tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post4265272520609628859..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Making Ourselves Available to Each Other: Kalamazoo and BeyondCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-11978329145576956282011-05-22T11:20:21.795-04:002011-05-22T11:20:21.795-04:00I've been thinking back and forth on this sinc...I've been thinking back and forth on this since last night, when I posted at Jeffrey's coincidental post. I agree with much of what you say, but I also think that it's not one or the other. All of our relationships happen on many different levels. There are different power relationships at play all the time, and the part of me that is drawn to understanding such things wants us to be aware of them, even when we reject some of them as bullshit.<br /><br />Some of them simply cannot go away, even when we want them to: grad students may be valuable colleagues and co-conspirators, but if they are <b>our</b> grad students, we make decisions about their work and their lives (in terms of funding, etc.) that make the relationship unequal at the root; department chairs and deans are colleagues and friends, but they also have duties that may require them to set those friendships aside; some people have voices and opinions that carry more weight than others -- sometimes for no discernable reason. Even amongst ourselves, we are not entirely egalitarian, or even as egalitarian as we might want to see ourselves. We do pick and choose, but we base our choices of conference-born friends and colleagues based on intellect and affinity. For every person who becomes someone we want to hang out with, for every person who so generously contributes to our own growth, there are probably several more who don't -- or who do, but who remain friendly colleagues, but not close ones. Perhaps they don't get the same spark from us that we do from them :-)<br /><br />I will say that medievalists in general are the most generous scholars I have ever met. Classicists can be, too (although most of the ones I know are Late Antiquity people, so I could be wrong). I can't agree more with ost of what you say about being available to each other, and am constantly amazed by the generosity I have seen, and been the recipient of. If modeling that is something that can help break down many of the hierarchical barriers and nonsense that can be so damaging in this profession, then I'm all for it. But I'm not sure that there isn't also some value in recognizing that some people do have more power and privilege than others, and if you are one of those people, also modeling "using one's power for good." <br /><br /><br />heh -- my word is 'flisted'Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-4760025469512290332011-05-21T15:56:31.270-04:002011-05-21T15:56:31.270-04:00That's very kind, Myra... believe me, last nig...That's very kind, Myra... believe me, last night at 3 or 4 a.m. I was a mix of exhausted and hyper...ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-79878801205056214822011-05-21T13:35:28.154-04:002011-05-21T13:35:28.154-04:00If those are your disconnected thoughts, Irina, I&...If those are your disconnected thoughts, Irina, I'm kind of afraid to see you in the right time zone. Thanks especially for turning our attention to the productive community grad students might--and in many but unfortunately not all cases do--forge among themselves, as well. I don't think I would've recognized the opportunity there to develop skills in providing support and feedback that are so vital to what we do, without this. Thanks for reminding us that we *all* need to be thinking about the kinds of communities we wish to inhabit, and to work actively to generate them with others.Myra Seamanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02785617479392033454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-5280389638350114852011-05-20T20:38:20.671-04:002011-05-20T20:38:20.671-04:00Eileen, a few disconnected thoughts (it's 2 a....Eileen, a few disconnected thoughts (it's 2 a.m. where I am, and I'm not yet in the right time zone for anywhere):<br /><br />1. Count me flattered and humbled.<br /><br />2. Your post -- and Kalamazoo itself -- made me realise how aside from one moment of scholarly meanness, I've been the recipient of so much generosity, as an undergraduate, as a grad student, as a junior faculty member. I experienced the dance last Saturday in a completely different way than Larry apparently did. I danced with the wonderful people who do medieval rhetoric, with older, established, even quite old-school Anglo-Saxonists, with Babel folks, with younger Anglo-Saxonists I've come through with, and with a smattering of historians, medieval Spanish folks, etc. To me, the fact that all of these different groups can occupy not only the space of the conference, but also the joyful comedic celebration at the end, that we can all groove to the same beat, literally, is a beautiful thing. I also saw it as a representation in space of the wonderfully rhizomatic way my own thinking and research have been able to unfold in this broad and vague "field." In short, it made me very happy, and happier still to recognize that there are genuinely kind, supportive, generous scholars of every methodology.<br /><br />3. Eileen, your advice is good, but it seems to be given in the context of the power relationship between faculty and students. I'd like to stretch it a bit further and add that grad students themselves need to heed your advice. I'm pretty close to the state of being a grad student -- not only was I one recently but many friends and my husband still are -- so I hope I can be forgiven for saying this from what may seem to be a professorial perch. But the fact is that grad students are *not* always as supportive of each other as they should be, and that kind of intellectual community is at least as important as the one offered by the faculty in a department. Too often, the working group that is supposed to be a good source of feedback and motivation turns into merciless tearing apart of a paper. (The opposite approach of uncritical acceptance and cheerleading is only slightly more helpful, maybe.) Giving good support and feedback is a skill both emotional and intellectual, and we have to start working on it as students. A few of my colleagues in grad school started a working group that managed to hit the right balance between useful critique and warmfuzzy pats on the back, and it made the latter half of graduate school much, much better than it might have been. Part of what I think Babel models is not just that the powerful should be generous to the comparatively powerless, but that scholars in positions of less power need to create the intellectual communities they want to inhabit.ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-35586081412487420282011-05-19T18:57:57.792-04:002011-05-19T18:57:57.792-04:00I hear you, anon., on the contrast between us and ...I hear you, anon., on the contrast between us and THE MAN. It's not all hunky dory out there.<br /><br />But I'd like to think that I'm part of a group that's modeling good behavior.<br /><br />Basically, Eileen: hell yes. I'm going to have this post firmly in mind when it comes time to (co)write my piece on blogging for <i>Literature Compass,</i> whose working title is "There is No Such Thing as a Single-Author Monograph: On the Blogswarm." Alternate title, "The Monograph needs a Polygraph." On perhaps "On Medieval Polygraphy." You get the point: I basically wrote my dissertation here. Or I had my dissertation written here.<br /><br />Hegel notoriously said "Schelling completed his philosophical education in public." He might have said the same thing of me. He--and his epigones (we know who)--would say the same thing now. To which I say: yes, thank goodness.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-21030084831985278052011-05-19T18:42:42.958-04:002011-05-19T18:42:42.958-04:00as always i appreciate your spirit of fearless spe...as always i appreciate your spirit of fearless speech but do wonder if grad students are as free to be you and me, i guess as long as the contrast (between y'all and the Man not between students and others) is made clear, kept in mind...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-39322643631313800162011-05-19T18:19:01.197-04:002011-05-19T18:19:01.197-04:00dmf: as regards pre-existing institutionalized pol...dmf: as regards pre-existing institutionalized politics at hand, we just ignore them. Seriously. In all seriousness, BABEL has worked hard to create certain professionalized zones [such as our journal "postmedieval" and organized sessions at conference, etc.] within which we have a certain "legitimation," but in all honesty, we have mainly *built* these zones in order to create spaces where *anything* is possible, thought-wise and otherwise, and also in terms of relationships between professors and professors, between students and students, between professors and students, between academic and non-academics, etc. More succinctly, regarding pre-existing institutionalized politics at hand:<br /><br />fuck 'em<br /><br />AND<br /><br />i ain't worried<br /><br />Seriously. Someone's got to undertake this labor of not worrying, and I'm happy *not* to do it. And on whoever's behalf.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-58522307813551469832011-05-19T17:45:17.421-04:002011-05-19T17:45:17.421-04:00e.j. I welcome your rhizomatic vision of academic ...e.j. I welcome your rhizomatic vision of academic endeavors but wonder how it works in relation to the preexisting institutionalized politics at hand?<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-63547660811263087512011-05-19T16:33:56.483-04:002011-05-19T16:33:56.483-04:00Yes, Jeffrey, really really ODD! The universe is s...Yes, Jeffrey, really really ODD! The universe is so cool and mysterious, you never know what she's doing!<br /><br />Myra and Melissa: thanks for the positive words here.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-26225997890008653072011-05-19T15:48:37.021-04:002011-05-19T15:48:37.021-04:00I nominate Eileen Joy for the post of Supreme Domi...I nominate Eileen Joy for the post of Supreme Dominatrix of the American Association of Universities, for an unlimited term of office, effective ASAP. But seriously...thanks for a lovely post, reminding us all that we are all of us teachers and students both, in one way or another, until we leave the profession or die. For my part, although not yet a professor, I have been a teacher for over a decade, and some of my best and richest thinking and writing has stemmed from the collective work being done in my classes; I feel that my work is the better for my students' questions, complaints, comments, and suggestions. If it were not for an interdisciplinary, communal approach to scholarship, we would all exist in vacuums and never really benefit fully from anything we do. What's the point in research if you never disseminate it and never attempt to bring it into the greater conversation? That's the best thing about conferences - sharing what you are doing, seeing what everyone else is doing, finding some folks whose doings mesh well with your doing, and launching a journal or collection of essays to get others on board with it!Melissanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-6572368264940423712011-05-19T15:45:56.865-04:002011-05-19T15:45:56.865-04:00Oh, Eileen, *this* is what I meant to say in my co...Oh, Eileen, *this* is what I meant to say in my concluding comment on Jeffrey's post right above this one. Thanks so much for saying it, and for knowing even before I could articulate it that this is exactly what I thought.Myra Seamanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02785617479392033454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-3799468849870985822011-05-19T15:45:53.285-04:002011-05-19T15:45:53.285-04:00Odd? Ironic? Convergent? that you and I were worki...Odd? Ironic? Convergent? that you and I were working on a post on similarly themed post at the same time, Eileen.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.com