relied heavily on Foucault's reading of Nietzsche: "covenant marked on the foreskin," grafting Christianity onto Jewish theology.

Jordan spoke of a sexual theology devoid of the erotic, and of the importation of new sexual identities into theology. Christ's "sexed body" is problematic, Jordan suggested, particularly in light of His relationship to a feminine Church. "Jesus who must be the phallus, cannot have a penis." Christ is a "presumptive heterosexual," particularly in light of the "evangelical pillow-book" trend. These assumptions flourish in spite of Christ's silence on the subject of sex. "Jesus's silence is an extremely risky pedagogical strategy when it comes to sexuality."

Quotes
"God is the only one worthy of Nietzsche's jealousy." (Batai)
Ears as "orifices always open" (Nietzsche)
"Queering Christ"

"Rhetorical fevers that sweep through languages, corrupting them...by making promises of the delivery of a well-packaged truth."

"You are much better off being a sodomite than a homosexual."

Characters as measurable units of bio-power?

Friendship as "sincere devotion over a passionate distance" (Nietzsche)

"I think we have a delicious mess, and that's where I think we ought to leave it."
---

Catherine Keller
Drew University
"Returning God: the Gift of Feminist Theology"

Dr. Keller was one of my thesis advisors; I adore her work. She began her talk by telling us that while Cixous promised the Messiah wouldn't arrive during her talk, Keller couldn't promise She wouldn't. I have something of a broken web of notes on her talk; rather than trying to untangle it, I'll just toss up what I have.

-seeking ancient/new metaphors for god: metanymics of the possible
-Penelope: one with a web over her eyes
-"God comes with his archives...the percussive elegance of He-s and Him-s"
-apophasis
-trying to explain the importance of gendering god to a non-native speaker: "Holy She-He-It!"
-intercarnation: multiplicity, the evolving body of God
-White Teeth, God under the sheets/Allah with a torch
-sexually censorious god returns in the new millenium
-"burrowing deeply and queerly into that darkness"
-God as omnisexual rather than omnipotent
-Numbering God: "We God" of Genesis; God as "Thou" (Buber) -- third person reifies; "I think we can use every pronoun as long as we unsay it again"
-ruse of discarnate deity
-exclusion of sexually improper bodies
-feminist unsaying of divine patriarch requires "patience with the logjams of language; we are always unsaying god"
-god as "love infinitely out of bounds"
-"earthlings" "suffering from the discipline of the amatory infinite"
-Derridean "undecideable" is not indecisiveness

Quotes
"The human heart is a factory of idols." (Calvin)
"If it does not free us, throw it away."
---

Kelly Brown Douglas
Goucher College

I was disappointed that bell hooks backed out; but Brown Douglas did an amazing job. She focused on using the Blues to rescue sexuality from shame, rooted, Brown Douglas said, in the African traditional connection between soul salvation and bodily freedom. She insisted that a positive relationship with sexuality is necessary for relationships with the transcendent. Protecting bodies is the protection of sacred space.

Her analysis was heavily Foucaultian, and defined sexuality as "who we are as relational beings, bodied selves, and how we enter into relationships, including with god." As per Foucault, Brown Douglas emphasized power's natural attachment to the sexuality of those whom it dominates. Denigrating sexuality calls one's humanity into question.

She began by examining hyper-sexualized characterizations of "blues women" in fiction, and the "hyper-proper" sexuality (as per the discourse of power) that evolved as a response to hyper-sexual stereotypes. "The nightclub accepts that which the church rejects," Brown Douglas insisted; the blues were "candid and unreserved confessions of the truth of black women's lives." The explicit sexual themes allowed women who sang the blues to claim freedom by claiming sexual agency (cf Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues;" Ma Rainey). As such, Brown Douglas read black churches' rejection of the blues as a rejection of black sexual agency.

"My blackness and my Christianity compel me to critique both parties in this discourse," Brown Douglas said. She believes a platonized Christian tradition has made sexuality anathema to God and "devalued the material," setting physical bodies and passion in opposition to rationality and the spiritual. The body thus becomes a salvific impediment and creates a "bodiless Christianity," ironic in a faith based on incarnation.

Quotes
"Everybody cry mercy/Somebody tell me what it means/If it means feelin' good/Lord, have mercy on me." (Ma Rainey)
---

I don't have notes from Mahmood's talk, but she was great. Much of it would have seemed elementary to Islamic scholars; but I think it was vital to a primarily Christian conference. She also made some excellent and intriguing points on the cultural weight lent to those Muslim voices willing to support the US military-industrial complex.

In short: outstanding conference. I'm so glad I went. Next up, notes on Harvard's Forging Folklore.

Jousting with humilite'

2007-05-15T01:20:53Z

Got an email from my advisor yesterday, asking me to look at the evaluations for the class I TAed this semester and suggesting we discuss "teaching issues" when he gets back to town.

I have looked at the evaluations.

Grr.

Having discarded my first reaction (i.e. kill; smash) as unfeasable, here's what I think about them.

It is unreasonable and ridiculous to expect all students to adore or even like me. I was unprepared for how deeply some of them *dislike* me, however. And while my initial thoughts were mostly "eh, they sound like slackers to me;" I think the general tone of the comments could potentially inform my teaching style next semester.

Thus, I mentally separated the comments into two categories: those which are worth consideration; and those which are crap. I shall pray the Grey-Eyed Athena to grant me the serenity to accept the crap I cannot change, the patience to work on those issues that are workable, and the terror-of-never-finding-a-job to know the difference.

CRAP I CANNOT CHANGE
-complaints about fairness of grading
This was a common and vituperative complaint, based in large part on the perception that I was far harsher than the other TAs. I think two things happened here. 1) I took off points for things the prof told us to mark down for, while the other TAs were a bit more lax. The four of us discussed the issue; and the grades were far more consistent for the rest of the semester. But even on the first exam, all three of our averages were within 5 points of each other. I have a hard time accepting that I graded unfairly an exam in which the average grade was an 87.5%.

-complaints about not being available
This is frankly ridiculous. I was in office hours every week, and frequently made additional appointments to fit the schedules of the students. I was out of town the last week of the semester; but I also held SIX HOURS of office time the week before I left. And there were students in the TA office for all six hours. I knocked myself out to be available for those kids. On this point, and strictly between thee and me, they can bite me.

-complaints about how quickly I returned their submissions
Again, I'm not really sure where this is coming from. The term papers did take a while to turn around; but I was very clear with them about when I would be returning things. I even extended deadlines for submissions a few times.

-complaints about interrupting/correcting the prof
While I don't think I *interrupted* the prof, I did ask questions. The material was unfamiliar; I was trying to understanding it better. I should think they'd want me to understand the material better, but perhaps not. I certainly never corrected her. I don't know a thing about archaeology aside from what I learned in the class; it wouldn't be my place.

THINGS THAT SOUNDED WHINY BUT MIGHT HAVE SOME BASIS IN FACT (i.e Action Items):
-complaints about confusing and/or contradictory instructions
These ones are valid. I think I might have been confusing in my explanations, particularly toward the beginning of the semester. Again, I know bupkiss about archaeology; it took me a while to get my footing. We also had some miscommunication between TAs on assignments, which couldn't have helped (and was frankly every bit as frustrating for me as it must have been for them). I'm hoping that once I'm TAing for a class about which I know *anything* I'll be a bit more helpful. I also think I have a better handle on maintaining consistency among TAs (read: just ask the professor. It saves time).

I also have a hard time knowing if a student's confused if she hasn't come in to speak with me. I think actually *teaching*, rather than seeing kids only when they come into office hours, should help with this.

-complaints about arrogance/intimidation
It's really tempting to write these off as gender-biased, but I don't think that's necessarily fair. Yes, I think a couple of the whiners (er, students) were probably men who didn't like and/or appreciate my style. (I kept waiting for someone to use the word "uppity.") But this popped up a lot; so it's worth thinking about.

Again, I think actually *teaching*, rather than only interacting with the kids who came into see me, would have helped a lot. But it doesn't change the fact that I scared the crap out of some of these kids, even the ones who didn't hate me. I'm willing to work on that, but I'm at a bit of a loss. I've never considered myself intimidating or hard to approach. I also don't think suggestions on how to structure an essay necessarily constitute arrogance. So where to go from here?

I have been trying to keep what my advisor said about "sowing seeds" in mind (that we don't really ever change a student's mind all at once; we just try to plant ideas that might not pop up for years). I can't pick the kids who take my classes, for either their attitudes or their intelligence levels; and it's not going to do me or them any good to blaze in raging against the Xian-Industrial Complex. I think I kept a decent handle on my politics; there's clearly room for improvement there, however. I'm open to suggestions. (How *do* teachers keep from bopping these kids on the head?)

I don't care if they think I'm arrogant. I *do* care, though, if that perception keeps them from approaching me for help. So I guess I'll just have to work overtime next semester trying to make them feel comfortable with me.

Or I could get the number for that truck driving school I saw on tv...

Mirabile dictu

2007-05-08T21:12:09Z

See, this is what happens when I grade. I get all pedantic and things start popping out in Latin.

In any case: I have performed a minor grading miracle. 60+ essay exams graded in less than 12 hours. Three exams left ungraded due to TA miscommunication (read: someone else was supposed to grade them.) Speed-reading. Speed-form-filling-out. ACDC blaring as I dashed across campus. Gradesheets turned in moments before close of business.

The tiger and his boy are right. The days are just *packed*.

Conference updates once I can see my floor again.

Verbum sapientiae

2007-05-08T16:59:35Z

Lifted from a short-answer ID on the final:

...and apparently Jesus is a big deal in Christianity.

I can't even bring myself to comment.

Love the Sin

2007-04-19T02:45:25Z

Tolerance is certainly an improvement over hate, but it is not the same thing as freedom.

~Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini

Lalala

2007-04-16T11:54:45Z

Have dunnit. Just submitted my first official draft for (hopeful) publication. It's workingly-titled "Scapegoating Susan: How One Woman Took the Fall for Lewis's Soteriology." I employed the phrases "if you can't pee like Jesus, you can't be like Jesus" and "theoretical genitals."

It's also--probably, maybe, I think--among the better things I've written. Most of the prose is really tight; the organization's very clear; I even wrote a paragraph on my methodology.

Who wants to touch me? I said,

WHO WANTS TO FUCKING TOUCH ME?

Also: EEK! I just submitted a draft for publication! What if they don't like me? What if they don't like my writing? What if--sweet Ceres on a carbohydrate-fueled warpath--they don't think "theoretical genitals" is funny? Ack!

Um, yes. So that's done. I think it might be time for sleep now.

THAT is the sound of my brain. Imploding.

2007-03-24T02:56:28Z

I'm supposed to be reading Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus for class next week. I'm not. In an attempt to save time (and at the recommendation of my advisor), I'm reading Massumi's A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia, which is supposed to *explain* what is apparently one of the denser works of postmodern theory known to academia.

It does not.

At least, not yet. In the past sixty minutes, I taken have four lines of useful notes on nine pages of text. The rest of the hour was spent going "wha...Huh...WhaFUCK? Uh...aaah...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

In these nine pages, I have encountered directions to 10 page footnotes, a footnote on dog vomit, the phrase "Prussian Mind-Meld" written as a complete sentence, and the following Deleuze quote:

What got me through that period was conceiving of the history of philosophy as a kind of ass-fuck, or, what amounts to the same thing, an immaculate conception. I imagined myself approaching an author from behind and giving him a child that would indeed be his but would nonetheless be monstrous.

I enjoy this imagery. I do. But it's not exactly how I intended to spend my Friday night. (It did, however, inspire several monstrous ass-fuck jokes, which then led to poo-baby jokes (not unlike the TarBaby), which forced raquelt to put the proverbial kabosh on all further imagery and sound effects related to my homework.)

My head hurts.