Marginalia

Food!

2008-10-08T19:40:00.005-04:00

So why am I writing an entry about food if I've had gastric bypass surgery? Well, duh! I like food, I like to eat, I like to cook, I like to bake. But I don't think I'm a "foodie." I never watched Food Network. But what's up with that past tense in the previous sentence? Because at least for me, and for the group of patients I periodically run into at group meetings, the Food Network developed into an overwhelming attraction, even when we were in our early weeks of clear liquids only! Just watching all that fabulous food being made gave me hope that one day I'd be able to eat something again. And I got interested in developing my skills in the kitchen. I come from a family of pretty good cooks, so I had a good foundation to build on and I like tracking interesting recipes that I can eat given my surgery.

Being fat can be a pain. It became increasingly difficult for me to stand more than a few minutes as my weight rose, and typically I'd go to the market, collect ingredients for some dish, and be too exhausted to make it when I got home. Now I can shop, cook and eat without any difficulty to speak of and sometimes I'm eager to get into the kitchen and try something new. I did this one last week and it was fantastic! And because I eat so much less now, it pretty much supplied lunch and dinner for the week!

Bon appetit!

Slinking Back to the Blogosphere

2008-10-05T14:15:00.006-04:00

So, yeah, I've been gone a really long time! And while some of it was because of grading, I can't really say that explains it all. Call it inertia, or poor time management or I don't know what, but I'm going to take another crack at it.
So what was I doing all this time? Well, one thing I did this past summer was have gastric bypass surgery! I'm back at least in part because I want to write about that experience, which has so far been entirely positive and extremely helpful. The previous academic year, I did all the academic things, but post-surgery I realize how hard it was for me to do things, why I didn't have the energy I needed, etc., etc. I can't really remember what I did in the summer of 2007, other teach summer school. It had to be pretty innocuous if I can't remember the details!
So what's happened since late February of 2007? Well, we are finally closing in on the presidential election, you betcha! It's a whole academic year and then some. I'm back in the saddle of teaching and enjoying it more with the energy I have. At my wee institution some people have come and some have gone, and that's creating a new atmosphere on campus--one of confusion actually, as people try to negotiate these changes. In my equally wee house, I'm happily engaged in a whole pile of fix-up projects, rearranging (nothing rises to remodeling!) stuff and enjoying my environment.
I'll try to be back at this more often. Maybe this time I'll have something to say.

It's a Sally Fields Moment!

2007-02-26T19:38:00.006-05:00

It’s certainly true that I’ve hardly poked my nose in here at my own humble blog—too much to do, too many things to take care of, too too too. And Bérubé closed up shop, while others have slowed way down in posting. So why am I back? Well, because I got blogrolled!!!! Blogrolled by What Now, bless her heart! So here I am thanking her: You really like me! And I'm blogrolled, like one of the Kewl Kidz!

Anyway, I promise to write more often, just as soon as I grade all the papers and tests sitting on my coffee table!

I Gotta Let This Go!

2006-12-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

I seem to be stuck in a rut! Here are some comments from Free Republic that pretty much back up what I was arguing below. If you think Apocalypto portrays indigenous people negatively, then it's "political correctness" or being "elitist" or some other bogeyman. Nearly every critic I've read (from nearly all political perspectives and whether or not they liked the film) has noted Apocalypto's extremely graphic violence. Commenters generally considered this accurate and true of "Maya" culture, and that this somehow validated colonization. Of course the more careful student of human behavior knows that violence is regrettably common among humans, and of course that the European (or perhaps the Greco-Roman tradition as this seems to come up as a comparison a lot) had its own share of gratuitous violence (can you say Christians and lions?). But the commenters would rather make fun of people's names and whine about PC scholars. Of course I saw a lot of stuff I see everywhere--the confusion between the "Aztec", Maya and Inca (who were in Peru for goodness' sake!) and also a puzzling tendency to refer to dated material that doesn't incorporate newer research and newer findings. Okay, this annoys the hell out of me and I can't do a thing about it. I'm on to other things. Like vacuuming!

It's an Apocalypto Carnival!!

2006-12-20T16:12:00.000-05:00

Full disclosure, irl I'm a kind of Mayanist. My research deals with contemporary Maya communtities. I know a lot of people who do similar kinds of research. We all read a lot of stuff (that's a technical term) about "the Maya": ancient Maya civilizations, current Maya social justice movements, Mayan languages, historical accounts of the regions (mostly southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and a bit of Honduras) where the pre-Columbian Maya were and where many contemporary people still are. Thus I know a little bit about pre-Columbian Mayan history, though I'm by no means an expert. But I really hadn't been looking forward to Mel Gibson's latest, Apocalypto. It's not because I do or don't think Mel's a twit, or that I'm "getting revenge" for his drunken shenanigans this past summer, or anything else. What I'm concerned about is how his depiction of "ancient Mayans" can color how most people now will perceive Mayas. And with the movie out there I just know some of my students will take it as revealed truth and beg that I show it in my classes.

"So what," you may say? "Who cares, it's just a movie." But there's a good deal of comment out there on the internets, a lot more than, say, Charlotte's Web, and that suggests to me at least that the film has hit a nerve somewhere (can you say Happy Feet?), and probably beyond specialists. I've been reading some of this and I had a great geeky idea--why not pull some of this stuff together for anyone who finds my profoundly obscure blog so it's all in one place? Sort of like all those carnivals all those historians are always having? Well, why not? Particularly since some things are in kind of weird places. But the first I saw was by an archaeologist so you'd think she'd know. Traci Ardren's review didn't give me a lot of hope. Returning to the antique medium of print, I read Earl Shorris's essay in The Nation. Then, browsing the internets as I do, I found that Dave Neiwert had used the film as a kind of jumping off point for one of his long continuing essays, this one on eliminationism. When I dropped by again later, he'd also posted his own review. It's worth scrolling down and reading the comments (same thing for the review) there. Aside from hair-tearing misconceptions about Maya and pre-Columbian civilization generally, they're full of a range of interesting views. He's also posted an interesting and accessible piece providing a more accurate and nuanced view of Maya history and culture. And Alternet has posted another interesting commentary with some similarly interesting comments. Salon (click through) published an excellent and informed review by Marcello Canuto. And one on Open Democracy provides a quite scholarly analysis. There's a lengthy and meaty essay by Juan Santos at Fourth World that sets the film in a wider context--how contemporary Mayas are treated for example. This site too has some interesting comments. And Julia Guernsey, a University of Texas art historian specializing in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, presents a detailed list of inaccuracies, flaws and distortions in the film.

"But", you say, "It's only a movie! Take a chill pill! No one will care in a week." Maybe so. I was gratified to see it's dropping among moviegoers. But Alex Jones provides a remarkably enthusiastic (and stunningly innacurate) commentary on the film which he reads as a commentary on the decline of the U.S. Michael Medved at Townhall really just provides a review but given his propensity to say things like "...the historical record shows they were even more whacked and bloodthirsty and sadistic than the way they are portrayed on screen" might prompt the reader to proceed with caution. David Criswell on the site Christiananswers provides a rather lukewarm review (he's reviewing for a specifically Christian audience) citing the film's violence, but he doesn't recognize its numerous historical inaccuracies. Again, comments are instructive. I particularly liked the commenter who seemed to think Aztec and Maya culture were, like, sort of the same. Finally, let's toss in a MSM review, this one from Time Magazine. I'm calling an end to all this, knowing nonetheless that I've no doubt only scratched the surface (is that an archaeology metaphor? Better not be! They don't like you scratching stuff!) of all the Apocalypto material out there. But feel free to check it out, or not, as you see fit.

The Obligatory Brief Biographical Note

2006-12-06T20:08:00.006-05:00

I'm a recently tenured social scientist at a small college in one of America's ruralish snowy places, but I did my Ph.D., and indeed all my education in one of America's extremely urban extremely non-snowy places and didn't see snow "up close" until I was an adult. The meteorological change has been as much of an adjustment as learning a new job!

I went off to grad school after a number of years in other jobs, so I knew how unpredictable and generally bad the market was, and as I continued I realized I wanted to teach more than "do research" as it’s defined by major research institutions. I also knew if I wrote or did do research I wanted to be able to pursue a wider range of projects than the kinds of things that would "count" at the R1's. I've seen colleagues at other places (you could call the places R1 wannabes) get caught in the difficulties that arise when only a very narrow range of work is seen as appropriate and teaching doesn't count at all. I found that where I am is, after a fashion, a place that values teaching and writing about teaching and I like that part. It also accepts a fairly wide range of scholarly production so I can write book reviews, essays and even fiction should I so choose, and not just articles in peer-reviewed journals. Since I have a pretty short attention span and get distracted by almost everything, it's perfect for me!

But I'm concerned with many developments that affect academic workers and that probably also affect our students in some ways. I should also note that I'm quite entertained by academics generally, so even when I'm annoyed I can usually find a reason to laugh. And of course I have a whole herd of cats (yes, I can herd them, sort of), a crumbly house, and lots of endless things to get done, like everyone whose blogs I read. Most immediately on the horizon is the giant pile of grading, but in the future I hope to write a bit about a lot of things, drawing on my own interests and background, and upon what's going on academically. It should be at least a bit diverting!

2006-12-05T19:20:00.001-05:00

Why "Marginalia"?
Why, you might ask, is this blog called "Marginalia"? What does "margin" mean? And "marginal"? Marginal can mean "very small in amount or effect". It can mean slightly--"there were marginal gains in test scores." To "marginalize" can mean "to treat someone or something as if they are not important." Marginalia are the notes in the margins of books and manuscripts, where the reader (who may also be the writer) has a kind of dialogue with the text. Margins too are edges and borders, frontiers and backwaters.

Margins are places
I think of myself as one who dwells in the margins--my discipline has, I think, an important role in the world and in the U.S., but it is often regarded as trivial or useless--marginal. I teach in a small, teaching-oriented institution, the sort of place many people teach at, and many many students go to, but in the discourse of academic careerism, such places are in the shadows of the research institutions that train faculty, at the margins of the academic project. Then I have an interest in subaltern groups, those that form "minorities" in the U.S., and those that are discrete cultual groups elsewhere--marginal groups in relationship to the larger society.

Margins are edges
So too exciting things can happen at margins--theory that is "cutting-edge", people who are "out there" (just where is that?), who are "edgy". Some of our current cliches, "thinking outside the box", "pushing the envelope", really suggest that one is beyond the margins or edges and doing something new, fresh and unique, though why my students think they are original when they say and write these things is beyond me!

Margins are borders
Borders are far more permeable than people like Lou Dobbs might wish. Borderlands are locations of trade, of sharing, as much as they are monitored or policed. Border peoples often share cultural traditions. Those who have lived at borders often ignore them as artificial constructs. There are also disciplinary borders, monitored to varying degrees. My major discipline encompasses a range of perspectives and topics while my secondary discipline is really an interdiscipline--one made up entirely of intersecting borders! Borders--margins--are everywhere.

So shouldn't this blog be called "margins"?
Well, I guess it could be, but I like the word marginalia. I'll be commenting too on writing and texts, and all the other things that might fit under this loose title.