minou

I'd fuck Lacan's mother.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:24:52 -0500

minou:

Kill Derrida’s father, and then take Foucault’s sister to Iowa and make an honest woman out of her.

OH MY GOD YOU PLAY THIS WITH THEORISTS TOO???

OKAY OKAY: Bhabha, Spivak, Said. Go!

F/M/K: Spivak, Said, Bhabha.

Now: Benjamin, Adorno, Lukacs. Go!

I'd fuck Lacan's mother.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:11:30 -0500

Kill Derrida’s father, and then take Foucault’s sister to Iowa and make an honest woman out of her.

Oh, hey.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:34:30 -0500

December 10th is the day that search committees meet! I expect my email to be inundated with rejection letters later this afternoon and tomorrow morning! I better get drunk!

giantevilhead: theopie: Ceremony — New Order (via kapi)

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:14:24 -0500

giantevilhead:

theopie:

Ceremony — New Order

(via kapi)

faithandbegorrah: slaughterhouse90210: “Don’t feel sorry for...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:01:17 -0500

faithandbegorrah:

slaughterhouse90210:

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.”
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Oh, and.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:48:07 -0500

While all this is going on, to find myself confronted with this old feminist chestnut:

I spend a great deal of my conscious life concerned about how I look, convinced that I am not “attractive enough.” What’s “attractive” and what’s “enough,” are, of course, the crux of the problem. But yet like many women, I do this.

I then proceed to enrage myself when I find that I feel somewhat objectified, if not slightly violated, when another person chooses unwisely to attempt to interact with me based on nothing more than the fact that he finds me attractive.

As if, you know, because I study Hegel I should somehow be exempt from the master-slave dialectic.

"This is the critical point: ours is a culture saturated by commodities, a culture that is to say..."

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:37:29 -0500

“This is the critical point: ours is a culture saturated by commodities, a culture that is to say whose acts and products are characterised by the alienation intrinsic in the form of the Commodity. Any analysis that fails to take this into account will never be able to do more than grapple with outwards forms and appearances. This alienation permeates all cultural exchanges; it militates to atomise every aspect and element of them; it renders ‘meanings’ optional; and its ideological effect, though invisible, is devastating. For instance, commodities encourage, in place of active critical engagement, a passive absorption by their consumers of whole and undigested ‘quanta’ of information, opinion, values, — so long as they are acceptably wrapped — later to be regurgitated, still whole and undigested, but now as their own information, opinion or values — seemingly the product of evaluation and contemplation, actually a kind of involuntary commodity-exchange.”

- Henri Lefebvre (via newleft)

Oh my.

(via jhnbrssndn)

(Also, despite my ability to speak the french language, I can never pronounce “Lefebvre” on the first try.)

A little bit of hyperbole never hurt anyone.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:35:29 -0500

See, I have these moments when I am really perplexed about what I do, when I really do feel like a bad stereotype of the “ivory tower academic” who studies all this theory and “litrachure” that is ultimately useless in solving the real problems, the real injustices in the world. I think everyone has these moments in their jobs, no matter what they do. And when I’m writing on, say, Marx, I tend to get even more anxious about the whole situation, for reasons that are probably self-evident (also I have class self-loathing, but that’s another post). Usually when I feel like this, I think about teaching, and the good that it CAN and sometimes DOES do, and I feel a bit better because I can imagine a way in which I am doing something concrete with all this high-falutin’ research nonsense: Teaching students to think critically.

And then, for whatever reason, I am hit with the realization that these students just don’t care. Maybe it is because one of them hit on me, and maybe it is just a more general, sneaking suspicion. This realization, coupled with my free-floating academic anxiety, has the potential to set off a self-doubt stink bomb, the repercussions of which could cripple me for hours, days, or weeks. My fear is that one day, one of these will cripple me forever and I’ll become that bitter, hateful, ivory tower academic stereotype.

But in the end I do believe that some students do care, and that if my work makes me an even marginally better teacher for these students, I am doing the right thing.

And, yes, some months ago I did an experiment in which I posted two “artsy” photographs of my tits to see if I could double my tumblarity in an hour. These things are not related. Nor is the fact that I might find jhnbrssndn’s handsomeness quite distracting in the classroom setting.

And you've been trying to justify your study of this subject by saying that it somehow helps your students.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:23:09 -0500

Who are demonstrably more interested in how your tits look than what you think about Marx.

So what’s my new rationalization for this insane expenditure of time and money?

So you start your graduate school career wanting to study one thing.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:55:34 -0500

And then you wake up five years later and you’re writing a chapter about bebop and authorship and Das Kapital and oh for fuck’s sake how did I get here?

sistermarymartha: You have never seen anything as camp as Paul...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:29:55 -0500

sistermarymartha:

You have never seen anything as camp as Paul Lynde playing “straight” in Bye Bye Birdie, performing the Kids song. This was my mother’s favorite scene, make of that what you will.

This is the best thing for today.

sparklepants: minou: One of my students just asked me out in an email. I have had students sort of...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:40:41 -0500

sparklepants:

minou:

One of my students just asked me out in an email. I have had students sort of flirt with me a few times in the past but it has never come to this.

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know… whoa whoa whoa….

Ha ha ha. I wish. No, this guy is an “older” student, meaning he’s probably closer to my age, i.e. old enough to know better.

One of my students just asked me out in an email. I have had students sort of flirt with me a few...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:33:56 -0500

One of my students just asked me out in an email. I have had students sort of flirt with me a few times in the past but it has never come to this.

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

"Lost" fans:

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:52:26 -0500

Who’s your favorite character and why?

Driving to work in the snow in New England is about as close to “death wish” as you can possibly get without standing in the middle of a crowded highway.

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:35:05 -0500

Driving to work in the snow in New England is about as close to “death wish” as you can possibly get without standing in the middle of a crowded highway.:

pandorasmittens:

Come closer, and witness the horror that was my morning.
…
And that’s how it took me three hours to get to work this morning. The end.

YES.

"Non-cooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes’ enjoyment; but if cooking is..."

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:12:08 -0500

“Non-cooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes’ enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.”

- Julia Child.

The joy of cooking is indescribable. Why only rely on what OTHERS make? People who don’t like to cook, to me , are just dead inside. Food is glorious and you get to create AND eat it.

Life should not be about much more than that. (via lickystickypickyme)

I was going to argue with this, but then I realized I am dead inside, so.

(via neurotical)

I like to cook AND I’m demonstrably dead inside, so there goes both y’all’s arguments.

jermainia: “Soldier of Love” - Sade I regret all those years...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:53:53 -0500

jermainia:

“Soldier of Love” - Sade

I regret all those years during which I was maybe a hipster who refused to admit how much I loved Sade. I take it all back. Sade is my favorite, and secretly always has been.

Sorry hoes.

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:06:33 -0500

Lost: Season 5 is on Netflix Immediate. Can I watch it all before the power goes off? Let’s find out.

tlbb: This does. When does it cross the line into...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:31:46 -0500

tlbb:

This does.

When does it cross the line into “dashboard conversation”?

(Oh, what, you say? It just did?)

I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE NO MATH. It’s like the health care bill up in here these days.

ohjesuschrist

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:02:47 -0500

We’re having a huge storm tomorrow apparently? And it’s the last day of school? So we’re probably going to have a snow day? ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME, MAINE? I like a snow day as much as the next guy but COME ON. You’re going to drag this shit out for another week? If my class is cancelled tomorrow, we have to make it up next Wednesday and jesus god I just want it to be OVER ALREADY.

Also the power company has already warned me that my power will probably go out. Remember how fun that was last year? REMEMBER?